I've stated before that I use a bankroll generally based on 20 buy-ins with a hard floor on 10 buy-ins to move back down a level. This looks great in theory, but I ran into a big problem when I put it into practice. This bankroll required me to sustain a 10 buy-in draw-down before moving back down a level.

It appears I cannot mentally, emotionally, whatevery handle a 10 buy-in draw down. Somewhere between 4 and 5 buy-ins I start going crazy. I think the players at the new level have my play all figured out. I think my 'old' playing style won't work at this new level. I think ... I think ... I think ... bang, I tilt and start changing my playing style to 'find one that works'.

Inevitably, I spend a lot of time spinning my wheels, not gaining or losing much ground until I finally give up, move WAY down, and rebuild my game from square one. While I'm always a slightly better player for rebuilding, I go from making good money, to making almost no money for weeks / months on end while I play ridiculusly low levels. After doing this for the second time this year, I decided to rethink my bankroll.

The New Improved Bankroll: Going broke has never been an issue. I simply can't stomach a loss anywhere near the size needed to go broke. My emotional limit seems to be about 4 buy-ins. If that's all I'm willing to lose in reality, why have a bankroll designed to handle draw-downs 2 1/2 times that size?

I've changed my bankroll to fit the reality of my emotional capabilities instead of my skill and theoritical risk-of-ruin. To play at a given level, my bankroll needs to be 8x the buy-in of that level. That gives me enough for my 4 buy-in loss PLUS 4x the buy-in of all the previous levels. Given a horrendously bad run, this has enough money to walk down 4 buy-ins per level all the the to zero (at which point, maybe I should re-engineer my game again).

This permits me to play bigger games with a smaller bankroll, and keeps me emotionally balanced. I hit one 3 buy-in draw-down after moving up a level. Instead of my normal initial signs of tilt, I just kept playing realizing that after 1 more buy-in, I'd just move down. It happened at the level that has always been my breaking point. Instead of crumbling though, I kept playing my A game, and went on to break that level for 25 PTBB's / 100 before moving up.

More bang for my buck, and better reign on my emotions. Seems like a winning situation.

Comments?

I like this strategy on the lower limits. You're essentially gambling, but you do have a little room to work with, and it gives you good reasons to move up and down quickly.

However, when you find yourself on bigger and bigger tables, and your bankroll of thousnads of dollars... that money is probably "irreplaceable." Meaning, you just can't go to the bank to reload. At this point, I think you have to have more coservative money management.

qdaviet,

I especially like your reasons for doing this concerning your "emotions" and signs of tilting. Right now I am only on the verge of breaking the 4 digit barrier with my BR so I doubt I am playing anywhere near the limits you are at but your description of how it affects you when you lose 4 buyins seems awfully familiar to me. I'm not a BR expert but I like your idea as long as you can strictly adhere to it when it comes to dropping back down to the next lower level. I may try this myself in a month or 2. Seems like it could easily head off some serious stress for me.

I must be a real wimp. I play at the $25 NL tables on party and have a bankroll of over $2000. I have built this up over the last 12 months playing at the microlimit and $25 tables.
If I applied the 20x rule I should be playing at the $100 tables. Yet I know that my game is not good enough to play at this level. It may very well be good enough to play at the $50 tables but I like making $400 to $500 a month playing against mediocre opponents and collecting a few bonuses along the way. I really think that going up a level "just because you have the roll" is not good reasoning. You want to have the game and the mental toughness as well. I have the bankroll and (I think) the game to go up to the $50 tables, but mentally I am not prepared to put $50 into a pot when I don't have the nuts. I don't know why but I have no trouble putting in $25 when I think that I have the best hand (but not the Nuts) but I don't want to risk $50.
Does anyone else have this problem regarding moving up?

i have that problem but usually over a week or two i will adjust.. you really should try to move up with that amount of money.

i like the idea of testing the waters in order to get comfortable.

for example, if you're moving from 25 to 50, make it a two buy-in stop-loss until you start thinking "damn, i can beat these guys." or you actually do start winning. two buy-ins is easy to recoup at a lower level, so you don't kick yourself for moving up.

i also like to datamine and jump in to really soft tables (i.e., lots of donators)... it keeps my confidence up.

I like that idea Kuso. That is my main fear. I have spent 12 months building up my bankroll and don't want to blow it. Using that 2 buyin stop gap could be just the trick. I will play another 10,000 hands at the 25NL level and if I am still beating the 8bb/100 hands mark I will give it a go. Thanks for that idea.

Well, just to comment further ...
I play poker for fun. But I'm not allergic to money. A big reason I enjoy poker is because I can earn money doing it.

I spend the money I make at poker. That said, my life won't change if I go broke, or I make $10k this month.

I the money WAS critical to my life, I'd still want to play as high as possible, but I'm sure I'd use a slightly larger roll to weather the storms for longer periods of time.

I run three or four tables at a time. I have never seen any correlation between multi-tabling and needed bankroll. Losing two or three buy-ins simultaneously is no different than losing two or three all-in hands in a row, and they are both about equally unlikely. The time it takes to move x dollars one way or the other decreases, but that's about it. If I'm about to go on a 2 or 3 buy-in decline, it is no more or less likely to occur if I multi or single table. It will just happen in a shorter time frame with multiple tables. It's not 'more likely' to happen because I'm multi-tabling.

One thing that IS likely to change when you are multi-tabling. With a single table, you may be in WAY over your head against the players seated. By the time you figure this out, you're probably down quite a bit. When you multi-table, it's not likely that all your tables are that bad, so your SESSION variance will decrease slightly. Your overall long run variance is unlikely to change though, as you will get the same number of bad tables over time either way.