Fair enough.

Read this: PSA on bankroll requirements by Xhad

If you're already a winning 1/2 player, playing 1/2 is no sweat. Since you can redeposit and won't go nuts if you move down/go broke, you can play even more aggressively than Xhad. I would spring for HEM (or PT3) if you don't already own one. I would also recommend a DeucesCracked (or other coaching site) membership, starting with the free trial trial to get your feet wet. If you're serious about getting better, I would spend as much time posting or studying videos as I did playing.

Go forth and prosper.

6m or FR? That depends on you and your interests. At some point, shorthanded skills are required to win. That point certainly isn't 1/2.

thanks for the help dougL

final questions...
are software and rakeback that important?
i used to use pokercopilot because im on a mac, i did NOT like using software. ive seen pt3 in action before too, all the stats annoy me. i only used each for 1 month then uninstalled. if i can play well without software, can i continue to do so?

should i find a site that supports rakeback, does it change profits that much? i am already on fulltilt so i cant get a rakeback for that site. i am banned from pokerstars so cross that out too. i dont necessarily want to play on a small small site because i feel i have nothing to learn from the players that play there, all the best competition are at the big named sites. and i have a mac (i know idiotic) so id have to find a mac supported room

Noob question since I have forgotten - Oaks you need to post to get a hand so normal is to wait until the button passes and then post - the dealers never even ask me, they know. Other places you do not need to post to get a hand. You can be dealt in at any spot other than the SB or BTN.

One school of thought is to wait until the button passes so that you can watch the action. Another is to take your BB so that you get a full set of hands and yet another is to take the frist hand in any postion.

ideas? comments?

Action junkies take the first hand.

I think this very much depends on your skills and the blinds, but I'm pretty sure that taking the BB and posting in the CO are far superior to the #3 choice (which is probably buying the button if allowed).

If you're at a really passive game (or just plain suck like me lol), you won't have as much of a spread between VPIP OOP and VPIP IP, so posting OOP doesn't cost that much more than posting IP.

When you take the BB, you pay BB+SB to see four hands (2 IP, 2 OOP). When you post in the CO, you pay BB to see one hand (IP). So the question is whether 3 hands (2 OOP, 1 IP) are worth a small blind plus the difference between posting IP and posting OOP.

At the Oaks 6/12 (2/3 chip blinds and new players post), I generally take the BB if I enter in MP1 or worse even though I think posting in the CO is better; I post immediately if I'm MP2 or better. I see people waiting full orbits to take the CO (e.g., they come in on the HJ) but the amount of time that I have to play poker isn't enough to warrant nitting it up for the fractional bet I'm losing by posting from MP2/MP3 or by taking the BB instead of waiting.

Thanks - that is a lot to think about - at CalGrand and cache creek you do not need to post - at CalGrand I see some players take a hand anywhere and some sit and wait for the btn to pass and take a free hand from there.

The trade off is, as you say, the value of waiting 6-7 hands vs posting as in Oaks or taking a free hand in the middle. I usually wait at Oaks and take a free hand anywhere at CalGrand. If you are going to play a long time then waiting 6-7 hands might be a good idea.

Just curious.

For various reasons I decided to learn more about LHE. After reading a few posts it was obvious that I needed to read SSHE.

One of the first questions I had regarding the difference between LHE and NLHE was regarding the buy-in amount. Well I didn't make it past page 5 when the book states "This is not a beginners' book. We do not discuss...tell you how large a buy-in to make..."

I have some understanding of stack sizes and how it relates in NLHE. I've read what is considered short or deep in those games and the implication of each, but I'm confused as to how many BB's I should start a LHE game with. Is it as simple as buying in for the max? Any thoughts would be appreciated. And my apologies if this is the wrong place to ask this question. Thanks for your help.

Welcome to the forum.

The general idea is to make sure you start each hand with at least 12BB cuz this way you can cap every street when you make a great hand. Admittedly, this is a rare occurrence (I can't honestly remember the last time I managed to do this) but whatever. You don't want to constantly be rebuying all the time every time you dip below this, so just buy in for more, say 25BB+. If it's a kill game, remember to take that into account (i.e. make sure you have 12BB worth of kill game size). FWIW, I buy in for my 3/6 kill game with $300 (and rebuy as soon as I'm around $150); I always get comments (why so much?) but they are easy to laugh off ("I'm feeling unlucky", etc).

Also check out wat/noob thread.

GgoodluckatthetablesG

As a winning player who doesn't have to post, I'd take any old hand including UTG.

You certainly don't have to have HUD. I like having stats to look at later. My RB at PS will be about 1BB/100 this year. That's likely half or more of my total earn. I'd either:

A) Try to beg your way to RB at FT. Others have done this. I started my FT account with RB.
B) Try somewhere that does have RB. If you want to go HUDless, check Cake.

I only play on FT and PS, so I'm not the expert.

The reason to play at big sites is to find worse competition, TBH. More tables = more chances to find a fish. Playing people who have a working brain is not profitable and quite frustrating.

GG explains it pretty well. I normally buy in for 20 big bets in a live game and 40 bb in an online game.

One of the reasons to buy in for bigger amounts (and perhaps GG's reason) is that you won't notice the fluctuations as quickly so it won't affect your game when you're losing or winning.

There's also a school of thought (I think from Elements of Poker) that basically tells you to take a hand as soon as you sit down if you think you are +EV vs the table. The more hands you see the more chances you get to make money, no matter where the big blind is at the moment.

Personally, if I don't have to post, I come in as soon as I can. If I do, I come in on the CO.

I'm not criticizing you, but are you aware of how close the EV decision is between coming in on the BB and coming in on the CO?

From my personal online stats, I'm roughly -0.15 BB/hand from the BB and SB, and roughly +0.1 BB/hand on the non-posting CO and BTN. Posting on the CO is -0.05 BB/hand, so it's actually something like -0.05 BB to see 3 more hands. As a matter of fact, if I'd stop cold-calling from the SB so much , I think it might be EV+ to come in on the BB.

im trying to keep a profit/loss log in excel, what do you guys keep track of yourself or do you guys let PT3 do everything for you?
i have these tabs/columns down, anything i should add?
Date Time Start Time End Total Time Venue Game Stake Buy In Add On Cash Out Won Loss Sess Bal Day Net Notes

I'm unaware of PT3 being able to import data from live hands, and if you're using it to track online hands, you can just import the hand histories and skip the Excel recordkeeping.

Expenses you incurred at the table (food, beer, tipping the chip runner when he/she colors up your unwieldly 6 racks of winnings, etc.).

I have a free account at a website, *************.com, which will track your wins/losses as well as let you do some good comparisons among other factors like time of day when you played, length of session, etc.. I use it strictly for my live play, but it's designed for online players to use it as well.

For my online play I just let Poker Tracker 3 handle everything.

I'm not aware, and don't have statistics that state otherwise (though online I'm +.05bb/hand from the CO without posting, and a rather astonishing -.32bb/hand from the big blind). Sample size is only 4K hands though.

I personally just feel I'd rather have random cards in late position than in the BB. I'm completely open to someone changing my mind on this issue with good reasons.

I think it's totally dependent on your own stats, but I'm pretty sure -0.32 BB/hand from the big blind is abnormally low.

Also, keep in mind that posting from the CO carries a different EV than playing from the CO. I'm +0.14 BB/hand from the CO, -0.05 BB/hand when I post from the CO.

I don't have a ton of hands, but it's 50k hands across .02/.04-.10/.20. You might play higher limits than me (for example, where people attack the blinds).

Hi.

I recently took a shot at something way outside of my bankroll, but because i wanted to test the waters, as this is where in plan on ending up playing once i can afford it.

it was $5/$10 FLH FR.

I know that the standard answer to FLH bankroll questions is "1,000 big bets"...
I played there with not even enough to play on 2 tables properly in my first session. made a profit, and tried 2-tabling the next day. posted another profit. today i also posted profit. but, i dont have a bankroll anywhere near $10,000. And along my way to $10,000 I will be needing to cashout some.

Heres my question, do i play other games / stakes until i have $10,000? or do I keep playing in the hope of not hitting too big of a downswing too early in? My bankroll is still less than $1,000 so im not even 10% of the way to $10,000 yet.

If i was to take a risky approach to try and get my way up to 10,000, what would be the minimum i should start here at in your opinion?

Whats your BR at right now specifically?

If it's somewhere around $700 put it all online and start to grind 1/2 Limit.

$532 and its all online. I started 5/10 with $220.

I know its small sample, cant tell, and everything like that, but the game seemed a lot more beatable than i imagined. it felt a lot softer than i thought it should be.

1000 bb is if you're playing for a living or something

if it's a hobby or side thing, much less is fine, depending on things. 500, 300, whatever.

30 or 50 or whatever you have is not cool tho

welcome to the forum

A 5/10 Bankroll of $5,000 should be more than enough for you to grind on if your a decent solid player.

You could withstand a couple bad runs and still be fine

This all depends on you. Pick the player that you have been up until now.

You are a guy who crushed the 40/80 live game in San Francisco for 2BB/HR? Or, are you a soul-owning 2BB/100 3/6 6m player who cashed out for the holidays? If so, here are some estimatates of RoR for you. I'm assuming a 2BB/100 win rate (one of the best 5/T players on the site) and a standard deviation of 18BB/100. I know a few people this good. Most of them have had the odd $1000 losing session, but you might be up a few grand before that hits. This is the BR followed by your chances of going broke with that BR.

$500 - 54%
$1000 - 29%
$1500 - 16%
$2000 - 9%

Let's say you're just a very good mid-stakes 30/60 or higher player, or that you're just a decent established 5/T winner. 1BB/100, SD 20.

$500 - 78%
$1000 - 61%
$1500 - 47%
$2000 - 37%

Let's say that you're someone who is moving up to a pretty darned tough limit who may miss some of his leaks vs. the regs. You do OK at your local 10/20 and beat .5/1 online well enough. People make a living playing lower limit than this. Still, you do a good job of finding fish and are +EV after rake. WR 0.25BB/100, SD 20.

$500 - 93%
$1000 - 88%
$1500 - 83%
$2000 - 79%

It all depends on how much going busto will bother you. I would guess that best case, you're going broke > 70% of the time. It may be closer to 9/10. If you want to take a shot and go for glory, no problem. In the grand scheme of the world, coming up with another $200 is no big deal. If you mind losing the money, this is a very bad plan.

Hey guys, I've been playing 5-10 6max online and after 6000 hands I'm down 1300. I'm losing with both AKs and AKo and and I am pretty sure that I have been running pretty bad. I found a couple of leaks in the KJ vicinity so I'm plugging those, but I have a couple of questions:

1) What's a typical win rate for 5-10 on FTP?
2) What's the standard deviation?
3) My stats are 22/13/2. Any thoughts?
4) Is it correct to defend the BB three way with 63s? I see guys do it and they have been pwning me, but I can't believe it is right.

Thanks for any help in advance.

6m or fr? also, sample size.
typical player loses.