Some thoughts. Risk of ruin, BR management, stuffs.

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Some thoughts. Risk of ruin, BR management, stuffs.

I would like to know your thoughts on the potential for risk of ruin. I play live games, and the games are generally round and round, one round of PLO and one round of NLH.

The avg stack is normally never over 500 dollars. The blinds are either 1/2 or 1/3. In omaha the bring in is 5 dollars. We always buy in for 500, and occasionally reload if the game is good. I have implemented a stop loss of 500 or 1k (depending on the game) however, I feel that this cuts my sessions short at times when I prematurely hit my stop loss...I don't have tilt issues so perhaps I should consider getting rid of the session stop loss? I feel thats bad, but lately I have been frustrated with playing for 2-3 hours and getting stopped out too soon...this especially stings when the game is good.

Given this information, how much of a liquid bankroll would you be comfortable with?

The average rake in these games are capped at 15....(I know thats high, however some of that is offset with a 25 dollar bonus, as long as you don't play any one session super long, I think the bonus almost wipes out the high rake...maybe)

9 Comments

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WM2K 11 years, 11 months ago
I m sure having a tighter stop loss can be correct live as if you manage to burn through like 6 bi over the course of 3 hrs of live play you are likely not playing your best. However 1 or 2 bi s at a game that has any plo going seems kind of ridiculous. In the live plo experience I have players are just lol lol lol bad but doesnt mean you don t have to flip for it a reasonable amount and make some thin plays.

I think I d be ready to go for 3 bullets usually. Online across 4-5 games of nlhe I stop at around 350-500bb and probably increase it to 600-800bb if I was grinding plo.

For a bankroll it really depends on how awful the players are and how strong your edge is. If your just taking them to town you can play a much thinner bankroll. For the sake of my sanity I don t think I d play any plo game without ~50 bi though. And I think that is quite liberal to say the least. I found that players playing mid/high stakes plo live are there to throw money around and I really don t want to be ever thinking about backing out of a hand because I m concerned for my roll.
mike 11 years, 11 months ago
stops are personal - that is you have to figure out when you are likely to be effected by some losses and set an appropriate stop for yourself.

not really sure what you mean by "liquid bankroll"? bankroll is just a set of risk management rules you set for yourself. so much risk you take on in poker is very person and is also effected by your non-poker assets and income so much it is hard to tell you what to do.

i am guessing they give you $25 to buy-in and play? i doubt this overcomes the insane rake! sounds like this is a "club game"? if yes consider 1) many dealers have sticky fingers in these games either for themselves or the house 2) collusion/cheating is more likely and you are less protected from it due to sloppy dealing/game procedure 3) chance of being robbed is much higher than in a casino

Juan Copani 11 years, 11 months ago
About taking shoots...
How much is the % of your bankroll that u could put in play in a very fishy live game ??

6 months ago i lost 80k in a week playing a live game (25/50 and 10/20 superdeep), was a decente % of my bankroll, i was usually playing nl400-nl1k, and i had to move down, doing nl200 my main game (few tables of nl400). Six months later im starting to play nl600 again.

What do u think about my decision to play so high live tables ? Reward justifies the risk ?? Was a stupid decision ? ?
mike 11 years, 11 months ago
Juan Copani - impossible to really answer if it was worth the risk. was it a really soft game? are you experienced live player? did you learn some important lessons from that week?
Juan Copani 11 years, 11 months ago
It really was a soft game. Like 5-6 recreational players, and 1-2 of them were really bad. ie cbet 2x pot in 552r with 94o.

Im not a experience live player. But im a experience poker player enough to deal with this guys.

Im not really sure if i learned an important lesson or not, in part is why im asking.. I think i had a very profitable situation i was very very unlucky. But i had a really bad time in the next months when i had to move down in my online games. So im not sure if the possible reward could justifie the risk (and im talking about economic risk, and psycological risks). But at the same time, i think i´ll probably do it again.

Im not sure what was the lesson..
Tommi Heikinniemi 11 years, 11 months ago
Every pro here has stop loss limits now and how long have u been using them? How do u find disciple to keep them up?

Personally I find tilting and going to major autopilot mode huge problem. It wasn't real issue back then because you could easily force ten buy ins back till morning if you just keep playing and try to keep concentration on after dark hour or so.
Nowadays, I am not really sure do I even beat msnl. I think I can still beat them with my A-game but too often I just go into major tilt like always, maybe 1-3 times per month and we are talking about 10-20 buy ins losses where is usually several buy ins because of bad run but can be like 2-4 just burned buy ins which is significant in win rate and drops it down to red in current games especially when bad sessions are more common.

This really can't continue like this bc edges are really small especially for me who hasn't played 1knl ever as a main game and I have noticed that former hsnl players play msnl nowadays as a main game and they are just really though. Anyone else had any problems with stop losses?
mike 11 years, 11 months ago
Juan Copani - yeah i get what you mean about psychological risk or just thinking about happiness EV. there is also the utility of money argument

@tommi - i have never had a strict stop loss. i am pretty good sometimes too good at quitting(can hurt my volume at times) when i reach a level of frustration that i know will impact my play i am done. but based on what you wrote having a strict stop loss could be very good for you. i think there are some software programs that can do this for you - maybe called tilt blocker? not really sure as i don't use them
Juan Copani 11 years, 11 months ago
@Tommi Heikinniemi Draw 5 (or the amount that u want) squares on paper before every session. And mark 1 square for every bad beat that you recive, then u can close your session when are all marked.
I think in your situation you have to work on this area, and anything could help..

Sean Lefort 11 years, 11 months ago
I've always thought that stoplosses are silly. They imply that you know that exact dollar amount that you need to lose at which point it becomes a bad decision for you to continue playing because the loss has effected you enough mentally. I think that threshold at which you stop playing well (or, well enough) is something that is affected by a lot more than just how much money you've lost.

If you're up 5k and snap-lose 4k and are super steamed by it, it's pretty silly to think that you should continue playing because you're still +1k. And alternatively, if you snap lose 1k to start a sesh in a couple flips and you still feel fine and fresh and the game is good, it's equally silly to stop playing. Being able to reflect on how well you're thinking and how well you're playing is an important skill as a poker player. If you're mature and disciplined enough to be a professional poker player, you should have what it takes to be able to make executive in-game decisions on whether you should be playing or not.

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