The rule of thumb I hear is 300BB in order to play at a certian limit.

Is this a hard fast rule that should be followed without question.......a simple guideline.....what?

Should everyone have
$300 at .50/$1
$600 at 1/2
$1200 at 2/4
$1800 at 3/6...........etc....etc....etc.

Is there a huge difference in play at the lower levels on Empire/Party? I'm approaching a low limit level jump and planned on waiting until I got the full 300BB before actually making the move but got to thinking that maybe I should just make the jump now if the play is sooo similar. If you get exactly 300BB to move up and lose on your first session do you move back down or once you reach that level do you have to take a "significant" hit to your roll before you move back down a level?

Just curious how others have decided when the "right time" to move up was.

Thoughts?.........Comments?

On a side note.......Happy Holidays to all!

Baz

If it was me then I would wait until I hit the next amount before I moved up. If i was on $580 then I would keep playing until I hit or went past the $600 level before moving to 1/2. If you have these sorts of targets then I think it's quite important to surpass them because it gives you added confidence that you've actually achieved your target.

As for dropping back down if you start to take some hits to your roll. I think if you lost perhaps half of the difference between limits you should consider dropping back. For example your roll is $600 and you lose $150 then I would consider dropping back down to .50/1 and building up again.

I think an important factor is to never be afraid to drop back down. If your taking significant hits then by dropping back and building up will also help to regain your confidence and belief. If you keep playing at the same level you may find your game is changing because you start chasing your loses.

This is only my opinion. I'm more of a SnG person and follow different guidlines, but, I hope it can be of some help to clarify things in your own mind.

I dont play limit so I wont comment on the bankroll size. The one thing I want to comment on is dropping back down. There is no shame in dropping back down whatsoever. When I was climbing the NL stakes ladder from the $5 NL game, every time I moved up, I lost at first and had to move back down temporarily. There are a number of reasons why I lost at first every time I moved up.
1) Some of the players were better but this was a very very minor contriubuting factor
2) I was intimidated
3) As I moved to the next higher stakes, I always assumed that the players were better and trickier and I always ended up making bad calls thinking I was getting bluffed. Very few of them were better than I was even back then early in my career, but I wasnt playing my game because I was out of my element and tried to adjust when it wasnt needed, which DID make them better than me.
4) The amounts of money made me play too cautiously at times

Even now I play anwhere from $100NL up to $1000NL. I dont feel like a failure or anything just because Im playing $100NL on any given day. When Im playing lower stakes, Im playing it for a variety of reasons, from I feel like playing stress free...to...the risk / reward ratio is higher because the players are so bad...to...I may be coming off a bad streak and want to book a couple winning sessions before talking the higher stakes again.
Also, the 300BB rule is used so you wont ever go completely broke, but it IS possible to lose 300BBs even if youre a good player. By dropping back down at a set time (say at 150BBs or whatever you decide on), then you can NEVER go broke.

Thanks Iceman, it is encouraging to hear you talk about working your way up from the $5 NLHE tables. I recently started playing very low buy in NL games, and was having trouble believing that it would even help me later at the higher stakes tables.

"Also, the 300BB rule is used so you wont ever go completely broke, but it IS possible to lose 300BBs even if youre a good player. By dropping back down at a set time (say at 150BBs or whatever you decide on), then you can NEVER go broke." [quote]


This is very good advice Iceman. I have recently taken up 2/4 limit on Party Poker after playing PLO for a couple of months. I consider myself a pretty good limit player; I spent over a year playing low limits at the crypto sites, and I was a consistent winner. At the moment I am OVER 300 BB's down at 2/4 over a lot of hands. I have had some very useful feedback on my play and it has been agreed that I should be a winning player. It's an amazing streak of bad cards and bad luck but it shows that it CAN happen.

I'm lucky to be in the position, from the last year of playing, that I don't have to worry about the bankroll so I am able to stick it out at this level. If I was losing because of the way I was playing, and my confidence was getting knocked, I would move down and build back up. However, I am playing well and still feel confident at this level (this run hasn't affected my aggression). The last couple of sessions have been better (although in the latest one I was over $100 down and then came back to be $9 up - crazy stuff!).

When I first started playing seriously I used to think, after a poor run of luck, that a good run was around the corner. So, for example, if I had lost 150 BB I would 'know' that the good luck was coming to even it out - so I didn't need to worry about bankroll/moving down a limit. This, of course, isn't correct; once you have lost 150 BB's luck behaves in the same way as before you lost it! Luck doesn't play properly! It won't say "I've caused Martin to lose here - I'd better even it out". It should always be remembered that a bad run could theoretically go on forever. Therefore, if your whole bankroll is the 300BB, it is ESSENTIAL to move down when you hit 150/200 BB's. This provides the most security that you will never go broke.


Thanks,

Martin

If the money is easily replaced by a second income...then 300 BB isn't so much a nessicity on the lower limits. Someone posted on here recently, a link to a Mike Caro chart that showed this fact. Mike Caro leaned towards a shorter bankroll to build up in the lower limits then advocated a much bigger bankroll for the higher limits...that makes sense to me if you can replace a few hundred dollars without much of a problem.

Thanks alot for the suggestions and info......appreciate it.

I think I'll stick with my goal of 300BB for the lower limits and evaluate what I think I'd be comfortable with at the upper limits when I get there.

I have a couple things to add here. 300BB is a good rule of thumb, but I believe a good, tight limit holdem player can move up at 250BB if he/she feels comfortable. However, Omaha is a higher variance game so 300 to 350 is more appropriate, IMO. And by all means, if you lose confidence, move back down for awhile.

300BB is just an approximation that gives a decent player a relatively low risk of ruin (given typical earn rates and variance). Angel mentions it in his bankroll & std deviation article: http://livepokerforum.com/bankroll-stan ... age43.html

So 200BB might give you a 1% risk of ruin and 300BB might give you a 0.1% risk of ruin -- in both cases you'll survive most of the time, so it's just a matter of acceptable risk of failure. Also, those calculations don't take into account dropping down in limits, so if you're willing and able to do that then you can pick a lower number.

Having just survived a 100BB downswing, 300BB seems easily within the realm of possibility to me.

Well, I bear the proud distinction of losing 150BBs in one session... Although that was multitabling short handed, so i dunno if that counts...Still, a 3k loss in a single night sucks balls.

Single tabling in a single live session i have lost 100BBs on a few occasions. (Wild games, / short games where i couldnt catch ANYTHING, etc.) And, i think that in the local B&M 10-20 game i actually have gone on about a 300BB losing streak (It was all profits though, but still).

I mean, maybe its my style of play, but when i start running absolutely dismally, i lose a lot, because i dont change my style depending on how im running, my philsophy being that my style is a winning one for me, and i just gotta keep on truckin. Unfortunately, persisting in a LAGgy style when you cannot ever make a hand results in some pretty crappy stuff happening. But, there have been a lot of sessions where i win 100BBs, and online multi tabling short handed, i have won 200BBs+ in a session (once only i think i managed that one) so it goes both ways.

Whether i have had an actual 300BB swing, i am not positive, but I am pretty damn sure i have. I think the 300BB rule though isnt geared very much toward a player whose multi-tabling limit short handed though. For the level i play at, i have about 1000BB, so i have never come close to going broke but i can honestly say the 300bb rule wouldve seen me busted (pretty shure). Point being, Ken is right when he says that 300BBs is definitely not the 'magic number' at which you cannot go broke, i dont think.

not to hijack but....

did you just call me "ken?"