I currently think that 50x max buy-in is an acceptable bankroll to single table ring games although I know that some people might consider that to be a little bit aggressive.
I was doing well the other night on one table although I was fairly card dead and opened a second table to relieve some of the boredom. Still card dead so I opened a third table. It’s no big deal with my bankroll if I lose most of it so I wasn’t thinking about BRM at the time.
I’m curious now how you view BRM if you are a regular multi-tabler? Do you think I should be bankrolled separately for each table that I want to play? eg. Should I have 100x buy-ins to play 2 tables, 150x buy-ins for 3 tables?
I think 50x max buy in is actually very much on the conservative side, especially if you consider that we’re usually able to buy in for at least 200 big blinds on tables here. The usual advice you see floating around is 20x max buy in, and that normally assumes a 100 big blind max buy in.
As you multi table, especially if you are already adopting a more conservative bank roll management strategy, I don’t think you need to worry too much about modifying your limits, as playing many tables at the same time is not really different from just playing one table for longer, assuming your standard of play does not suffer too much when you play on more tables. I actually find I generally do better playing multiple tables: I think I tend to get fancy play syndrome more when playing on only a single table, and tend to be more patient and simple in my play when multi tabling, which doesn’t sound like it should help that much, but in the environment we have here at Replay, it seems to.
My rule in general has also been on the very conservative side: I start playing at a higher level once I get a bank roll that is 100x my current highest level table. Also, when I first move up, I don’t multi table, so that I can focus on taking more notes and getting a feel for how the level plays differently. Once I’ve grown my bank roll 20 to 30% over the minimum threshold I needed to start playing, then I’ll start to experiment with a 2nd, and eventually a 3rd table (but I’ll still mostly play 3 tables at one level below).
You can safely manage bank roll without being that conservative, but this has worked well for me:
It gives me time to adjust my play to the new patterns I’m seeing. I think some players also play differently at different levels. You might see someone that is a maniac at a lower level, but then becomes a complete nit at significantly higher stakes.
It give me time to simply savor the experience at a particular level. These are play chips… this kind of stretches out the experience.
It helps to manage volatility by managing tilt. If you take a bad beat and lose 30% of your bank roll, that’s quite a bit tougher to take than the same beat that costs you 1% of your bank roll. And for those prone to tilt, you are often then prone to abandon your normal rules of bank roll management, and that can greatly exacerbate volatility, and often put your whole bank roll at risk.
I’ve never broke the bank in 20 years of doing this with both play money and real. So for me at least, it works.
Many thanks @Yorunoame ! … I tried to reply directly to your post but it comes up as a separate post!
It’s interesting that you think I’m conservative lol … that’s fine, it works for me at the lower levels as I’m trying, yet again, to climb the greasy ranking pole!
I have a bad habit of playing far too loose and aggressive (stupid LAG) when I’m card dead and have previously found that multi-tabling takes away some of that particular problem.
Thanks for the advice about moving up. I was thinking along those lines already: single table for a few sessions until I get a “feel” for the environment and determine if I am able to win somewhat regularly and then 2 and finally 3 tables.
I know there are only small changes in the player types at the low stakes tables, there’s nearly as many aggressive fish at 25/50 as there are at 1/2, but there are some incremental changes and I am trying to be conservative in this respect also.
I would just second @Yorunoame 's points. 20x max buy in seems to be plenty but it depends on your play style and edge. I’d say that even going up to 50k/100k it would be ok to bring like 10 max buy ins (200m). I’ve never gone broke but I’ve lost half my bankroll on 2 occasions from trying to play 100k/200k against top 10 players with only 200m to 400m to begin the session.
To be honest, there just isn’t a lot that most opponents here do that should lead to you getting stacked. Most of the time I get stacked it’s from my own bluffs. It’s easy enough to fold when most players get aggressive unless it’s a major cooler, so it’s tough to imagine losing 20+ buy ins in a row. I’m on a 350m downswing, but 200m was from one session of 500k/1m so I’m down like 7 max buy ins (from 50k/100k and 100k/200k) total. And that is my worst ever downswing in terms of total buy ins. So I’d say 20 max buy ins would be plenty even multi tabling 4x.
LOL… I drink and play from time to time, also, and I must say, I think over all I’m quite a bit more likely to have a bad session after I’ve been drinking.
However, I think my play diverges into a few major streams when drunk:
I go on auto pilot: I just make all of my most standard plays without thinking much about anything. I play fast, and I generally do fine.
I decide to invent an entirely new style of poker. An example of this was a few years back, when, after a few drinks, I thought it might be interesting to see what happened if I fired an over bet on every street of every hand until someone fired back with a raise, and then just repeat that every hand for a few hundred hands to see how it might go. Err… I think you can guess how that ended up, LOL.