MMM: $14?

Mr. Cowboy,


Could you explain your bankroll management standards while playing $2+.15 tourneys when you only had $14 in your account?


Jesus F.
Pacific Palisades, CA

Jesus, it's good to hear from you.

Well to be honest I did have have rakeback coming to me as well so I knew that worst case scenario would be that I would have to wait until that got credited to my account. Still, a $2 tourney is not proper BRM even with the rakeback accounted for. I realized at the time that I was violating my BRM rules but there were a couple things going on. First of all, I felt that I was EV+ against those SnG tourneys and that I had just had an extended stretch of run bad. If you're going to give me 2:1 on heads or tails I am going to take it because there is an edge. If I lose a bunch in a row I'm still going to take it because I know the numbers will even out eventually. Secondly, after winning the April 1 deadline prop bet I really had just been aimlessly wandering and decided that I'd be better off bumping up the stakes so that I pay more serious attention. When losing a microstakes buy in is so insignificant to overall bankroll it is easy to play poorly because any one buy in does not impact your roll very much. But like death from a thousand cuts it will eventually ruin you. So I increased the amount at stake and it shook me out of my funk. Yes, I took a serious nose dive but I have come back with a vengeance and am surging like a banshee. As I've noted before, the biggest challenge is all mental game management. Though poker skill is part of it of course, the biggest risk is going on tilt or other mental lapses. We'll see how my head holds together on the way to $1000.

Sushi Cowboy.