Obviously effective stacks are what matter.

When I say roll, I mean that as a set amount that is very hard to replenish. If you have money coming in that you can replenish your roll with, then your effective roll is much bigger.

The number one rule when trying to make it in this game is "Don't go broke." Risking a large chunk of your roll on a single hand is a good way to go broke. Bottom line is, there will be another great game tomorrow or next week or the week after that. Great games happen all the time. There is no reason to put a big part of your roll at risk in order to stay in a great game.

A 20 BI downswing is not that unlikely for a marginal winner. You may think your edge is huge. You are probably way better than the competition. However, if you are playing 1/2 with 20 BIs, you are not a crusher, period. You are, at best, a marginal winner and your risk of ruin is way higher than you think. Good luck playing just as well when your 20BI roll suddenly shrinks to 10BIs.

Basically, everyone that is in a rush to make a bunch of money, build a roll, and move up in stakes is destined to go busto. The guys that last are the guys that take their time and make conservative decisions. It may seem like it's taking you a long time to get where you want to go, but you will get there. In the end, it is the shortest path, because it really is the only path. I wish someone had told me that when I first started out. I would've been much further along by now.

I agree with all of this.

Ragequit plays good and should be embracing deep stack play against fish.

I thought deep stack play was some of the hardest poker to master. So, absent all the other stacks being average for a 1/2 table, wouldn't one with little/no deep stack experience be involved in on the job training?

I didn't say never, and I don't think it's due to risk of ruin that one should get up. For me, it's just time to get up when I start thinking of the chips as what they could buy, how much of my roll the represent, etc., rather than as tools. That psychological point usually hits me at about 10% of my roll, though it was less when I first moved up to 2/5, just because the absolute amounts were so much bigger.

I've had a couple of sessions where I had more than 10% of my roll on the table and still felt like I was playing well, so I kept going. In both of those that I can recall, though, the effective stacks were much less, as I had the next biggest stack crushed, so it wasn't all at risk in one hand. if it were, I prob would have started playing like scared money and then picked up.

Another way to evaluate your psyche is to ask yourself these questions:

1. How would I feel if I win another 100bb?

2. How would I feel if I lose 100bb?

If losing is worse than winning, then obviously leave.

^100%. For me, it's just time to get up when I start thinking of the chips as what they could buy, how much of my roll the represent, etc., rather than as tools.

That's why, when I buy-in for $300 & find myself sittin' on $800 & the only other big stack is a good player, I not only start to think of the above, I start to think about how I'm going to hate getting involved in a hand, with a good player who has me covered and I can no longer concentrate on playing. Why? Because I have no experience with deep stack play.

I am, however, at some point, going to have to start gettin' some. COTM on deep stack play anyone?

Garrick- wasn't taking a shot at you.

2/5 in my opinion is another whole ballgame. You can play professionaly, and as a semi-pro. Do whatever you have to stay in action. One thing I know about my local 2/5 games. Is almost everyone who plays it is severely underrolled. Reason why we can't sustain a game.

Once you start thinking about what the money can buy. It is definitely time to pick up. That happens quite quick at 2/5.

I think 100BB games (at low stakes) make for tougher situations than 200BB+games.

For fish who can´t fold TP or overpairs, obviously deeper stacks will make for bigger mistakes.

100xbb is like always easier to play

^^^things fish say^^^

Sorry kookie had too

I didn't take it as a shot. I just wanted to clarify that I'm much more worried about quality of play when I'm psychologically impacted by the amount that's in play than actual risk of ruin involved.

I think 10%-quit is way too conservative fwiw

(*from a risk of ruin perspective. However, everyone should certainly consider their comfort - not hard rules)

Also worth noting (and yes a bit smartassy) - in the end, you can only go bust with 100% of your roll on the table.. applying all of these guidelines to times when your roll is robust is nonsense.. what matters is what you do when you lose half of it.

I think it puts you into weird spots at 100BB. Against a standard open at $1/2 you're not really deep enough to call with a lot of hands heads up, but in a multiway pot it's a different story between the direct and implied odds and may very well make sense. So you end up trying to figure out if your call in MP is going to cause a cascade of more calls to get you a good price.

But if you know what you're doing and understand stacks sizes that's easy enough to work around.

Thanks guys, that is all really great advice and I'm taking it all onboard.

10% effective as a guideline but conditional on who has me covered and how good the game is and how I'm feeling about winning or losing the next 100. Great stuff, and thanks for the vote of confidence kookiemonster appreciate it.


On related side note:
Did anyone read about the female pro, forgot her name now, who put her whole BR on the table vs some mega-whale billionaire? Maybe it was in cardplayer or something last year... IDK Anyway, it's a cool story:

She was playing 5/10 with an $80K roll (I think...). Sat at her normal game and this high roller she knows comes over, says hi and can he join her game. She persuades the other players to open a tenth seat (without much difficulty) and the whale sits down with $100K in chips he just won at roulette.

Pro obviously waves the 10% rule for this one and goes and gets the rest of her roll!

So shortly after she gets in a hand with the whale and somehow gets to the river quite cheap with KXs and rivers the flush. Whale bets into her, she raises - at this point the pot is less than $1000 - the whale instashoves the rest of his $100K!!!!

She's sat there with the second nuts but her entire $80K bankroll at stake and the whale looking pretty pleased with himself. Stress ensues. Obviously.

While she's thinking what to do the guy says something like "I've got you beat don't worry about it." They're kind of friends so she thinks this means he has it. She asks; "you got the flush then?"

Whale does a double take, looks back at the board, then looks back at her with a somewhat crestfallen expression - she calls and he shows 2-pair!

Fortune favours the brave

Tough spots aka commitment OTT

*Shrugs

huh? Losing is always worse than winning.

Sneaky Pete is talking about how you feel about the prospect of losing 100bb as opposed to how you feel about winning another 100bb.

When I first sit down I'm confident, motivated and ready to play. I'm aiming to win but prepared to lose. After playing for some hours, maybe losing some pots, winning some pots, being up, being down - I may feel different.

Rationally I know the table dynamic now, I know how I rate against my opponents and I know roughly how profitable or otherwise the table is for me. What I may not be consciously aware of is how the session has affected my mood and my mental faculties (through tiredness, tilt, boredom, total abject horror at my mangling of a hand in a big pot, whatever...).

By stopping and asking myself how I feel about winning another 100bb compared to how I feel about losing 100bb I will become aware of when I've become jaded and demotivated (feel unmotivated by prospect of winning and very worried about losing), or motivated in the wrong way. E.g. If I feel like I don't care about losing 100bb but winning at least one buy in back off these miserable, useless gamblers as fast as humanly possible is THE MOST IMPORTANT THING IN THE UNIVERSE EVER - then maybe I should stop playing immediately.

So maybe "worse" isn't the best word but it is hard to describe exactly.

We don't always see eye-to-eye but I agree whole heartedly with SneakyPete on this one. In fact I'm sure Pete will be thinking that this is yet another of my overlong and jumbled posts with no maths in it...

It was actually pretty good. Well done.

In simpler words, basically if I am up 300bb, winning another 50bb is pretty much not going to make me feel any better than I already do.

On the flip side, if I lose 100bb, I would feel really crappy.

So why sit there?

lolfeelings

It's all one session, doesn't matter if you win that extra 50BB today or in a week.

But when you start to have thoughts like this, yes it's a good time to leave.

Whale's reaction? Was probably awesome, I can only imagine the dead silence permeating the table.

Yeah sorry, whale looks crestfallen. He basically realises he's gone and ****ed it up and then makes it worse by having no poker-face. Still takes some guts for the pro to make the $75K call.

Idolizing pros like this and Matt Damon are why most people end up broke imo.

Never been called a nit at the tables, but I guess I am with my roll. I prefer it that way. Makes things much easier. FWIW I do think there are exceptions at higher stakes if great games in the area are much more rare. There will always be great games at 1/2 and 2/5.

If someone calls me a pro, I would think he's insulting me.