Bonus Whore Question: Lowering Variance when playing above bankroll

[parappa]

Hi, everyone--

As an exercise, I've worked my limit bankroll up from literally nothing, playing 2c/4c at Paradise and moving up. I now have $100 in this slush fund and would like to do the Interpoker Bonus.

I've played a ton of hands now in building it up and am well aware that downswings of even 50BB are not all that rare and it's basically out of your control when they happen.

I've improved my game quite a bit with SSHE, which basically means pushing a lot of small edges, and I have a reasonable understanding of how big the variance can be in poker.

I want to put $90 into Interpoker to play the bonus, but for the 450 hands that it takes me to clear it I'd like to simply play a strategy that maximizes my chance of not losing, rather than an EV-maximizing strategy, due to the fact that any big downswing will actually threaten the small bankroll, as the lowest limit they offer is $1/$2, and 45BB is nothing.

So that means tightening up. The question is, how tight? Taking a guess of 9 hands/blind cycle, that would be 50 blind cycles *1.5=$75. Folding everything appears to produce a small profit, but that's silly. I think that my ordinary game (about 18%VP$P, 7-8PFR%) would be likely enough to produce a, say 30BB swing that it might not be worth doing.

Anyone?

[bicyclekick]

Dont play suited connectors below JTs anywhere and don't play pocket pairs below 7's anywhere except if there is like 4 limpers to you in lp. Don't play suited aces below A8. Don't play offsuit aces below AJ.

Don't cold call with AJs or KQs. Fold AQo to a pfr. When you think it's close to call a raise out of the bb, fold instead.

Don't think about blind steals. (obviously raise good hands, but don't look at it as stealing the blinds).

These should help at least some.

[guppy]

You might want to try William Hill first.

5 GBP/hour for 1st 5 hours, and pretty slow play so perhaps 30-40 hands/hr.

And since you get paid in hourly installments, you won't leave with nothing if you get unlucky and can't finish the full 5 hours.

OTOH, if you win, Will Hill is the one Crypto where you don't need to wait for a PIN, so turnaround time is faster to go try somewhere else. (BTW, this means if you do want to play the Crypto bonuses, you might as well sign up for all of them now so you have your PIN numbers in hand when you want to play and cashout later.)

UKBetting and Totalbet also have this same advantage (paid 5GBP/hr in 5 hourly installments), but they are in GBP so you will get gouged for currency conversion on deposits and withdrawals through neteller.

Also, while $90 for 450 hands at Interpoker is the best Crypto bonus deal (except maybe the hourly bonuses above), if you are concerned about playing over your bankroll you might want to do the smaller ones first which require less hands before you can escape with your bonus money ($40 for 250 hands at Caribbean Sun, $50 for 300 hands at Pokerplex).

[Izaak_Walton]

Playing tight (VP$IP = <10%) on Empire NL$50 has practically eliminated negative variance. If I hit well on the flop, I go for the jugular--otherwise I fold. Don't think this would work with limit, though because the blinds and rake would eat you alive with little chance to catch up with the relatively small pots. I'm not saying this is good poker playing, by the way; but it is an efficient way to skim money with very low neg. variance.

[Rah]

Playing No-limit with a $50 buyin when the bankroll is $100 is terrible advice (for example - a friend of mine grinded his way up to $1500 but blew it all on one hand of NL, and it wasn't even badly played). If anything goes wrong, half your bankroll could be gone in seconds.

[La Brujita]

[ QUOTE ]
You might want to try William Hill first.

5 GBP/hour for 1st 5 hours, and pretty slow play so perhaps 30-40 hands/hr.

And since you get paid in hourly installments, you won't leave with nothing if you get unlucky and can't finish the full 5 hours.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is extremely good advice and what I was going to tell you. When you are picking a table at Totalbet or Will Hill pick one that has the fewest hands per hour. Often the tables will become 7-8 handed. For minimum risk you should only play 10 handed if possible.

Also, Carribean and Poker Plex don't require raked hands which make it less risky for you.

The other things I wanted to suggest were don't play marginal hands like QJo or JTo or KTo either at all or from any position other than the cut off or the button.

Another thing to consider is if you flop a hand like top pair in a situation where there are four or five players and you only have a decent kicker and are facing a straight and a flush draw be more prepared to release early than you otherwise might. This is in fancy poker talke a reverse implied odds situation. In unfancy poker talk it is those times when you feel you are running uphill post flop.

Three other thoughts are (i) fold TT to an UTG raise, (ii) don't fire a second bullet (or perhaps even a first) post flop when your AK is unimproved three handed and (iii) if you don't flop a set with a pair that is not an overpair to the board consider releasing almost always.

These are all a bit controversial but sometimes you have to give up ev to get the bonus.

[Gambit]

[ QUOTE ]
Taking a guess of 9 hands/blind cycle, that would be 50 blind cycles *1.5=$75. Folding everything appears to produce a small profit, but that's silly.

[/ QUOTE ]

As an aside, I dont think you could show even a small profit by folding ALL your hands. Since only raked hands are counted towards releasing the bonus, it is very unlikely that 50 blind cycles * 9 hands per cycle would give you 450 *RAKED* hands.

[Izaak_Walton]

You are certainly correct-I didn't realize that I was implying he should play with a $50 buy-in. Was trying to show how I lower variance through being tight-agressive in NL. The same principle would apply to him, but obviously at lower stakes. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[guppy]

Unless you find an incredibly tight table, almost every hand at Interpoker is raked, so this is not a very big distinction. Maybe folding every hand would just break even.

[parappa]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Taking a guess of 9 hands/blind cycle, that would be 50 blind cycles *1.5=$75. Folding everything appears to produce a small profit, but that's silly.

[/ QUOTE ]

As an aside, I dont think you could show even a small profit by folding ALL your hands. Since only raked hands are counted towards releasing the bonus, it is very unlikely that 50 blind cycles * 9 hands per cycle would give you 450 *RAKED* hands.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes, after I posted this I decided it was wrong. I think that perhaps 7 hands per blind cycle is a better guess, but a subsequent post seems to put it higher.