Black Friday and Bankroll Management

Poker News / Short-Stacked Shamus / 20 May 2011 / Leave a Comment

Any poker player who is even a little bit serious about the game has given some thought to bankroll management. In theory, anyway.

Players who have demonstrated long-term success all seem to talk about the importance of preserving one's roll -- of managing risk in order to ensure one can stay in the game. Just about all the strategy books have sections covering the topic. And every time we visit the poker room or click on a seat to join an online table, those of us with an interest in winning more than just a few hours of fun are at least aware of what we're risking and the consequences of losing it.

Of course, giving thought to the idea and actually practicing sound bankroll management are two different things. For American poker players -- particularly those who play mostly online -- the events of "Black Friday" have suddenly forced us all to stop thinking of bankroll management as good idea "in theory" and to start being a lot more serious about putting it into practice.

It was a little over a month ago, on April 15th, when the U.S. Attorney's Office unsealed the indictment and civil complaint against 11 individuals variously associated with PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker, Absolute Poker and UltimateBet (or UB). Domains on which those sites operated were seized as well, thus forcing all of the sites (eventually) to stop serving American players. (Deals struck with Department of Justice have allowed Stars and FTP to reuse their dot-com domains; the AP/UB sites remain seized.)

Suddenly U.S. players were no longer to play at either Stars or Full Tilt. Americans with active accounts at Absolute or UB were actually able to play on those sites up until this week, although they could not (and still cannot) deposit or withdraw.

Like many American players, I had accounts on both PokerStars and Full Tilt -- indeed, they were the only sites on which I played. On April 15th, PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker accounted for approximately 80% of the traffic from American players, with most of the remaining percentage covered by AP/UB. Long ago I had accounts on Absolute and UB, too, but I left both sites after the insider cheating scandal at AP in late 2007, which meant I was off of UB when the cheating on that site came to light in early 2008.

There are sites that remain available to us, including the many skins of the Merge Network (Carbon Poker, Hero Poker, etc.), the Cake Poker network, and Bodog. In other words, it is not quite accurate to say the U.S. government "shut down" online poker altogether for Americans. But it was a fairly massive, abrupt removal of most of the games we Yanks were playing. And a lot of us really have been without our game for over a month now, and probably will be for some time to come, too.

You've no doubt heard the stories about Americans' efforts to recover their funds from the targeted sites. PokerStars, which keeps its players' funds in segregated accounts, has handled the cashing out process speedily and satisfactorily for most players, myself included. Full Tilt Poker was less careful with its accounting, we are learning, a result being an uncomfortable delay for players getting back their FTP rolls. Indeed, concern about Full Tilt is growing day-by-day, with indicators starting to emerge that there may be a possibility the site and company are in serious trouble -- the kind of trouble that may lead to players not getting their funds back at all. Those of us with presently-inaccessible funds still sitting in our FTP accounts remain hopeful, however.

Meanwhile, the prospects for players getting their money back from AP or UB seems even dimmer. As one of those for whom the cheating scandals (and subsequent efforts to cover up the scandals) was sufficient reason to leave those sites, I have long considered playing on those sites to be a bad idea. But what could those Americans who still played on the sites after April 15th have been thinking? Playing without the prospect of cashing out can only be regarded as the worst kind of bankroll management imaginable.

Indeed, there's something weirdly fatalistic about the idea of buying into a game yet having no means to convert your chips back into cash -- it's like playing a tournament where everyone but one eventually goes "broke," except the winner also has to give back the chips at the end, getting nothing in return. Really, it's as though those who continued to play on AP/UB over the last few weeks were all counting on those "Rapture" folks being correct about the world ending on May 21st.

As I say, there are still sites serving U.S. customers, and I've begun to experiment in a tentative way with those. I spent a little bit of time and effort just after April 15th trying to deposit on a couple of sites, but meeting with some initial resistance gave up. It is possible for Americans to make such deposits, but as a self-professed recreational player I couldn't be bothered to go through the necessary hoops (especially amid all of the current doubts about being able to cash out).

I do, however, have myself some funds online on a couple of U.S.-facing sites. Via freerolls, I managed to win a bit of real cash on two different sites, where I am now managing very carefully the small amounts I have on each. I am revisiting those sections in the books about bankroll management, adding up the buy-ins I have available to me, following advice about not risking more than 5% or 10% of my roll at a time, and so forth.

Because really, more than ever, going busto is not an option. For American online players, "risk of ruin" now entails risking having to discover new, difficult ways to replenish one's account -- once a simple matter, though today anything but.