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A different way to think of your poker bankroll.
Okay, this may seem like a strange way of looking at things, but it's how I view my bankroll...
1) Your bankroll is capital for an investment. This capital may be capable of giving you a return, depending on your skill level, emotional stability, ect...
2) This capital is at constant risk while it is in earnings mode. By this, I am referring to institutional and economic risk, not just variance. In this case, theses cases represent a possible total loss of capital. Examples of this for US citizens are the DOJ action that completely shut down FTP, the US attempting to stop all payments from poker sites that service US customers, to simple site collapse.
I developed the following theorem for use in high-risk recursive investments. With recursive investments being investments with returns that can be immediately rolled back into capitol with little to no loss in the returns from the new capital level.
HLRA: Half-life of Risk Analysis
In order for a high-risk, recursive investment to be a break even proposition, returns equal to your original capital investment must reach safe-haven before the half-life probability of capital collapse is reached.
Translation: Get it in, double it, then get the original investment out as quickly as possible. Do not invest if you don't think that you can do this before a 50% probability of collapse is reached.
In poker, this is somewhat subjective. Many of us have had to invest in our knowledge, and in losing small amounts until we're proficient enough to actually play. This is not the capital I'm speaking of.
Instead, let's say that you deposited $100 on a site, and started working your way up. Let's also say that when you reach $200, it's not a significant amount of money to you so you keep working up through the 5NL, 10NL, and 25NL levels, finally reaching 50NL with a $2,000 bankroll, which is now significant, both in it's amount, and in the time it would take to start out on a new site again.
So you now set your HLRA. Your goal is to grind that $2,000 up to $4,000 and go to 100NL, right? Wrong! You set your goal to grind that $2,000 up to $4,000, then cash out $2,000 into a safe-haven. Then you can grind the remaining $2,000 up to $4,000 and start playing 100NL.
Wash, rinse, repeat.
But here's the tricky part. The other part of the HLRA is the half-life to failure.
By my estimate, the current half-life to failure for poker sites that service Americans is 4-6 months.
Why so low?
1) Active US government intervention.
2) When the problem is solved, it will most likely be the large American casinos that get the US green light for servicing American internet customers, causing a liquidity collapse in the smaller US servicing online poker rooms.
This gives the following table:
Half-Life:....Time:.........Probability of collapse:
1...............4-6m.............50%
2..............8-12m............75%
3.............12-18m...........87.5%
So, what is the minimum win rate that you need to have to double your bankroll within the first half-life?
Average hands played per day:....Needed win rate over 4 months:
1,000............................................. 1.667 BB/100
500............................................... .3.334 BB/100
250............................................... .6.667 BB/100
100..............................................1 6.667 BB/100
50................................................ 33.334 BB/100
($2,000/(limit level *2)/120=per day BB needed.
($2,000/(.50*2)/120= 16.67 BB needed or $16.67 per day.
Rule 2:
Once you have your money in safe-haven, the remaining returns are yours to do with as you please...until you go up to the next level.
So, If I have $2,000 in a poker site, with $2,000 in profit in safe-haven, then I can choose to withdraw or let it ride as I see fit. It's pure profit at this point.
If however, if I choose to double it and go up to the 100NL level, then the process starts over again, primarily because my minimum bankroll on the poker site, and it's brother in safe-haven need to be equal to ensure that I never have to drop down due to outside factors.
These are just my thoughts, choose to use or discard them as you please. It might help to know though, that I tested these theories to break-even effect against internet gold games, which are ponzi schemes with half-lives between 5 and 90 days, and are nearly impossible to break even with.
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