Winning player with poor bankroll management
Posted by Pickles
Posted by
Pickles
posted in
Mental Game
Winning player with poor bankroll management
Hi guys.
I've been a decently winning poker player for a while now, but I'm finally admitting that I have had very poor bankroll management as of late. If I were to be conservative with my BRM, I should probably only be playing 2/4 at the highest. I generally stick to these limits, but every so often I'll see 10/20 and 25/50 games running that I think are profitable, and always end up sitting down with a good chunk of my bankroll. I know I shouldn't be playing in these games even if I do have an edge, but for whatever reason I can't help myself. Obviously I'm writing this as I just lost a buyin at those stakes and it hurts. I now have thoughts of how many weeks it'll take for me to grind it back, how my monthly results are wiped out in one session, if I should move up to "win it back", and other destructive thoughts.
The other problem I've identified with playing and losing at higher stakes is that I lose a lot of motivation to keep grinding after. I often take breaks following big losing sessions, sometimes not playing for days or weeks at a time. Obviously this isn't ideal either.
So I guess I'm posting this to see if anyone else has dealt with this issue before. I know ultimately it's up to me to set an absolute restriction on playing high stakes games, but if anyone has any advice it would be much appreciated. Thanks
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I reckon you might wanna check out this RIO vid on this topic.
http://www.runitonce.com/poker-training/videos/bankroll-matters/
Thanks, I'll give it a watch. To be honest I've ignored most of the non-strategy videos so it's probably a weaker aspect of my game.
100+ buy ins before you play a stake, you need to live by this rule or die by variance. You only have the choice once.
You can't play enough hands to realize your EV in these spots if your bankroll has a high % of dipping below 0. You can run some sims to see but even if you have a huge edge in these games Risk of Ruin is always higher than we like.
Good luck!
http://pokerdope.com/poker-variance-calculator/
This is a good way to phrase it. Even if I do have an edge at higher stakes it's probably negated by the variance and potential risk of ruin. Thanks
You could be jumping up in stakes to get some excitement to your boring daily grind, so to me it sounds like you might have a motivation issue that you are not dealing with properly.
You are probably playing poker as your main/only income, no? I'd suggest you take a week completely off from poker and try your best not to even think anything poker related for that whole week. Catch up with friends and maybe try a new hobby or go for a vacation. After your week off you should take a day or and ask yourself why is it that you are sabotaging your results in higher stakes? Why are you playing poker in the first place? Do you feel like you are stuck in your current stakes and you are not climbing up as fast as you would like? Are you passionate about poker anymore? What could you do to make poker exciting and fun again? Maybe learn a new game variant. Maybe play tournaments or PLO if you are currently playing NLHE cash etc. Maybe try to study your game/database for a while.
It's easy to lose motivation when you do something all day everyday. I am not saying you are definitely having a motivation problem, but it's the first thing that came to my mind when I read your post. You are beating 2/4. Spot a few leaks in your game and soon you are beating 3/6. Just try to find your passion back and get you on the right track. At the end of the day, poker should be fun and enjoyable... that's why we started playing it in the first place.
Thanks for the great response. I think you're definitely right that part of it likely stems from a motivation issue.
I actually work a full-time office job and play poker after work/on weekends for a couple hours as a means of making additional income. I realized lately I've been feeling obligated to put in hands even after a long day at work and I'm burnt out, so I need to find the right balance there. As well, I've been very lax with BRM in the past month or two and have played anywhere from 1/2 to 10/20. Winning/losing money at the higher stakes has definitely affected how I view results and my expectations in a session.
I definitely have lost a lot of passion for the game I used to have back when I was playing in college. I get some of it back when I play HU - and it's definitely my strongest/favorite variant - but given the current state it's not always feasible to get action. I've been learning PLO and think I'm a winner at small stakes, but have also had days where I'd get bored and play higher at stakes I have no business of playing.
Overall I think I'm going to take a break like you mentioned, try to do more studying versus playing in this time, and come back to the tables with a completely different approach/mindset. I'm going to try very hard to only play when I'm fully engaged and want to, follow stricter bankroll management only playing midstakes and lower, and try to quit as soon as I feel my mental state slipping during a session.
i have struggled with the very same thing though I was in a much lower stake but the philosophy is the same. I even struggled thinking that I had a gambling problem, chasing losses, busting rolls, going on monkey tilt, etc. My last roll busted was so devastating that I quit poker for a year if that tells you anything. I felt like my avatar as displayed.
After a year, I looked back at my previous sessions and I came to conclusion. I felt I had an edge of my opponents overall but I noticed the trend of moving up and my chart was down. Losing 1 buyin as you raise up should be expected but when you are losing several buyins, that is problem.
So as I noticed, i came to a conclusion I not only am competing against people, I am also competing against the beast of variance. I was losing against variance, not people. Now, what i have done has put a stickie on my computer monitor I grind and I write out the words.
CRUSH VARIANCE
This has allowed me to focus my sessions on gaining a better insight and also minimize tilt. So now when losing a buyin on cash games or bubble a tournament, I now have a mindset of I may not have won the tourney or I was stacked off but I won against variance.
Visualize this scenario:
Let's look at say a 109 tourney. Effectively, bankroll for a 109 tourney, we will look at it not 100 buyins (as many suggest) but say 50 buyins that you have behind. Imagine you your Headsup with Variance and you have a virtual stack of 50K and you are heads up with Mr Variance. You lose the 109 as you were at the exact money bubble. You lost, you got 0 bucks for the game and you lost 109. You are upset and you are frankly pissed off because your QQ got sucked out by a freakin K9o for the guy flopped the K on the river. Sad huh? So then you get the dreaded Thank you for joining the tournament. You were in 95th place. ugh.
Now lets look at it. Over the 49 other games, you can effectively beat the Beast of Variance, Beast of Variance only stole the blind on your stack. You still are +EV over your future poker session. if you play the same tournament 49 times and continue improving on your game over the long term of 49 other games, you will effectively win in the long run.
You play against Players (with you improving and studying, you very well have an edge) but you need to consider the Beast of Variance you are headsup with as well. Beat the Beast if first Priority to then allow the edge beat the players at your game!
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