BALLER

Can you throw out a rough number for the absolutely minimum of hands someone should grind 25NL for? Regardless of winrate.

question about moving up in limits with the number of hands

I started off with $40 on FT wanting to really keep to the 20 buy in rule. I've built it up to $125 so I'm rolled for 2/5c. But I wanted to know the the number of hands that are recommended that would be a good indicator whether I am ready to play. Right now I'm at a rate of 8 BB/100 and I've heard people say that 10k hands is good or 25k hands or even 100k hands. By hands do you guys mean just being dealt cards or actually seeing a flop. Because I've been dealt 25k hands and i've seen about 8.5 k flops.

Can you throw a spanner into the works and recommend a sample size, and win rate per 100bb, for 25NL?

Thanks

Great post. Wish I had read this before I signed up with FT w/o rakeback. Sucks.

I see the reasons that everyone says to buy-in with 100+BB, ie not missing out on payoffs because of your buy-in but why then is the recommendation not to always buy-in with the max buy-in? I recently started playing online again and mostly play 6-max 2NL but also some sit and gos and low buy-in tournys but recently have only been playing 6-max 2NL. I only play casually so keep that in mind. I don't really know what my bankroll is because I haven't thought about how much I would be willing to reload with but I want to act as though my bankroll is what I have in there. I deposited the minimum 10 bucks and over the last 2 weeks with an hour or so per day of play built it up to $21+. The thing I really want to ask about though is playing short stacked. I go in with the minimum buy-in of $1 or 50BB and I find that works best for me. Maybe it is psychological but there is also a flip side to the argument that you miss out on bigger payoffs, you also miss bigger losses AND (more importantly I think), with a short stack you also can get in on hands with good pot odds where you wouldn't be able to with a larger stack. In other words if someone raises $2 at a $1 pot my pot odds with a $1 stack are 1/3=33% where they would be 2/5=40% with a $2 stack. So I can play more hands with those lower pot odds shortstacked. The variance is also less I believe since the pot size is smaller on average. It seems everyone says that you MUST be buying in with atleast 100BB and in general that might be beneficial but I also think it is possible that some players are just better suited to play shortstacked with their style of play. Am I the only one that thinks this? Is there a thread on playing shortstacked somewhere because I can't find it.

How does your advice change when someone already has an account on FT since waiting until $500 to obtain the matching bonus no longer applies? I started with FR cash (to take advantage of the get-up-whenever-I-want factor) but now I'm playing 18 and 27-man SnGs on FT.

TIA,
bodhi

what do you mean by this

he means if you want to play 10nl you should have no less than 20 buyins or 200 bucks in your account. 5nl = 100 bucks and so on. this is based on bank roll management, designed to help you not go broke.

Sweeeeeeet!

Just had a thread closed for asking about BRM, this full thread has cleared everything up, cheers.

Just a quick question,

What do you class as a tournament for using the 100 bi's rule?

18 man? 45? 90? 180? or 180+?

curious if Stars is still the place to play with $100 or so to deposit... the original post was written a while ago... curious if anything has changed since then.

I think I'm primarily interested in lower stakes sit n go's @ the moment but I can't find a listing of what buy in/fee structures the different sites offer... is there a spreadsheet or a listing of that anywhere?

Also any thoughts on bodog or cake poker? 30% rakeback @ cake and 32% @ bodog (or so I've heard... not actually seen that anywhere) seems pretty good but I don't know if the volume is good enough to be worth it... I know stars and ftp have high volume of players.

Stars is THE place to play micro SNG's and tourneys IMO. Full Tilt comes in second. I guess Cake and Bodog are fine but have much lower volume than Stars or Tilt.

I don't know why people keep saying Stars is the place to play for small stakes cash games. FTP has reduced the rake on 10NL and below and if you can get RB your overall rake paid on FTP will be a lot less than Stars. If you can get RB then FTP is the place to play. This isn't really debatable.

^ well I think wgc started this thread before ftp changed their rake system.

Yes, that is true. I was really just commenting on many recent postings I have seen about FTP rake, not the OP.

I was only referring to tourneys, as the person I was quoting said he was mainly interested in that format.

Thanks for the suggestions. It seems that most people would recommend stars with ftp coming in second. This seems to follow what I've now researched on their rake structures and the little bit of info I've found on relative sit n go fees. Correct me if any of my math here is faulty.
Full Tilt Rake:
Full Ring NL Holdem micro: .01 raked / .15 in the pot = 6.67% [2.00 max]
With Rakeback (27%) 6.67 * .73 = 4.86% total rake

Stars Rake:
Full Ring NL Holdem micro: .05 raked / 1.00 in the pot = 5% [3.00 max]
VIP (no rakeback still?) : if its equivalent to 3% rake back they essentially break even?

Sit N Go's:
Full tilt's lowest stake sit n go seem to have as high as 25% fee structure

Stars has several turbo's that I'm seeing at 10% or lower but I can't find the regular breakdown... assuming its similar?

My only thoughts are if I'm new to online poker would I be better off going to a site like stars which has a HIGH volume of players or maybe a site like bodog, cake, carbon which is perhaps a little slower but maybe a little softer in terms of competition?

It seems at the end of the day there are a lot of pro's and con's to any site just trying to make the smartest decision for developing my game but also trying to win money like anyone else

Thanks again for any advice!

Good advice, I've used a similar system this far on Pokerstars playing multi-table SnGs:

My rule is that I have at least 50 buy-ins (including rake) for the level below the SnGs I play.

I began with 2$ that a friend gave me to play for as I keep a strict no-deposit principle.

2$- 12.5$: Played the excellent 0.25$ SnGs (no rake). Either 45 with a steep structure, or 90 with a slow structure (45 gave the fastest return).

12.5$-55$: Played the 1.10$ 90 turbos with a slow structure. The 1.20$ 45 with steep structure is an option, but I don't like the 20% rake. (I find the 45 turbos way too fast because of the steep structure)

55$-110$: This is my current level, playing 90 with slow structure. Takes some time, but you learn a lot from these.

In the future I'm planning to play (if I hopefully build my roll):

110$-162.5$: 3.25 90 turbos with slow structure

162.5$-220$: 4.40 180 with steep structure (Maybe a bigger bankroll is needed because of the larger fields)

220$-275$: 5.50 90 with slow structure

thanks for the thread! Props

How many buyins should i have to play HU and how many of sitngos for 6 people

thanks for this article i just started playing real money at stars and will make good use of this advice.

Does 20 buyins mean 20 games running simultaneously?!

"Buyin" means the amount you buy into the game for, typically 100BB in cash games. If people say you need 40 buyins in your bankroll then they mean that you need e.g. 40 x 10 = $400 at 10NL.

I don't know how often this is discussed, but if you're a player that wants to be good all round and plays 10nl, $5 sng's and MTT touneys including and below about $8BI how would you go abou "merging you BR? My total roll is currently ~$1000. I've kinda put $300 for 10nl and $300 for SNG's. Should I try and keep them all separate?