C) buy in for $100, don't set a stop-loss.

FWIW, the correct answer depends on unknown variables. Buying in for more than the minimum could be reasonable.

If 1500 dollars is actual ruin, you should not be playing live poker.

Building a roll in a 1/2 game is already difficult. Why cripple yourself buying short? Yeah there's an increased risk of "ruin" but let's be honest, this probably amounts to doing some part time work for a bit. Buying short will prolong how long it takes to move up. 1/2 players are bad 50BB deep, they are really bad 200BB deep, and they will virtually give you their stacks 500BB deep.

It comes down to your risk tolerance and how you define "ruin." There is a balancing act between risk management and moving up stakes aggressively and I think it's a mistake to just take the path of minimum risk, but do what you want.

If there is no br concern and if you think you are the best or second best player at the table you should buy in for the maximum up to the point that it effects your play. "Don't be scared money" is easy to say but pretty much everyone is scared money at a certain point.

Given your serious br concern you should only buy in for $150 at at time and hit and run the table. I don't think you should be sitting with $300.

If you're not a winner in the game this wont help.

Personally I'd rather have at least 80 BB, preferably 100 BB. Buying in short in a deep game can be ok if you're good at short stack but if you have an edge and 7.5 BI if you go with 100 BB why not give yourself a little more room to operate? As browni said there are many more variables that could change the correct answer but in general I'd prefer sitting more than 50 BB in a deep game as I suspect opening sizes / straddles / and other things could make the 50 BB feel like even less in a deep game.

If the game is sufficiently deep and actiony, you're probably getting it in (effectively) preflop anyway. In that situation the extra 20BB isn't really going to help you too much. It just reduces the number of preflop shots that you can take to try to win a stack to play with.

Did that in a PLO game for a while, buy in for $100, wait for a spot to pot or re-pot it pre with a good hand multiway. "Flip" with an advantage and dead money for a quadruple-up. Then play 'normally'.

You show me someone who doesn’t think this and I’ll show you a winning poker player.

Thinking you suck at poker makes you good?

It was more of a philosophical statement describing the machismo attitude of the poker world. It's generally difficult to admit mistakes, learn from them, and improve if you already 'know' you're good.

I dunno Marsh, I disagree. I think you can be pretty objective about where your skills stand on most tables without having a bloated or delusional sense of how your skills stack up. Knowing that you’re a good player doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re trying to run over the table all the time. It usually means simple things like having a sound opening range, or not being a mindless nit, or actually having a fold button in tough spots that call for it.
I’m usually pretty confident that I’m either the best or second best player at the table, but I also don’t think that I’m a complete crusher or in the top 1% of players. I also know that I’m a solid winning player, but it doesn’t mean that I’m arrogant, it just means I’m fairly objective about where my skills stand in relation to standard V’s. I think that’s totally possible and fine.

So, I'm re-reading Jonahan Little's book " Stratagies for Beating Small Stakes Poker Cash Games"

He states that most of his research was done playing $1-2 at Borgata in Atlantic City.

He made $ 35 / Hour over a "decent" period of time.

I realize he's a great player, but do you think this amount is sustainable ? While most people crushing $ 1-2 at this rate would move up to higher stakes, I still have a hard time believing that $35 / hour at this level can be maintained.

Comments ?

Have you people never heard of the short-stack advantage? Short-stacking in a deep game is a fine way to play within one's bankroll.

Head-up it doesn't matter, but in a full ring game a short-stacker can use the larger stack sizes of the other players as a weapon: If you call my raise, you can't win very much, but you can lose a lot if one of the players behind you with a big stack and an uncapped range wakes up with a hand. Playing a short stack gives a player a shot of fold equity that other players don't get.

Moreover, short-stackers are better able to realize their hands' equity, because they can get it in on an early street more often than big stacks profitably can.

The risk is that when you double up or more, then you are no longer playing a short stack. You might in fact be playing with a significant fraction of your bankroll on the table, and thus be compelled by bankroll management principles to pick up.

It is true that if a good player with sufficiently large bankroll is better off playing a deep stack than a short one, because their upside is so much bigger. But not everyone has a giant bankroll. Buying into an uncapped 1-2 game for $100 is a legitimate and potentially profitable way of playing a $1500 roll.

I hear what you're saying. Perhaps I'm just on the grumpy end of the spectrum and get turned off by players who try and brag or self define as the best. The other thing about this discussion is that being 'good' or 'the best at my table' is too nebulous of a statement. There are so many factors to being successful that it's hard to get on the same page with someone else.

I'd rather have a consistent, lower, win rate and good bankroll management than be a crusher who can't stay out of the pit. Are they better than me? Absolutely. Sort of. Maybe not?

This is probably digressing and I'm sure been argued before. Just my 2 cents.

[QUOTE=AlanBostick;55108531]

The risk is that when you double up or more, then you are no longer playing a short stack. You might in fact be playing with a significant fraction of your bankroll on the table, and thus be compelled by bankroll management principles to pick up.

What percentage of my bankroll would you say is too much to have on the table?

Sent from my LM-X210(G) using Tapatalk

$100-$150 works fine. You should never be calling raises, only 3! (or 4! with AA, KK against people who aren't only 3! AA) and only with super premiums (AK, JJ+). Fold suited connectors, non-premium broadways, small PP. You can try to see a cheap flop with mid-PP 77-TT. With these hands I prefer limping, and with TT sometimes l/rr AI depending on the raiser. I often used the old l/rr AI from EP with my entire range, especially at a very active table where a raise is likely to get multiple callers putting extra dead money out there.

You should just leave after one or two double-ups and book the small win. They will add up. Plus, starting out, $100 or $200 is a lot relative to your BR. Obviously this method takes a lot of patience and discipline, but it's a winning strategy for someone with a small roll. Note my friend did this and quarupled his roll ($500 to $2k) but then lost all his profit over the next month or two and quit, so it's not impossible to go broke. Sometimes you just get lots of negative variance all near the beginning. I went broke myself early on at one point (but I didn't really have a roll).

Be prepared to lose to coolers and suckouts. That's how stortstaking works when you do lose. It can be brutal but it's how I built up my roll over a year to a point where I'm pretty much doing the same thing at 2/5, except now once I have doubled up a couple times and am deep I do not rack up because I have learned deepstack decently enough too.

Gl!

Short-stacking is fine, but you do have to be very patient and disciplined. Against really good players, you have to be willing to gii slightly lighter because they should and will put on maximum pressure if they think you are scared money. Maybe you aren't, but they might think you are.

Agree with leaving after you've doubled or tripled up.

(Caveat: I never play short unless I'm down / coolered and leaving soon or have hit my max. Probably not a good strategy and I should just leave, but losing my last $100 is worth the times I'll double it up or better.)

If I'm remembering right, I think there was 1 guy who posted a winrate here of almost $50/hr in 1/2 and 1/3 over about 1k hrs.

Games are always getting tougher, but I think if you can buy in for 200bb deep, and straddles are allowed, and the rake maxes out at around $5 or $6, and the player pool is not that strong, then the very best in that
1/2 game are probably winning $35-$40/hr.

I agree. Poker will die when mothers stop telling their sons that they're really really smart.

Also, it may be true that poker attracts people who think they're smart while thinking oneself smart is(very often) an indicator of the alternative.

I like to say, self-deprecatingly, "I think I'm smart but poker disagrees".

Anything more than 10% is asking for trouble.

Just for conversations sake, what if you sit with 5% and get on a heater and finding yourself sitting on what is now 15%?

Pick up, or at least change tables so that you can go south.

He's joking. Don't go south. You can switch to a table with all short stacks that you cover. Or, depending on your room's rules, leave the casino for an hour or so and come back with the minimum. Or switch stakes. Or better yet, call it a session and come back the next day.

Some rooms not only allow you to go south when you switch tables, but even require it if you are over the table's max buy-in.

Very bad rule, imo, but also pretty common, especially in California.

Hey, I have played online poker for 2 years, only being a winning player for maybe around a year at 5NLz for EV of around 9 bb/100 (over decent sample), but I want to try my hand at live games. I just finished my A levels and am taking a gap year, in which I plan on grinding out live poker. I currently have a BR of £2000, and the casino I plan on playing at offers 1/1 games with min/max buyin of 40/400.

What would you recommend I buy in for, and should I grind online poker longer to build a bigger BR before playing live? I believe 1/1 games are fairly soft but idk if 2k is enough

What's the rake? If you can only beat it by sitting deep 5 buyins is a pretty scarce bankroll.
If you can buy in for 100bb you have a 20 buyin bankroll which seems allright for recreational play with an acceptable risk of ruin.
It's not enough if it's a bankroll where you intend to take money out off to live from.

Rake is 5% capped at £5. There's no way i'd be buying in for full amount with a BR this low, and people seem to think 20 buy ins minimum is the way to go. I think i'd have a significant edge at the games because I'm going to be playing/studying full time, so variance will be lowered that way. Should I grind online to £4k before playing, and buy in @ 50BB? Also, I'd only be paying for train tickets, thats my only expenses, which is only like £7 a day.