Few questions in poker have as many answers as the question “what is the ideal bankroll for tournament poker?” There are a million different answers because there are a lot of variables involved in determining the proper sized roll that will sustain a player’s tournament play. This article breaks down those variables and helps the reader find his or her own sweet spot.
Risk of Ruin and Risk Tolerance
The first component to understanding required bankrolls is the concept of risk of ruin. The risk of ruin is a measure of the likelihood you will run out of money before winning enough to cover your previous losses. Risk of ruin is a mathematical formula, and can be calculated precisely, but doing so requires knowing a player’s winrate and standard deviation. Those are fairly easy to calculate in cash games, but in large field tournaments, such an enormous sample size would be necessary that even the most prodigious online player would have difficulty reaching it. If our sample size is too small, we simply cannot have sufficient confidence in the results.
Since risk of ruin is very difficult to figure for the average tournament player, we can instead look at risk tolerance. Let’s look at two extremes:
Joe is a hard-working man. He has an important job, takes care of his family, funds his retirement, and pays his bills. After all that, he is left with $50 per week as fun money. Joe likes to play poker in a home game tournament hosted by his friend every Friday. He doesn’t care too much if he wins or loses, but likes to play well. He banks all his wins, so he never has more than a $50 bankroll. Poker is a diversion for Joe. The buy in is $50. Does Joe have a sufficient bankroll?
a) No, you must have 100 buy ins or you are a donk.
b) Yes, because he’s playing for fun, and can tolerate the risk.
c) Yes, because his wife won’t let him out of the house anyway.
Answers b) or c) are correct, but for our purposes, b) will do nicely.
Ann is an online tournament professional. She plays all MTTs, all the time. She derives her entire living from online poker tournaments. She has only two months’ living expenses set aside in investments. She has a documented ROI of 80% in tournaments, over a sample size of 2000. Her average buy-in is $109. She occasionally plays $215 tournaments, and takes a monthly shot at the $530 Sunday tournament. What is a good recommended bankroll for her?
a) $5000
b) $10,000
c) $20,000
In this case, c) is probably the best answer. Answer B comes close to a 100 buy in roll, but in this case, her need for money is significant. She needs a larger bankroll to endure downswings.
Reasons to Make Adjustments to Bankroll
Need for money - Does the player need to win to provide an income? If so, the player should want the reduced risk of ruin.
Tolerance for risk - A recreational player can tolerate a lot of risk. Professionals need less risk of busting out. A serious player, who does not wish to use personal money to replenish their bankroll, but will not suffer a life change if he busts out, falls somewhere in between.
Typical field size - Large fields need big bankrolls. Navigating a field of thousands of players is risky. Is it true that the payoffs (return on investment) are huge for large fields, but even the best players can’t get there even a few per cent of the time.
Field skill - In the $50,000 HORSE event at the World Series of Poker, you can be reasonably confident that the field is highly skilled. In a $2 online tournament, although there may be some excellent players, chances are a large portion of the field is only average at best. In events with more skilled players, increase your bankroll (or even better, look for a softer game).
Player’s aggression - Your own aggression is a factor. If you play very aggressively, accept that your variance is going to be high, requiring a bigger bankroll.
Field aggression - Difficult to measure unless you are playing in a regular tournament. Adjust bankroll upward for aggressive fields.
Blind speed - In a slow tournament with deep stacks, good players have increased chances of rising to the top. In 1500 chip online tournaments, where the blinds go up every five minutes, it often becomes a crapshoot. Although good players will win these more often than bad players, they must have deeper bankrolls to withstand the swings.
Flatness of payouts - When a huge chunk of the prize pool goes to the top few places, increase bankroll to withstand the variance.
Access to lower stakes - If you have access to lower stakes games, and are willing to drop stakes when on a losing streak, you can reduce your bankroll requirements.
