After the month of December I can finally say that yes, downswings of that magnitude are very possible.

Some people are just fortunate enough to have been able to built a roll to sustain such a loss before variance hit them that hard.

Yeah, I'd agree with that. Plus, atsai probably have enough life asset accumulated (having played much longer than most people here) to 1) secure any loans at a very low rate, and 2) be able to liquidate some assets to pay the loan back if he were ever to run bad and not recover, which lowers the stress of playing leveraged

Why not chop the buy ins in half, have 4 buy ins and just play it. All this bankroll stuff is nonsense if he has a day job. He loses ev by not playing at all, versus running around trying to get a loan IN CASE he has a downswing. He should get the loan after the run bad, not before. If he's a winning player, it is more likely he just runs it up than just crashes into the ground.

And if he fails, it gives him an opportunity to re-examine if he is actually beating the game, rather than him start digging into his loaned money.

Re: Borrowing to finance your bankroll:

Has anyone not yet noticed that GloryRising [who started this] has not commented in over 55 hours, despite having just been here last night @ 11:48PM.

I would think that if he was serious, he'd have a lil' sumpin' to say about the pages of comments about borrowing money.......eh?

I somewhat agree with ATsai.

Whether GR is a winner or not, he really hurts his chances having an effective bankroll of zero. With 2 BIs you can hardly make a single bet without worrying about busting, trying to play poker like that is a tremendous handicap.

I think 10k is overkill. I don't like the idea of going into debt to gamble, even in a case where repaying it won't be a problem, without fully understanding the risk (if we could say our ev is X and our RoR is Y that would be different, but we can't make that informed a decision here.) We also don't know if GR is or could be any kind of problem gambler -- the skill level in live poker is like 2NL online so it's easy to forget we're playing with significant money for a lot of people and may have some kind of psychological effect.

I would just play really nitty at first and observe, try to get a handle on the game, and figure out exactly how you're going to win. That will give you some confidence and allow you to make good decisions on a short roll without doubting yourself. That will be +ev in the long run.

2.5 BIs is the bare minimum I like to have on hand to play -- lets me rebuy once and top up and still have a full stack, I rarely have to worry about busting in any given session.

Having a replenishing roll of 2 BIs a month is really not a bad spot to be in. It's probably the best realistic scenario for someone just getting in to live poker.

I think he started a standalone thread which was merged into here, so it's possible he hasn't seen any of the replies.

Hi, thanks for all the replies, very much appreciated. I have kept up with all comments but don't always have time to reply.

At this point, as a summary of the advice, I think my initial strategy might be okay as long as I'm not playing scared money. (I don't think I am because I'm not worried about losing the BI's... only my pride will be hurt because I don't get to brag to people who doubt that I should even be playing poker at all).

For the record, I'm the complete opposite of a problem gambler. I think of myself as investing money with a good return, I do not gamble it. If I was a losing player, I would either continue playing online at a lower stake or quit (or study more... probably study which I do anyway...).

I would rather play full stacked than half stacked as I haven't studied short stack play enough to feel confident. I would even rather 100bb than 80bb but I just play a little tighter than usual and that is a good thing in this situation I suppose.

Grinding through a 120 hour break even stretch. Longest break even of 2015. Was hoping to close out the year strong but that ain't happening. Eff this game sometimes.

Sounds like you have your head screwed on tight, GloryRoad. There are a couple of good threads linked in the "Best of LLSNL" on transitioning from online to live that I strongly suggest you read. Cliffs: Value betting goes way up, and Fold Equity goes WAY down in LLSNL.

So yesterday morning I am at the MGM playing the invitational (min 15 hours to qualify) tournament. Another reg gets seated at my table. Starts chatting with his neighbor, who is a tourist who qualified, and at some point in the conversation, points at me and says "well, that guy has been grinding here longer than anyone else--since the paleolithic, I think."

I say, no, there's at least one other guy--X--who started here before I did. Reg says, "no, X and I are tight. He busted his roll last month and is now looking for an IT job." I think about it, and I haven't seen X in about a month, so I figure this could be true.

X is a solid player who definitely has the game to grind for a living, and no life leaks--no pit gambling, no drugs, etc. I surmise that he must have been cutting it too close. That he kept a small roll and needed essentially all of his profits to live on, and that a downswing got him.

Just another reminder that having the skill to beat the game is just one of the important skill sets to have when playing for a living.

I'm in my fifth year of grinding live poker for a living (anniversary is July), and I have seen this happen to several players. This one, X, is the only one it really surprises me to see it happen to, because he actually is very solid, mature and level-headed, and good enough to beat the games for a living wage.

I know there are others out there who have been grinding for a living for longer than four or five years (I know a few of them IRL), but I find it interesting that my relatively brief career is nevertheless long enough to be seen as remarkable by others, and one of the longer careers.

I guess that should be an interesting datum for people who are aspiring to go pro; that the shelf life of a pro who isn't prepared to go pro in terms of roll and living expenses, as well as skills, is less than 4 years. In fact, if I look back at the "pros" I have seen go busto, most of them have not lasted two years. But X had lasted at least five, and variance still caught up with him and ended his career.

Nice post

Good poast M.

I can't imagine wanting to or choosing to grind this game out for a living. I also think a lot of people underestimate some of the intangibles that would weigh one down/result in failure.

I tip my cap to anyone that can do it but I think the numbers that could do it are far less than most in this forum would be willing to admit.

M, what stakes do you play again, if you don't mind me asking?

I think the real question is, why would you lay 15 hours at MGM?

I think there is a huge difference between 1/2 and 2/5+ in terms of playing them for a living.

You can be a crusher and make $20-$25 an hour in 1/2 and that sounds like a pretty good deal but its actually not enough. Most pros can't play over 1500hrs a year and earning $20 per hour is roughly 30k and in a lot of places in the country, that is not enough for you to play and save up for whatever you need to save up. It's just really hard. Some casinos have trouble running games bigger than 1/2-1/3.

If you can make $50-$75 playing 2/5 and crushing the game, then I can see this as being a profession you can keep doing and prosper.

Another reason why people seeking to play poker professionally has a high turnover is the "honeymoon" phase can only last so long. Maybe a year or 2. Most people aren't built to enjoy poker on their 5th year of playing professionally. So instead, they take their foot off the pedal, fall into bad lazy habits, maybe take up playing some pit games because god knows the casinos try their best to entice you to sit down at the pits. And bam, you're done.

Drugs are obviously another and from what I hear, marijuana is a pretty popular drug on the tourney circuit. Honestly, the people you end up hanging out with/talking to mostly aren't going to keep you as straight-arrowed as you need to be.

Don't mind a bit. Was playing solely 1/2 and 1/3 up until the start of this month. Now playing 2/5 in addition to those games.

Congrats on moving up, mpethy. Look forward to seeing you on the raised floor at the Bellagio soon.

Live cash game possible winrates (questions)
Hi guys, Im in Mexico with friends and i discover a 25/50$ (pesos), in euro is like a nl263 (bb=2.63eur) and player play really short 10-20...30x
sometimes fish 2up and you can see players with 5k$ stack...

General information:
Rules make game really slow becouse dealer give card to sit out players and if u are sit out u must post blinds and at the end of spot dealer put in order chips close to every time before give you the pot...

My question is this..
How many bb/100 is possible make in this limit hourly?
Rake is so low

0-1000 25
1000-2000 50
2000+ 75

Main factor here is stack depth. If players generally remain short, I would guesstimate that the max would be around 3-4 bbs/hour.

Good point. How "short" is short in your opinion?

Thanks, I appreciate it. But I'm going to nit pick "moving up." I haven't really "moved up" in the sense that people usually mean it. Instead, I have simply added 2/5 to my table selection options. What I'm doing is just looking for the game I think I can beat for the biggest hourly. So I will move freely between 2/5 and 1/2 or 1/3. I have played 5 sessions this month where I started at 2/5 and moved to the lower game because it looked juicier, or started at 1/2 and moved to 2/5 because it looked better.

My presumption, of course, is that the 2/5 game will be my preference, but it is a rebuttable presumption, and if there's a reason to move, I move.

What I'm trying to avoid is the ego thing of "I moved up to 2/5, I am a 2/5 player" and I'm just looking for the best game in the room from hour to hour.

But, really, thanks. I appreciate your support.

^spot on.. I was drafting a post about "moving up" and the entire thing was about expanding NOT "moving up"

^ Agreed. The only goal I am setting for myself for 2016 is "game selection to maximize cash flow," whether that be 1/2 or 10/10.

I think "grinding X/Y limit for $Z per year" is an outdated or less than ideal way of tackling the issue. My ultimate goal being to maximize hourly via careful game selection to minimize hours at the table and thus free up time to pursue alternative ventures.

Well, I was thinking that would be the hourly cap if the game stayed in the 20-30bb range. Possible win rates will increase with more and more stack depth.

Idk what is "short." Personally, I won't stay in a game that doesn't have stacks of at least 100 bbs. I just much prefer deep stack play, and think that is where most of my win rate comes from.

^^ Agree 100% on mpethy's post. A big part of my winrate is seeking out the best game across a range of limits rather than being slave to a certain one. A very underrated soft skill that 80-90% of regs/pros don't do imo.

I will post my results for the year to date. Hopefully I've calculated correctly.

Mostly 1|2 with a little 2|5, both (usually) 10 handed with 100BB max, playing since the beginning of August:

Hours played: 340
Total cash game profit: $11036
Win-rate in BB/hour: 13.4
Std-Dev in BB/hour: 100.
95% wr confidence interval: [2.6BB/h, 24.3BB/h]

Also a small tournament sample:

Tournaments played: 21
Net profit: $1268
ROI: 52%