Want a quick opinion from the forum. Searched a bunch of threads but just kind of want an opinion on my personal situation. If this post is wrong / outta place just lmk mods thx.

Lifetime winner @ 1/2, not by any significant amount though
College student: So I'm not broke but definitely dont have money flowing.

BR atm: Around $600 (pure poker money that I dont need for anything else).

Games:
Casino roughly 15-18 mins away with lots of tables -
$1/2 (100 Max), $2/2 (400 Max)
Casino roughly 30-35 mins away with 1 or 2 tables -
$1/2 (400 Max)
Casino roughly 3-5 mins away with 2-3 tables -
$1/3 (500 max i believe)

Question.. Wondering what buyin you think would give me best chance of not going busto. Been thinking 6 buy ins @ the 1/2 100 max. or buying in for $120-$140ish @ the 2/2 400? Not sure tho obviously.

Lmk what you guys think any opinion helps thanks

To be comfortably bankrolled for a certain limit, I think having at least 20 buyins is good if poker is not your primary source of income....40-50 is recommended if playing for a living IMO. Right now, you're trying to create a bankroll so that being said, now is the time to take on a little more risk. Buying in short will increase your variance so if you're comfortable and don't necessarily need the money then give yourself 3 buyins of $200 and build it up. Hope my 2 cents help....watch that bankroll grow!!!

Also, hit up the more crowded casino so you'll have more of a game selection....and don't spend the money you're using for poker!!!!!! You'll have money to siphon out once you've created a bankroll....can't stress that enough....

Id go with 3 $200 buyins at the 2/2 (400 max)

X2. Make sure you run good.

What they said. With 100 bb's, you can play solid poker and not have to worry about missing opportunities - doing 1/2 with $100 max with force you to play much tighter and throw you in a lot of flips.

3 $200 buy ins. Short stacking 1/2 seldom works out well.

Also, take some time to recognize how lucky you are to have 3 casinos within 35 minutes of you lol..... I live on Long Island, New York and the nearest cardroom is 3 hours north to CT or 3.5 hours south to AC....

Your Risk of Ruin is directly related to your winrate.

If you are a really good player that murders the game, then you could build a roll with 6 buy-ins with a fairly low risk of going busto (unless you just hit a super sick hurricane of negative variance).

however, you stated that you are more or less a "slight" winner.

My advice is that you deposit $50 online, grind online micros while simultaneously studying poker and posting/reading 2+2 5-10hrs per week as well as get Harrington on the Cash Game and Tommy Angelo's Elements of Poker. Also read through all the stickies at the top of this forum as well as reading this forum threads daily

Save up a roll of $2k over the next few months and then hit the ground running.

Otherwise, you will be in an endless short stacking busto death spiral of scraping together one or two buy-ins. Playing scared money poker for a week, busting out, scraping another one or two buy-ins together, playing scared money poker for a week, busting out, scraping another buy-in in...

You can get stuck in the cycle for months.

Trust me. When you start playing poker for a supplemental income then you want to have enough of a bankroll to reach critical mass so you can play.

Worse thing you can do is take a shot when grossly underrolled. $600 is one night worth of poker.

lastly, don't short stack. On paper, short stacking looks like a great way to stretch your bankroll and mitigate risk. But its not. It actually increases your variance and severely lowers your winrate.

Read through the below thread/link, there is a great discussion/debate on why you don't want to short stack

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/17...table-1371957/

[QUOTE

lastly, don't short stack. On paper, short stacking looks like a great way to stretch your bankroll and mitigate risk. But its not. It actually increases your variance and severely lowers your winrate.[/QUOTE]

+1. Very well said. Short stacking cash games is a total disaster, and most of the losers I see at 1/2 are always short stacking. They rather lose 8 buy ins of $60, then just buy in for $200 and play poker.

i live in the US so theres no more online poker for me... if there was online believe me thats where id b playing

i think i may have understated my skill level and experience. i prolly have somewhere in the range of 300-400 hours live and 50k'ish hands online. a fairly good winner in both but im no super crusher, just play a very solid ABC game (obviously my game vastly differs live vs online). neither is a huge sample but not bad. i guess this is the first time, im playing to actually try to build a roll and not just playing here and there when i have extra cash im not blowing on alcohol, supplements, etc.

risk of ruin definitely isnt my expertise thats why i refer to the forum for some help, but im also not naive enough to think that with 3 buy-ins theres not a large percentage that i go bust. on the other hand i think "its 1/2 wtf is wrong with me if i cant beat this game i should /quit poker immediately." the more i think about it and listen to everyones suggestions i realize i gotta buy in full and just live with only having 3 buy-ins, the one part that i think is important is that by no means would i b playing with scared money.

still think im burning money or its worth a shot?

thx for all the opinions!

Playing scared is playing less than your best. If you're not gonna play your best given your BR sitch then I'd say don't do it. Save up like 2k and go for it.

I used to live on Long Island. Tampa is way better. 4 card rooms within 30 min. I have one 10 min from my house.

But, to answer the posters question. Three buy ins for the 2/2, and buy in for 100BB. Try to build a bank roll there and then move up. It's very realistic to lose a buy in or two on average even on a winning session. If you have only one buy in you may never realize how your session could have went had you played longer.

You're in a pretty gross spot (no income) tbh

I think your best shot is the 2/2 and 1/3 (and top up, don't play less than $300 ever) but your RoR is going to be sky high no matter what. And since you can't risk buying in for full your winrate is going to be lower than it could be which means you are going to "build a bankroll" more slowly than you could if you could just budget a full shot occasionally.

people are a big hung up on the 100bb thing... I'm not sure how 2/2 differs from 1/2 but safe to say it is probably a bit shallower, and 1/3 is not all that much shallower than 1/2 as preflop raises are not 50% larger.

I'd also rather play $300 than $200 (truthfully I'd rather buy in for max but since you have no money coming in at all I guess that's too dangerous)... at low stakes there aren't really a lot of high variance spots super deep, if someone's stacking off it's either a "cooler" hand (although not really they're just mis-/over-playing badly but "ohh i have two pair I can't fold") or it's the rare time they flop a 15 out draw. If anything low stakes players play more passively the deeper they are.

absolutely do not play the 1/2 $100 cap, your winrate is going to be tiny if positive at all and it's a ton of variance. It's by far the riskiest option.