Bankroll management and volume

Since returning to Sydney five days ago the weather has not been very kind here - a complete contrast from the Vegas summer with constant very grey, raining and cold days. Luckily the weather turned around today as I travelled down to Sutherland and Cronulla to see the annual Sutherland to Surf fun run supporting my girlfriend who was participating.

It was interesting to see the different runners at different fitness levels and watching people constantly adjust their game plan as the race progressed over the 11km road course. This reminded me of my previous poker bankroll building endeavours and the ups and downs along the way throughout the years. Even as I became more experienced over the years I still had to adjust my approach as I discovered the need to move down levels or increase my study and game selection.

I am currently reading 'The Poker Mindset' by Taylor and Hilger. Although I am only part way through the book it is helping a lot in terms of trying to understand topics such as tilt, variance and goal setting in terms of making good poker decisions rather than monetary goals and milestones.

However I feel its also very important for recreational players such as myself to set realistic monetary goals based on ROI and volume. In terms of availability I only have at most four week nights a week to spend a few hours a night on the poker grind. This equates to only 12-15 hours a week and limits my choice of game type and volume.

Based on 4 hour sessions and my preference for SnGs/MTTs I will stick to 180 man turbo SnGs on PokerStars which usually finish within 2 hours. Assuming conservatively that I will 6-table simultaneously - and continuously load new tables as I get knocked out - I should be able to play around fifteen 180-player SnGs in a night. So I would be looking at a total of 60 180-player SnGs a week.

In terms of bankroll for the 180-man SnGs (or any 180+ player MTT) the general consensus is that one needs about 200 buy ins. In my last blog I talked about starting at the bottom and moving up. I will start with the $2.50 180-player which equates to a minimum $500 starting bankroll. The first goal will be to reach a bankroll of $880 which would allow me to move up to the $4.40 180-player SnGs.

Now lets talk about return on investment or ROI. Conservatively speaking I would hope that with my experience and MTT skill level I can beat the 180-player SnGs by 20%.

Based on considerations above what kind of return could I expect as a recreational player in the course of a week or month? Based on playing 60 games at the $2.50 level with an ROI of 20% my weekly expectation would be:

60 x ($2.50 x 0.2) =  $30/week (or $120/month)

This return at first doesn't seem like much but it is realistic. One of the biggest mistakes that many players starting out make is thinking that they can double their bankroll in no time at all. Based on the schedule and volume I have presented here (assuming I play a solid winning strategy) it would take me about 3 months to be able to move up to the $4.40 level. A very sobering thought indeed...yes - there are easier ways to make money than poker. This is why professional players play a much higher volume (and at much higher buy in level) in order to improve their bottom line.

I would encourage those starting out to carrying out some of these calculations with different values in the equation to get an idea of the volume and time required to realistically achieve specific bankroll building goals. Of course one thing I have not mentioned is that some time also needs to be put aside for review and study in order to increase ROI. 

I will also be playing on the Entraction network after being referred to it by close friend Dara O'Kearney. There I will focus on playing 6-player and 10-player SnGs with a 60 buy in bankroll. The volume on players on the Entraction network is much smaller than that on PokerStars however this might be offset by the softer level of play after my initial test of the site.

I won't cover off any similar calculations for the Entraction network but will leave that for subsequent posts. 

I will begin the grind on PokerStars and Entraction this week and track how things go.

For the record - today my girlfriend improved her time considerably on last years' run - hopefully I will also be inspired enough after watching her to score my own personal best over the year to come.