I think that statistic needs to be weighted by the length of the session. You need something that has units of $/hr at the end, not $/session.

Don't remember the formula, but it's gotta be on wikipedia or something.

12 - 13 buyins would be a pretty hefty downswing for 1/2 NL and will rarely happen to any reasonably good player. It's possible but unlikely that anyone who is good enough to be playing professionally is going to drop $2500 during a 1/2 NL downswing.

8 buyins in one day in 1/2 NL is insane.

Depends on area of the country. Maybe not 28, but plenty of people in my area (NY) and surrounding extremely-high-cost-of-living states often live at home until 24, 25, 26. I lived at home until I was 23 and off the top of my head so did every single woman I dated anywhere around my age.

I would certainly imagine it is different in other areas of the country where cost of living is much lower.

Ummm ya...that's what I thought.

Thank you, appreciate the support. There's no law that says that between the weekends and 1 night a week he can't get in 15-20 hours of play for supplemental income anyway.

As far as the age commentary, you are correct, virtually every time we see one of these threads, the person wanting to turn pro, and those advocating they do, are always in their early 20's or lower. Rarely are you going to see anyone several years beyond college age advocating vaulting into the deep end of the poker pool.

I'm not planning to "go pro" or something. Just take a shot and keep playing for maybe 8 hours/week or so (while I was a full time student, this is what I did for about 2 years). No reason I can't keep a full time job and play poker at the same time.

So is that Risk of Ruin formula correct?

And what is you guys standard deviations? Why does mine seem off? Btw, it is in units of $/hour not $/session.

I understand it is insane, but even if I am a statistical outlier it is clearly possible. If you have a big enough bankroll that you are willing to keep rebuying and not play scared money (which I do) and you run really really bad you can lose a lot of money in a day. You can also win a lot of money in a day, as evidenced by my last session (+8 buyins at a 100BB max table in about 6.5 hours.)

If you play enough poker, crazy downswing will happen.

I have less than .2% RoR and I hit it. Did I play bad? Probably.

Hefty?, yea.
Rare?, Hell yea.
Possible? Absolutely.

I just rode through a $5500 downswing at $1/2-$1/3 (mostly $300 max $1/2), over the course of about 230 hours. I won't claim to play professionally, I'm just a rec player supplementing my meager student existence, but I've got winning results over a nearly 3000 hour sample.

When I went through my records trying to figure out the downswing, about $1500 was due to clearly bad decisions (poor reads, fuming tilt plays, poor game selection). About $3000 (~ 10 BI) was due to cooler hands, top set in on the flop and outdrawn, K-high flush is no good, guy rolling quads, etc.

So it's possible to run really badly and drop a lot of BI's, and it's even easier to compound that with tilt (regardless of how good you are). But I don't think it should prevent someone from taking a shot with a stoploss of $1000 or so.

Question: Is my risk of ruin smaller if I buyin for $100 every time (it's a $1/2 game) rather than buying in full($200)?

Or is there no difference?

How much you buy in will probably affect your STD and WR, and thus it would impact your RoR.

Agree with this. Try to find a job that's somewhat flexible (maybe part-time), but you're going to want a steady income coming from somewhere, as well as the aforementioned resume builder.

Treat poker like a serious hobby, and it'll work out fine. Most people have 15 free hours or so per week; instead of going out drinking as much, or playing video games, or watching much TV, read and study and you'll make decent money.

If you really can't find a job that allows you to play poker seriously, get an unpaid internship somewhere that's going to help you. Do that 20/hours per week, and if your winrate is good enough, you'll have enough money to live on while proving your value to a company. Then in six months when you have your downswing, you'll hopefully have a fount of experience and skills to show to your employer.

lol but this x eleventen thousand.

I just lost a 4k pot 2/5 to a fishes 2 outer in which we got it in on the turn.

Downswongs and ka - razy stuff can and will happen in a fierce firestorm and u gots to have the roll to withstand this

I just hit 1,000 hours of play since Black Friday. Thought I'd share how its gone as I've adjusted to playing live part-time.

60% 1/2
15% 1/3
25% 2/5



1/2: 600 hours at $18/hour
1/3: 165 hours at $22/hour
2/5: 245 hours at $42/hour


I hope the next 1,000 hours I can stick at 2/5 and do well. I've never really played live before BF, but I'm guessing 1,000 is still a pretty small sample.

Was this played in vegas?

How about breaking down the STD/hour for each limit. Thanks.

This was mostly played in various casinos and charity rooms in the Southeast Michigan and Northwest Ohio areas with a few trips to Vegas.


STD/hour:


at 1/2: $218 over 593 hours
at 1/3: $288 over 163 hours
at 2/5: $457 over 245 hours


I think I am running well at 2/5 which does inflate this graph a bit. I hope to hit 500 hours there by the end of the year.

I dunno I've had some pretty big losing days at 1/2. It depends on how big the avg stacks are.

I don't understand how people can not have had 300bb downswings. That implies you've rarely been 300bbs effective.

My STD at 1/2 is 335, 1/3 2/5 is 832, 5/10 plus is 1142. So basically about 120-150bbs. Higher std with higher buyin. (my 2/5 BI is usually about 1k to 1.5k. 2-5k for 5/10).

I guess it's surprisingly low std for 5/10, but as I've said I just run good. ez gamee.

Your 2/5 game structure is also a lot bigger than an average 2/5 game in the states. Essentially your 2/5 is more like a 5/10, which helps to make your WR so high relative to what you read about an average WR. I suspect that you probably know that already.

That's why I proposed in an earlier post that there should be a criteria before posting.

What buyins do most 2/5 games have in the states? The 2/5 in Australia and equiv in Macau have 200bb buyins too.

I do think it's deeper, and yeah I think that impacts the hourly significantly, but I didn't think it was THAT much deeper. I've seen pretty deep stacks in games elsewhere too.

Except for those 5/10 games. Those are crazy.

at my casino $2/5 is 40-100BB

max rake of $4 + $1 BBJ, so it's $5 for most pots

min rake is $1 for flop seen, but at $2/5 it's basically always gonna be $3 min, because it's $2 at $10+ pot and the BBJ kicks in at $12 which is always gonna be the case, since SB/BB usually chop.

2/5nl at Tampa Hard Rock is 40bb-120bb buy in, the bigger buy ins start at 5/10 which is 50bb-500bb.

How do yall calculation standard deviation?

Its not very easy, Poker Journal on my Iphone does it for me.

The average BI for typical donks in your game is probably 2-3x bigger than the average BI of donks here at the same stake.