Bankroll question?

Question

I've read lots of info on managing a poker bankroll and how much to use towards a long-term poker career and a session, and the general consensus seems to be that if you want to be playing poker long-term, it's a good idea to use no more than 7% of your bankroll at one session, but preferably as low as 3%. If you're playing limit, that amount should be at least 100x the BB, and if you're playing no/pot limit, that amount should be at least 500x the BB.

I've been pretty much following those guidelines (5% of my bankroll) and it's been working well. The difficulty I have is when I play MTT tournies that are very challenging to win; namely qualifiers and satellites.

In cash games, I think it's reasonable to say that if you play a decent game, you have a decent chance (40% or so) to make a profit. At single table SNGs, it's generally 25-33% of the players who cash. However, many qualifiers are extremely tough, only offering rewards to anywhere from 1% to 10% of the field.

Answer 1

I have no idea.

However, i think its really cool that you stick with these bankroll managements and have the discipline.

GL to you sir :)

Answer 2

A while ago I found these 2 articles quite interesting:

http://pokerworks.com/article-998.html

http://pokerworks.com/article-1014.html

It is not about the bankroll management in a tournament game, but it is worth a check..

Answer 3

Here's how I break it down:

For Sit and Goes and Cash Game sessions:

Risk no more than 5% of your bankroll in one session.  If you lose more than two buy ins (10% of your bankroll) then quit for the day.  If you are a tight and disciplined player, you can risk more, but no more than 10%.  If you are playing no-limit cash games, you want to buy in for the maximum, but the maximum buy in shouldn't be more than 5% of your bankroll.  

For Multi-Table tournaments, risk no more than 2.5% of your bankroll for each buy-in.  

You are right on the money with your last paragraph.  Risk less money with qualifiers and MTT's since the return on investment is far less than cash and sit n go games.  Hope this helps.

Answer 4

You shouldn't be spending a large chunk of your bankroll on a tournament.  I don't agree that you should keep your tournament entry fees separate since for most people the money spent on poker comes out of the same fund, either a poker bankroll or their entertainment money, depending on how serious they are.  You could use your cash game winnings to build up a tournament pool though.  Say 24% of your winnings go to pay for tournaments, the rest to managing your bankroll.

If you're a good tournament player, I'd keep playing them.  If you're weaker, drop down to the smaller buy-in ones and practice.  The amount you win compared to your buy-in is generally enough to justify playing them, even though you don't win as many.  I'd limit the number of qualifiers I play in though.

BTW, if you only cash out ahead 40% of the time in cash games, you're going to be behind long term.

Answer 5

The bankroll guidelines are for cash games only.

Tournaments are a totally different animal, and should be funded separately from your cash-game bankroll.

Answer 6

Keep in mind that all bankroll management methods make the assumption that you are a positive expectation player. If you're losing money, it doesn't matter how you manage your bankroll until you improve, since you will always have to replenish it, and that money must come from somewhere else.

As you start out, I would recommend you build a tournament bankroll seperate from your ring game bankroll. This is primarily to help evaluate your skill as a tournament player, and find out if you are profitable. You can do this by filter out some of you ring game profit, splitting your ring game bankroll, or just dedicating a portion of your entertainment budget from your real job. I like the idea of just using some of your ring game profits to get started, and once you become profitable use the winnings as your tournament bankroll.

Once you have properly evaluated your skill as a tournament player and determined you are profitable, you can merge your bankrolls if you want. After that, 2% of your bankroll is a good mark for the average tournament, but that can go up or down depending on the number of entries. You could use more for an SNG, or less for a 1,000 person tournament.

For things like WSOP $50 satellites, you have to basically assume that is lost money and treat it as such. You don't want to blow your entire tournament bankroll playing fifty consecutive entries to a tournament where even the best players in the world call entering it is a "$10,000 lottery ticket." For a tournament like that where you're really expecting to lose, the ideal percentage of your bankroll to dedicate is going to be something like .0001%, or practically zero, which is why ideally you should just buy in a few times and call it a loss (if you do not qualify for the WSOP obviously), no matter where the money comes from.

Answer 7

i would definitely make an adjustment based on how much of the field was being paid...it's just common sense imo, if only 1% of the field is being paid then i don't want to risk as much on the tournament, and in fact it would be silly to risk anything close to your regular spending cap in terms of buy-in to a tournament because if such a small percentage of the field gets paid, then there will be more money given to the places that cash anyway