Poker Articles

A good friend, like many others, plays micro-stakes tournaments and cash games online.  He’s a smart guy who asks a lot of questions, reviews hand histories with me, and studies the game when he can.  He has aspirations and dreams in poker beyond having fun, just like me, just like most of us.  Dabbling in Pot Limit Omaha and Razz, he enjoys all forms of poker, but his favorite games are No Limit Hold’em tournaments.  A former athlete and accomplished businessman, he enjoys the competition, the adrenaline rush of the crucial bluffs and all-in coin flips…most of all, he enjoys the satisfaction of a job well done after going deep in a huge field.  He has approximately $600 in his online bankroll, and plays $5-and-under MTTs.

Recently, my friend came in 1st Place in a tournament field with over 10,000 players, an accomplishment matched by only a few in the history of poker.  He followed that up with a 36th-place finish in a tournament with almost 3,400 players.  We’re talking about back-to-back successes against huge fields; a remarkable feat, indeed.  The “running good and playing good” rush we all dream about, an achievement by which bankrolls are built, a catapult to greater things.  When you hear the well-circulated stories about a player going from nothing-to-something overnight – random nobody one week, online legend the next – this is how the story goes.

Unfortunately, my friend didn’t join the “legends” club.  Not yet, anyway.  You see, he finished 1st in a freeroll on PokerStars, a satellite to a weekly tournament with a couple thousands dollars added.  He outlasted one of the biggest tournament fields ever to win…another seat.  In the next tournament, finishing in the 98th percentile earned him approximately $3.  I estimate his rate of return to be about 25 cents an hour.  Not bad if you’re working graveyard shift in a Southeast Asian sweat shop, or a 12-year-old kid mowing lawns in 1957.  Not good if you’re playing poker for any reason other than “it’s fun” or “I had nothing else to do.”

My friend suffers from the same disease which plagues many Part-Time Players: “Bankrollus Nittitus,” or playing too low.  This ailment is not nearly as fatal as the other, more dangerous, problem: “Hombre Busto” – The Broke Man.  A great deal of documentation and research explains how to avoid going broke by playing at the right limits for the amount of money you have.  PocketFivers Fox and Jennifear have both written excellent material on the topic.  Fox’s Basic Bankroll Management article, with maximum guidelines for sit-and-go tournaments, multi-table tournaments and cash games (both limit and no-limit), is probably the single most quoted poker article on the Internet.  I see it cited as a reference on a weekly basis.  Far less theory has been published about corresponding minimum levels.

Not making as much money as you can is not nearly as bad as having no money at all.  But for a Part-Time Player, especially a tournament grinder, it can be just as demoralizing.  The cosmic tumblers don’t click into place very often, where you play good (making chip-saving laydowns and chip-accumulating bluffs, light calls and value bets) and run good (winning coin flips, getting the big suckout with AK v. KK) in large enough measure to hit a huge score.  Winning poker is entirely about maximizing profitable situations and minimizing losses…and if you’re playing too low, you’re not maximizing anything.

You are also, most likely, avoiding challenging situations that force you to expand your skills and improve as a poker player.  If you know you can beat your local 5/10 game, and stick with it even though you’re properly rolled to play 20/40…you’re never learning how to deal with better players and more challenging situations, to eventually beat the 20/40 game.

So here’s my update to Fox’s table, expanded to include my estimates for minimum buy-in limits.  Per Fox’s initial definitions, use the “Pro” column if going bust would be devastating because you derive your income from poker; “Protected” if replacing your bankroll would be difficult; “Unprotected” if you’re taking a shot and your bankroll is easily replaced:

The common mistake is considering yourself to be a category higher than you truly are.  If you do not derive your living from playing poker, in my opinion, you should never treat your bankroll as if you do.  Yeah, it sucks trying to deposit money in the era of the UIGEA.  But being out-of-action to the casual Protected player isn’t devastating; you just have to scramble around.  A Pro has no life if they don’t have a bankroll.

Ranges may be stretched a little bit to expand how many games you can play as you move up the ladder.  For example, a Protected player with a $4,000 bankroll really shouldn’t play lower than a $30+3 buy-in tournament.  Unfortunately, there aren’t a lot of tournaments in the $30-$40 range online.  But between the $20+2 180-mans on PokerStars, and the wide range of $24+2 tournaments and 90-mans on Full Tilt Poker, you could reasonably step back and play to your heart’s content without considering it a “profit loser.”

I highly recommend, if you’re in a comparable bankroll “no man’s land,” to take shots on the higher edge as well.  With a $4,000 bankroll, not only would I play at $20+2 and $24+2 tournaments, but also the $50+5 nightly tournaments on Stars and FTP, and possibly the $69+6 Full Tilt tournaments as well.  My bankroll guidance is based on our average buy-in, not any one maximum or minimum value.  If you want to take a shot in the Bodog $100+9, go ahead…but play a little lower in some other events to balance things out.

Consider rebuy tournaments at 7 times the original buy-in for bankroll management purposes.  Sometimes you can float through with just your original investment; other times you’re re-buying every other hand.  For the most part, it averages out to your buy-in & rebuy to start, two double rebuys, and the add-on at the end – a total of seven buy-ins.  This means the $3r on Stars is a $21 MTT on your chart, the $5r a $35 MTT.  For the mid-stakes player, these are valuable tournaments, because they both fall close to the $30-40 “no man’s land.”

You should also account for the size of the field.  Larger fields have higher variance, and therefore, your bankroll needs better protection.  Let’s say I have $1,500, and I consider myself a Protected player.  I would not regularly play the $24+2 MTTs on Full Tilt, where the fields range between 1,000 and 1,500 players.  However, I’d play the $20+2 180-mans on Stars, or a $20 MTT on UltimateBet, where the average field may be 300 or 400 people.

The time you have at the tables is valuable.  Make the most of it.