Bankroll
What a muppet - you decide. So I was taking a quick look over the PLO HU tables and noticed someone was sitting at a $10/$20 table with $800. Now people who don't buy-in full are normally the weaker players (that said, David Benyamine does it at the $200/$400 tables so it's a rule of thumb, not a God-given fact) so I sat down with a matching $800 and sure enough, about 5 hands in, it all goes in on the turn when I have the nut straight. He calls me with a 9-high flush draw and hits it on the river. Now you may be thinking I mean that he was a muppet, but really I think I was the muppet, since $800 was about half my full tilt balance so I really couldn't afford to carry on and take advantage of this "weaker" player - I had to quit.
Which brings me onto bankroll management. "Bankroll" is such a moveable feast that I will define it as the balance I have on the site I am playing - therefore I have different bankrolls depending on the site I'm playing, and so game selection rules can be different for different sites.
I will adhere to the following rules for the rest of the year:
1) Play only NLHE or PLO games for which I have 1,000 big-blinds.
2) Quit playing for the day if I lose 20% of my bankroll on a particular site.
3) Maximum buy-in STT is 5% of bankroll.
4) Maximum buy-in MTT is 5% of bankroll.
Sadly this means no playing $10/$20 with a $1500 bankroll, nor entering $500+$35 tournaments with a $800 bankroll. That is probably no bad thing. In fact on the evidence of the year to date it is positively a good thing!
As an example I have around $700 left in my (much depleted) FTP account, so I can play $0.25/$0.50 cash games, and tournaments with a buy-in of $30 (to account for the juice) or less. However on UB I can play the heady heights of $0.50/$1 and tournaments up to $50.
I really don't subscribe to this "I can't beat the low games - noone respects my raises. But I can beat the bigger games!" mentality. Sure you may need to play a little differently (more ABC at the lower levels) but if you were able to beat $5/$10 you could surely beat $0.50/$1
I played an interesting $20 heads-up STT the other day against a manic-hyper-aggro-donkey. Actually I say donkey but his "strategy" could be quite sucessful (I put it in quotes since I'm not sure he was playing a well-thought out game-plan rather than just being over-aggro). Basically he just bet, bet, overbet, pushed at the slightest opportunity, and it wasn't until I was down to 1000 chips that I really figured out what he was doing (rather than just hitting cards). Then I got a K-high flush and he had a straight-flush but rather than his usual all-in move he bet small-ish. I guess I should have realised this represented a monster but called anyway and was down to 450 chips. Now if he had been playing a hyper-aggro strategy now would be the time to tighten up a little and bleed me to death with small pots, but he continued and, being short stacked, I was forced to go with some less that premium hands - I say less than premium but that's against most players, not him. For example second pair on the flop was almost the nuts, as he would bet with two undercards and shove all-in with one overcard. This enabled me to get back up to level at 1,500 chips each. By now the blinds were $50/$100 and the final hand sort of summed up the match. I raised on the button to $300 with AsQs and he pushed all-in. Now if I was raising a marginal hand I would have had to let it go and he moves into a 1800/1200 lead. As it was I called and his 45 o/s isn't really in that bad a shape. Fortunately the AQ held up.
Which brings me onto bankroll management. "Bankroll" is such a moveable feast that I will define it as the balance I have on the site I am playing - therefore I have different bankrolls depending on the site I'm playing, and so game selection rules can be different for different sites.
I will adhere to the following rules for the rest of the year:
1) Play only NLHE or PLO games for which I have 1,000 big-blinds.
2) Quit playing for the day if I lose 20% of my bankroll on a particular site.
3) Maximum buy-in STT is 5% of bankroll.
4) Maximum buy-in MTT is 5% of bankroll.
Sadly this means no playing $10/$20 with a $1500 bankroll, nor entering $500+$35 tournaments with a $800 bankroll. That is probably no bad thing. In fact on the evidence of the year to date it is positively a good thing!
As an example I have around $700 left in my (much depleted) FTP account, so I can play $0.25/$0.50 cash games, and tournaments with a buy-in of $30 (to account for the juice) or less. However on UB I can play the heady heights of $0.50/$1 and tournaments up to $50.
I really don't subscribe to this "I can't beat the low games - noone respects my raises. But I can beat the bigger games!" mentality. Sure you may need to play a little differently (more ABC at the lower levels) but if you were able to beat $5/$10 you could surely beat $0.50/$1
I played an interesting $20 heads-up STT the other day against a manic-hyper-aggro-donkey. Actually I say donkey but his "strategy" could be quite sucessful (I put it in quotes since I'm not sure he was playing a well-thought out game-plan rather than just being over-aggro). Basically he just bet, bet, overbet, pushed at the slightest opportunity, and it wasn't until I was down to 1000 chips that I really figured out what he was doing (rather than just hitting cards). Then I got a K-high flush and he had a straight-flush but rather than his usual all-in move he bet small-ish. I guess I should have realised this represented a monster but called anyway and was down to 450 chips. Now if he had been playing a hyper-aggro strategy now would be the time to tighten up a little and bleed me to death with small pots, but he continued and, being short stacked, I was forced to go with some less that premium hands - I say less than premium but that's against most players, not him. For example second pair on the flop was almost the nuts, as he would bet with two undercards and shove all-in with one overcard. This enabled me to get back up to level at 1,500 chips each. By now the blinds were $50/$100 and the final hand sort of summed up the match. I raised on the button to $300 with AsQs and he pushed all-in. Now if I was raising a marginal hand I would have had to let it go and he moves into a 1800/1200 lead. As it was I called and his 45 o/s isn't really in that bad a shape. Fortunately the AQ held up.
posted by Tall Mat at 1:30 PM
2 Comments:
Good luck with the strict bankroll rules. I wonder, though, whether before you start you should top up your on-site bankrolls ?
Otherwise, you may be playing with artifically low ammunition. Of course, if you have already ante'd up all your poker money for the year then you can't do that.
But surely you could move money between sites to make sure your total bankroll is suitably employed ? In fact, couldn't you put your whole roll on your preferred site until you've built back up?
Dude... seriously no no no these rules still aren't near strict enough.
Play when you have 30 buyins aka 3000 bbs. If you lose 20% of your bankroll in a day you are playing WAY over your head. And very solid high stakes players sit down with a min buyin on high stakes tables to lure in people like you to sit with them.
Seriously please reconsider your play... with a roll of 700 or even 1000 you should only be playin .10/.25 NL tables.
Your thought process is skewed
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