What do you guy's typically buy in for at a 1/3 NL game? Max buy in is 500. Also, how much are you bringing to the game for your session? My usual games are 20/40 and 40/80 limit. At 20/40 I buy in for a 1000 and bring about 2500 total. I'm just trying to figure out what I need and how much variance I should expect. I plan on moving up to 2/5 as soon as I feel more comfortable with the game.

Also, what type of bankroll is needed for a typical 1/3 game?

Thanks!

Disclaimer: I'm not a professional. I play mainly 2/5 through 10/25, but I also play some 1/3 that plays pretty big.

For someone not playing professionally your bankroll should be whatever you are comfortable losing. If you were playing professionally, it should probably be at least 100 buy ins. Ideally your bankroll should be an amount where psychologically are willing to get in hands like AKo and QQ all in preflop in appropriate spots and a losing a few bullets isn't going to bust you. Also, you should be buying in at an amount where you are comfortable getting in your entire stack as a bluff if the situation calls for it, especially when we are talking about 1 buy in, and occasionally when you run deep.

Ideally, if you are a player with an edge or looking to become a player with an edge, you want to buy in the table maximum, and at least 100bb.

In 1/3, the open raise size is often going to be pretty large depending on the game you play. $15 seems pretty common. In that case, having $500 is closer to having 100bb strategically and $300 is like being short stacked.

At times where my buy ins have been $2k, I have had 3 or 4 days where I lost about $7k in one day and on two different two week periods where I lost $12-13k. I had a good separate life roll and income. The first time my bankroll was about $20k and the second time it was about $35k.

Throughout that time, I was okay losing what I had to play with, but it was pretty stressful. I don't think it affected my play, but it is not fun to be in a position where a few coolers, bad beats, failed bluffs, suck outs, losing flips, or even straight up blunders which we all have are going to make you take a forced break from poker. Now my roll is a lot healthier and it is a lot less stressful.

A 20 buy in downswing is an inevitability. It happens to all pros, and it should eventually happen to all of us given enough time.

Granted, the variance is generally smaller at low stakes live games, and generally you can replenish a recreational bankroll faster when you play at low stakes.

So, ideally you buy in for $500, but if not, I would do $300. At least 10 buy ins if not 20 buy ins would be really nice. But at the end of the day, what you're comfortable losing and what you won't play as scared money is fine.

If you are okay buying in for $2,500 and buying in for $500 and not playing scared, then go ahead. I grinded my bankroll up to about $8k from 1/2 (after taking some money out for fun) before I started taking shots at a 1/2/5 game thay played really deep and buying in for $1k-1.5k. I have had to add to that bankroll a few times since then, but at the end of the day, I was always going to be okay losing what I had and always had my income and life roll.

But I will say this. You feel a lot more comfortable when your roll is 20, 30+ buy ins and only feel better the larger it gets. There is no shame in playing it safe with your bankroll.

If you're asking this question, I would recommend buying in for 100bb's and I would suggest around a 3 buy in SL for the day for new players.

Regarding a "bankroll" size, that's the most subjective topic in poker. It depends on a lot of things. For example, if you're a new player, are you really gonna take 10K out of the bank and use it on poker, and when you're down to your last 2k are you gonna just keep playing and blame variance?

The best bankroll anyone can have is one that came exclusively from winnings so If you're working or have money at hand, just take a few buy in's with you and whenever you win keep the winnings separate and start to build up a bankroll that way.

If you have a massive edge over everyone when playing deep, then you should likely BI for the max and top up after every hand.

But just make sure your evaluation is correct. And if you're new to NL or just getting started (or just by asking the question), you might want to err on the side that you might not have as massive an edge on the field deep as you think. Personally, I've long figured I don't have nearly as much advantage deep as I do short, so I personally BI with $200 (and keep it topped up) at my 1/3 NL game (even though the max BI is now $500) because I find it is the best stack to play with my skillz / style / mindset / etc.

And I personally bring $2000 to the 1/3 NL game even though I've only lost $1000+ in 2 sessions out of 736. Being massively overrolled (both for the game and the session) helps mentally, imo.

What to expect variance-wise is very style dependent and game dependent. You'll more-or-less have to figure that out for yourself, so just keep tracks of your wins / losses / swings / etc. in your game and you'll eventually have a better idea.

Gitdepends,imoG

I definitely don't have a big edge. I know how to think my way through a hand given my many years of playing limit. I constantly listen to instructional podcasts which is really helping me with the big differences between limit and no limit. I think the lower buy in makes sense for now.

If you simply don't have the experience, then I'd highly recommend shortstacking (which I consider $200 in my game due to large preflop raise sizes / multiple callers). Once you get a feel for NL and how your game plays and how you do in deeper situations, then you can always BI deeper sometime down the road (or even within the session itself) if you think that is prudent.

Gonesizedoesnotfitall,imoG

What should be my plan if buy in for 300 and build it up to 1200 in a scenario where a couple other players have at least that much? It happened the other day. I was feeling good about how much I was up but didn't feel comfortable possibly tangling with one of these guy's for my whole stack and not feeling confident what to do.

Take a break. cash out and come back later with 100 bb's or just go home with a good win. Playing deep is a different than playing shorter which requires more skill, especially when a large portion of your BR is in play.

Leave. The rules for how long you have to wait before rebuying for 300 will depend on your room. In some rooms, even changing tables at the same game will allow or require you to reduce your stack, but most places will have a 1-2 hour break required before buying back in for less. Go have a leisurely meal and start over. Do not play deep stacked when you're not comfortable doing so.

Honestly, learn to get comfortable deep stacked. There is no reason to stop your profits early. You don't need to play scared, but when you get involved with several players deep stacked, your threshold for value should get way higher. You can mainly fold to huge raises and overbets without really nutted hands. The value of top pairs and over pairs goes way down in these spots and you can check call or fold these hands a lot more.

As an example, this past weekend I was playing a 1/3 with a stack of about 4,500. Straddle was on to 10, UTG (2k stack) raises to $40, +1 cold calls (3.5k stack, very special villain with very high VPIP, lots of cold calling 3bets and overcalling 3bets and 4bets with trash like JTo), I make it $170 eith AA in plus 2. Flop comes KJ9 and it checks to me. I check behind. Turn comes a T. UTG bets $200 and +1 calls. I now have a pretty easy fold. River is a brick and UTG bets, +1 folds. UTG shows QTs for a flopped straight and +1 shows TT for a turned set.

Just remember to play more conservative the more multiway and deep stacked a hand is. A lot of times you will be winning pots of shorter stacks anyways.

You need to learn how to play deep stack to really get full value. In a big bet game like NLHE, you can make a ton of money on the turn and river if you are deep stacked.

For example, what if the table is super good? If you leave, you may not be able to sit back down at the table.

In this PLO hand, I was a small stack with 225 bbs so everyone was deep. I made some mistakes but it didn't matter because the main villain was so bad. I made a turn bet of 150 bbs and he called without having the pot odds or implied odds. Plus, he didn't raise the max on the flop when he had the nuts (top set) and best nut draw (full house or quads).

I thought about leaving the table because I was not used to playing 200+ bbs. But the table was so juicy, I decided to stick around.

One thing you can do is only play deep stack if the table is really juicy.

Another thing you can do is play online for smaller stakes to practice deep stack play.

Keeping reading and studying. The Poker Breakdown podcast and YouTube channel often talk about deep stack hands. They often cover popular live streams and those tables can have a lot of deep stacks.

My process:

1) As soon as I'm sitting deep at a table with some other difficult players, I'd immediately be eyeing to move to a less difficult / shorter stacked table. Our room rule is that you must bring over your whole stack to the other table, but basically you can effectively "rathole" by moving to a table that has smaller effective stacks.

2) I absolutely cannot be OOP to difficult players deep. So if I'm going to be sitting at this table for any length of time, I've got to seat change appropriately (and play even tighter than I typically do in the meantime).

3) I'm just a rec player playing only once per week, so I typically like getting in as long as session as I can, mostly playing to a pre-determined time. But if it is like an hour before that pre-determined time and I'm deep and the table is getting worse, not a bad time to pick up and go home a bit early.

GcluelessNLnoobG

This one is good!

I need to stop being lazy and change tables when the table gets tougher. Especially when a fish gets stacked and a ringer sits in his place and matches the biggest stack. Then, it's time to go!