Saying the same thing?

Not sure if srs

not enough 2/5 bullets is an emergency, ldo

Actually, don't think taking out a loan to play in games with high ev is such a crazy idea. It's wrong to call it "taking out a loan to gamble"; rather, it should be seen as financial leverage, which happens in the investment world all the time when your perceived return after interest expenses is higher than only playing with money you actually have.

Playing with an entire roll of just 1-2 bi's is worse than not playing.

The real question is if you are actually good enough to be massively +ev in whateve game it is to justify the risk and pressure of taking on a loan. Statistically, that's the most doubtful part. This would be THE reason to advise against.

ATsai could do it and be fine - it's established he's got a big skill advantage over his competition. So his risk is near zero and he'd be able to pay off the LOC no problem.

Most posters here (myself included) would be better off saving rather than put themselves at risk of over-leveraging themselves.

seriously guys, I had the worst bankrollmanagement, but for a recreational player to borrow money to play cards!!! is just the nut worst idea.

My advice was tailored to GloryRising who said that he had 2 BIs for live 2/5NL and could add 1-2 BIs to poker roll each month from the earnings from his job. Obviously, he could afford to take out a short-term loan because he has the financial ability to pay it back even if he loses it all at poker.

I don't know any of your financial situations, so I wouldn't recommend the same to the rest of you.

For GloryRising, I think that just trying to run it up at live 2/5 NL (smallest game in his area) with just 2 BIs is just going to lead him to make all sorts of bad poker decisions. Taking out a loan that he can afford and biting the bullet on a relatively small interest expense would be less costly than the poker mistakes that he would make while playing with only 2 BIs in his pocket.

Go to the casino, dust off your 2 buy ins in epic style, and then just borrow the money from the table! Credit rules are reversed in a poker room... the more likely you are to lose it, the more willing they are to loan it!

If people at the table are willing to loan to you with no interest attached, that would be fine too. If no person at the casino will do that for you, you might be able to get approved for a credit line directly with the casino.

If that doesn't happen, you can probably get a cash advance from your credit card... But that is highly inadvisable because the interest rates on cash advances are ridiculously high.

Of course not, but keywords high EV.

Can't disagree with something that can be calculated.

Now this makes very little sense. If perceived return after no expense is higher than zero, how could it be worse than zero?

What did you think we were against?

Let me swap few words out:

Note that I didn't change anything except to substitute poker with slot and BI with $500.

Ya, don't do us any favor.

Why would annual interest rate matter if it's just a short term loan? Plus why would it matter if you are a +EV player?

Why not just play lower and avoid borrowing money? If the player can't scrape together the cash to play the lowest stakes or spin it up play 1/2 I'm not really sure they should be gambling in any way as there are other money management issues in play

GloryRising said that live 2/5 NL is the SMALLEST game that is spread in his locale. So he can't play live 1/2 NL or 1/3 NL. Not an option.

Fair enough missed that. But I would counter that I don't think he has proven that he can beat live 2/5 yet and thus borrowing money seems awful. Sure someone beating 25nl online should beat 2/5. But not necessarily immediately and based on his description I suspect a 10bi debt could be extremely material to his lifestyle.

I'd either wait and build up via online play/savings or just go with 2bi and understand what's up.

Borrowing money to play is moronic. If you don't have money to play the. You are either bad at poker or bad at other money management issues (at least in 99% of cases.) Taking out a loan will not help either of those issues.

So let's say that you go to the casino on the 1st of the month with 2BIs. In the first hour, you play TAG and end up shoving a flopped set into a combo draw and get sucked out. Now, you are on the second BI, and a drunk guy arrived at table and starts blind raising a bunch. You pick your spot, and you shove AK against his 65o and end up getting stacked again.

Are you guys really going to drive home at that point even though you have a good full time job and positive cash flow coming in every month?

Please remember that you are a recreational player who has a full time job and NOT a pro who plays for profit for his monthly nut.

Am I? No. Would I advise a player who really can't afford it now and has not proven he can beat the stakes to reload with debt? Absolutely not

I mean seriously you can't be this obtuse

Why can't he afford to borrow some money if he has positive cash flow coming every month above and beyond his bills?

We are not saying that he should borrow 100k and then trying to run it up at live 10/20 NL. Live 2/5 NL is usually super easy to beat... Especially when it is the smallest game spread in the area.

There will be a lot of ******s who would normally play 1/2 NL, but they still punt off stacks at GloryRising's 2/5 table because it is the smallest NLHE game. I would be surprised if the level of play at his 2/5 table was any better than 1/2 NL at the casinos where you guys normally play.

He can. I just think it's hotrendous to advise him to do so when it appears there is an underlying money mgt issue in play

No one is arguing that the play in this game is likely to be mediocre at best

Because beating the game for rake and interest is harder than beating the game for rake and maybe he can't beat the game for rake? Because he might lose his day job next week? Because credit is not usually available on favorable terms to people who can only put their hands on a thousand dollars at a time?

Please tell me this "take out a loan" advice is a level, and then stop doing it in LLSNL.

We don't even know if OP is +EV in the game. Some online players have a really hard time transitioning to live and can spew off great wodges of cash before they adjust, especially if 2/5 is the lowest available level.

We definitely don't know what his opportunity cost of not playing would be, nor the EV differential between playing with a small BR that can only be replenished once a month, vs a large BR that he's terrified of losing and thus incurring long-term debt and upset spouse.

I like how the assumption here is that it's possible to lose 2 buy ins, but never possible to lose the loan. Nope, epic downswings do happen, and quite frankly 10k at a 500 buy in is not even that epic.

Variance happens.

I also like how there's an argument that he'll be nervous playing with only 2 buy ins, but he won't be nervous playing with money that he doesn't have. What if he loses 2 buy ins of money he doesn't have? Think he'll play the remainder of the money he doesn't have well?