"Never?" Sure it is hard to lose 20 buy-ins live, but are you considering expenses? If you are hoping to live off of $6k playing poker and maintain a negligible RoR then you are going to have to be living in a dirt cheap apartment, probably can't own a car and will have to make your own meals or get them comped. Forget about having a girlfriend or social life, too.

There is a formula for this. If someone crushes the game at $30/h, with a SD of $300/h and a $6000 bankroll, plays 200 hours per month and spends $1000 per month, he still has a risk of ruin of 3.6%. It's difficult to go busto, sure, but this hardly qualifies as "never." These are pretty generous conditions, too, IMO. It is hard to play 200 hours per month, hard to live off of $1000 for most people, and $30/h is a very good win-rate. Also, unplanned expenses can always come up. Make that 150 hours per month, $1500/month expenditures, and a $20/h win-rate and RoR is now 26%.

Additionally, living under the constant threat of busto has to suck. It's nice to have a cushion.

http://www.pokerbankrollblog.com/cal...quirements.htm

Separating the poker bankroll and liferoll is silly for a pro. Your poker bankroll for bankroll management considerations is all of your assets which you are willing to devote to poker should you need them. Setting aside an emergency fund may be reasonable so that you do not allow yourself to go completely busto, otherwise your liferoll is your poker bankroll.

I agree with most of this, except I would actually expect $10k downswings to have happened to most 2|5 pros who have been playing for a long time (say 10k hours), if you include life expenses (obviously not counting certain voluntary expenses like buying a house).

With respect DC, my sources are recognised poker pro's, coaches and authors and their ideas are based on logic and knowledge.

Let me put it this way...

I would play 5/10 live all day long if I had 30K loose change for poker...but then I own several properties and have plenty of wonga coming in from other sources.

If I was single, living in my moms basement and eating out her fridge, I'd play 5/10 all day long if I had 30K in ma hipper.

But if I was married with a wee kiddy and mortgage, I'd need a shedload bigger roll to try and pay my way through life off my poker earnings.

As you are a winning cash (pro?), who knows lots of other winning cash pros I guess you are familiar with Tendler's thought on keeping on your A game?

I don't recall playing under cash pressure as being anywhere on his list.

I'm done...op FFS listen to the better advice on this thread.

I didn't say I would live off $6k. I said if I had $6k to my name I would never go broke. The first thing I would do is build a life roll to make sure my expenses are covered. I would employ an unconventional low risk strategy to beat 1/3 (not optimal). I would grind extra hours at the beginning if necessary. FWIW, when I was playing 2/5 full time I never had a $6k downswing (and my game has grown much stronger since then).

Math is idiotic when you plug in random numbers that have no bearing on reality.

Your liferoll is your bankroll? LoL maybe if you are a degenerate gambler that likes broke living and has no financial acumen whatsoever. In live low stakes playing my normal game I would only need 2000 bbs to be reasonably confident I wouldn't go busto. I could potentially grow that to 3k bbs just for piece of mind. I would of course build a bankroll to move up in level but aside from that everything above my bankroll requirements would go towards my life aka towards expenses and investments. I may start with $6k but my intentions would not to be broke living for long.

Yes, of course if you include life expenses..all sorts of things can happen in life. I'm talking about poker downswings. The length and severity of a downswing is a function of a player's edge. Edges in live low stakes tend to be extremely high, especially in certain markets. If edges were to shrink then good pros would experience longer downswings.

I've played with a decent number of well known pros and a lot of them aren't very good. You can name big names all day long but I'll put more credibility towards the players that I know actually played live low stakes for a living. You just reminded me of that time a fairly well known and recognized pro (who later wrote a cash game book) came into these very forums and recommended players 3x raise (including premiums) at 1/2. For all I know he's the best player in the world, but he was clearly out of touch with live low stakes.

You're all over the place. We weren't talking about $30k being a proper bankroll for 5/T. 5/T is a completely different animal. Edges are smaller at 5/T and I believe are shrinking. 5/T also tends to play much deeper than live low stakes games. The only thing I said is if one has a $30k poker bankroll they should be taking shots at 5/T if they have an edge. That is not unreasonable in any way.

What IS unreasonable is to expect someone with a $30k poker bankroll to play 1/3. If you lose $10k at 1/3 then do yourself a favor and find a new profession. Poker is not for you. For that matter if you lose $20k at 2/5 GET A JOB. $30k for 1/3 is not even fathomable.

of the full time pros that play 2/5 that I respect I actually have the largest down swing in $ terms than any of em and its well under 10k (this is table losses). A huge slug of these hours were in LV 1k cap which many consider the tougher games in the country.

DC is also correct with regards to these dreaded 6 month break even streaks. I average a little under 1 losing month per year. My largest losing month is a FRACTION of my largest winning month. I have had 2 breakeven stretches between 200 and 225 hours in the thousands upon thousands of hours logged since BF

We are talking about the same thing. My word choice was poor.

I did not pick random numbers. I chose reasonable numbers to show my point, which is that even under optimistic conditions your RoR is not negligible. Feel free to suggest more realistic inputs.

There is reason not to consider your bankroll as separate from your "liferoll." They are not independent in your model as the bankroll fuels the liferoll, and I assume if you had an extraordinarily bad run at poker you'd be willing to liquidate some investments to continue playing.

As an example, if you have $15k in assets with which to play poker and pay your $1k/month expenses, you should not set aside $6k for six months of living expenses and consider your bankroll $9k. You poker bankroll is $15k, and when you do RoR calculations you will consider that you need to take $1k/month out of it. It would perhaps be wise to set a point of "ruin" which is not $0 once you have enough money, but there is no reason this has to be enough to cover your rent for 6 months.

Sorry, I simply disagree with you on this. Losing 50 buyins in these super soft games is just degeneracy, plain and simple. Like if I was trying to play poker for a living and I lost close to 20 buyins I would drop down in level. If dropping down a level is not an option then I would get a job. Players that are beating the games for 10+ bbs/hr simply don't go on 20 buyin downswings. It just doesn't happen. What this means is the player isn't good enough to be a professional or isn't playing good poker right now. Either way, GET A JOB.

Regarding your math, I have no clue about the formula nor do I particularly care why it is wrong. Most likely the standard deviation is way too high particularly given the style I would employ if I had just $6k to my name. Does the formula even account for the fact that winnings above the $6k will go into my life roll to cover expenses?

Inb4

My standard deviation has always been about 100BB/h. Some people report as low as 50BB/h, but I am skeptical of this. There is at least one common app that calculates the number incorrectly.

It seems reasonable that you may be able to play a lower variance style, but I am not sure what is realistic. I used 100BB/h because it is in line with what I have personally experienced.

The formula does not account for the fact that money is being taken from your bankroll, but it can be made to do so. For example if your monthly expectation is $4000 with $1000/month expenses, multiply the win-rate by (4000-1000)/(4000) = 3/4. In reality it is not a uniform reduction in win-rate as expenses are often taken out at once for things like rent, but this is close enough for the model.

Subbed

underrated

Holy eft move down stakes grind some out online to build that **** back up dawg

Got my roll up over $1,000 got into the upswing poker lab. I was taking shots at 50nl hu at this point, after losing 4.5 buy ins I moved back down to 25z and started spending about an hour to two in the lab a day and making adjustments to my game (this was a terrible idea) implementing ideas from the lab when I've only been through 10% of it was awful for my game, went on to lose about $800 over 3 days playing what I thought was Doug's strategy (had gotten through half the postflop material at this point) I dropped back down to 10z at this point with about $270 in my roll and continued to lose about down to $230. The next day I revisisted the $3.50+rs and grinded those like crazy, and just had the most miserable run bad and tilted off my roll down to $80 playing these only min cashing 1 of them. Took 2 days off to study the lab, and started back up today at 10nlz after clearing my head and actually getting through a ton of the material in the lab and piecing it all together until it made sense so I now I have the "why" for when I make plays not just blindly making plays "cuz doug said so" I now know why I'm 4 betting light in spots instead of just seeing A5s and 4betting.

hoping to get back to nl25z by next week (I'll just be 2 tabling it) I'll be joining titan poker when I get back from my summer job in August for the $2,000 welcome bonus hopefully it'll be softer fields and I can get a decent grind in there.

Started with $80 today, grinded up to $260 just playing nl10z over 5k hands


(my poker tracker is set to Australia time, and I've tried changing it in notepad 3 times but it doesn't save for some reason, that's why it says 2 days instead of 1)

In before OP loses the $6k "grinding" 5/T HU PLO or something like that. Seriously get help.

Even got a 10BI stack on 1 of my tables!



Here's a couple hand histories

I wanted a c/r range OTF so I could get value with my sets gutshot + bdfd was a good candidate. when Q pairs It's going to be hard for any of his pocket pairs to continue, i decide to double barrel giving up any river (including a J)

PokerStars - $0.10 NL FAST (6 max) - Holdem - 6 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

BTN: $8.93 (VPIP: 38.89, PFR: 22.22, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 18)
SB: $10.49 (VPIP: 21.18, PFR: 11.76, 3Bet Preflop: 2.86, Hands: 87)
BB: $10.30 (VPIP: 16.67, PFR: 5.56, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 38)
Hero (UTG): $97.42
MP: $5.94 (VPIP: 7.69, PFR: 7.69, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 13)
CO: $25.14 (VPIP: 0.00, PFR: 0.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 3)

SB posts SB $0.05, BB posts BB $0.10

Pre Flop: (pot: $0.15) Hero has 8 9

Hero raises to $0.40, fold, CO raises to $1.35, fold, fold, fold, Hero calls $0.95

Flop: ($2.85, 2 players) T 2 Q
Hero checks, CO bets $1.36, Hero raises to $3.53, CO calls $2.17

Turn: ($9.91, 2 players) Q
Hero bets $6.24, fold,



This hand fukking sucked. I used about 20 secs of my timebank figuring out if I should value bet river or not thinking how much it would suck to be c/r'd but after the 30+ second tank I discounted a lot of straights from his range, there's a missed draw and I think he could call me down light on this river. As soon as I bet he beats me into the pot with a 260bb shove. I was thinking about his straight combos, 53 I think would raise turn, T8cc/hh could make sense but it's a very liberal float unless specifically T8hh that hand probably wouldn't be snap jamming for value OTR I think he'd think about it a bit and maybe not jam, he'd have to be more polarised than that. sets would also probably just call river. so He's saying he has A9cc (a4cc not betting flop) I just don't think I can be scared of 1 combo so I go ahead and make the call

PokerStars - $0.10 NL FAST (6 max) - Holdem - 6 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

BTN: $10.18 (VPIP: 27.27, PFR: 22.73, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 22)
SB: $17.17 (VPIP: 31.15, PFR: 22.95, 3Bet Preflop: 12.50, Hands: 62)
BB: $32.55 (VPIP: 17.07, PFR: 14.63, 3Bet Preflop: 6.67, Hands: 42)
UTG: $9.80 (VPIP: 0.00, PFR: 0.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 1)
MP: $30.73 (VPIP: 24.24, PFR: 18.18, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 33)
Hero (CO): $41.86

SB posts SB $0.05, BB posts BB $0.10

Pre Flop: (pot: $0.15) Hero has 6 6

fold, MP raises to $0.30, Hero calls $0.30, fold, fold, fold

Flop: ($0.75, 2 players) 9 6 4
MP bets $0.45, Hero raises to $1.35, MP calls $0.90

Turn: ($3.45, 2 players) 7
MP checks, Hero bets $2.57, MP calls $2.57

River: ($8.59, 2 players) J
MP checks, Hero bets $6.40, MP raises to $26.51 and is all-in, Hero calls $20.11

MP shows 8 A (High Card, Ace)
(Pre 47%, Flop 26%, Turn 30%)
Hero shows 6 6 (Three of a Kind, Sixes)
(Pre 53%, Flop 74%, Turn 70%)
Hero wins $60.11

I take a bit of a liberal cold call with ATdd in the BB I call the minbet because it's basically a check so it's treated as such (I'd check back AT if it was checked to me here) OTT this is basically a check aswell. If it was checked around and checked OTT I'd bet just under half pot here for protection/value so I go ahead and do that. Now V leads on a 9 river I nearly snap fold, but I give myself 5 seconds to think about the hand, then I realise he's not credibly repping anything. Flopped straight just missed 2 streets of value, sets/2pairs didn't bet for protection/value. (Now that I'm looking at it, this could be 78 didn't see that at the time) But what he's really saying he has is a 9. What 9s 3b pre vs an UTG open? there aren't many, they're also not betting/calling a raise OTT So I go ahead and make the call.



PokerStars - $0.10 NL FAST (6 max) - Holdem - 6 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

BTN: $22.37 (VPIP: 28.57, PFR: 28.57, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 14)
SB: $35.99 (VPIP: 66.67, PFR: 11.11, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 9)
Hero (BB): $13.45
UTG: $10.00 (VPIP: 19.71, PFR: 12.41, 3Bet Preflop: 2.22, Hands: 140)
MP: $9.85 (VPIP: 24.66, PFR: 17.81, 3Bet Preflop: 6.45, Hands: 78)
CO: $10.39 (VPIP: 21.05, PFR: 14.74, 3Bet Preflop: 2.94, Hands: 99)

SB posts SB $0.05, Hero posts BB $0.10

Pre Flop: (pot: $0.15) Hero has A T

UTG raises to $0.30, fold, fold, fold, SB raises to $1.00, Hero calls $0.90, UTG calls $0.70

Flop: ($3.00, 3 players) 9 T Q
SB bets $0.10, Hero calls $0.10, UTG calls $0.10

Turn: ($3.30, 3 players) 6
SB bets $0.40, Hero raises to $1.20, fold, SB calls $0.80

River: ($5.70, 2 players) 9
SB bets $2.70, Hero calls $2.70

SB shows 2 7 (One Pair, Nines)
(Pre 34%, Flop 8%, Turn 9%)
Hero shows A T (Two Pair, Tens and Nines)
(Pre 66%, Flop 92%, Turn 91%)
Hero wins $10.60


This hand was pretty funny, was hoping I wasn't GII vs a higher flush draw, and he's just got the lower flushdraw + gutter. GII as a 4:1 fave and lost that one, can't be too upset though just onto the next hand.


PokerStars - $0.10 NL FAST (6 max) - Holdem - 6 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

BTN: $13.15 (VPIP: 25.00, PFR: 25.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 8)
SB: $13.89 (VPIP: 35.00, PFR: 25.00, 3Bet Preflop: 14.29, Hands: 20)
Hero (BB): $11.92
UTG: $10.20 (VPIP: 30.30, PFR: 21.21, 3Bet Preflop: 15.38, Hands: 33)
MP: $7.36
CO: $2.54 (VPIP: 18.64, PFR: 8.47, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 60)

SB posts SB $0.05, Hero posts BB $0.10

Pre Flop: (pot: $0.15) Hero has T 6

fold, fold, fold, BTN raises to $0.30, fold, Hero calls $0.20

Flop: ($0.65, 2 players) 9 2 8
Hero checks, BTN bets $0.40, Hero raises to $1.20, BTN raises to $3.10, Hero raises to $11.62 and is all-in, BTN calls $8.52

Turn: ($23.89, 2 players) 6

River: ($23.89, 2 players) 5

Hero shows T 6 (One Pair, Sixes)
(Pre 63%, Flop 81%, Turn 23%)
BTN shows 5 7 (Straight, Nine High)
(Pre 37%, Flop 19%, Turn 77%)
BTN wins $22.81


put him on a range of KKh/AAh/AKhh/QQ and made the turn call getting 4:1 (even if he has nut flush 4:1 isn't too far off the 5:1 odds I make a boat/quads OTR(I bet turn to allow him to continue with his whole range and size up the river shove)
After the fact might include AJhh sometimes and AhQx


PokerStars - $0.10 NL FAST (6 max) - Holdem - 6 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

BTN: $23.81 (VPIP: 34.72, PFR: 27.78, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 73)
SB: $14.70 (VPIP: 30.00, PFR: 30.00, 3Bet Preflop: 100.00, Hands: 10)
BB: $14.33 (VPIP: 30.77, PFR: 15.38, 3Bet Preflop: 5.88, Hands: 39)
UTG: $10.45 (VPIP: 25.88, PFR: 23.53, 3Bet Preflop: 16.13, Hands: 85)
Hero (MP): $24.40
CO: $12.64 (VPIP: 66.67, PFR: 66.67, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 3)

SB posts SB $0.05, BB posts BB $0.10

Pre Flop: (pot: $0.15) Hero has 3 3

fold, Hero raises to $0.35, fold, fold, SB raises to $1.15, fold, Hero calls $0.80

Flop: ($2.40, 2 players) Q 3 4
SB checks, Hero bets $1.51, SB raises to $3.02, Hero calls $1.51

Turn: ($8.44, 2 players) 5
SB checks, Hero bets $2.66, SB raises to $10.53 and is all-in, Hero calls $7.87

River: ($29.50, 2 players) 3

SB shows K K (Two Pair, Kings and Threes)
(Pre 81%, Flop 35%, Turn 23%)
Hero shows 3 3 (Four of a Kind, Threes)
(Pre 19%, Flop 65%, Turn 77%)
Hero wins $28.17

what? I was at $1,100 took a shot at 50nl HU. Moved to 25nlz when I was at $850 moved down to 10nlz when I was at $415...

Because in your mind you're already sitting at $500NL and are trying to get there as fast as possible. Which would be fine if you're a proven winner and just lack the bankroll.

When did I ever say I was at $500nl? I'm definitely not there... I'm trying to beat 25nl over 20k hands/ 1/3 live not take shots at 2/5... I've been constantly dropping stakes, talking over hands and putting in hours of study everyday.

I can take a thread of your own where you played 2/5.

Also when you're trying to beat 25NL, why the hell did you go for 50NL HU (which is also a different game on top of that)? Be honest with yourself here.

50NL HU........OMG, Turtol, read the following...for your own good.

Well actually, simply understand you are bound to fail following your road. I don't care if you bust out, reload, bust out, reload. But 50NL HU...are you for real?

But if you insist, a better road to follow might be to
1. study "something" on Upswing.
2. test on 2NL. ....for 2 thousand hands
3. when that ONE strategy is locked in,,,,
4. Rinse and repeat 1-3

Without proper bankroll and proven winning edge, poker is simply gambling. And gamblers always lose.

This is bringing back memories of bluescouse's blog with 3.5% of the entertainment and 100% chance of the same result

HAND ONE:

I would just c-bet. I would also just c-bet my sets, except maybe not QQ.

As played previously, the turn is like the worst card in the deck for you to bet.


HAND TWO:

I'd raise flop bigger.

River is an obvious value bet. Checking back would be crazy.


HAND THREE:

Fold pre-flop.

I played 1 session of 2/5 because the 1/3 wait list was 50+ deep
I've always enjoyed heads up a ton it's my end goal and I was properly rolled for it, I took a shot and moved down pretty quick

It was a pretty loose call pre