Contradictions in Bankroll Management.

[BuzzBeeSi]

Here are 2 things that are widely regarded as gospel for a poker player:

1) When your bankroll reaches a certain point, you should move up in limits / buy-ins

2) You don't know even if you're a winning player until 100s of hours of play on a given level.

If 2 is true (which it is), then why move up?

(I'm talking about experienced players here, as opposed to beginners, who I believe definitely should employ standard bankroll management)

[torch]

The size of your bankroll is not a trigger for the next level; it is an enabler. You don't have to move up - you can move up. Moving up levels is highly dependent on your comfort moving up and is enabled by having a sufficient bankroll.

[nsidestrate]

You have expressed #1 backwards. The rule is that you should not move up before you have enough BBs. You certainly don't have to move up.

[taz115]

There are lots of ITHers that I know of that are rolled for 1000+ BBs at whatever level they are playing. They are either comfortable beating the games they know they can beat, are not comfortable moving up or are just really conservative.

Moving up limits can be difficult and nerve racking with the size of swings. Especially when you move up several limits in a short period of time.

You also do not have to statistically know that you are beating level before moving up. I moved from 1/2 to 5/10 pretty quickly. Playing approx. 20k hands at 1/2 and then 5k hands at each level in between. I think I was even losing money over my first 5k hands at 3/6 when I moved to 5/10. But I was bankrolled and I felt that I was playing well enough to move to up.