Could limit holdem be a better way to build a bankroll than no-limit? I love no limit, but the swings and suck outs can be brutal. Especially in the shove fest land that is minimum buy in Commerce casino lower stakes. I played limit for the first time a couple of days ago @ commerce. My hourly @ both $2-$4 & $3-$6 was approximately $15-$20 over 40hrs. I know thats very short term, but its close to what I make playing @ 2-3 3-5 no limit.. if you factor in the big swings. I eventually want to play in the bigger no limit games but my bankroll isn't there yet. In the mean time, I'm starting to gain an apprectiation for limit play. Any advice or opinions would be appreciated.

Variance is bigger in limit than no-limit.

Your big winrate is a by-product of that larger variance.

With a $5 max rake it is my opinion that 2/4 and 3/6 are unbeatable in the long run, however, other people in the limit forums have estimated a long term winrate of up to 1.5BB/hour is still possible. That means that even the more optimistic limit veterans think $9/hour at 3/6 is the highest sustainable winrate. If you are a competent player at both 3/6 limit and 2/3 NL then your win rate for NL will be much higher in the long run.

If you like to press on quickly and play the highest limits you can then you're much better off playing nlh b/c of the lower variance of the game. NLH online will be the fastest way to increase your bankroll if you've got about equal skill simply because you can afford to move up more quickly w/o taking on additional risk of ruin.

That said, if you're not experienced online multi-tabling micros then stick to what you know and best of luck.

Your BR seems kinda limited so I'd suggested avoiding shot-taking at live NL until you're able to eat losing a few clips b/c the variance in that game is a little higher with all of the multi-way action that you're likely to see.

In any case best of luck!

You're running extremely hot in this lol sample size (but you know that). At these limits with these rakes you *might* make enough to cover your drinks/food at the table, and that's about it (i.e a few bucks an hour, tops).

If you're looking to build a bankroll, you'd be much better off building it from other sources of income (i.e. job). IMO.

this is pretty accurate, rake is so bad at lower limits maybe one, max two people at a table are winners.

Normalized to what? The blinds? The average pot? The average win rate for a equally skilled player?

- I actively deny that FL has a higher variance when normalized to equivalent blinds.
- I am skeptical that FL has a higher variance when normalized to the average pot. (skeptical = willing to accept with proof)
- I can easily believe that FL has a higher variance when normalized to win rate, but I'd argue that's because NL can produce higher win rates than FL.

In terms of building a bankroll, GG nailed it - the best way to build a bankroll, unless you're playing for high stakes, is to put money in from an outside source. If you want to grind a bankroll, the key quantity you want to maximize is the unitless quantity WinRate/StandardDeviation - accept a higher SD only if your WR is proportionally higher.

Technically, to build a bankroll, what one REALLY wants to do is maximize log(rate of bankroll growth). This entails a complicated relationship between win rate, variance, and wager size (for poker, "wager size" = table buy-in). Google on "Kelly criterion" for more information.

Normalized to win rate.

I often compare 1-2 no-limit to 10-20 fixed limit in these scenarios.

I think you are exactly right. When it is stated that NL has lower variance, some people wrongly assume they mean 1/2NL has a lower variance than 2-4 limit.

I don't understand what you are saying here. As 'log' is a monotonic function, if you want to maximize log(x) you just need to maximize x.

So what you have stated is that to build a bankroll, you need to maximize your rate of bankroll growth. Whoopee doo - what a great insight you have provided.

I would choose the game in which I had the bigger edge and usually that is a result of which game you are more skilled at. There is no way to know your skill level by playing 2/4 or 3/6 LHE and no real way to build up your bankroll there IMO unless you are a top LHE player.

I built a bankroll playing 5/10 LHE online and 10/20 LHE live and moved up to 20/40 LHE some time ago.

My guess is that with my somewhat questionable NL skills I could build a bankroll playing 1/2 NL now after several hundred hours of play, but that it would take far longer than at 10/20 LHE. But there is only one way to find out.

As a final note: I moved up to 20/40 LHE before I had an adequate bankroll for it. I would have been able to sustain losses of about 7 buy-ins before I would have been wiped out. But my thinking was that if I was laid out by variance in my attempt to move up - then so be it. For me to lose 7 buy-ins at 20/40 LHE would much more likely be a result of me being over-matched and lacking the skills and/or ability to adapt that a more advanced game than I was used to, demanded. And as my semi-pro LHE mentor advised me, move up as fast as you can to where you think you have the skills to win.

I was willing to get wiped out and start over with a smaller bankroll generated from an outside source, in order to find the game where I could maximize my winnings.

Look to Dynasty, Luke and GG for answers. I've ground up @ LLHE @ Commerce for years now. I don't know ANYONE with a sustained, documented winrate @ Commerce above 1.5BB/hr. at those games. Some of my winrates have Las Vegas LHE mixed in, but my best "rate" is still 2/4 @ 1.32/BB/hr. over 3 yrs.+ & 187 table hrs. My winrates at 3/6 and 4/8 are positive, but lower and with more hours. Right now, I am screaming hot @ 8/16, but it won't last. + and -200BB swings WILL happen QUITE REGULARLY (like every year) @ LHE.

Nice hot streak, but the grass IS NOT greener @ Commerce LLHE, particularly after the last couple of rake pops there. IMO, true bank roll building will come from 8/16 or higher play on the limit side of the house.

Good luck.

Thanks Mr. Rick. Very helpful information.

If s/he wants a poker bankroll, then a job is definitely not the best way to build it. You have got to build your poker bankroll by playing poker.

Otherwise you will be lying to yourself about your results and boring other people with your stories about bad luck. Guess what? Everyone gets AA cracked. Everyone gets beat by one outers. Everyone loses on the river. As Sklansky said: "If we invented a slot machine that paid 98 cents on every pull (the equivalent of a poker player expecting the best hand to win everytime), no one would play."

Variance is at the heart of gambling and if you can't deal with it, you should learn to deal. Or something.

Thanks for the info fishyak. Think I'll try 8/16 with the kill.

Thanks Shroedy. Aiya.. I like the way you think. Variance aside, after reviewing my no limit holdem results lately, I know I drifted to far from the buoy. I had a ten day run of $300 to $500 winning days and then started loosing(playing badly..tilt) after a couple of beats. I loosened up way too much for all the wrong reasons and in all the wrong spots and it cost me. I've only been trying to play full time now for about 4 months. I have outside sources of income, but this is what I want to do. I also think I played too many hours trying to push through while subtly on tilt. Poker is a complex game.

Hey Greg, I actually cashed in the Big Poker October 100k 2 day event. I like the smaller buy-ins too. Just want that big payday like everybody else.

This is true to an extent, but if one is trying to play LHE, the lower limits are hard to build a bankroll at. The rake simply destroys winrates at 3/6 or 4/8. It would be worth someone's investment to pad their roll from outside sources to move up to something like 8/16 quicker.

Of course if you can't beat 8/16+ you need to get the experience at the lower limits first, regardless of the pitiful winrates you may experience there.

The whole job aspect is to help create your *initial* bankroll. You don't want to start playing without one of an adequate size (a self-sustainable amount, 20 buy-ins or whatever criteria you choose). Once you've saved enough to start playing you maintain and increase your existing bankroll via poker.

No, you don't have to do this.

ETA:

Trying to build a poker roll for higher limit games via live small stakes games (such as 2/4 and 3/6 which OP mentioned) is futile. Go ahead. Play 1000 hours and see how it goes; if you've broken even after taking into account drinks/food, you've done awesome.

Gonlyhasonepocket,socan'tdoanytrickyleftpocketvsri ghtpocketaccountingG

It depends. If you are playing low limits, playing poker is a terrible way to build a bankroll, even for a good player. (Example: In a $3-$6 limit hold'em with a $5 drop, a player has to overcome a 8.3BB/100 handicap just to break even.) Getting a roll with which to play and getting good at playing are two separate problems. While two problems can sometimes have the same solution, this is not the general case.

If your goal is going pro (and mind you, that's actually a big "if") then building a bankroll by playing is counterproductive: how can you build your roll if you have to take out of it to cover your expenses?

I'm a successful pro; and I built my bankroll by selling my late mother's house at the peak of the housing market. I had ten solid years of wins as a recreational player behind that; I never built a bankroll because I didn't need to build one.

I'm just saying that when OP says he is considering LHE because "can't stand the suckouts" in NL that I don't believe the solution is more money. The solution is more play. AA is not entitled to win every time it is dealt. Against 1 opponent holding pretty much anything it will win 4 out 5 times. Against 2, 3 out of 4. etc. It sounded to me like OP needs to play more poker, take more bad beats, learn what being a professional poker player is really all about, etc. Learn how to say "nice hand, well played" to his opponent with 85s who crushes his KK.

Adding money to a player who is still whining about bad beats will not create a professional. Ever, IMO. Bad beats are an absolutely essential part of any gambling operation. No one would ever take the worst of it if they never had the chance to "come from behind" and win.

This whole thing about not standing the suckuts has always been perplexing to me. Its usually the sign of a good game. Every game has suckouts. Get used to it. If you play LHE for any decent length of time in games where there are many to the flop, you are going to see your share of em. Try playing PLO, getting your $ in as a huge % favorite on the flop with a huge wrap and redraws and lose countless times. It happens

I honestly feel that with todays live drop/rake amounts that once you have some time in playing at lower limits, feel confident about your game, have some $, have a reg job, that the way to make $ is to put some of your roll at risk and move up and take shots asap. Rinse and repeat.

Kelly criterion deals with individual decisions about each wager (such that the ideal Kelly wager is EV/variance), not about game selection (which consists of an assumption of infinite wagers).

The long-term value of a game can be defined by what blackjack authors call "SCORE" - it's EV^2/variance, or (EV/SD)^2 since V = SD^2. It's actually invariant with wager size, because SCORE is unitless. Assuming EV is positive, maximizing (EV/SD)^2 is the same as maximizing (EV/SD).