Nice post dgi. I don't know you but want to say thanks for all the things you have helped add to my game. Good luck on you're journey

I'd say just dating someone or married to someone who does not have a problem with poker is key as well...but you are right on all accounts...

However, I am just going to be a lone wolf forever...love eludes me...

Thanks dgi.

I appreciate everything that you do for this site / forum.

There are some really good poker players out there that don't want to help the community for fear of advancing the game too much.
Some that don't want to be generous.
Some that just don't care enough.

And you always help out where you can. So thanks again. Continues success to you.

+1

Nice post and thanks for taking all the time.

As a quibble, I don't like all the analogies with chess that people make on this forum. There is variance in chess. In fact, the very equation of chess ratings is effectively a mathematical definition of the variance in chess. Also, contrary to popular belief, there can be bluffing in chess. Just because it is a game of "complete information" doesn't mean everyone can see it, or know what to do with it if they could see it. There are many ways to get lucky in chess.

I may have missed it but do you recommend always max buying? If so, what if there is a non-traditional max buy (traditional being 100bb)? For example many (all?) Vegas 1/2s have a 300 max and many 2/5s have a 1k max. Would you recommend buying 100bb or buy max and adjust the br requirements accordingly? Thank you for the OP.

Not to derail the thread or seem like i'm coming across harsh, but you are quibbling and we can easily descend into a minutia filled rabbit hole where we put every semantic under a microscope and object whenever there isn't a 100% match.

My reference to chess was the easiest way to expound on a concept. Perhaps its not 100% accurate, but its 95% close to what I'm trying to convey and that is good enough. And for what its worth, I played chess competitively in high school back in the day. I love chess and sure there is a "type" of variance in chess, but that variance (i.e. luck of the draw in opponents or color) is peanuts compared to the variance of poker.

just sayin, I know it may be a pet peeve of yours when chess is inaccurately portrayed, but for the purposes of the points I was trying to make, the chess analogies are close enough

The minimum that you should buy-in to any NL game is 80bb. Speaking of minimum, I use that term a lot and it should NOT be misinterpreted for "preferred" or "optimal". Optimally, you should buy-in for the max that you can as being deeper enables you to take more profitable lines.

Optimally you should be overrolled for the game you play and be sitting on 40 buy-ins.

As for BR requirements, that will be a function of your winrate and the Risk of Ruin you are willing to tolerate. There are a few models in which you can actually plug in your stats and it will spit out your Risk of Ruin. But the general rule of thumb is to have a minimum of 20 buy-ins for the level you wish to play, with a standard buy-in being defined at 100bb. This can change some if you have secondary income that you can use to help pad your bankroll (hence why my optimal path is so big on you keeping your job and playing part time)

Overall, 100bb is the standard and is fine on most tables. Sometimes given the table dynamics 100bb can actually put you at a slight disadvantage (i.e. its a 100bb capped buy-in game but the players have been at the table a while and everyone else is at 300bb+ and there is super action and oversized raises preflop...).

Now I'm starting to derail a bit. Part of my steps involves you studying bankroll management on your own and during your studies you will read up on buy-in requirements

speaking of buying in short vs deep, the reason why we want to buy in for more is because +EV poker and various +EV lines will actually be a function of chip stack depth. That is, some plays become mathematically incorrect if you are not deep enough.

Below is a chart I put together to help illustrate the differences as a function of chip stack depth (assuming typical LLSNL game vs typical villains).



Note: the reason why the short stack 3-betting top 10 hands is a red no is because the initial raising range in LLSNL is usually JJ+, AK and the 3-bet calling range in LLSNL is very inelastic and so 3-betting a top ten hand as a short stack will result in you getting called by hands that are typically ahead of your range. And then since you are short stack, you aren't deep enough to maneuver post flop and/or generate fold equity post flop...

I wanted to highlight this because my post kinda comes off as if I'm advocating turning pro with a $4k roll, definitely not my intent.

I was giving my opinion on the minimum that you can start with, but in no way does that mean its optimal or preferred. During my list of steps I talk about studying BRM, well, during the study period its vital we look at Risk of Ruin and determine how much Risk we are willing to tolerate, plug in our stats into a RoR model, and our buy-in requirements will spit out.

And there is nothing wrong with wanting to pad our RoR just to make double sure we don't go bust.

So you have the right of it and doubling the Buy-in requirements is definitely the way to go to give yourself the best chance for success

To be honest, I just didn't feel like doing the whole dgi origin story. I felt that most people just wouldn't care and ultimately I don't think it's all that important. As far as my steps mirroring how I turned pro...

I wish.

I basically did everything you weren't supposed to do and I definitely learned my lessons from the school of hard knocks.

Anyways, I figured if I were to do a pooh-bah post, I would try to distill it to the things that would help the community the most. And truth be told, I guess I just felt my trials and tribulations really don't matter all that much... And I didn't want my background/story to take focus away from the stuff that really does matter.

The short v medium v deep stack chart is informative and helpful. Super cool. What do you think about reverse implied with pairs under 88 and non-ace suited cards? 400-500+ bbs? Or perhaps at a certain depth we can find folds with bottom set and smaller flushes?

I still find it a little vague to get a specific $ amount to start playing certain levels (3k for 1/2 and 6k for 2/5 iirc) and yet leave the # of bbs bought in for wide open (anywhere from 80 to 200). You may have said just go with 100 I'm not sure. The only reason I bring this up is because I got so much from the op and that part still left me scratching my head. Thanks again.

it's not about a formulaic approach to stacking off, but rather about knowing your villain and understanding what their range is and what they will stack off with.

I played with a ABC rec-fish yesterday who had clear sizing tells. Game was 2/5nl deep stack, effective stacks $3k

typical preflop raises in this game were $25 - $45, he had a clear sizing tell. He would do the ABC fishy l/rr with his AA/KK from virtually any position. So, he was in MP and limped, someone raised to $35 and then he would l/rr blast the pot to $175 because he was pathologically afraid of getting his Aces cracked.

Come flop, he would then blast the pot for double pot and then come turn he would just shove.

Against this sort of player, you can easily stack off 400bb, 500bb, 600bb without fear of getting set vs set since his range is so easily defined and his tendencies are so obvious...

Conversely, lets say you are up against a pretty well balanced and competent villain. This V is in the HJ, and Hero is in LP, UTG+1 raises 5bb, he calls, and we call with 33. Eff stacks 500bb

flop(15bb) 3 9 6
UTG+1 leads out 8bb, Hero calls, V calls

Turn(39bb) Q
UTG+1 bets 20bb, Hero raises to 60bb, V raises to 120bb, UTG+1 folds, Hero raises to 200bb, V raises to 300bb, Hero????

Now, this is where typical rec-fish and even thinking players just get stubborn and say, "Well, if he gots it, he gots it, I ain't folding a set..."

But what a minute. Stop and think, what sort of player is V? V is a competent well balanced player. What is his preflop calling range? It should contain a lot of pocket pairs. Is this V ever going to be chasing a runner runner flush like this? Does that make sense? And are there any real playable two pair combos on this board that would likewise call a preflop raise? And would V ever do this with 2 pairs or an overpair?

No.

V's hand in this instance is face up as a set. So we can easily fold our bottom set here if we are not emotionally attached to the hand and are properly reading the situation for what it is.

An interesting thing in poker is that when you are not in the hand and witnessing the action you can easily deduce that this is set over set. But when you are INVOLVED in the hand and have bottom set its amazing how easily emotion takes over and you just end up stacking off 500bb and then saying, "Well, it was a cooler, nothing I could do?"

Really? Nothing you could do? Really? Well, you could fold.

I'm not quite sure how to address this part without sounding like an ass, so I guess I will apologize up front.

On this site too many players try to treat poker as if its an easy paint-by-numbers formulaic game where you can just follow a checklist and beat the game.

No, poker is more complex than that. You can buy-in for anywhere between 50bb and 200bb and crush the game. Or conversely, you can buy-in for 200bb and still completely lose your ass every time you sit down.

The chart I posted just shows you mathematically correct plays you can make as a function of eff stack sizes (but focused more so on your stack size). You can still buy-in to a game for 40bb and do well if you only adhere to +EV lines, its just that the amount of +EV lines you can take are limited. Or put another way, if you buy-in deeper then you have more +EV lines available which will increase the probability of you having +EV lines which will increase the probability of you doing better as compared to buying in short...

Not to make excuses, but my post was more of a general outline and guide rather than a point by point breakdown for beating the game. If I were to try to address every point, it would result in me writing a book

So instead, I basically say in my steps, "read all stickies, read books, read articles, watch training videos..." and when you do that, then the answers to questions such as "How much should I buy-in for" will be contained somewhere in the links, threads, articles, and books ...

In summary, my post is really more of an outline and guide and not a point-by-point breakdown for beating poker. Poker is more complex than that hence my opening spiel about the complexities of poker

Considering almost every chess pro agrees with you I think you must be right. There was a recent "Thinking Poker Podcast" with a former (maybe current?) chess pro that basically said the same thing.

Dgi,

Thank you for your contributions to 2+2. You're an extremely valuable member of our forum!

Question:
How would you explain the benefit of 2+2 to a poker player who is unfamiliar with the site? In other words, how would you pitch 2+2 to someone looking to improve as a player?

I simple tell players that without 2+2 I would have never become a winning player and would probably be homeless...

what I've found is that you can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink.

I know of several poker friends who I have repeatedly told about 2+2 yet they refuse to put the work in and become contributing members to the site. They each said, "Well, yeah, I went to the site, looked around, the sites okay I guess..."

and then that's the end of it.

I think this goes in line with ego. Poker is a very ego centric game. And thanks to variance, a lot of players think that they got the game figured out and completely solved so what the hell do they need 2+2 for????

What i've learned is that it's amazing how many players actually take pride in the fact that they DON'T study and they definitely don't do any online poker and/or online poker forums...

it is what it is and truthfully, thank god for it.

FWIW though, I notice players under the age of 27 tend to be much more open and receptive to being on 2+2 and have usually at least heard of it...

Top notch postings as usual. You do excel in the writing department. I suspect some early classes and career experience with the English language are in your background.

I hope you pardon my comment but your posts remind me of Houdini or Blackstone explaning how they accomplish their magic "tricks" to an ignorant but ready to learn audience. Hope to read more from you.

I'll be rolling this out, next time i'm ****ed on for recommending that 20 buyins is way too little (and by an experienced live player at that)

guess I'm the exception that proves your rule then, because I'm more than double that and I think its freakin awesome

There's a difference between moving into a game planning on going bust before moving down, and shot taking. Dgiharris is the perfect example. You look across the room and the 4 worst players you know are sitting two limits higher than your normal game. You:

A) think about what you have in your box and decide that even if you lost a couple buyins in the big game, you'd still be safely rolled for your normal game. You play because opportunities like this are rare

B) you feel virtuous about following a 40BI rule and you refuse to consider the madness of taking a shot

If you can stand taking a loss in the bigger game, mindless BR virtue can stunt your growth. Sometimes the sun is shining and it is time...

BR is a personal thing. It depends on what ruin means to you. It depends on whether you can replace it from RL funds. It depends on your monthly nut. While Dgiharris telling people to have much more money than they think they'll need before quitting their job is spot on. You can't give a one-size fits all number for this stuff. If you say flat out that everyone in the world must have a 40bb+ roll to play, you'd have to be wrong. If you said that most starting pros massively underestimate variance and what they need liquid, you'd certainly be right.

right. This has basically been my problem when trying to introduce 2+2 to a few of my poker friends. As you stated, they often think they have it all figured out.

Your point about the ego is interesting, especially because a lot of poker players tend to think that some forum full of "random people" can't possibly be useful.

I think that one of the most useful aspects of 2+2, however, is the writing we do (particularly in the strategy forums).

Great read! Very informative. Not much of a live player. But I liked it.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using 2+2 Forums

We can only hope! Please make this happen.

So we called after V pre but before V post-flop?

Ok, I'm done with the nitpicking. I really like your posts.

he had the seat change button ldo. Silly online players don't know much about live, do they???

Dgi thanks for the example of bottom set vs the different types of Vs.

Also point well taken about buy in amounts. I see what you mean about outline vs writing a book. Let us know when you do!

tl;dr

Nh; wp. For those not aware, dgiharris is one.of the absolute best posters in LLSNL, and if you are serious about your game, you need to go to that forum and read every thread (except the chat)that he's posted in.