Bankroll Question/Newbie

[TXAP420]

Hey guys,


Ok, as y'all may know I'm still fairly new to the BJ CC world. Been thinking about bankroll management and such and came across a certain question in my mind. At what point do you guys consider a win a win. I mean as far as dipping into winnings. At what point does one reward himself for all the hard work? I would really love to hear how you guys manage your BR. Do you start with $10,000 and call it good at $20,000, then look at it as doubling up, then go blow 10 grand ? Or do you take that $20,000 and keep going till you get to, $40,000 then 40 to 80 and so on, till you get to a certain point then start over?? Kinda lost here and hope I can some guidance for when the time comes to step up to the big leagues! Thanks in advance fellas!

[muckz]

Most AP's hold other jobs and treat gambling as a form of investment. One with this approach would likely keep adding to their BR until they got to a level that brought a very low risk and acceptable return, then they would attempt to keep it at that level with outside replenishment when needed. I would think a goal kelly value would be at least 1/4 kelly. Professional AP's need to pay themselves a portion of winnings, but also need to prevent from going bankrupt. Keep in mind over time a fixed bankroll of any amount has a 100% RoR. I don't know much about living off of gambling winnings so that's all I can add.

[bjarg]

Keep in mind over time a fixed bankroll of any amount has a 100% RoR.

Huh? Unless Im misunderstanding what you are saying, this statement is very incorrect.

[muckz]

Huh? Unless Im misunderstanding what you are saying, this statement is very incorrect.

It was a fairly vague statement, I'm almost certain I'm correct though.

Fixed bankroll = all winnings above starting bankroll are withdrawn from bankroll; no outside funds are added.

It was more aimed toward a low bankroll situation but applies to all bankroll sizes. There is no such thing as no risk in blackjack. When using a fixed bankroll you have a certain amount of risk may it be 2-5% for a 10-20k bank(I believe the risk is actually 4-10% since the math doesn't care if you go below 0$). For 100 trials of people playing with this risk 2-5 will have <0$. Playing with a fixed bank you are giving yourself the same 2-5% RoR over and over again. Eventually you are going to hit 0$.

I don't think I need to explain anymore as I'm not particularly good at it without putting a lot of effort.

Edit: I found what I was looking for, in th RoR formula there is [1 - (W/sd)] / [1 + (W/sd)] where W is our winrate. If we keep our bankroll at a fixed number by taking out all winnings our win rate is 0. Which means we are just waiting for the variance to catch up with us. Granted someone with 1,000,000 playing with a max bet of 200 would likely never see broke in their lifetime, the chance exists.

[dr rudd]

For starters I'd suggest not attempting to count for a living. Have a steady job and play on the side it makes the swings less painful. Blackjack is like a roller coaster of swings. I work then play poker full time on the side, but I also play BJ after poker or all day when the poker rooms are dead. I have a set bank roll for poker and black jack. I only use a roll of 5,000 for blackjack. At the end of every week if my bank roll is over my 5,000 set amount I take 25% and add that to my poker bank roll, 25% to my blackjack bank roll and 50% to my checking account. Where as poker I do 50% added to my bank roll and 50% to my checking account. Now you're looking to only play blackjack I assume, so I would do the 50/50 rule. If at the end of the week you are down money then you don't take any money out at all. You go back and keep grinding until you're in the green again. I play the 25 minimum bet tables 2 hands at a time now since my bank roll has grown a large amount, but ive been playing poker and counting in BJ for 15 years now. My rule of thumb is to only sit at tables with 40 minimum bets, believe me taking a ton of cash with you seems like a great idea for when the count is high to bet huge and try to take the house for everything they have... Ive learned the hard way many times. This type of betting is only for people with basically unlimited bank rolls who can handle the huge swings. Really the best way to build your bank roll up for starters is to max bet 4-6 times your minimum bet. It will help you take the down swings a lot easier until you build your bank roll up. It may take a little longer to build the roll up but its better than dropping thousands in just a few shoes then grinding to get out of the red. There is nothing more frustrating than when you know the count is super high and its time to bet huge and you just cant seem to win a hand. As your bank roll increases you can increase the size of your max bet. Most importantly always reward yourself with some of the winnings each week if you're in the green, its much easier to play and have fun with it when you see the results in your wallet, even if its only a little bit each week to start. I hope this helped or made sense... I know its lengthy but this is how I've always done it, my BJ roll is well over 50k now just from grinding and trying to be smart with my betting amounts. When I first started I started 10k in the red right off the bat because I was betting according to the count and not considering how much of a bank roll I had to work with. luckily my poker playing allowed me to give blackjack a shot again and I started being smart about it

[bjarg]

It was a fairly vague statement, I'm almost certain I'm correct though.

Fixed bankroll = all winnings above starting bankroll are withdrawn from bankroll; no outside funds are added.

It was more aimed toward a low bankroll situation but applies to all bankroll sizes. There is no such thing as no risk in blackjack. When using a fixed bankroll you have a certain amount of risk may it be 2-5% for a 10-20k bank(I believe the risk is actually 4-10% since the math doesn't care if you go below 0$). For 100 trials of people playing with this risk 2-5 will have <0$. Playing with a fixed bank you are giving yourself the same 2-5% RoR over and over again. Eventually you are going to hit 0$.

I don't think I need to explain anymore as I'm not particularly good at it without putting a lot of effort.

Edit: I found what I was looking for, in th RoR formula there is [1 - (W/sd)] / [1 + (W/sd)] where W is our winrate. If we keep our bankroll at a fixed number by taking out all winnings our win rate is 0. Which means we are just waiting for the variance to catch up with us. Granted someone with 1,000,000 playing with a max bet of 200 would likely never see broke in their lifetime, the chance exists.

My friend... let me tell you that you are not correct.
Im sure some posters here that are a lot better discussing numbers than I am will be able to explain it better than I ever could.
If you withdrew your winnings and all things are kept equal, your ROR is also equal.
If you are playing at a 4% ROR with an X BR and you withdrew your winnings and keep playing at the same conditions, your ROR is still 4%!
You say:

"Playing with a fixed bank you are giving yourself the same 2-5% RoR over and over again. Eventually you are going to hit 0$."

This doesnt mean your ROR is 100%!!! Your ROR and your risk is still 2-5%!

A different scenario is when you lose and you still withdrew from your deplenished BR (to pay a fixed rate to players for example).

And when you withdrew your winnings you DONT make your winrate 0. Where do you get that?

[KJ]

Ok, I don't know what's going on here, but there is some incorrect and strange info being spread around. ? I am not sure what Muckz was trying to say, but he is either confused or not conveying what he really meant to say properly.

Now dr rudd....yikes! My head is still spinning. What on earth are you saying. You take you BJ winnings each week, and put 25% in to poker bankroll. And 25% into blackjack bankroll, which....isn't it already in blackjack bankroll?? And 50% here and 30% there and 20% to Walmart lay-a-way and 10% to the church and so on and so forth. And I assume on losing weeks you ask back from all these? Or is every week a winning week?

Ok obviously I am poking fun at dr rudd. I don't know what is the correct way, (although I am certain it is not his) but I will tell you how I now do it. I now have a big enough bankroll that I set my bankroll at the start of the year. I then play the whole year without toughing the money, while bankroll grows and shrinks through swings and then at the end of the year I break the bank, take winnings, reset BR and start over. That is now my normal procedure, although anyone who read one of my recent threads, knows we were forced to break bank early just this week and reset because of unusual circumstances.

Now the reason, I like to go the whole year without toughing the fluctuation BR, is that it is my way of trying to get to that elusive 'long-term'. So far with the amount of play I get in, a year has been long enough to ride out any losing periods, even 4,5,6 month down fluctuation periods and have results bounce back somewhat close to expectation. My small sample size of a few years is no guarantee that I won't one year have a year where this doesn't happen and have a losing year. In that case, I take no profit, reset my BR from surplus that I now have and start the new year.

So that's where I am at now. But it's only been a recent development that I have been able to do it this way. Just a couple years ago, I didn't have money to live a whole year without toughing BR and winnings, so I would go as long as I could go, at first 3 or 4 months, and later 5-6 months and then take out as little as I could and always only part of EV. I also would try to take out funds during an upswing or at least a stable period. Psychologically, it is difficult to withdrawal living expenses at a time that your bankroll has been shrinking due to negative fluctuation. It just seems like a double hit, so you try to avoid that.

[genini1]

My friend... let me tell you that you are not correct.
Im sure some posters here that are a lot better discussing numbers than I am will be able to explain it better than I ever could.
If you withdrew your winnings and all things are kept equal, your ROR is also equal.
If you are playing at a 4% ROR with an X BR and you withdrew your winnings and keep playing at the same conditions, your ROR is still 4%!
You say:

"Playing with a fixed bank you are giving yourself the same 2-5% RoR over and over again. Eventually you are going to hit 0$."

This doesnt mean your ROR is 100%!!! Your ROR and your risk is still 2-5%!

A different scenario is when you lose and you still withdrew from your deplenished BR (to pay a fixed rate to players for example).

And when you withdrew your winnings you DONT make your winrate 0. Where do you get that?

A fixed bankroll over infinite time will always hit 0. That is what he means by a RoR of 100%.

[KJ]

A fixed bankroll over infinite time will always hit 0. That is what he means by a RoR of 100%.

How do you figure that?

If you start with a million dollar bankroll, play green to black level, at very tiny RoR, extracting winnings and only winnings, periodically, your million dollar bankroll will hit 0?? (as in always)

edit: I guess the key here is 'infinite time'. Perhaps in 132,000 years, you might hit some freakishly swing that could wipe you out. you know, like .0002% percent RoR. Is that what we are talking about here? If so...why are we even talking?

[genini1]

How do you figure that?

If you start with a million dollar bankroll, play green to black level, at very tiny RoR, extracting winnings and only winnings, periodically, your million dollar bankroll will hit 0?? (as in always)

edit: I guess the key here is 'infinite time'. Perhaps in 132,000 years, you might hit some freakishly swing that could wipe you out. you know, like .0002% percent RoR. Is that what we are talking about here? If so...why are we even talking?

When your original RoR is very low like .0002% you are unlikely to actually see the ruin which is why professional players like yourself can use it. Given infinite time it would happen though. However in the case where the original risk of ruin is say 10% you will almost certainly see it.

Let's say you have a $5,000 bankroll and remove any winnings above 5k. If you keep the same spread you are performing a version of the Gambler's ruin. That is you are increasing your bet in proportion to your bankroll, but will never decrease it.

[bigplayer]

The answer to the original poster is what is your goal, income generation or bankroll growth. The same considerations that you have with any investment applies to gambling. If you have another job and your bankroll is small your goal is likely growth. If you have no job and a large bankroll your considerations are likely income generation and low risk of ruin. It all depends on your personal needs.

[bjarg]

If so...why are we even talking?

Im asking the same question myself. This 100% ROR and fixed bankroll is one of the stupidiest concepts ever discussed here.
I have just learned that every single team operation I know is playing at a 100% ROR.

[Nikky_Flash]

TXAP420, Should be crystal clear now...