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January 27, 2007
Bankroll
People have been asking me a lot lately about bankroll/variance in no-limit hold'em. I always tell them I really don't know much about it. And I don't.
I know that no-limit is significantly lower variance for a given win rate. In technical terms it's probably much higher variance (when expressed as big bets per hour or big bets per 100 hands) but since your win rate at a no-limit table is much higher when expressed the same way that isn't a useful comparison. A $30/$60 limit player might only have to play $5/$10 no-limit to make the same hourly. So while a $30/$60 limit game is going to have much lower fluctuations than a $30/$60 no-limit, it's going to be far higher than a $5/$10 nl.
And I know that limit players often experience bad streaks lasting over a hundred thousand hands. Multiple people I know were solid winners over a long time, had a losing 100k hands or more, and then won again for a long time. I've experienced losing over 130k hands in the last year, though I haven't played much since.
I know a lot of people who've played a lot of no-limit and have solid records. In fact, I probably know more of them than I do limit players. None have ever even had a losing streak of 50k hands. Most of them say that even losing over 20k hands is very are.
I think that's a large part of the attraction to no-limit. You can make more profit on a given bankroll. And it makes emotional endurance, in some ways, less a part of the game. Still not as little as a tournament, where one bad beat often eliminates you, preventing you from tilting. But far less than in limit hold'em.
It's also nice because it allows you to make more meaningful determinations about your game. If you lose over 50k hands in limit you might be playing as well as anyone alive. You probably aren't, but you can't really get any idea. In no-limit it is much more likely that you're playing badly.
But really, that's about all I know. For any information I'd have to refer you to the forums. I'm sure tons of people on there have written about this stuff. I usually find in every game I play that my win rates (and those of some other players I know) and variance are higher than the general forum consensus believes to be typical, but the variance is at least pretty close. So if anything their bankroll recommendations are probably a little conservative, and that's a good thing anyway.
I'm also generally a bad person to ask about bankroll considerations because I'm extremely conservative. I have no gamble in me. I never play a game without many times the recommended bankroll. I have enough saved up to live comfortably playing at ΒΌ of the limit I safely could be at. In the long run I think it's better that way.
For a while, before my bad streak, I had a few times the bankroll necessary for $100/$200 sitting in my Neteller account and only played it a few times. In the long run I could probably make more money by being more adventurous, but I can barely maintain sanity dealing with the fluctuations of $30/$60. In the long run mental health is simply more important to me.
Posted by themaroon at January 27, 2007 4:57 PM
Comments
right the online poker scene has changed dramatically. I feel that in some cases the losing streaks for many of the formerly winning players may be due to the fact that the games online are significantly harder that they once were -- in LIMIT. The demise of party poker i think really killed this cash cow.
the NO limit games seem to be still fairly soft. Hopefully, the demise of Neteller won't kill the NL game.
Posted by: anon at January 28, 2007 2:55 AM
Your apostraphes are messed up.
Posted by: John at January 28, 2007 5:57 PM
This is one of your better posts in my opinion. I am a stud player (Stud, 8 or B, Razz), although I do play mixed games as well. I have also experienced some significant losing streaks, but I always drop down a level or two and worked through it. Before the year 2000, I had played live 3-4 days a week regularly and never had a bad run that was anywhere near 100,000 hands. Since 2000, I have played stud online and I have only had (1) really bad streak which was at $10-20 in 2004 and lasted for about 30,000 hands. Bounced back by playing lower levels and never looked back. What are your thoughts on stud variance as opposed to Hold'em (both Limit and NL).
Posted by: SCSTWG at January 29, 2007 11:36 PM
From what I've heard games with communal cards are typically lower variance than games where the cards aren't shared. That makes a lot of sense. I won't go into why since it is already well-covered in poker literature, but the theory sounds solid to m.
So my guess is that a limit stud game would be higher variance than a limit hold'em game. A no-limit or pot-limit stud game, if such a thing exists, might be lower variance than limit hold'em but I'm not sure of that. I have way too few stud hands to make any first-hand conclusions.
Also a hold'em player sees more hands per hour than a player at pretty much all other games, and in reality your hourly rate is what is most important since time is the one thing you have a very limited amount of. So if you really want to make big bucks at poker, hold'em is probably the game. Of course there are other reasons for playing poker and therefore valid reasons for playing other games, but in terms of straight profit potential on a given bankroll and assuming equal talent at all games no-limit hold'em cash games currently appear to be the nuts.
Posted by: Matthew Maroon at January 30, 2007 3:33 AM
Hi Matt,
You write:
"no-limit hold'em cash games currently appear to be the nuts."
Any thoughts on online tournaments?
Seems to me pretty difficult to extract regular earnings from them. Maybe your experience is different.
Posted by: Francois at January 30, 2007 11:19 AM