when should you drop down in levels using bankroll management?

2huskys · Dec 8, 2010

using the standard chris ferguson approach i.e. 20 buyins for the next level. when should you move down though due to bad variance etc?if your getting badly beatin dropping down immediately is best but for variance?Ive heard 5 buyin sessions then work your way up but 5 is nothing really. would it be ten which is enough for level below? what do you do?

pdias666 · Dec 8, 2010

i only play 1/50 of current BR. if i have 1000$, i can play a 20$ BI tourney, if i lose or win, i adjust

dwolfg · Dec 8, 2010

I suggest not moving up in levels until you are halfway between the two levels above you. For example you are at 2nl. 20 buyins at 5nl would be 100 dollars and 20 buy ins at 10nl would be 200 dollars. Therefore I would suggest not moving up to 5nl until you are at 150 dollars. That way you have a little cushion for variance.

fx20736 · Dec 8, 2010

dwolfg said:
I suggest not moving up in levels until you are halfway between the two levels above you. For example you are at 2nl. 20 buyins at 5nl would be 100 dollars and 20 buy ins at 10nl would be 200 dollars. Therefore I would suggest not moving up to 5nl until you are at 150 dollars. That way you have a little cushion for variance.

Excellent advice!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2huskys · Dec 8, 2010

dwolfg said:
I suggest not moving up in levels until you are halfway between the two levels above you. For example you are at 2nl. 20 buyins at 5nl would be 100 dollars and 20 buy ins at 10nl would be 200 dollars. Therefore I would suggest not moving up to 5nl until you are at 150 dollars. That way you have a little cushion for variance.

That will slow down the rate in which our bankroll moves as we are no longer playing with 20 buyins but more. It still doesnt answer the question to when you should move down.

dwolfg · Dec 8, 2010

2huskys said:
That will slow down the rate in which our bankroll moves as we are no longer playing with 20 buyins but more. It still doesnt answer the question to when you should move down.

When you drop to below 20 buy ins. Yes it will slow your br growth rate but dropping down also slows your br growth rate. The whole point of bankroll management is not to rocket up the stakes level, but to prevent variance from taking your whole roll. And if you go back and re-read Chris' column, 20 buy ins is the MINIMUM number of a buy ins you should have to play at a certain level. If you only have 20 buy ins and lose 1 buy in, according to brm rules you should immediately drop down after just 1 buy in, whether you lost it through bad luck or bad play.

2huskys · Dec 8, 2010

I dont understand, I had always interpreted that chris ferguson meant that you should only buy in to a game with 5% of your bankroll at the max. i.e not half. This would give you 20 buyins at that level which is what I have been doing.I would have moved up when I had 20 buyins at the next level i.e with $40 id play at 2nl and when it got to 100 id play 5nl. Is this not correct?

Is what chris saying that id need double my roll to follow his rules?and as soon as Id need to buyin to a game that is more than 5% of my roll that means ive to drop down to the next level? i.e i start with $20 i play 1nl.if i lose i drop back.but i cant its at the lowest. so really id need $40?That gives me 20 buying to actually play with at that level and and 20 to drop back?doesnt make sense?:S

I dont understand this can someone pls explain how much you should have in your roll to play each level.

dwolfg · Dec 8, 2010

2huskys said:
I dont understand, I had always interpreted that chris ferguson meant that you should only buy in to a game with 5% of your bankroll at the max. i.e not half. This would give you 20 buyins at that level which is what I have been doing.I would have moved up when I had 20 buyins at the next level i.e with $40 id play at 2nl and when it got to 100 id play 5nl. Is this not correct?

Is what chris saying that id need double my roll to follow his rules?and as soon as Id need to buyin to a game that is more than 5% of my roll that means ive to drop down to the next level? i.e i start with $20 i play 1nl.if i lose i drop back.but i cant its at the lowest. so really id need $40?That gives me 20 buying to actually play with at that level and and 20 to drop back?doesnt make sense?:S

I dont understand this can someone pls explain how much you should have in your roll to play each level.

You have it right. My point was say you have 20 buy ins and lose just 1 buy in. According to brm rules since you now only have 19 buy ins you should drop down a level. This one buy in lost and you drop in level does not allow you to judge accurately whether you are skilled enough to beat that level. My suggestion of having more than 20 buy ins would allow you to play a few buy ins and then judge whether you are beating said level without having to drop down a level in order to maintain brm rules if you lose just a buy in or two.

2huskys · Dec 8, 2010

dwolfg said:
You have it right. My point was say you have 20 buy ins and lose just 1 buy in. According to brm rules since you now only have 19 buy ins you should drop down a level. This one buy in lost and you drop in level does not allow you to judge accurately whether you are skilled enough to beat that level. My suggestion of having more than 20 buy ins would allow you to play a few buy ins and then judge whether you are beating said level without having to drop down a level in order to maintain brm rules if you lose just a buy in or two.

so you have 20 buyins as standard but to play at that level you would need really about 30 and if you run bad that will bring you back down to 19 then you drop back down?so the 20 buyins is really an extreme safety cushion.

dwolfg · Dec 8, 2010

2huskys said:
so you have 20 buyins as standard but to play at that level you would need really about 30 and if you run bad that will bring you back down to 19 then you drop back down?so the 20 buyins is really an extreme safety cushion.

exactly.

suit2please · Dec 8, 2010

By Fergusons rules 20 buyins would be the move down level. Since once you have less than 20 buyins for a level you would be playing with more than 5%.

2huskys · Dec 8, 2010

ah okk thanks guys I understand it now I had completely misinterpreted it the first time. The whole time ive been using 20 buy ins at the levels ive been playing. ie. 100 for 5 nl ive suffered massive swings with extremely bad variance I did drop down however and didnt go broke. Would this approach have saved me money then? and if so how much? the last i remember my bankroll got to 120 whilst being very swingy along the way though now its at 60.But at 120 i was playing 2 nd 5$ sit n gos. then it went down to about 80 where i dropped to 2 dollar just then got it up to 100 with a bonus then played 5$ nd it went back down to 80 then multi tabled 2cents 5 cents limit were it went back down to 70 nd now im playing 1 dollar sngos trying to bonus whore.

would this explain all of my massive swings and why im still playing at the lowest limits? at 100$ losing 4 buyins at $5 is not much out of ordinary but in comparison to my bankroll i guess its massive.

fx20736 · Dec 8, 2010

I've had several downswings of 7+ BI. Since I play 12 tables at a time, the minimum number of Buy-ins I would need would be 12+8=20. I don't know about anyone else but I would hate to have my entire roll in play at once.

One often overlooked aspect of BR management is the learning curve of Poker. I have put in 157,094 hands since August 23rd. Of that 108,783 have been at 2nl. I have 53 BI for 2nl and could move up if I wanted to but I don't want to yet. Why? Because I am still learning the game. Poker is incredibly complex and very difficult. There are times when I see the elegant perfection of the game and there are times when I hate it and curse it. There are times when I can't wait to play and there are times when I have no desire to play at all. For me, anyway it is a long learning curve. I'd rather learn at 2nl, so my mistakes cost me little than at 5 or 10nl where they could wipe out the roll I have.

2huskys · Dec 9, 2010

bankroll management question.

if chris ferguson says that you should drop down a level when youd need to buyin for more than 5% of your roll i.e. 20 buyins at that level. How many buyins should you have to actually play with at that level then?10?20? so in reality your bankroll shoould be 20+10 = 30 or 20 + 20 =40?

ruffcut68 · Dec 9, 2010

To have 5% it would be twenty times that amount. There is alot of great information on this forum. Check out the golden archives and do a search on Cash Game BRM as well. Hope that helps.

acky100 · Dec 9, 2010

I think he just means 20 buyins to play with so say you have 20 buyins if you lost a buy in you'd drop down a level until you had 20 buyins worth at the level you wanted to play.

Leatherass · Dec 9, 2010

I have always advocated in my books/columns that you should have 100 buy ins for your limit if you are going to play poker as your primary source of income. If poker is a hobby, technically it doesn't really matter what you do.

If you are trying to become a pro, I always say to look at poker as going to school. What I mean by that is to start at a level you are 100% certain you can beat, (for most that will mean playing micros online) and move up one limit higher every time you establish a solid WR at your new limit.

2huskys · Dec 10, 2010

Bankroll question if i have $60 then.....

according to ferguson you should have at least 20 buyins at the level you are at and should never buy in for more than 5% of your roll. If i have $60 that means i can play in my $2.50 heads up sit n gos but if it goes down to $49 I have to drop down a level because it will be more than 5% il be buying in with. Thats only like 4 buyins i can play with at that level which is nothing!

like wise if i have a $100 that means i can buy into a 2cents 5 cents game but only once if i lose it.

how many buyinsn should you give yourself to actually play with? are you suppose to just keep building up at the level until you reach like 10 at the level above?will that not take ages?

I misinterpreted his rule and thought that you were suppose to play with the 20 buyins at that level i.e $100 for all of 2 cents 5 cents not the 20 buyins being the drop down point

rcrocketman · Dec 10, 2010

Iplay .70 and 2.00 9 player tourment and win then unreg to get the tourn dollars to build up my bank roll try it

absoluthamm · Dec 10, 2010

2huskys said:
according to ferguson you should have at least 20 buyins at the level you are at and should never buy in for more than 5% of your roll. If i have $60 that means i can play in my $2.50 heads up sit n gos but if it goes down to $49 I have to drop down a level because it will be more than 5% il be buying in with. Thats only like 4 buyins i can play with at that level which is nothing!

like wise if i have a $100 that means i can buy into a 2cents 5 cents game but only once if i lose it.

how many buyinsn should you give yourself to actually play with? are you suppose to just keep building up at the level until you reach like 10 at the level above?will that not take ages?

I misinterpreted his rule and thought that you were suppose to play with the 20 buyins at that level i.e $100 for all of 2 cents 5 cents not the 20 buyins being the drop down point

If you only have $60 you should really only be playing the $1 SnG's/MTTs or 2NL Cash games, no higher if you're wanting to stick to a BRM that isn't going to put you in the hole. I can't tell what you were trying to say in your last sentence, but I think you were trying to say .02/.05, which is 5NL and you should not be playing that, you are not rolled for it. Play the lowest games.

And HU games are going to hurt you more than help you right now. It's essentially just a DoN, and those aren't really even profitable in the long run when you take rake into consideration. And $2.50 HUSnG's I can't even find on Stars or FT, so I think you mistyped, but if you didn't then you're really getting screwed. With $2+.50 HUSnG you need to win 2 out of 3 in order to show any profit, and even then you're only profiting .50 cents after taking out the rake.

2huskys · Dec 10, 2010

absoluthamm said:
If you only have $60 you should really only be playing the $1 SnG's/MTTs or 2NL Cash games, no higher if you're wanting to stick to a BRM that isn't going to put you in the hole. I can't tell what you were trying to say in your last sentence, but I think you were trying to say .02/.05, which is 5NL and you should not be playing that, you are not rolled for it. Play the lowest games.

And HU games are going to hurt you more than help you right now. It's essentially just a DoN, and those aren't really even profitable in the long run when you take rake into consideration. And $2.50 HUSnG's I can't even find on Stars or FT, so I think you mistyped, but if you didn't then you're really getting screwed. With $2+.50 HUSnG you need to win 2 out of 3 in order to show any profit, and even then you're only profiting .50 cents after taking out the rake.

the Hu sng are 2.50 but the rake is 25c at 888 poker. im just wondering how many buyins you should actually have to play with on top of the 20

absoluthamm · Dec 10, 2010

I would never play SnG's with less than 50 buy-ins at that level. Statistically, even a winning player will have 20+ buy-in downswings every 500 games or so just due to variance. How are you going to accommodate that if you only have 20 buy-ins, not to mention if you aren't a winning player?

dwolfg · Dec 10, 2010

husky, this is the third time you have started this thread this week. Your question has been answered by more than one person. Why keep asking the same question if you do not want to accept the answer given?

2huskys · Dec 10, 2010

My other two questions are not the same but similar and related to bankroll management this question differs from them. no one has actually given a response which fully answers this question yet; they are giving their opinions on what level they think I should be playing and shouldnt be playing giving the example figure in the question ($60) which isnt my bankroll. I want to know how many buyins you should have to play with i.e. on top of the initial 20 buyins required by ferguson. no one has given a straightforward answer such as 10, 20, 30 etc

dwolfg · Dec 10, 2010

2huskys said:
My other two questions are not the same but similar and related to bankroll management this question differs from them. no one has actually given a response which fully answers this question yet; they are giving their opinions on what level they think I should be playing and shouldnt be playing giving the example figure in the question ($60) which isnt my bankroll. I want to know how many buyins you should have to play with i.e. on top of the initial 20 buyins required by ferguson. no one has given a straightforward answer such as 10, 20, 30 etc

You are asking the same question,just using a different wording. And yes multiple people have given you specific advise on this subject.

when should you drop down in levels using bankroll management?

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