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Posted by Editor | Filed under Bankroll Management, Howard Lederer, Strategy

PARABLE #3 – THE LEDERER PERSPECTIVE

Howard Lederer would seem the perfect person to mediate between the Ferguson and Straus approaches. He is extremely smart and introspective and had the benefit of obtaining a lot of his post-graduate-equivalent brains on the streets.

But despite his intelligence and success, his own record on the subject of bankroll management is mixed. At various times, during our dozens of interviews and our professional and social meetings over the last five years, Howard has shared the following:

* When he started playing underground games in New York, he was broke every day, running errands for the game until he had the money to buy-in, playing till he lost it all, borrowing two dollars for a sandwich and cigarettes, and doing the same thing the next day.

* Even after he started winning, he never had enough money in reserve to handle a bad month or even, sometimes, a bad week.

* He has lost seven figure amounts staking other players and on ill-considered investments. (I never asked for specific details or audited Lederer but I think there’s a chance, but despite SEEMING like the kind of guy who wouldn’t be anyone’s sucker, he has lost seven figures in EACH of those areas.)

Then there’s Howard’s endless well of experiences and stories. His career overlapped just a little with Jack Straus but to hear him talk, especially about the pre-Full Tilt days, they were, if not spiritual brothers, then at least closely related.

My favorite is a story he told me about a player named Bob. Bob went broke and borrowed $200, but took it straight to a blackjack table. He bet the $200, won, and let it ride. He won again and let it ride – $800, $1,600, $3,200. After he won that one, he had reached the house limit of $5,000 per hand and demanded to be able to bet the full $6,400. He won that one, got another limit increase, and lost the $12,800. He turned to the person next to him and said, with a disgusted shrug, “Story of my life.”

What do you make of all this? Not just the stories themselves but the whole idea of how to manage your bankroll.  Is Chris Ferguson the only one that has it figured out? Can anyone else muster his level of discipline and patience? Is the only alternative going broke? I’d appreciate hearing your comments in the space below. If you have a problem with the format, you can email me at mrchaotic@aol.com. I’ll try to share some additional thoughts as well as your comments.

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8 Responses to “#958 – Three Parables on Bankroll Management, Part III”

1. danny light Says:
   February 4th, 2010 at 9:46 pm

   yeah i have a problem with bankroll management and have some of the same experiences as howard but i know what i should be doing its just i feel i need company to succeed because i have very little control over my emotions and buy ins

2. Joo Park Says:
   February 4th, 2010 at 11:48 pm

   if people started to show their books and see how much they are making or losing, we can get a better idea. How about you?

3. Del Says:
   February 6th, 2010 at 6:06 pm

   Wow I never knew Howard lost so much he seems like the tightest player and usually tight players are tight with there bankroll. The thing is I think it’s a deep phsycological sickness with people who have high risk bankrolls. They almost want to lose in a way so that they can get the feeling that they are alive. So it’s like a win win they win they are high they lose they get high as well. Both get there adrenaline pumping and let you know that your alive

4. BK Says:
   February 10th, 2010 at 7:03 pm

   Michael,

   Very timely for you to be blogging about bankroll managment again, as I have very recently implemented a Ferguson-esque style.

   Long story short….

   I wasn’t happy with my poker play, and decided to start over from square one. This resulted in rereading Super System, and generally just trying to analyze my game. I gave up any local cash games and/or casino’s and had just about $20 in my FTP account. I even created an ever-expanding excel sheet to track my progress. 3 weeks in I was over $100, and a few weeks after that over $200. By January 20th I reached the $500 level. (<–hardly a super exciting journey, but the point is that I stuck to my system, and it was working)

   The past few weeks have not gone as well, and I actually just fell back below $400, which was my magic number for having to drop back down. So, I swallowed my pride and did just that. It was a lot harder than I thought, perhaps because I cruised pretty easily up to that point. (I probably only play about 1-2 hours per day, on average, and in several instances have taken 3-4 days off between sessions)

   So, either I have run into some better competition at the tables, run into some bad luck, or just got out of my game. Probably just a combination of all three. So I'm back at it trying to get to the $500 level again, and constantly analyzing my game along the way. I'm thinking about investing in hand tracking software to help me, but have not used any such software before.

   I don't really have a goals, per se, with all of this. I just wanted to make myself a more disciplined and better player. Perhaps I need to set some goals in order to really make it work???

   Anyway, enjoy the blog!! Best of luck!

   bk

5. Lewis Says:
   February 10th, 2010 at 9:15 pm

   I remember Steve Zolotow’s Full Tilt tip about bankroll management and basing your buy-ins on the size of your bankroll and how easily it is replenished when lost. It’s a different and interesting perspective, here’s the URL below:

   http://www.fulltiltpoker.com/pro-tip/SteveZolotow/206

   I personally am a big fan of Chris Ferguson and do my best to follow his rules. Although very conservative I think it’s a great lesson in discipline and definitely prevents you from going broke.

6. Carl Says:
   February 11th, 2010 at 12:02 pm

   I admire anybody that can play chess like the Professor. Without hesitation i admit that Howard Leder is my poker hero. No matter what his beginnings.

   I admire anybody that can play chess like Howard can. No matter his beginings, He is still a man to be respected at most, ( if not all ), gaming tables. I, myself, can’t seem to get a bankroll up. No matter how hard i try to be patient, I can’t seem to win even the small ones. I just don’t believe that a man has so much bad luck. I don’t know if this is the place to vent, but I can’t seem to find other places. They say that it is because of so many hands per hour. I seem to do real well early and then late game, switching gears, being patient, playing KK, or any other combination, seriously now, against JJ or what ever, ther is 90% of the time a J on the river, or turn, or flop. Yeah I know !!!!!!!!!! Really I’m not that bad. it’s just man!!!!!!!!! After 3 years of Full Tilt Poker and still donating. It don’t seem to be that way in a b & m casino. Could it be that Full Tilt Poker manipulates cards? You can bet your ass.

7. Carl Says:
   February 11th, 2010 at 12:28 pm

   Del is a dumb ass.

8. Scoala Poker Says:
   September 13th, 2010 at 4:45 pm

   I’ve heard many stories about pro poker players that had a rocky start. I really respect Howard Lederer and everybody’s human.

   I always take a huge part of my poker winnings (like 75%) and invest it in something right away (after i win a fair amount in a poker tournament), in order for me to not be able afterwards to access it when i’m on a losing streak.

   I also believe that tournaments are much more healthier than cash games (you know from the start how much you are going to lose).

   Chris Ferguson was pretty wealthy from the start and he studied poker since he was a child. Maybe that’s why he had it all figured out

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