{"id":5005,"date":"2009-10-24T09:33:27","date_gmt":"2009-10-24T14:33:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.paulryburn.com\/blog\/?p=5005"},"modified":"2009-10-24T09:33:27","modified_gmt":"2009-10-24T14:33:27","slug":"reader-question-isnt-online-poker-terribly-risky","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.paulryburn.com\/blog\/2009\/10\/24\/reader-question-isnt-online-poker-terribly-risky\/","title":{"rendered":"Reader question: “Isn’t online poker terribly risky?”"},"content":{"rendered":"

I got this question in e-mail and want to address it.<\/p>\n

“I know you have a lot of fun playing poker online, but isn’t it terribly risky?\u00a0 I’m not doubting you’re a skilled player, but everyone gets dealt bad cards some of the time.\u00a0 Aren’t you worried you’ll lose big and wipe out all your winnings since you started playing?\u00a0 I’d hate to see you lose so much that you can’t afford to pay your rent, or worse, pay for the Fire Sale at the Saucer.”<\/em><\/p>\n

Good question.\u00a0 The key to limiting risk at poker is what’s known as bankroll management<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Your bankroll<\/strong> is the amount of money currently sitting in your online account.\u00a0 It can be as small or large as you want, depending on how much you’re willing to invest in your hobby.\u00a0 As of this morning my bankroll on PokerStars sits at $507.83.<\/p>\n

When deciding what games to play, I apply bankroll management rules that are slightly modified from what poker pro Chris Ferguson uses.\u00a0 My rules are as follows, and I’m going to round my bankroll down to $500 for these examples to keep the math easy:<\/p>\n

\n
I can bring a maximum of 5% of my bankroll to the table for any cash ring game where the blinds are fixed.\u00a0 5% of $500 is $25, so I can buy into cash ring games up to $25.\u00a0 That means I can buy in for 100 big blinds (the maximum usually allowed) on 10 cent small blind\/25 cent big blind games.\u00a0 If I’m feeling froggy I can step up to the 25 cent\/50 cent tables and buy in for 50 big blinds.\u00a0 Theoretically I could buy into 50 cent\/$1 ring games for the minimum of 20 big blinds, but I never like to buy into tables for the minimum.<\/li>\n
If I start winning big at a cash ring game, if at any point my stack exceeds 10% of my total bankroll, I have to get up and leave before the blinds hit me in the next round.\u00a0 So, in my current situation, if I found myself at a table with a stack of $55, I’d have to leave because it would be approximately 10% of the $555 total I would then have.<\/li>\n
I can pay a maximum of 5% of my total bankroll to enter a single-table (up to 10 players) Sit’n’Go tournament.\u00a0 So again, $25 is the maximum I can pay to play a SnG.<\/li>\n
I can pay a maximum of 2% of my total bankroll to enter a multi-table (11 to tens of thousands of players) tournament.\u00a0 2% of $500 is $10, so $10 is the max for me.\u00a0 There’s a lot more variance due to luck in the large tournaments, so you have to put less of your roll at risk.<\/li>\n
Exception 1:\u00a0 I can buy into any cash ring game for $1 or less regardless of my bankroll.\u00a0 So, no matter how bad I’m doing, I’m always allowed to bring 50 big blinds to a 1 cent small blind\/2 cent big blind table.<\/li>\n
Exception 2:\u00a0 I can buy into any single-table Sit’n’Go tournament for up to $1 regardless of my bankroll.<\/li>\n
There is no lower-limit exception for multi-table tournaments.\u00a0 If I want to play one of those and the 2% rule doesn’t allow it, I have to enter freeroll tournaments.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Following these rules ensures that I never have too much of my bankroll at risk at any one time.\u00a0 Yeah it sucks to be playing 25 cent big blind tables when I’d rather be sitting next to Daniel Negreanu at the $25 big blind tables, but that’s where I am in the evolution of my poker skills and bankroll.\u00a0 Also, there’s an advantage to the lower-limit games – there are a lot more fish (bad players) there, from whom it’s easy to win money if you know basic hold’em strategies.<\/p>\n
While we’re on the subject of poker, last night was frustrating.\u00a0 I was too tired to go out, so I stayed home and entered a 1000-person, $4 + 40 cent entry fee multi-table tournament.\u00a0 Top 104 finishes paid out, with first place getting $750.\u00a0 After three hours I got dealt pocket Jacks in the big blind and raised all-in after no one else put in a pre-flop raise, figuring it was a good opportunity to build my stack (which was rather small at the time) so I could legitimately challenge for that first place prize.\u00a0 Everyone folded around to the small blind, who called me with 7-9 (this is an example of the bad players you’ll find at low buy-in games).\u00a0 The flop came up 2-7-7.\u00a0 Just my luck.\u00a0 No help on the turn or river, and I finished in 106th place.\u00a0 TWO SPOTS away from the money.\u00a0 I shouldn’t have gone all-in with those Jacks at that stage of the tournament.\u00a0 Oh well.\u00a0 At least I only lost $4.40.\u00a0 There will be another tournament anytime I’m ready for one.\u00a0 That’s what’s great about online poker.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I got this question in e-mail and want to address it. “I know you have a lot of fun playing poker online, but isn’t it terribly risky?\u00a0 I’m not doubting you’re a skilled player, but everyone gets dealt bad cards some of the time.\u00a0 Aren’t you worried you’ll lose big and wipe out all your … Continue reading “Reader question: “Isn’t online poker terribly risky?””<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paulryburn.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5005"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paulryburn.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paulryburn.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paulryburn.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paulryburn.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5005"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.paulryburn.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5005\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5007,"href":"http:\/\/www.paulryburn.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5005\/revisions\/5007"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paulryburn.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5005"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paulryburn.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5005"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paulryburn.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5005"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}