How much does your bankroll typically fluctuate?

I was just wondering how much your guys' bankroll usually changes on a daily (or however often you play) basis? Cuz mine is always up and down, just wanted to see if this kid of variance is normal.

I've been playing online for almost a year, and after chasing in and out of UB a bunch of times, i got a Party Poker Instant Bankroll (Free $75) about 6 weeks ago. I've brought it up to little over $700 now playing $10 SnGs and $25NL 6 max sometimes. Altough I'm up, it is really frustrating to lose back like 80% or even all of one session profit the next day. And I frequently do this. To give specific numbers, one day i was at $500 and after the day i was up to $578. The next day I drop back down to $510. Next day Im up to $550. Then im stuck there for a couple of sessions. Next thing I'm up to $650, then next session im back down to $600.

Is this big of a swing normal for day to day playing? Obviously I know i can improve, but I was just wondering what type of swings you guys go thru while building your bankroll.... ??

That sounds about right. My BR makes the same swings. It’s frustrating as heck but it does build over the long run.

yeah I've taken 4-5 buy-in swings over the course of a few days. I just made about $300 at 50NL one day, just to lose $200 of it back over the next 2 days. i'm currently coming back up though.

I must not make as many gambOOls as you guys.
My worst days have been dumping 3-5% of my given 'roll. Therefore with mine having been at 1400 recently a good day could involve making anything from 30 to 200 dollars single tabelling and mtt-ing.
A bad day means i lose say between 40-80 dollars about 5%. Now i have set myself a limit that if i dump a buyin i move tables and if i lose any more money without making a significant part of the lost buy in back then i call it quits or move to a different discipline (sng/mtt even pl omaha)
My initial problem was recognising a bad day. having looked at my recent stats i have about one losing day in 4 if i play on average 5hrs per day (i dont think this is a good run, its simply how my style is) But that losing day is often as bad as a winning day is good therefore i now recognise if im not profiting that day its better just to quit to avoid losing more.
So my swings are only at very most 8% my 'roll and dont last for days on end.

my bankroll fluctuates daily, its now hovering around the 750$ mark. before it was up down like you said. i set myself a limit of 2 buy-ins of 30$ once they're gone so am i

edit: i have had 100$ downswings in the past

I wish my swings were that small =)

My worst ever was yesterday....

$538 swing =(

While some of it was from mistakes (always go back over you play when you hit a swing.. up or down.. to see if something has changed) most of it was from bad luck...

I use an excel spreadsheet and keep daily notes on my bankroll, and recomend that for everyone. You cant lie to yourself about how good or bad your doing when you write the numbers down daily....

lately i've been good, BR steadily going up - even with some bad beats in there. Previously i had major downward swings, purely because i was tilting on bad beats - i think i've learned to deal with this better, so my downward fluctions arent as bad.

I used to have huge swings, but now its of a lesser degree.. though i still have downswings, they are usually considerably smaller than they used to be.. its more like i'll either be up or just not make any money, and only on the odd occasion do I have really bad downswings where i'll drop a buyin or 2 (or at crisis point 3-4).. Currently i'm on an upswing i havent lost anything in 9 days.. and i'm running at around 44BB/100

I think though that multitabling evens swings out a bit.. where i might drop a few stacks to bad beats on one table, make a mistake on another... i'll double or triple up at my other 2 tables, and it evens out.

I usually flucuate 2-3 buyins a day

Originally Posted by edudlive

I usually flucuate 2-3 buyins a day

I'm glad i'm not the only one =)

I have bad swings... I'm working on becoming a good player, but have so far to go...

I'd be intrested in hearing what the flucuation is like from more players =)

RHCNNN's figures seem about right to me. Which means, dude, if you can't take the fluctuation then maybe NL isn't for you

As for me, I am happy if I am up 1 buyin, joyous if I'm up 2 byins and ecstatic if I'm up 3 buyins (I have no idea what happens if I make it to 4 - I fear it may endanger my health).

I am very disappointed if I am down 1 buyin, I am fucking angry if I'm down 2 buyins, and I am suicidal if I'm down 3 buyins. This has happened to me twice in approximately 75 sessions, as has being 3 buyins up.

I tend to play in sessions of between 30 mins and two hours, two-tabling. So basically, this post is telling you almost nothing.

I'll share my fluctuation that I have recorded over the past few weeks. This is at the $10 NL tables at UB (.10 BB).

These are all different sessions, which are usually about 1 or 2 hours on average. Here it is...

+$17

+$12

-$6

-$17

+$18

+$13

-$10

-$3

+10

-$15

+$13

+$20

+$18

-$10

-$17

even

+$34

-$2

+$20

-$10

+$7

-$2

-$7

-$15

+$3

+$31

+$8

-$13

As you can see, I hardly end a session just breaking even. It's usually always one way or the other. Lately, I had been doing a pretty good job of limiting my losses until last night's -$13 swing. When I first started compiling this record, my BR was $31. Now it stands at $139.

I plan on getting it up to at least $300 or so before I switch up to the $25 tables.

I hope this helps someone out.

I'd like to see a session record from another player, so I know that I'm not the only one.

Age of reason: I play the $10 buy ins on Pokerstars. My daily swings are about 60-70% of yours but otherwise mirror yours in every other way. I didn’t really know it was normal but I do now.

I used to play $50NL only and my BR fluctuated on average 2-3 buy ins per day. Sometimes I'd have a particularly good session and win 5-6 buy ins. Sometimes, I'd have a particularly bad session and lose 5-6 buy ins.

But, I averaged more winning sessions than losing ones and eventually built a BR of $2k and decided to try the $100NL tables.

In the coupla weeks at $100, i was up about $500, but then my worst ever downswing kicked in and before i knew it (took about 4 days) my BR was sitting at $1k!!

I had to move back down to $50 tables then. i really should have done it sooner, but I was always thinking "things will turn around".

Anyway, been back at $50 for just over a week and i can't lose!!
My roll is back over $2k and I've cashed out $300

I am gonna move back up at some point, but i really want to spend some time enjoyin myself at the 50s for now.

As Laeelin said, it is important to analyse your downswings. I did.
Sure enough, I suffered some incredible bad beats (I won't bore you with the details), but I also wasn't really playing my natural game and made a lot of bad calls. I definitely have a better "feel" for the game at $50 and usually make the correct decision largely based on gut feeling. At the $100 tables I was concentrating too hard on doing what I "should" do.

I'm beginning to waffle a bit now.....this thread is not the place for my life story, so I'll end it now

yeh i swing anything from 0-5 buyins up or down, over a typical session where I 5 table for 3-4 hours.

my last sessions as far back as I can remember where:

(always 5 tabling)

Day 1, 8 hours: + 4 buy-ins
Day 2, 8 hours: + 5 buy-ins
Day 3, 4 hours: + 4 buy-ins

...then over the next ~10-15 hours I dipped - 4 or 5 buy-ins

...then over the next ~5 hours i remained breaking even, or lossing slightly...

...now over the last ~3 hours im + ~3-4 buy-ins.

Its NL and the varience is very prominant and very annoying, but the good days help keep us sane and the more you play the more you get used to it and play thru it.

I cant wait till i can afford Poker tracker, this will also help ease varience: if im down after a session i know i've actually made my average hourly rate.... similarly if im way up i'll look at it as simply earning my hourly rate.

I read an article by Negranu who said when he used to play 8hrs a day at the casino he'd be totally aware of his hourly rate and when chumps asked 'how much u up today kidder' hed just tell them, hmm 3hours so thats $83.44

One day I woke up and started playing at 2 p.m.
down $2500 then made back $1000 that night +$1000 the next day
-$1000 today afteroon then + $800 for the day.

and I play out of bankroll.

Playing sit n goes i've lost 14 buyins in one session, or about 3k, playig ring generally just get fed up after two buyins and quit. My most recent swing has been about 4k playing 600nl and 215 sngs. It kinda sucks, but i know that i'm playing well. I've come out of it now and am winning again. Variance sucks, but just be careful not to mix variance up with tilt or bad play.

Me yesterday playing two tables:

2-3 big hands after a few hours of play put me up $25 or so
1 SNG lost me $5
1 bad beat in 20NL (bought in for 15) lost me 10

+10 for the day

I multi-table NL100 and the swings can get quite huge. On a bad day, I can easily drop 300$.

What I've noticed is that when I'm in a bad period, my bankroll will usually stays even or I will lose a little, but never more that a couple of buyins. However, when things start to go well again then I can win a lot.

For example, this month I made 1300$ in the first 3 days, in the last 5 days I've taken my share of bad beats and my profit for the month is down to 1100$. I expect things to pick up soon and I would't be surprised if my monthly profit takes a jump to 2000$ in just a couple of days.

Originally Posted by Bmxicle

Variance sucks, but just be careful not to mix variance up with tilt or bad play.

Very wise advice. Knowing the difference will save you mucho dollars. When in doubt, assume bad play/tilt and take at least a quick break. Sometimes it's easier to identify when not in the heat of battle.

Either quitting early or not playing at all when I'm not in the right frame of mind has probably helped me build and maintain the BR as much as any poker skills I have. Also the flip side applies - I try to play longer or extend a session when I know I'm playing well.

Here's an excel graph I made charting my progress - hope it's useful!

awesome chart...
thanks for all the replies, Its the confirmation I was looking for that I'm on the right track (at least somewhat). I think my attitude about the swings is really improving and its showing in my account balance too.

Thanks again

Everyone's swings will be higher or lower. This all depends on your standard deviation. This relates how many, and how large of pots your enter in a given time.

Players playing few pots, but very large pots are going to experience the largest swings while players playing many small pots are going to experience the smallest swings.

The middle bit of my graph above really hammers home the importance of bankroll management. I predominantly play £25NL and have only in the last week reached the 15xbuyin threshold, and as you can see I went from £260 to £7 just like that (whether I was playing badly or tilting is part of another conversation).

Full handed or Short handed NLHE ring: 2-3 buy-in swings are pretty normal. At worst I had 6 buy-in downswing in full ring.

Originally Posted by biondino

Here's an excel graph I made charting my progress - hope it's useful!

Where can I get a copy of the excel sheet you are using? It is great. Did you make it yourself? Something like that would be great for tracking my progress. So far I "think" I am a break even player and am only ahead because of bonuses. Would be nice to know for sure though. Poker Tracker is good but it does not have all my hands in it.

walub, yes, I made it myself (colour scheme is optional ). I can send you a copy of the Excel file and you can just input your own figures if you like - email me at boyincorduroy at yahoo dot com and I'll try and do it tonight.

(p.s. I am now up at £529 - the right side of the graph now looks like a pre-bubble dot.com share price chart )

Originally Posted by biondino

walub, yes, I made it myself (colour scheme is optional ). I can send you a copy of the Excel file and you can just input your own figures if you like - email me at boyincorduroy at yahoo dot com and I'll try and do it tonight.

(p.s. I am now up at £529 - the right side of the graph now looks like a pre-bubble dot.com share price chart )

Thanks. I emailed you so if you could send it my way that would be great. Cool to hear that you are up even more. Just make sure the bubble does not burst ; ) I really need a way to track myself. I started with 200 bucks about 6 months ago. Went up to about 285 then down to 95 now I am back up to 300 thanks to some freerolls and bonuses. I don’t think I am a winning player yet but maybe break even. Thanks again.

No worries (the offer is there for anyone who fancies it, though equally I'm no Excel genius and I'm sure others could design something more functional/attractive) - I've got your email and will send you the file when I get to my home PC.

And I DO consider myself a winning player but I've never won a cent on an MTT of any kind, freeroll or otherwise!