Its hard to believe it’s been a few years since I original posted this bankroll article! Where does the time go? Between going back to work in Physical Therapy, getting married and then dealing with Covid. Its been a busy few years lol. Seems like a blur now, both good times and bad, but are things finally getting back to “normal”. So with things settling down and Covid finally allowing poker rooms to slowly open up fully, it seems like a perfect time to get back into the poker grind!
Returning to poker is exciting stuff, but things are different this go round! Having a family and extra responsibilities now means being extra strict with the Bankroll! No more firing away bullet after bullet in tourneys or losing stack after stack on cash games. (Weekend benders at the casino prob aren’t gonna go over very well either I bet lol) So what better way to get back into it than to revisit the challenges I gave myself a few years ago, that I never fully quite finished 🙂 lol I still think the 2/20/200 bankroll plan is solid and will serve me well as I slowly start grinding it out. I will mostly be the online poker life, but hopefully get some small live tourneys and cash games in time.
So without further ado, here is the full article I wrote for Casino World Magazine back in 2018. I’ll post the full original article to refresh everyone’s memory(including mine) of my thought process and things that lead me to come up with the challenge in the first place! I’ll highlight some revisions I have that I think will help keep me in line and minimize my degen tendencies! Hopefully I’ve learned a thing or two in the last few years lol
2/20/200 An experiment in Bank Roll Management
by 2Fit2Fold
“No respect”
“You have to have ZERO respect for money when you play tournament poker!” This was the advice I received after busting a recent tourney. I was reviewing(venting 😉 with a friend, a better and more experienced player, when he was quick to hit me with this line. We were going over a particular series of hands from a big live tourney in which I went from nursing a short stack for hours, to a sudden heater that propelled me up to chip leader at the table. It was a 4-5 hands blitz that had left me with heaps of chips, but then on the 6th hand a found myself in a gross spot that could have (and probably should have) resulted in getting those new found chips all in! As I discussed the hand history, I mentioned to him that I felt the urge to “save” the chips I had just finally acquired, after so patiently waiting all day! He immediately was no longer concerned with the hand history and went right into questioning my mindset and bankroll. “If you want to be a great poker player, you have to have ZERO respect for a dollar when you play poker…as bad as it sounds, it’s true and unfortunately, that’s why so many people become degenerates!” Yikes, straight to the point and brutally honest, but exactly I needed to hear! Suddenly, this seemingly basic hand history review had turned into an explosion of questions about the inner workings of my game! Why was I fearful to lose those chips? Had I been playing scared?
Have I been letting the money effect my decisions?
The hand history itself was past around and I received several different viewpoints on it, but to this day, I’m still unsure what the correct play was, regardless, the more important point was made, maybe THE most important point of my whole poker career!? I think we’ve all heard that phrase about being numb to the money in poker. Win or lose, you can’t let the thought of what that money means to you in the real world influence your decisions at the table. All that should matter in the moment is making the correct play. If you bust, you bust. If it’s a tourney you just re-buy or play the next flight. In a cash game you simply reload at the table and move on the the next hand. It’s just standard practice for almost every player I know, myself included. Hell a few times I’ve witnessed friends fire over 10 bullets at a single tournament, with buy-ins ranging from $150 to $1650! I’ve also watched as they reach into their backpacks for another brick of hundreds after getting stacked for the 5th or 6th time. While I’m sure it seems absurd to most normal people,(and it should be) unfortunately for us poker players, that’s kinda just the way it goes sometimes. We chalked it up to variance, running bad, or being unlucky. We just call it a “standard” part of the game and move on. We aren’t being degens, the run bad is REAL, right?! lol
Everything Burns…
When I see that picture of money burning, I think of that painful scene of giant heaps being lit a blaze by Joker in Batman:The Dark Knight. Now maybe I’m just a comic book geek, but I see it as a pretty great a comparison to a degenerate poker player! Besides the obvious connection to stop burning through money, it really about the delusional mindset the Joker has driving him. Now I’m not saying all poker players are Bat shit crazy like he is (see what I did there?!;)) What I am saying is that in HIS mind, he is %100 right about what he’s doing. That for sure applies to poker players! How many players do you know that think they are Fedor Holz, when in reality they are just a luck-box that couldn’t beat your grandma! The point is that many players, myself included, can sometimes convinced themselves they can and SHOULD be winning, no matter what. They grind away and fire bullet after bullet into a game, without thinking, claiming they are losing because they are unlucky in one way or another, never really taking the time to really prove to themselves that hey can honestly beat the game! While it is very important to believe in yourself, you have to check your ego and check the score board; aka your bankroll! We should all have the utmost confidence in ourselves at the tables, but we have go to accept the times we get beat! There’s no shame it it, we have literally ALL been there! No one started playing poker having already mastered the game, even Fedor! (although I think he’s prob gotten their the fastest!) There have been plenty of times I let my competitive nature and ambition cloud my judgement, leading to poor decisions on and off the tables. Gotta completely leave that self delusional Ego out of it! If we are delusionally blind to our failures, how can we ever improve ourselves to become winning players?
So where am I going with all this and why am I hurting you by showing you cash being burned for no reason! Am I a pyro!? Am I a sadist? While that last part might be true, after all, I am a poker player!! While we are all a bunch of sickos that apparently love our abusive game, I believe there’s hope in the simple messages of “not burning money” and “no respect for money”. I think we can takes these and apply them to our poker games and to our life in positive ways. Let me explain how I’m going to apply all this to what I’m going to be doing in the several months of my poker journey and maybe I can help make sense of it all! At the very least, I hope we can all try and learn from my mistakes
It’s NOT about the money!
Don’t listen to the jokers telling you otherwise, its always about the money! Of course, being the best poker player you can be should be the ultimate goal for any seriously player but at the end of the day, it’s about making money. It’s what makes the poker economy go round and it shows who are the REAL winners in this game. I’m talking long term, not just the random tournament winner who just ran insanely well. Anyone can luckbox their way to a tourney win, and many can be “winners” in the game short term. I’m talking about being a player who knows how to be successful and profitable for the long haul. If you play professionally, this is critical, you need to be earning and saving money to support yourself and possibly your family. You can’t be blowing through 10 buy-ins every weekend, when that money could have been your mortgage payment! It may not be as serious for you if you’re a recreational player, but not making money still means you’re not WINNING and what’s the point of competing if you can’t WIN? So no matter if you’re Professional grinder or weekend Recreational player, the question should still be; What separates a typical “poker player” and from being a true Gambler. Where do we draw the line? Are we being financially irresponsible or making sound poker decisions?! Or have we gotten to the point that the lines are too blurred to tell?!
After continuing to hear my friends advice repeat in my head every time I’ve sat down to play since that day… I realized I had to take a l hard look in the mirror and ask myself; Am I a poker player or am I a DEGEN? I mean I like to think I’m still pretty tame compared to a lot of players out there. Never being THAT out of control, but I’ve clearly made my share of mistakes. I’ve re-bought when I knew I shouldn’t, I’ve played above my means, played in bad games, played too many games at once, etc. You name it, I’m sure I’ve done it at some point, but at least I’m finally here asking, why did I do it? Have I been making the correct plays every time and just getting unlucky or have I been blind to my errors and just convinced myself what i was doing was “standard” !? Why it has taken me this long to really stop and think about it!? To realize something needs to change? So many questions and only one answer comes to my mind…Bankroll Management. The problem and the solution are the same. For me, sound decision making in poker should start with sound Bank Roll Management. Also it’s the only real thing I can control to prove to myself that I’m a winning player.
Challenge yourself…
Ok so by this point your probably saying “I know poker players are a little crazy Tim, I’m one of them, now what’s your point!?” The point is you have to take a very difficult look at yourself and figure out if you’re being delusional about your abilities as a player. It means asking yourself, What am I doing wrong and how do I fix it!? It means No re-buying to get revenge against the player who gave me a bad beat. No playing all night just to “get unstuck”. No playing beyond my means. For me it means going back to the “drawing board”, starting back at the bottom and proving to myself I can grind it up. It’s bankroll challenge time!
2/20/200
So what bankroll management strategies can I use to keep things under control and prove it to myself that I can make money at this game, without “worrying” about the money at the tables? If you search through the poker websites or the MANY poker books out there, you will see A LOT of different views on proper bankroll. Bank roll guidelines vary widely, I’ve seen recommendations go from 20 to 80 buy-ins for cash games (including 6-max) and 50 to 500 buy-ins for tournaments!!! There are a lot of factors that come into play, so it’s up to you to figure out your own best fit for what you’re trying to accomplish. I personally like to keep things simply and possibly a lil’ OCD 😉 so I’ve planned to use a 2/20/200 theme for my challenge. All the number have specific multiple meanings, while keeping things basic and to the point. 2 is for 2k, the amount I’ll be using as my first goal for my online bankroll. Trying to run up $200 to $2000 playing micros both tourney, and cash. 2 is also the amount of rebuys I’m allowed for any tournament and amount of buy-ins I’ll use to measure any cash games played. If I lose 2 extra buy-ins in cash games or fire 2 extra bullets in a tourney, I’m done. Also, I’ll quit and if I’m up 2 buy-ins in a cash game. This way I lock up the win and the extra cash. This might be leaving value at the table, but personally, I believe this will be a healthier mentality and lead to a more profitable poker sessions in the long run. Additionally I’ll will only be able to move up levels when I fully double, 2X’ing the entire bankroll. (This will be more of a micro stakes cash game rule for the start of the challenge, but a decent general rule over all) The basic idea being to start out as small as possible and grind our way up from as little as possible, say even $20, and ONLY play bigger as the bankroll grows. Depositing no more money into the bankroll and playing with only winnings will ensure I’m playing within my means and in the proper mindset. The long term plan will be to run $20 to $200 then to 2k and eventually all the way 20k. I’ll be doing the online grind twitch streaming as an IntertopsPoker site only challenge, but more on that in a minute.
So 20 is the next number of our theme, 20(20000) will be not only be the number I hope to reach for the challenge, it will be my starting bankroll for live play (Will also be using this for online but in a much more conservative fashion , for example one bullet at Intertops Sunday Sundowner once a week). 20K seems like a generous amount to be an average players BR, but as I’ll show you, this is pretty limiting to most regular grinders for sure. 20 will also be the absolute lowest amount of big blinds I can have If I bust a tourney and want to Re-buy. So if re-buying after a bad beat, cooler, or misplayed hand the starting stack must be at least 20 big blinds or it’s “on to the next one”. 20 will also be my bankroll minimum amount of buy-ins for both live and online cash game play! Anytime I have less then that I’ll drop levels and, keeping with the same protocol, I will only be able to go up levels when I double the 20 buy-in rule for any cash games as well. (Again, I’ll this will have to be more of a general rule for the early stages of this plan, as a consistently doubling the roll will exponentially harder the higher we go lol) So while my main online goal will be attempting to run up $200 to 2k then all the way to 20k, my Live poker goal will be taking the 20k and using strict bankroll management to turn it into 200k! This could prove to be very difficult with these guidelines and the nature of live poker variance, but it think it will be a fun challenge and I know I will learn a lot throughout the process.
So 200 is last last number in this BR management theme, and while it has the fewest meanings, I think it also looks to be the most challenging of three. As I said earlier I’m going to do it by using a 200 buy-in minimum for ALL tournaments, both live and online. With recommendations going from as low as 50 buy ins to as high as 500 buy ins, a lot of factors came into play for choosing 200, but overall I felt this was a solid “middle ground”. This might sound absurdly high to some and scarily low to others, and that’s fine, to each their own. When it really comes down to it, you have got to do what works best for you and YOUR individual situation. I feel like 200 buy ins will be very limiting for live tournaments, (obviously not so much online) as that leaves me to $100 tourneys and lower to start, but that’s kind of the point for now anyway. But given that even the smallest rings events for WSOP circuits are $365, it does force a serious and immediate downgrade. I will most like stick to cash games for a while, at least until I have enough to play at a more significant level, but would still be quite content grinding the occasional <$100 daily tourney! And of course, if I really can’t resist the temptation, there’s always the options of playing satellites or selling action for bigger tournament events! When I previously wrote this I wasn’t thinking about so many of the earlier morning satellites that run before events like WSOP series. I think these would fit nicely with the goals of the challenge and keep more in line with my “real life” schedule so I play more optimally, i.e. not staying up all night playing lol Another 200 number just recently came into the plan as I learned quickly I couldn’t handle the downswings of what was a “typical” online poker session. So I’ve added $200 as the “cap” on the days session for buy-ins and losses. That way, at least for now, I can limit the variance and keep myself mentally “ok” with the loss of money. I will have to reassess this as we go, but overall think its a good rule of thumb.
So keeping with the theme of 2s, I’ll be starting this challenge off June 2nd 2021 Live sessions will unfortunately most likely still be few and far between for sometime, but they will eventually consist of cash games and the occasional tournament or two at the local casinos in Oklahoma; Winstar and Choctaw. The majority of this challenge will be played streaming live on Twitch almost entirely on Intertops Poker. I’ll be playing 3 to 4 nights a week and streaming over on twitch at www.twitch.tv/2fit2fold.com, so I hope to see you stop in and see how I’m doing. Intertops has plenty of action with smaller buy ins tourneys, good microstakes cash games and lots of sattys for bigger events that will fit well into this whole plan. The fields aren’t gigantic like some other sites, which will hopefully allow for more consistent cashes. The smaller buy-ins will fit perfectly in with the guidelines of the challenge and the faster structures will ensure I’m not up all hours of the night grinding for peanuts ;). Stop in an say hello on the stream, I’d love to hear what you think of the 2/20/200 experiment! I still really think I’ll learn a lot from this challenge, keeping me from making major bankroll mistakes and hopefully it helps others to find their own simple bankroll management strategy in the process!
If you want to talk poker hit me up on social media @2Fit2Fold! And if you want to battle it out in the challenge with me download Intertops poker and head over to www.twitch.tv/2fit2fold.com
I’ll see you at the tables!! Run Good!
Tim O’Keefe aka 2Fit2Fold
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