If the game is as good as you say it is...obvious answer is stay, just set a stop loss. If you are worried about the money on the table,quit and find a day job...bartending etc...

A very smart poster on this forum advocates for not having more than 10% of your bank roll on the table at any one point if you need the money for other things / if you can't replenish it from other sources.

And this is a very good idea.
So, the real question OP is what is the nature of your bankroll?

Are you playing for fun? Is it for a job? Can you take money from your life roll to augment your poker income? Do you feel comfortable playing deep?

Also, if the deep stacked reg left the game already, and the next biggest stack is 100bb deep, then you are not playing the full 300+ bb stack. You are only playing as deep as the next deepest person. So you still only have 100bb effective on the table.

Also, you now have 20% of your entire bank roll on the table. How are you going to feel if you loose the whole thing? Are you going to be mad? Is it going to affect your ability to play?


If you need the money for something, get up.
If you are playing just for fun, then play for fun.


Either way, just remember that if you have this much of your bank roll on the table at any time your chances of going completely broke sky rocket in the long run.

Cant you get up, cash out, grab dinner, then come back & rebut w ur initial buy-in?

The skill factor definitely goes down after you start building the pot up. From that point on heavy action dominates. At that point money goes in the middle and there's little skill left over to be proud of. ...lol...lol

It has nothing to do with style. Play LAG if that's the best way to beat the table, play TAG if that's the best strategy. Don't play LAG/TAG just because you call yourself that type of player. If you're playing TAG no matter what, you're leaving something out there.

The city matters a lot though. Don't say $17/hour isn't good enough. I'm pretty sure <5 guys break $17/hour where I play, there just isn't the action to support a higher winrate. In LV, $17/hour would be bad, in Iowa, $17/hour is awesome, we don't know where he plays though.

Cliffs: maybe?

Take it from someone who loses lots of money in this game often, drop down to 1/2. It is so relaxing to drop stakes, it's good for your poker mindset. It also helps reinforce basic concepts because at that level we know to only bet/fold and rarely bluff. At the higher stakes we start to get fancier because we are adjusting to slightly more spewy villains, but oftentimes we can get too fancy.

I usually have a rule of a 4bi drop = 1/2 play until I've profited 4bi in 1/2. It has nothing to do with financial gain / loss or where my roll is at, it's all about the mindset.

Being good at losing is one of the final deciding factors between those who make it and those who don't. Alot of people think it's how good at math, or how good at reading people, or lol "feel". But being a good loser in this game is probably the single most important factor in the separation from the flame outs and the winners.

I can say you are in dangerous territory when you are vigorously seeing how far ahead you were in hands.

The other night I dropped 2K in 5 hours playing what I'm pretty sure was the best poker of my life. Two 2 outers and one 4 outed, all all in otf or ott with me holding the nuts. Those who go "ZOMG I was a 95% favorite WTF" fail to see that they themselves are pointing out that they do in fact lose in those hands. In fact they lose 5% of the time. If you can't handle that or it affects your emotions negatively then you should quit the game. Not a dig, I think about quitting all the time.

Variance is the Reaper in this game, but if you understand her for what she truly is, you will be in flow with all that is. Instead of fearing her, you will be indifferent to her actions, and smile with every flick of the card.

Also, this.

Why do you play poker?

Answering that honestly might help give you your answer.

GgoodluckG

50 hours is a lol-small sample size, as we all know.

I like reading your forum posts for the math that gets worked out ... but based on those I think you suffer from a lot of FPS. You get into a lot of *really* thin spots where your equity is very dependent on your opponent's range. And if you're not ranging them exactly right the slightly +EV spots may not really be.

I'd consider backing off a little bit and avoiding the high variance / thin edge spots for a bit while you're still adjusting to $2/5.

Hey guys,

starting in august i will start playing live poker in london. I ve been a good winner at 50nl fullring online for a while but got tired and now I will give live a serious shot.

I will have a 2000 pound bankroll but basically if I bust this bankroll I will have to quit poker for a very long time. I have all living expenses seperate and paid for and poker isnt my way of making money, I am a student.

My question for you guys if you could help me out is what would you think is reasonable with the least chance of going broke. I really love the game and losing this br and not playing poker for a long time would be tough. In august I will play at least 250 hours, do you think I should start at 1/1 or just jump in at 1/2, I am very confident that my game is much better then most players playing at that pool but I am not well aware of the variance of live poker.

Any advice would be great, cheers guys!

Start at whatever level you feel most comfortable

If priority #1 is dont go busto then obviously play 1/1

This.

You will have 20x 100bb buy ins.

Any time you get above 2,500 take 100bb shots at 1/2 assuming the games look good and you feel comfortable playing live.

Once you get above 3 or 3.5k I would switch to 1/2 only assuming you feel like you are making good decisions.

thanks, but apparently the rake at 1/1 is 10% caped at 5p which isnt very profitable,

and in terms of priority I would say priority #1 is making money, and #2 is not going broke.

If 1/1 isn't a profitable game then why are you even asking about it lol

I am asking for advice from people who have much more experience then me in live poker. I dont know for a fact that a 10% game capped at 5p isnt profitable. If you came to ask me advice about online poker I wouldnt be "loling" you arogant prick.

Well you did say the game "isn't very profitable"

Also you might lol if I said "hey my goal is to make money and not go busto. Should I play 10nl or 25nl? BTW the 10nl game has 7bb/100 rake which isn't very profitable.

I wouldnt, but if your saying that a 10% 5bb capped rake is equivalent to a 7bb/100 rake I would appreciate you saying so instead of loling.

I'm not saying that =/ I didn't wanna argue with you, you said the game was unprofitable so I believed you. I wasn't aware that you actually didn't know if the game was unprofitable. You seemed so confident.

My best judgment is that game is profitable despite the rake because the play will be so awful. Just table select well, play tight, don't go for super marginal spots because after rake they'll be -ev anyway, and if you do all that I'm sure you can make 8-12 pounds/hr at 1/1

In the states where I am a 5$+1 rake capped at 10% is fairly standard and definitely beatable at 1/2. I don't have any experience in 1/1 but assuming the BI isn't restricted below 100bbs it will probably be fine.

for what winrate im unsure, too many variable and unfamiliarity for me to assume, I would say DUKE is probably accurate in his assessment.

These responses are really nice. Thank you for your encouragements.

Right now my plan is to take out money, put it into my life roll, and use it to pay off college loans. If If I make a minimum payment, I'll consider that a victory. I'd like to make more than minimum payments every month when I can though and pay these things off as fast as possible.

I'm also planning on taking some money out of my poker roll to buy poker books and perhaps get an account on a training website.

$20/hr is definitely attainable if I keep playing the same way and remove all of my calling mistakes.

The last few sessions, because I hit 6k, I've been experimenting with LAG play from the BU and CO. I used to have this image where every time I bet, I had the goods, and people hated calling my bets. These last few sessions my image has been totally FOS, but I've still barreled people off better hands and gotten stacks every time I've flopped a good hand. I also triple barreled a calling station with an OESD when he had TP7K. Whoops. So far the LAG experiment is working but I think I've been running well, too.

I actually think the next session I should go back to playing TAG (unless the table is super weak/tight) and focus on not making mistakes. Probably better to trim the fat off before I open up.

This is a really interesting comment. I 100% agree; it's totally imaginary. But then again, so are most things human beings put value in, and I think the imaginary separation has some importance.

I guess I just like the idea of having a poker "roll" separate from the rest of my real life stuff, because then I can have a "guarantee" of being able to play poker, and I'll also not somehow go broke if I start playing bad. Not separating these rolls frightens me a little. I probably should look into paying loans though. If paying them off with my poker roll would save me a ton of money, it might be worth just assigning myself a poker budget per month...then again, I might play less seriously if I don't have roll-building goals in mind.

I'm not sure yet, but I'll keep what you say here in mind though and do some research because it's definitely important. Thanks.

I love this idea, and this is what I'll go with. So I haven't payed myself yet, but I will if I make it to the end of the month. I'm $430 over $6,000 so far...*crosses fingers*

I've never had a problem with this. I just have the occasional session (1 out of 4) where I bring all the 5's, 10's, and 20's that have accumulated. I like to give any amount between $1-4 to the dealers and floor when I leave after a winning session. I think tipping the floor is very +EV, and if I have a bigger winning session I tip more for sure. Since I've done that, the floor people who know I'm a "serious" player tell me when there's a really action-spewy and/or drunk player in the game.

Hmm...I have 0 experience here because I'm just starting, but if I were in your situation for the first time, I'd move down just to regain confidence and revisit fundamentals. What you're going through sounds pretty standard and no big deal, but moving down for a few sessions is also no big deal. If you want, just move down, win some, then move back up again. If that feels wrong in some way, then stay where you are and grind through it. You have options; just pick the one you want imo.

No.

Other questions are harder to answer without more information.

Yeah, $3500 is nothing. I've been on 5k downswings and it's no big deal. Currently on a $9k upswing. Just keep playing.

+1.