BRM for Cash Games? Savings?

I'd like to share my opinion since I started here with $50 on nl2 few years ago...

I'm fairly tight BRM wise myself, I hate moving down. I prefer to crush a limit and go to the next.

NL2-10: 20x BRM is good
NL20-25: 35x BRM
NL50-100: 50x BRM

I personally never thought of keeping extra buyins to cash out or something untill I reached NL25/50.

PS suggest x25 but when you move up to nl10+ you increase this.
As you move up the limits i suggest ragney's idea is fine.Or at least when i reach a new limit for example i open only one table and if i win i slowly add my 6tabling game.

I will never mix my personal money with poker.And my dream is to cash out my half earnings each month (this has to be over 300-500$ meaning i must win 600-1000$ at least).

Well, first it depends on the stake, site, and if it's FR or 6max

I play only FR right now and I'm confortable playing with just 20 BI's up to NL1000 at weak sites.
But my regular grind is NL100 and NL200, so I have a way more BI's to this one.

Savings: if you want to play poker fulltime, you should care more of trying to improve your game, not the bad runs you will suffer due variance. At FR if you know your opponents well you can make some big laydowns (for example a KK pf fold), so I dont always cry for "coolers" when it happens, most players cry a lot of coolers, but in fact they could have folded or played it better. So, 2 months is huge savings management for me I guess.

Just avoid PokerStars and you should be fine with 20 BI's for FR and 30 BI's for 6max. (assuming you play like 4-10 tables, if you play more, you need more, of course)

Sorry for my English and hope it helps,

Peace and good luck at the tables

Originally posted by pleno1
Hey,

So what does PokerStrategy.com think good BRM is? How many buy ins do we generally keep for cash games? I potentially play way over-rolled so just want to get some opinions from others.

Also if you play full time (i dont) how many years savings should you have put away for a rainy day? 6 months, 1 year, 5 years, 10 years?

100 BI
6 months

Just my gut instinct. The lower your level of savings, the more of a BR cushion you need. The easier it would be for you to find adequate alternative paid employment, the lower savings and BR you might reasonably be willing to accept.

Originally posted by aleeebr

Just avoid PokerStars and you should be fine with 20 BI's for FR and 30 BI's for 6max. (assuming you play like 4-10 tables, if you play more, you need more, of course)

Could someone explain that?

Originally posted by Reiver

Originally posted by aleeebr

Just avoid PokerStars and you should be fine with 20 BI's for FR and 30 BI's for 6max. (assuming you play like 4-10 tables, if you play more, you need more, of course)

Could someone explain that?

He probably isn't table selecting. Stars has the most fish of all sites (also most regs). Just find the fishes.

And all regs NL10 and below are just bad, else they wouldn't be playing it right?

Mostly it depends on how many tables u play. For 24 tabling I'd recommend 100bi, especially if u play nl200 and higher. I had some 50bi swings there. 25bi daily swings were pretty common ♦ 24 tabling really increases variance because your wr is much lower. For something like 12 tabling or less 40-50bi should be enough IMO. For micros 20-30 is enough if u crush that limit.

Don't know about savings, I usually have something for 6 months or maybe a year. I just haven't experienced downswing longer than a month because I'm a huge box, so I don't care that and much. OFC I hope not to experience it ♦

P.S. if u play mtts, 500bi downswings happens there, so cg players shouldn't worry about swings at all;)

1st question: it depends

2nd question:

6 months of savings seems to be a good amount before starting your own business and quitting your job, and I would advise the same for playing poker for a living.

I might also add that it's wise to have a separate, emergency fund from which you can pay unexpected costs like a car breaking down etc.

-SF

Very interesting thoughts.

My own opinion is 50bis for cash and 3-5 years savings in an ideal world. With 3 separate bankrolls. Life, loving, grinding.

I personally have almost 100 buy-ins for my level at the moment, but imo, in today's game I think 50 should suffice just fine. If you don't want to move up it's prob better to at least invest the rest of the money in something else, not like 50 BI downswings are common. 1 year in savings sounds about right as well

Originally posted by Reiver

Originally posted by aleeebr

Just avoid PokerStars and you should be fine with 20 BI's for FR and 30 BI's for 6max. (assuming you play like 4-10 tables, if you play more, you need more, of course)

Could someone explain that?

Well, I mean, nl100+ pretty full of regs ( and a lot of regs )
I dont care if the regs are good or not, they're all exploitable in some way. The thing is, that if you play in a smaller pool, you can study the regs after the session and make notes, on stars that's not a great option, if you play like 6-8 hours, this should be a huge work. About the fishes, the fishes on stars aren't terrible as other smaller sites. Conclusion is that on stars you dont have so much edge like other sites, so you need a bigger BRM.

IMO, that works for me. I crush them pretty hard LOL

And on which site do you play?

Originally posted by pleno1
With 3 separate bankrolls. Life, loving, grinding.

So... food, poker, hookers? ♠_cool:

As TT always says, BRM is totally dependent on your personal financial/poker balance.

Personally, I work fulltime so don't really need to withdraw + I 'm willing to redeposit if necessary. Only when limits get higher, a 10 BI swing becomes substantial amount of money so my BRM becomes nittier.

NL50 and below: 10 BI
NL100: 20 BI
NL200: 30 BI
NL400+: 50 BI

This looks like good BRM to me. I 'll try to stick to it from now on!

I've always been using 30 BIs for cash games but my coach recently told me I can use somthing like 15-20 BIs up until like 100NL.

Most traders would agree that risking more than 2% of your capital on a single trade is not a very good idea. 2% is ok, some go as far as .5%. I think 2% is fine. The big risk is in breaking the rule, not so much the rule itself.

I think it's a good idea to have a looser BRM when in the micros so one gets familiar with moving up and most importantly DOWN limits. As long as you have your rule and you don't break it, be it 15-50 buyins then you will be fine. I t's the breaking the rule that will cause problems. Being uncomfortable moving down after a rough period when ones BRM no longer applies is no doubt the downfall of many.

.

The best advice I ever got with trading, was to when having some good times, or a windfall period, put away some money. Don't go stupid with it, spending or increasing your size. Sometimes you are lucky and things comes together and you can easily fall into the trap that things will always be that easy. They won't.

Originally posted by jules97
The best advice I ever got with trading, was to when having some good times, or a windfall period, put away some money. Don't go stupid with it, spending or increasing your size. Sometimes you are lucky and things comes together and you can easily fall into the trap that things will always be that easy. They won't.

I don't know anything about trading but I consider this bad advice when you apply it to poker. I recently had a big upswing followed by an even bigger downswing. If I had cashed out prior to the downswing, I would have been forced to move down limits and thus have a lower hourly winrate --> -EV decision.

if i ever live off poker i'd probably follow leatherass' rule of 100BI + 6months living costs (iirc)

also you're idea of 3 separate rolls is good i think once you reach a certain point it's good to treat yourself from poker and buy yourself stuff and enjoy yourself. just to remind yourself it isn't all just for a load of numbers on the screen

10 bi @all levels + sick heater = ♦