Head Games: Bankroll Management Wisdom: Part I - Tournaments

The Pros: Jackie Glazier, Kathy Liebert, and Calvin Anderson

Craig Tapscott: How did you build your poker bankroll and what were the major stumbling blocks you ran into along the way?

Jackie Glazier: I started playing poker in 2008 and began as a low-stakes live cash game player at Melbourne’s Crown Casino. I will be honest. I knew nothing about bankroll management and was buying in on a $2-$3 table for $200. At that stage, I only had a $2,000 bankroll, so I was risking 10 percent each time I sat down. I was lucky enough to have success early. Even with the early winning sessions, I never got anywhere near the 100 buy-in recommended bankroll. I admit that it was pure luck that I was able to succeed in the early stages of my poker career with such ignorance and naivete in relation to bankroll management. 

I then began to use my cash-game bankroll to buy-in to the small live tournaments. I spent 2009 dividing my time between live cash games and tournaments and I survived another year. Looking back and now having a better understanding of the swings associated with live tournaments, I can admit that my key to success at this point was pure luck to survive the expected variance. 

At the very end of 2009, I managed to establish a relationship with a backer and was able to set up a more realistic bankroll to continue playing. This gave me the opportunity to play more volume and gain more experience. It pretty much fast tracked the results I have achieved since then.

My advice to any player getting started is to never do what I did. Understanding bankroll management is probably one of the most important components to having enough longevity in the game to determine ultimately if you are a winning or losing poker player.

Kathy Liebert: I started off playing small limits and small buy-in tournaments. I had success early in tournaments which gave me a bankroll and confidence to play more tournaments. I was lucky to have a really good run in tournaments when I first started playing them, but even so I continued to play small buy-ins and not risk a big percentage of my bankroll in any one tournament.

Also I would invest money in the stock market as I won. My goal was to build a portfolio and let it grow. I did have some bad streaks along the way, and if I wanted to play bigger buy-in tournaments, often I wouldn’t play unless someone offered to buy a piece or stake me as there is such high variance. You don’t want to risk too much of your bankroll in any one tournament.

I have been more conservative than most when it comes to playing higher buy-in events. I saved along the way and didn’t risk too much so that I felt I wouldn’t go broke and I haven’t, even with high variance and bad luck along the way. I was also fortunate to have people offer to stake me, which gave me an opportunity to play some events I might not have played. For me, it was more important to not risk going broke.

Calvin Anderson: One of the biggest things about building your bankroll is finding a game you are good at. My friends like to call it your bread-and-butter game. If you can’t find a game that you’re able to consistently beat, you are going to have a hard time succeeding in poker. My bread-and-butter game was a lot of the draw-type games and I constantly played low stakes cash games starting at .25-.50 cent. 

Here’s my theory on successful bankroll management: I’m not sure of the exact numbers, but a good rule to follow would be to not risk more than .5 percent of your bankroll in a live tourney. And when playing online, don’t risk more than .1 percent of your bankroll in any given tourney, and never more than .5 percent at one time. As your roll fluctuates up and down, you should adjust these percentages accordingly. If you cannot follow these rules and want to play higher, then you should get a backer or sell action. 

I started at very low stakes. I thought that if I couldn’t afford to play the higher buy-ins, I probably wasn’t good enough. I learned as I moved up. I believe one can make exceptions to these rules when really good spots come up, where you know you’re frequently going to do well. For me, I always played the Sunday Million (even though it was out of my roll in the beginning) because this is a very soft tournament that good players often do well in. Plus, it was a chance to highly increase my bankroll.
 
Also, when a really fishy player sat in a cash game I would also make an exception to play higher.

When I started playing poker, I knew very few people. I taught myself the majority of what I knew. For a long time I didn’t know one could sell action, swap, or what mark-up even was. There are many faster ways to increase your bankroll that I was unaware of at the time. If I were to do it all over again there are a lot of things I would do differently, but doing it the way I did felt really good. I’m a very independent person and if I didn’t go though the experiences I went though, I don’t believe I would be the person or player that I am today. 

I do have some keys to success along the way:

State of mind. I have always had a positive mindset about things and tried to push out the negative and reduce the stress of my day in any way I could. One of the things I typically don’t do is watch the board run out. I look at it after the fact. After the money gets in, the way the board runs out is out of my control. This is just one small example of eliminating stress and maintaining a good state of mind throughout the day. 

Focus. Our brains are designed to only do one thing at a time. So when I play poker, I play poker. When I watch a movie, I watch a movie, and when I’m talking to someone I try my best to give them my undivided attention. Living this way will allow you to appreciate, understand, enjoy, but ultimately get the most out of everything you do. For poker, it has allowed me to pay attention to small details, understand game flow, and play to the best of my ability. 

Discipline. I like to think I don’t have much of an ego. It doesn’t bother me when I lose nor if someone is playing better than me. I am confident and think highly of myself, but I’m not afraid to give credit when it is deserved. Some things that I do, that many others don’t, are I end my sessions early when I am losing, and I’m willing to play very long sessions when I’m winning. Even when I am winning, but know that I am outclassed, I will still leave. After big downswings, I stop playing and reevaluate my game. Many players want to chase money lost, even though it’s obvious that you’re just going to lose more. I’m not ashamed to step back and reevaluate my game, which is a big downfall of a lot of other players who have had success.

Craig Tapscott: What are the biggest mistakes you’ve seen other players make when it comes to good bankroll management?

Jackie Glazier: From my experience on the live tournament circuit, the biggest mistake I see is players living beyond their means outside of poker. As a full time poker player, it is as important for your bankroll management to consider the expenses that support you playing, such as flights, accommodations, meals, and the occasional big night out. I feel a lot of players feel pressured to live an extravagant lifestyle when their bankroll simply can’t justify it. There is no need to book the most expensive table at the club or play credit card roulette with ten people for an expensive dinner. Living and playing within your bankroll is a key to poker longevity.

Kathy Liebert: I’ve seen so many players win a large amount of money in tournaments and then all of a sudden they go play higher and higher or play a lot of big buy-in tournaments and often go through all their winnings.

Most players take way too much risk for their bankrolls and play way too high. Why not lock up some of that money and play smaller buy-ins and keep plenty to pay all the bills and stay in action? So many players have gone bust because they play at a level where if they run bad they lose most of their bankroll. I’ve seen players go from almost nothing and then they have a big score and they have to play every big event. And many of them go through the money very quickly. Often they don’t think about the variance and lose it all. Personally, I would rather play smaller and know I’m not risking my bankroll.  

Calvin Anderson: Living above their means. You may have had a really good week this week, but you never know what tomorrow will bring. Very few people are able to correctly evaluate their yearly income, so they buy a lot of unnecessary things. Whenever I buy items, I look at absolute value. Don’t be tricked by what society thinks you should buy or spend your money on when you hit a big score. Many people blow their bankroll on unnecessary materialistic things that have no true value. ♠

Jackie Glazier placed second in the 2012 WSOP $3,000 no-limit event for $458,996. In 2103, she won the WSOPE €1,100 Ladies event. Glazier is a Team 888poker ambassador.

Kathy Liebert won the 2004 limit hold’em shootout to capture a WSOP bracelet. She has garnered more than $5.8 million in tournament cashes. In 2002 Liebert won the Party Poker Limit Hold’em Championship event for $1 million.

Calvin Anderson has more than $6.3 million in combined live and online tournament cashes. In 2014 he captured the title and the bracelet in the WSOP $1,500 seven card Stud eight-or-better event.