The skinny on bankroll requirements

Steve-O · #1 (**permalink**) 01-21-2005, 12:23 PM

This has been brought up in another thread here and also a little while back on PP.

There are 2 types of bankrolls; Replaceable and Unreplaceable.

A replaceable bankroll is what many of you have, you work other jobs and have a certain amount of money set aside for poker. Losing it may piss you off but it will not affect your lifestyle. for instance you make $1000 a week at your job and have a $1000 poker bankroll where you earn $75-$100 a week from.

If you lost that $1000 and the weekly revenue of $75-$100 it would suck but would not overly impact your life.

A nonreplaceable bankroll comes in 3 forms. losing it would impact your life.

form 1 - you play poker for a living, first you wouldn't be able to work so you could not rebuild your bankroll and secondly you wouldn't be able to pay your bills.

form 2 - we'll use our replaceable bankroll example but your poker bankroll has grown into $10,000. well now losing $10,000 would change your life, you lose $75-$100 a week in revenue which is fine, but you have lost a substantial amount that you cannot replace too quickly.

form 3 - you make $1000 a week at your job and an additional $300 a week from poker. losing your bankroll here is tough because you lose so much weekly revenue. even if you had a $1000 roll and you decided to replace it $200 a week from your job you would be losing money for a while if you started winning at poker you have to make up for not only your poker losses but your losses from your regular job to rebuild your bankroll.

next I will talk about bankroll needs

bonchkid · #2 (**permalink**) 01-21-2005, 12:29 PM

Actually there is on more instance. If someone has a certain amount of money in an online poker account, and there is NO way they can deposit more. Losing it won't "affect their life drastically" but it is still "ruin" it ends their poker playing.

Steve-O · #3 (**permalink**) 01-21-2005, 12:32 PM

but there would have to be a reason they cannot deposit more. so i think this would be a subcategory of form 3, you lose your poker revenue until it is possible to rebuild your bankroll from an outside source

Steve-O · #4 (**permalink**) 01-21-2005, 12:49 PM

Bankroll needs of a replaceable bankroll

If you are recreational player basically you have no needs 1 buy in is plenty. if you lose it you replace it from your job.

If you are someone looking to supplement their income with poker than you will need a bankroll that allows you to play properly (not playing scared, and with enough buy ins to sustain session to session swings).

for example if you have 1 buy in as a bankroll and you have a bad run at the begining of your session in a super juicy game you could be out of action in 1 hour with no way to play. on the other hand if you have 3 or 4 buy ins you can continue to play despite a bad run of cards.

this will also depend on the limit you play, suppose if need be you can replace $200 a week, if you play 2/4 4 buy ins is $320. you could lose 2 buy ins one night and replace it the following week. if you play 10/20 and lose 2 buy ins it will take you longer than 1 week to replace it, 4 to be exact, from outside income therefor you will need a larger bankroll (more buy ins) to play 10/20 turning this into a nonreplaceable roll.

On a replaceable bankroll (one you can replace every week to 2 weeks)you should have 3 to 4 buy ins of the stakes you intend to play.

Steve-O · #5 (**permalink**) 01-21-2005, 01:46 PM

now the complicated part,

bankroll requirements for an unreplaceable bankroll.

There are all kinds of theories on this

~ X amount of money

~ X amount of buy ins

~ stakes played and using your standard deviation to determine the right amount

whatever the method that is used, the main purpose is to prevent you from going broke.

Form 1 - if you lose this type of bankroll you are in a lot of trouble, and probably had no buisness playing poker professionally in the first place.

A pro needs the biggest bankroll of anyone, you would think since they are probably the best players the opposite would be true. suppose a pro has a $20,000 bankroll playing $40/$80 (250 bets)and loses $4,000 1 month, you would think this is ok but heres what happens;

he also has to pay his bills and expenses from his roll now (lets say $2,000) so now his roll is down to $14,000 or 175 bets. if he has another month like this or even 2 break even months he is in hot water.

He will have to add all winnings back to his bankroll to rebuild it.

when you could have to pay living expenses from your bankroll you should probably keep 500+ big bets in it. I had a 3 month span where i lost $1400, but add that i had to pay bills with my bankroll and it was more like an $8000 loss to my bankroll over those 3 months.

More to come

bonchkid · #6 (**permalink**) 01-21-2005, 01:48 PM

Uh, most pros don't pay out of their roll

Steve-O · #7 (**permalink**) 01-21-2005, 01:51 PM

Quote:

Uh, most pros don't pay out of their roll

stop watching TV Bonch, there are more than 50 people playing poker for a living and 99% of them play with their own money.

bonchkid · #8 (**permalink**) 01-21-2005, 04:40 PM

No, you don't understand what I mean. I'm definately not a WPT newbie. I may not be a professional poker play, but give me a little credit. Anyways..

From what I've read written by pros(and I don't mean the ones you watch, I mean people playing 20/40 etc for a living) most of them started by storing away 1 year of living expenses, that way you play for a year and check your profit, hopefully its larger than your 1 year living expenses and you put that away for the next year.

Beavis68 · #9 (**permalink**) 01-21-2005, 04:51 PM

This is one of those threads where Steve-O's expirience means a lot to who(m) I listen.

Steve-O · #10 (**permalink**) 01-21-2005, 05:02 PM

Bonch wouldn't storing away 1 years living expenses be part of your overall bankroll? I have 3 bankrolls, my live game bankroll, my online bankroll, and an emergency bankroll/savings that I don't touch (but it is still part of my bankroll).

Also I gotta call bullshit on 95% of these people saying they saved a years worth of living expenses before turning pro. Common sense tells me if you could do this you don't need to play 20/40 for a living, either you have a very high paying job or you have ripped up the poker tables enough to already be a pro.

it's more like I made 22K playing poker last year 20 hours a week. I think I'll quit my job and play poker 40+ hours a week. or (usually from the younger guys) I have built up a 10K roll I'm gonna go for it. at least from most of the pros I know.