Where are you playing? LA?

This is (sometimes) a good stopgap measure to get you out of games where you're overmatched but don't *realize* that you're overmatched too.

Guy goes all-in for $1K & I'm last to act. He says, "Come on man! Give me a lil' action!" & turns over his hand. I have 55% equity. I am not calling, because $1k is 1/10th my bankroll, well it would be 1/11th if I'm up that much, and I lose 4x in a row 4.1% of the time, which is slightly less than chance of getting runner/runner flush [4.25%] & I see it numerous times in a month. PLUS: How often does that situation come up?

Solid results, wp

Someone says "hey, you want $100?" and I say "nah, I can't handle the swings"

stand up

What? Don't play with 1/10th of your bankroll on the table then

This!

10% edge is huge!

Solid results. What is your bankroll and typical buy-in? What are the typical stacks at your table?

Thx.

I have a life bankroll, poker is part of it. That said, I do deposit monthly profits in a separate bank account, but also use those funds for life things like daughter's braces, vaca, etc. so the $ is fungible.

I BI for 120 bbs. This week I will increase to 140 ($700). Max is $1k with avg stack usually in the $700-$800 range.

You've got that backwards, there's no benefit to putting money in bad and sucking out, and it's detrimental if busting V means he quits the game.

There'd actually be value in passing on a thin edge, and giving villain a chance to suck out on another player and win more money to give away. How much value, depends on your relative position and the rest of the table

in practice i'd just call whatever's immediately +ev

You're throwing $100 in the garbage if you can't take that gamble. Might still be a wise decision given BR but you don't really get better spots than that (and you might just be better racking up if it's a BR concern.)

I'm going to say this is fine, actually, depending on how many BB $1k is.

It is possible to be rolled for a game without being rolled for every possible situation which could possibly come up. If this is a 1|2 game and $1k is 500BBs, it's fine to wait for a bigger edge to put in a full stack. If it's a 5|T game, not so much.

In fact, it's impossible to be rolled for every possible +EV situation which could come up. Even with a 1000 BI roll we're not rolled to take a .01% edge for 1 BI.

Back to this example, risking 10% of our bankroll on an even money wager for a 10% edge is actually optimal for bankroll growth according to Kelly. However, this doesn't quite work for poker since we can't scale our bets in future hands if we lose. If we lose this hand we lose some of our future opportunities to make money. I'd fold this too.

I agree. It makes perfect sense to both stay in the game but also pass on this edge.

We make 0 dollar if we get up and leave. We can still be profitable and take bigger edged spots with much lower variance by staying. It's big yes, but not worth 10% of the roll to take up this spot given RoR considerations. Obviously if you can replenish the roll, take the edge. If not, its okay to fold.

I've made some pretty big folds in my first year or so, or particularly when I was shot taking, not even because RoR necessarily but the swing would be big enough that I wouldn't have had taken another shot for a while if I lost, thus likely losing more $ longterm than the actual EV of the hand. And yet, I still think it was correct for me to stay in those games, even if I wasn't willing to correctly stack off for 400bb

Sure, we can come with justifiable scenarios and all that. But I think it's worth reiterating that if you're turning down 55% spots, you're probably doing it wrong.

Re: Risking 10% of your bankroll for a 10% edge... This is actually the Kelly optimum bet size. Ie, if we wanted to grow our bankroll as fast as possible and we’re offered a bet with a 10% edge, then we should bet 10% of our bankroll.

Investment people still tend to prefer a strategy where they’re risking less (eg fractional Kelly), but a lot of that has to do with uncertainty regarding their actual edge. I would definitely take the 10% BR bet if I knew for sure that it was a 55/45 flip.

okay, then explain how they should do it differently.
Get up from your seat and make 0 dollars for the remainder of the night?

Enough with the pedantics. sai1b0ats is clearly saying that if you are close to properly rolled for the games you play, you won't be facing shoves with no dead money and 45% vs. 55% for 10% of your bankroll except in very weird circumstances, and that if you aren't in a circumstance at least that extreme, passing up 10% equity edges is terrible.

Now let's stop making up scenarios that are exceptions to the rule and move on.

Yeah, like why are we finding excuses to fold a favourite? I’m usually finding an excuse to put money in with an underdog.

Which as we all know, due to pot odds and fold equity, is how winning poker is ultimately played. You wanna play well, you have to get used to putting money in bad. If your river call efficiency is 1 or higher, you’re definitely doing it wrong. In line with previous discussion: to try obsessively to put money in good is a leak. NO. Put money in when it’s +EV.

Title is self explanatory, but I'd like to go even a bit deeper. I'm someone who recently quit the game because I'm not any good at it but I know I'll go back to playing again and in my "time off" I'm trying to learn as much as I can, including the mindset a player needs to be successful.

For the regular players, you don't have to be a full time pro, just someone who plays regularly and is a winning player how many sessions are:

1. Winning sessions
2. Losing sessions
3. Big winning sessions (which I define as more than two buy ins)
4. Big losing sessions (again more than two buy ins)
5. Very big winners (5 buy ins)
6. Very big losers (5 buy ins)

I'd appreciate any honest answers your comfortable giving. I guess I feel like the regs in the room I played in seemed to always win and I know nobody wins every session. I'm just trying to come up with realistic expectations if/when I start to play again.

Thanks.

These numbers aren't all that important in the grand scheme of things but it does feel good to leave the casino after winning. The numbers are also dependent on how long your sessions are. The longer your sessions are, the higher your win % will be. If a winning player played one long never ending session, his win % would be 100%. My avg session length is about 4 hours.

1) 71%
2) 29%
3) 7%
4) 1.5%
5) 1 time...less than 1%
6) Never

Data from me from 1/1/2017 through today:
154 Sessions / 92 winners (60%) - my lifetime is 61%
3 winners over 2K, 0 losses over 2K (one of those 3 is over $2.5K for your 5 buy-in question)
12 1K winners, 11 1K losses
you didn't ask, but for where my data stands out 33 winners between 500 - 1K and 19 losses between 500 - 1K

Data is primarily $1-3 but does include $2-5 (I buy-in for $500 for both), and also some $1-2 ($300 buy-in)

These are my numbers from my records. Mostly 1/2 NL with some 1/3 NL thrown in.

1) 72%
2) 28%
3) 3%
4) never
5) never
6) never

Since 1/1/2017 (540 hours, average session length 4,5 hours; stakes 49% €2/4, 38% €5/5, 13% €2/2):

1. Winning sessions
62% (2016 and 2017 combined was 58%, but this year has started with a bang)

2. Losing sessions
38%

3. Big winning sessions (which I define as more than two buy ins)
28% (1 buy-in being 100bb, but I mostly buy-in for about 125bb and sometimes top up to 200bb)

4. Big losing sessions (again more than two buy ins)
8%

5. Very big winners (5 buy ins)
3%

6. Very big losers (5 buy ins)
2% (twice, both times exactly 500bb, which was my stop-loss)

60% wins. When I lose, I lose small. When I win, I win small or big.

1) 131
2) 88
3) 27
4) 11
5) 5
6) 1

Sent from my SM-G955U1 using Tapatalk

492 sessions over 3823 hours. If I've manually counted right, my results are:

1. 321 (65%)
2. 169 (34%)
3. 74 (15%) (assuming 100bb as a BI)
4. 18 (4%)
5. 4 (1%)
6. 0 (0%)

But, as Mike says, a lot has to do with your session length.

And also has a lot to do with your game. I'm to 3823 hours now at my 1/3 NL game, but that's going into its 9th year, and things simply change over time. For instance, my session winning percentages the last 3 years are all at about 58% (and way down from 70%+ over my first few years). And my bigs wins are *way* down as the game changed from very very very good to now just simply good.

Will also have a lot to do with your style and how deep a game you play in.

GcluelessNLnoobG