Long Term Winrates and BR management

Something I've been thinking about is the topic of longterm winrates. It's something that I feel is underrated by a lot of players, including myself. Essentially, it's really what you are worth as a poker player. Obviously, like myself, I'm always improving and learning new ways to increase my profits. But steadily, you have tagged a # that is what you are worth as player. Things such as tilt and leaks affects this #, but nevertheless, this # should accurately represent you. Perhaps you are a losing player because of tilt. So this # is in the red for this individual in a long run.

So what am I trying to get at? Well, working at a certain weakness in your affects your winrates. If you are a long term winning player, you almost have nothing to worry about in a long run. You will in time keep increasing in profits. One or two days worth of bad days are not going to affect your overall winrates. You're only to increase your profits is the amount of hands you get in. So more hands = more money. But the only problem is that if you are a losing player and you don't know it, more hands = less money. Haha. That's so obvious but keeping these things in mind, you should feel more indifferent about winning and losing sessions.

Looking back on the things I worked on even the past 2 months or so, I already improved a lot since I started this blog. Of course, at the time I knew I had a lot to learn but I felt my game was peaking because I knew most of the "in"s and "out"s of the game. The truth is though, I had a lot to learn. Heck, I'm sure in another 2 months, I will say the same thing about my current self. What will it do for me? Of course, it is all about the increasing of winrates and player worth. If theoretically, I don't improve from what I know now. I feel as I keep playing, I will eventually hit a wall where my mistakes will break even with my opponent's mistakes. Then in turn, I will become a break even player in a certain limit. I do not know where the wall is, but I know it exists. But hopefully as I improve as I've always been doing, this wall will be pushed farther up and farther up.


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Another thing I've been thinking about is bankroll management. I understand perfectly about comfort zones and good bankroll management. But I feel as a normal human being, you are always striving for progress. This is why I've been pushing myself to move up. Of course I do so in good means and confidence. But the thing we are not in control are the cards. You could go 5BIs up one day and down 7 another. This is unlikely but statistically possible. Your BR serves as a purpose to absorb such swings. And lately, I've been pushing up the limits very aggressively. Actually not really that aggressive, because I'm a nit at heart. But definitely much more looser than I originally planned. I know I'm never going busto until I go on super monkey tilt(theoretically possible), the fact that part of me is still trying to convince myself not to worry about variance and the unlikely-hood of huge downswings. Hence I thought about winrates above.

In the Cardrunners forums, it's very common for people to have poor BR managements. I think this is very understandable. Let's say you have 40BIs of 50nl, you go on what you think is a 15BI downswing. You assume you are a winning player, you continue with your BR and hope to turn it around. What ends up happening is that you will fall dangerously low and in turn you might have poor BR management in the 25nl(1 limit down). I believe if you have a good sample size of winning(maybe >100k hands), assuming you can beat the limit and not dropping is fine. But I think what gets the player is more about the confidence level, and rebuilding that is almost as important as rebuilding your BR.

I think what really pushes me to move up is the constant obsession of progress; actually specifically the progress of "money". I feel the time invested is not optimal to what I should be earning. Perhaps that's a little arrogant and naive, but I really need to see this investment(poker) to be worth my time. I'm not talking about X dollar per hour here in a certain day. I'm talking about from the beginning of my poker journey to the present and then to the future. I'm definitely winning some profit from my original investment, but so far the amount made is simply not worth the investment(in time and money). I mean of course, I enjoy the game and its challenges, which balances out a lot of this discrepancy. But in the beginning, I'm really looking for poker to get me an respectable amounts of side profits. So far, I'm getting much closer, but it's still lacking.

Therefore, when I decided to move up from 50nl to 100nl, I really wanted to get closer and closer to the goal I'm projecting for. Definitely, if I sustain a 5bb/100 winrate in 100nl for 2 months, I will easily be satisfied with my original investment. I'm just not so sure if I can grind 50nl for another month or two for the sufficient "safe" BR for 100nl. Of course I can, but I am always tempted for more. I guess what I'm really getting at is the fear of pushing too quickly because I probably will never be completely satisfied with my results. I will keep pushing up the limits when I might not be adequately rolled for it(at least not parallel to my original plans).

Also so far, I have not cashed out at all from my winnings because I've been aggressively trying to build a bankroll so I can make the *real* cash. And I feel if I start withdrawing, I will probably not ever make more as I would be "killing" my BR. I guess I need to think more about what my plans are with my BR management. I am definitely not struggling to pay bills and need to withdraw but I like my investment to actually show for something. Maybe the idea to withdraw a small amount per month is a good idea. I guess I'll tank this one out in the next day or two.

It's late, so I'm glad I got some stuff out of my mind. It's mostly ranting about random things and reorganizing my thoughts. I can surely reconfirms that this blog definitely helped my growth a lot.