bankroll management

Hi All,

Quick question to you all, what do you think is a sensible % of your bankroll to use in any mtt. I used to use 5% but often got myself into trouble. I was think 2% would be a good amount but at the same time at what stage do you move up levels if things are going well or move down levels if running bad.Also would you use the same % when entering sats for live or big online games.

Im strictly an sng and mtt man so cash bankroll management is irrelevant to me.

theres an article here where chris ferguson says that 2% is a sensible amount.

I think this only really applies if it is your whole roll tho, and youre really strict about not depositing. If youre just going to deposit more money if you lose what you have then you might be better off finding a higher standard of game with better chance of a payout.


to the forum btw

As a general rule, somewhere from 0.5% to 5% is a reasonable figure, tho this is total buyins - you cant enter a rebuy for 5% of your roll and then rebuy 3 times...

Obviously this covers moving up and down the levels, as if you lose a succession of games you'll be forced to play lower buyins, and if you take down a decent win you'll be able to play higher.

There are a fwe other things i'd bear in mind tho, starting with what is your best game?

Personally I like deepstack 6 seat frz outs, so I'd enter these at a higher rate than i would a 10 seat with normal starting stack.

Rebuys I'd class as costing 4 times the entrance fee, and fit these in according to that figure.

Field size is also a big factor. Although generally 10-20% of the field get paid, only the top ten generally get more than 3 times the buy in, and if youre playing huge fields youre obv going to get there much less often. If youre playing smaller field games of say 50-100 runners i think 5% would be ok, but if your normally facing 500-1000 runners id be only wanting to risk 0-5 - 1% of my roll each attempt.

Also, are you playing a lot of games under the cap? If your maximum cap is 5% but youre only playing games that are 4-5% then its a lot more risky than if you are also playing buyins of 0.1-2% as well. These keep the variance down without excessive risk. Also by playing more small games you'll cash more often, and keep your confidence higher.lol

In terms of satelites your chance of a return is greatly diminished, tho obv your chance of a huge payout increases. If you go for 2% in normal games, then i'd be inclined to look a lot lower for sats, around 0.2-0.5%. A lot of people lose more than they should playing satelites at the same level as normal games.

A slightly better plan is to use wins as satelites - any win that is over say 20 buyins mbe take 10% of it and call it your bigger game fund - pretty much buy into anything you like with it. eg you have a $2k roll and use a 1% rule so enter $10 - $20 games. You play a $15 frz and cash for $600. You now have $60 to enter anything u like, so can try a $50 game or a few $10-$20 sats, etc.

Ill leave this here, and comeback later when i think of some more stuff

Interesting post Rick..

I tend to say avoid satellites unless you can afford to buy-in to said tourney, as like Rick says peeps bleed a lot in these and if your trying to Sat into a $500 tourney in a $50 sat then if ya make it great if not it's only gona cost ya $550 to play that night anyway so one hand is save $450 other is cost $50.

A point to this comment is tonights 100 series €110 buy-in €10k i played 1 sat $8 re-buy had 1 re-buy bummed out no where so bought in total tourney cost €126 been nice to save a few pounds but the game value is still worth the buy-in, so game selection is important also.

As for bankroll % buy-in, well we have all been a tad naughty in our past but 1% should be an absolute MAX in my eye's if playing on pokerstars... as payout structure is so damn weak that cashing only just beats buy-in at the start levels, 1.5% for sites like Ladbrokes.

Most tourney players also Multi tab so if this is the case say your running 6 tabs at $30 buy-in each the total buyin cost should only rep 1-1.5% of roll, the reason behind this is that the "domino effect" in tourneys is high.

Like Rick says when you do get some cashes that are +roll then move to some larger games, where you can buy-in with confidence because without this you will be playing scared on the back heel.

"Im strictly an sng and mtt man so cash bankroll management is irrelevant to me." I find this a worrying statement !

edited to add bit on 10k

"Im strictly an sng and mtt man so cash bankroll management is irrelevant to me." I find this a worrying statement !

Hi, cheers for your posts, yes i was thinking around the 1% mark so thats a good level for me. Regarding the above statement, i was refering to cash games not actual dollars so no need to panick.

Mayhap this is where I've gone wrong over the years. I've never had control of any of my bankroll on any site. I play the tourneys I like (often only $10) attempt satellites into all sorts of stuff and generally lose the plot and cause the domino effect every night I'm playing!

Just one question for you geniuses of poker though - what % of bankroll do you remove, how do you win, do you just keep on moving up, do you never withdraw?

OK, so not one question, but...

My idea of bankroll management was quite simple.

I kept a grand in there and removed anything over and above but if i fell below i could not withdraw till i had it over again.

The flip side when i lost the grand was just to reload a few hundred at a time till i got going again.

This year i too am attempting some sort of bankroll management and am grinding away so this year will be all new to me and interesting to see how i fair.

Gl to yourself

CARNIVORE04 wrote:My idea of bankroll management was quite simple.

I kept a grand in there and removed anything over and above but if i fell below i could not withdraw till i had it over again.

The flip side when i lost the grand was just to reload a few hundred at a time till i got going again.

This year i too am attempting some sort of bankroll management and am grinding away so this year will be all new to me and interesting to see how i fair.

Gl to yourself

I did something similar with a bankroll of $1000 for a long time. I did increase this when I cashed heavily in a LEOCOP event but I blew the entire $3k I was keeping in one night's madness. I've never touched online roullette since (there's a warning for you all). It's the biggest bet and loss in my entire life. Since then I've never got a decent roll going and have practically given up poker. I play some team games, the occasional hilo game and the odd holdem game. It really did spell the end of my online career so-to-speak coupled with life getting in the way. I obviously want to return when I'm settled but fear I'll have missed the gravy train by then. I just hope the boom doesn't stop and more and more fish enter the game.

As for bankrolls now, I have about $300 on Grandlsam and £100 on Ladbrokes. That's my entire roll. If I can make £1000 this year, I'd be as happy as a pig in **it.

MADV wrote:Mayhap this is where I've gone wrong over the years. I've never had control of any of my bankroll on any site. I play the tourneys I like (often only $10) attempt satellites into all sorts of stuff and generally lose the plot and cause the domino effect every night I'm playing!

Just one question for you geniuses of poker though - what % of bankroll do you remove, how do you win, do you just keep on moving up, do you never withdraw?

OK, so not one question, but...

Well in my case...

My bankroll is held in 2 bank accounts the 1st is a low interest instant access account this hold the main roll, 2nd is a standard current account that is used to feed the poker sites,done this way for 2 reasons, 1st why should a site earn interst on my roll, 2nd is for security reasons.
With the exception of Fulltilt as i play cash there, I use a "play and scrape" system where I deposit as I play and anything over or won by the days end is "scraped" back into the bank account, at the end of the month I transfer from this account to the low interest account and my personal current account for wages.

How do ya win ! whole diff subject than bankroll !!

Well the goal is to move up on a steady level as the larger the buy-in the greater the reward but....at the same time never leave a value game just because it's a lower buy-in, so in essense I still play certain games that are few $'s along side a game thats just cost me $300.... so I would say the goal is to be able to expand the range of games you can play opposed to just moving up.

As above I withdraw from sites ever day, I withdraw from poker account once a month and I withdraw from roll interest account twice a year, like to have atleast 12% growth on the whole roll each year after wages, anything over this I split between a bonus for me and another savings account.

This is now of cause, when I was 1st building my roll I didn't take a lot out for quite some time as moving up the buy-in ladder was more important to me as I saw it the only way I was going to get a good size roll playing MTT's I needed to be playing games nightly where I could be winning large sum's when making finale tables.

I personally think anything between 1% and 2% is ok though i would allow for more if a particular tournament offered particularly good value or overlay.

It is also important to feel comfortable with the entry cost psychologically so it does not interfere with your thought processes while making decsions in the game.

Playing STT and MTT is likely to be a far more profitable long term option than just playing MTT which can often feel likebuying lottery tickets with long periods of loss and few wins.
It is much harder to make regular profits in MTT nowadays as there are far more good players and even the bad ones are agressive and bad which greatly increases the luck factor.