I’ve been playing $5-$10 No Limit at pokerstars.net and I start the games with the max of $2000 - with Play Money.
So far I’ve been winning and have built up a bankroll, so that I can risk a total of $60,000 (maybe in amounts of $20K at a time, assuming I go bust the first two times) playing with the big boys at the $100-200 NL tables.
Is $20K a realistic start-up wad? Should it be higher? Lower?
I’m not trying to fish for oooooohs and aaaaaaahs. People who play at this site are frequently very poor players who stay on anything so I manage to win by playing Hold 'Em at a dull-normal level.
So, what I’m seeking is some advice. Is there a a mathematical formula I can use for a decision like this?
Note: Going on an errand for my daughter at in 10 minutes, Won’t be back until 5-6pm ET — in case you have Q’s.
Your standard buy in, if we assume a fairly deep stacked NL game would be $20k. It depends on how often you play and how aggressive you are when deciding when you have the bankroll to move up. Right now you have 3-6 buyins at that level, which could easily be gone with a decent downswing. Especially with play money where there would be a lot more all-ins than you would find at the same level in a real money game.
I have a friend who regularly plays $10/20 NL on the real money tables and his standard bankroll at each site he plays is about $30k, or about 15 buyins. His swings rarely, if ever, threaten to bust him, but that is the idea of bankroll management. Given that this isn’t really your money at stake I would prefer to have ten buyins, but I would give it a shot where you are at, and maybe buy in a bit short.
Fact is, I have $360K and change in my account, and now I’m beginning to wonder if I was being too conservative, allocating just $60K for high stakes games.
Maybe $150K is more like it, with 6 buyins @ $25K. I think I’ll lurk for an hou or two, watching the big boys play. Then, if I have the courage, I’ll make a move.
That should work fine. When I started playing with real money I worked my way up in limits the same way. You spend some time observing the players to make sure that you can handle that level and make sure you are adequately bankrolled. The most important thing is to go back down in levels if you are lose past a certain level.
I started at $.50/1 and found that I would move up to the next level, hit a losing skid and bounce back down until I got my confidence back. Eventually I would win consistently at that level and feel I was ready to move up and the process would start over again.