Eric Rizen Lynch

Ask Rizen

I'm bringing back the old 'Ask Rizen' feature on Fridays. I have a few questions that I have gotten I can use for this installment. If you'd like to have a question (poker related or otherwise) answered as a part of 'Ask Rizen' on Fridays please click on the 'Ask Rizen' link and fill out the form on the site or e-mail rizenpoker@gmail.com with the subject line 'Ask Rizen' and I will get to it in a future segment.

Q:I am playing in a bounty with you tonight at clubWPT, and happened on your website. I have a problem/question. When I have a lead chip count, approach a final table, or in the tourney chip lead, I tend to clam up and play conservatively, invariably struggling as antes chip away at my lead... how can i get this monkey off of my back?

A: Well, the simplest answer to this is as you get deeper and deeper into tournaments the play often becomes more about situations and much less about cards. The blinds and antes get high enough in relation to the stack sizes that no one really has time to sit around and wait for premium hands, so aggression and playing back and certain players rules the day. There are times where you will get deep and run good enough you will win, but more often than not if you are waiting for cards you will just find yourself short stacked and need multiple double ups to have any chance of winning. Good, aggressive play targeting specific weaknesses in other players at the table is the best way to keep your chip stack up and win the tournament.

Q: I am able to start out with a couple of hundred dollars and over time ( a week or two) turn it into a couple of thousand but then move up to the higher cash games and lose all of my money in a few hours.  Did you run into this problem and if you did how do you control it?  Is it best to just stay at one cash game level?  I seem to do the best at $1 $2 blind cash games but lose control when someone slops out on me in a big pot.

A: I think your issue comes down to bankroll management. You should really have at least 10-20 buy ins for the level you play or you risk going broke just through natural variance. It's not at all uncommon for me to have 5 buy in downswings in NLHE cash games, and sometimes I have7-8 buy in downswings, but that is much more rare. So if you're playing 2/4, a $2000 downswing can be perfectly normal.If you play full ring and not 6 max the downswings are a little lower. Honestly it's best to stay at one level until you have at least 10 buy ins for the next level, I prefer 20.

-Rizen