This

Come on guys stop it

lol im confused. Are they joking?

No its just bad for business

Lol doubt im going to be in anyones player pool. I dont live in the US

Since every young poker player looking to go pro that I meet seems to ask this question of me lately, I will reiterate a simple BRM guideline for those who want to be poker pros:

Adequate poker roll for a solid TAG winner = 6 months of expenses saved + 2000bbs.

Adequate poker roll for a solid LAG winner = 6 months of expenses saved + 3000bbs.

FWIW, I use bbs instead of buyins because a lot of guys mistakenly think they are adequately rolled when they have 20 buyins of 40bbs-60bbs.

I am assuming these numbers are for hold em?

This is the Live Low Stakes NLHE forum. So, yes, I was talking about live NLHE. If you want BRM guidelines for PLO or other games, you should probably check out another forum.

hello,

would appreciate your thoughts here. my local casino (mohegan sun in ct) spreads a 1/1 game with rake of 10% up to $3 + $1 BBJ. the buy-in for the game is $30-$100.

i wouldn't mind learning the game, while gaining experience playing live, at a smaller game than the typical 1/2 game (the games here are raked 10% up to $4 + $1 BBJ and a buy-in fromm $60-$300)

however, i worry about the effect of that high of a rake, and especially the effect of paying 2.0bb/round instead of just 1.5bb/round at the 1/1 game.

do you think this structure is too prohibitive for profit?

thanks,

kevin

ps. i can afford to play 1/2, so if the structure of the 1/1 game is too poor, playing 1/2 isn't a problem. just wanted thoughts on whether it should be an option.

Assume you play a hand 20% of the time.
Assume all pots are capped (as far as rake is concerned)
Assume you win the pot 50% of the time that are in the hand.
Assume 30 hands per hour.
Assume the average pot size is 50bb (pre rake), of which you contribute 20bb (you can never contribute more than half as someone always has to call your bets, and sometimes you put money into the pot, and fold a later street).
Assume the game is 10 handed.
Assume you tip $1/pot won.

You can change any of these that you think are wrong, but it should give you a good baseline comparison.

At 1/1:
You play 6 hands per hour, you invest 120bb total.
These pots are worth 300bb - rake ($4 * 6) = 276bb. You win 50% of them.
So, you win 138bb - 120bb invested = 18bb profit. Then you subtract out the 3.2 * 2bb / hour you pay in blinds, and subtract out the $1 per pot. 18bb - 6.4 - 6 = 5.6
You are making 5.6bb / hour. Or $5.6 / hour.
(That worked out well.. that's not far from likely for a player in a 1/1 game.)


Lets look at the 1/2 game with similar assumptions:

Assume you play a hand 20% of the time.
Assume all pots are capped (as far as rake is concerned)
Assume you win the pot 50% of the time that are in the hand.
Assume 30 hands per hour.
Assume the average pot size is 40bb (pre rake), of which you contribute 16bb. (We assume a bit less as people fold a bit more and are not quite as likely to pay off your bets.)
Assume the game is 10 handed.
Assume you tip $1.5 / pot won.

At 1/1:
You play 6 hands per hour, you invest 96bb total.
These pots are worth 240bb - rake ($5 * 6 / 2$) = 225bb. You win 50% of them.
So, you win 112.5bb - 96bb invested = 16.5bb profit, or $33/hour. Then you subtract out the 3.2 * $3 / hour you pay in blinds, and the $1.5 / pot for tip.
$33 - (3.2 * $3) - ( 6 * $1.5) = $14.4 / hour or 7.2bb/hour.
(Also about reasonable for a decent player at 1/2)

The effect of rake and bb's is almost always lessened as the blind structure goes up. Because the rake is capped in terms of raw $'s, and not in terms of BB's taken out, if you think that the games play similar, then you should try and play the 1/2 instead of the 1/1.

so,
nice work, iraisetoomuch. ty. only correction is that you have us paying tip on all 6 hands we enter per hour and not just the 3 we win. that adds $3/hr to the 1/1 and $4.50/hr to the 1/2.

just for fun, i compared both stakes over the same set of assumptions (those given for 1/1) (along with the correction for tip only on hands we win) and came out with a WR of...

8.6bb/hr at 1/1
16bb/hr at 1/2

quite an amazing difference in cost!!!

In general, yes this is true. And it makes sense in general. You are paying almost the exact same $/pot and $/hour but the BB is twice the size.

The thing to consider though, is that often the player pool is better at a higher blind level. So, assuming that you win the same % of pots is a bit of a lofty assumption in and of it self.

Another way to look at this problem:

Lets assume that your true win rate / hour is 18bb/hour at 1/1 if there was no rake or tips.
The average casino rakes ~$80/hour on a 10 handed 1/1 cash table. So that's ~$8/hour per person, - $3/hour in tips - 6$/hour in blinds.
Your 'true' win rate of $18/hour (or 18bb/hour) is reduced to $1/hour. or 1/bb per hour.



But when you move up to 1/2 it drops down to 12bb/hour if there was no rake or tips.
The average casino rakes ~$100/hour on a 10 handed 1/2 cash table. So that's ~$10/hour per person, - $3/hour in tips - 9$/hour in blinds.
Your 'true' win rate of $24/hour (or 12bb/hour) is reduced to $2/hour. or 1/bb per hour.

With reasonable assumptions for skill, you would still make 1bb/hour at either game that you play. It really all depends on the skill level at both games. Your skill level, your ability to adapt. And how well you can play on a bigger stack of chips. And if you are capable of separating the money value from the chips that you have in front of you.

50 buyins per level minimum (100bb buyin) is what i follow. With the Occasional shot at higher stakes

Since I can't find any documentation, how do I get my poker records from the Poker Journal lite version put into the full version? I e-mailed myself a .htm file as a backup but I can't find a spot to restore in the full version.

Assume this is for pro players, not rec players? $10k for 1/2NL? Really?

I think hiding your bankroll in a sock or somewhere no one will look (and something you won't accidentally throw away) would be better than putting it in a locked drawer or safe. Prior to playing poker I had a $150 safe that I bought from a big box store. It was just filled with weights and even so thieves were able to haul it out of my house (through the top half of the window they broke). In general those things are easy to break into and easy to carry out.

When I started playing poker I researched buying a safe at various locksmiths but what I found was that even if I spent $2k a fire safe would not reliably stop a burglar from breaking in. So I ended up looking online where they cost a third of the price. I ended up buying a relatively small fire safe that weighs around 1,000 lbs that I had bolted to the ground. No common robber will be able to break into it. Often times it holds less money than it cost me ($2k) but I have confidence that its contents are safe.

(Btw fire safes will simply keep your contents safe for a longer period of time. There is no such thing as truly fireproof. If left to burn a house fire will destroy the contents of any safe).

If you really are a "pro" you should be beating the game (esp 1/2) for at least 8bb/hour. That means for an average pro, it should take you 625 hours to build up a 5000bb br (10k), at 20 hours a week which is lol for a pro, it would only take you 31 weeks or ~8 months to grind that out. It's not that crazy of a number.

If you make 6bb/hour then it's 833 hours, or 41 weeks. Which is still less than a year. Playing 1/2 for 1 year before trying to move up sounds like reasonable advice.
Don't get me wrong, I'm all for taking shots, but if you're playing more than 25% of your sessions higher than you can sustain with at least a 25BI bank roll, you start to greatly increase you ROR.

If you have a huge life roll, or you do not need to rely on poker for your sole source of income, this is completely different, but I think this advice is solid for a pro who supports him self playing poker.

Yeah, that was sort of my point. $10k for a rec 1/2 player seems pretty ginormous. Even as a 1/2 "pro" though (not much shot taking), $10k seems on the high side.

Of course, for 2/5, not unreasonable I suppose.

LOL u know the answer..rec players with other income sources do not need any where near 10k to play 1/2...hell I play on a 10k "roll" and I play as high as 5/10 NL and occassionally 5/5 PLO

playing as a pro is much more exciting if you're dangerously under rolled. the highs are higher, the lows are lower, and you will truly find out what you are made of. every day will be exciting!

Lol truth in sarcasm

When i say 50 buyins i mean assuming you have no other income

20 buy-ins is sufficient ($4k for 1/2) as long as you beat the game pretty well and have a separate "life roll" for bills and such.

@HLB,

50 bi, are you considering your life roll including or separate from that figure?

As a " pro" I use the 30bi rule to move up, and 6 months of life expenses (something like 15k aside). I look to take shots when I would then have 25bi to the game above. So in my case, I play 2/5 currently on a 20k roll, once I get 25k, I can take shots at 5/10 and look to play it somewhat more exclusively once I hit 30bi and beyond

I play a medium - high variance style. Im looking to be aggressive with shot taking but don't have any problems moving down. In fact, there is a juicy 1/2 card game much closer to home that I occasionally still go to when I want to reduce expenses and relaxation time to time.

What part of Michigan are you from, Pay? I'm wondering if your juicy 1/2 game is one of my club games.