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Variance & bankroll

8 steps · read as text
-6-30+3+6
broke
05001k hands
expected: +0.5 buy-insy-axis in buy-ins (100 bb)
1 / 8

Meet a good player. On average they win 5 every 100 hands. Watch their first 1,000.

the numbers

Results drift by your win rate and spread by the square root of hands played. Ten times the hands: ten times the drift, about three times the spread.

rule of thumb

Only play with money you can afford to lose. For cash games, keep at least 20 to 30 buy-ins for the stakes you play.

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sources & further reading
The Mathematics of PokerBill Chen, Jerrod Ankenman · 2006 · book
Thinking in BetsAnnie Duke · 2018 · book
Poker Theory and Analytics (15.S50) ↗MIT OpenCourseWare · 2015 · course