At www.gamblingwithanedge.com , in the comments section for a recent blog post of mine, a poker player said he had two stop limits–one for being ahead and on for being behind. (It’s possible he uses the same amount for each. He didn’t say.) He wanted to know if winning video poker players use this system as well.
In all gambling, money management is important. One of the key elements is being able to stay in the game. If you go broke, you’re out of the action.
With that said, poker and video poker are considerably different. In video poker, it’s possible to know whether you have an advantage or not. The return on games is usually available, as is information about the slot club and promotions. In this environment, successful bankroll management consists of:
- Only betting when you have the advantage.
- Betting within your bankroll.
- Other than that, playing as long or as short as you want.
The second rule, “Betting within your bankroll,” can be somewhat tricky to figure out. There are bankroll calculators on both the Video Poker for Winners and Dunbar’s Video Poker Risk Analyzer software. Today, though, we’re going to leave that topic for another time.
Now I’m going to address live poker. Keep in mind that while I know something about the game, I’m not a winning poker player. I cannot address this game with a high level of expertise. I’m not a novice, however, in discussing how the game is different from video poker.
Live poker has so many other things to consider, including figuring out whether or not you are the favorite. There are some home games where the same eight guys have been playing together weekly for years. In that case, if you keep records, you can have a pretty good idea whether you’re a favorite, and by how much. But even then, sometimes “Henry” will go on tilt which greatly skews the distribution.
In most games, you’ll have one or more players who are unfamiliar to you. Even then, if you see one or more “live ones” in the game, you can determine you’re probably the favorite, if not by how much.
The variance of live poker is a lot higher than the variance of video poker. In video poker, all your bets are the same size, and you play hundreds or thousands of them in a session. At the no limit versions of poker, there are a relatively few hands that become the biggest ones of the night. If you’re a winner on the big hands, you’ll likely be a winner that night. If you’re a loser on the big hands, you’ll likely be a loser today, no matter how well you’ve done on the smaller hands.
Also in live poker, playing conditions change frequently as various players react to being ahead or behind. And as the alcohol kicks in. And various other factors.
Having stop limits for wins and/or losses makes sense for losing video poker players or for players playing over-their-heads bankroll-wise. Being able to stay in the game long-term is important, and as either a losing or under-bankrolled player, you want to avoid blowing out completely in one session.
I suspect these same types of live poker players are the ones who find these stop limits useful. But I’m not sure. That’s not my expertise. The only poker I’ve played in the past 20 years has been the limit version of low stakes games. For that game, even though I’m a breakeven player at best, my bankroll is infinite.