Short and sweet version:
how much of a bankroll do I need for 1/2 given this style: Personally will be selective w/ hands like tag w/ very few hands oop, once I learn tendencies of opponents, I will loosen range and fire bluffs in optimal areas where I've noticed a lot of folds i.e. lot of folds to reraises on flops, floating flops bluffing turns, overbetting rivers. (Also will use hand reading process from Ed Miller's "How to Read Hands" to pick optimal bluff spots). All rare big winners played sort of like this, and it worked very well against nitty/taggy conditions. Tags/nits play all day and just break even in these conditions.

Much love to those who take the time to read this! I need all the help I can get from you guys!

Story Time Version!

Hi 2+2 members. I am a rising senior with a plan to crush the 1/2 Tables at a Casino near my school. Issue is, unpaid internship and don't have money for sufficient bankroll. I've done my research and have been studying enormously (11 books & 300+ hours of off table study) and am now ready to play. My parents understand this and are willing to finance me. However, my dad wants mathematical basis for the number I provide him for a roll. I've tried to get him to go with 5k as is standard for the poker community but he initially has said no. The money itself is not an issue but I would like to have the best arguments ready for him when I speak again on it. My school has high level of job placement and I am not worried about being able to pay off 5k but now is the time where I need money most, due to the convenience of local casino, all cash game theory i've learned, and a school class I designed to exploit 1/2. Now is the time for me to learn/truly become a great cash player!

Background:
6 months of playing, Harrington follower at the time, since tournmant players at casino were soft and made mistakes tag style was effective and once I was very comfortable w/ Harrington, I cashed in 4/6 tournaments I played in March, including a win in sattelite for big tournament. However, when I decided to move to cash tables, everyone plays tag/nitty so ROI on that style went to 0 and all profits that I made 1k went to coolers at the table. When I went busto, I read a lot including 4 cash game specific books (Ed Miller: Prof. NLH, how to read hands, playing the player, and The Course, & James "splitsuit" Sweeney Dynamic Full Ring Poker book.)

I've looked at risk of ruin calculator but don't have enough inputs (no idea what my standard deviation is and my winrate would be a projection).

Strategy for my edge:
I've created an independent study approved by math department called "advanced poker mathematics" that me and two other good players will take design to pick apart and analyze piece by piece the 1/2 game at our local casino. Class will include data mining at the casino, with spreadsheets and creating hand histories from scratch and statistically analyzing them (like pokertracker software would) to identify villain tendencies and optimal bluff spots. Other math includes reading Billy Chen's "mathmatics of poker" learning gto, and incorporating other more mathy sophisticated concepts into game (although large portion will be exploitative 1/2 cash game strategy). We will also exploit nitty/tag conditions generally with optimal strategy mentioned above refining bet sizes to maximize +$EV.

Dude....no

Wow

Put $50 online, play 0.01/0.02 full ring instead.

Do you go to Drexel?

How much experience do you have live?

+1

Good luck

Rake is a huge part of poker and if you haven't expressed it in any of your mathematics you're doing it wrong. I think you'll find 1/2 is not a very profitable stake due to the rake. YMMV.

Don't forget variance, especially live where you play smaller number of hands per hour.

Style? You basically described playing poker. And idea that you should loosen up your range at 1/2 seems off, most of the time you're going to be hitting big hands and valuebetting aggressively. And putting hand reading as an after thought in parenthesis is a major red flag.

FYP

Hopefully he says no again. This isn't a good way to make money on the side when you haven't even proven you are a winner in the long run.

If you're not worried because you can pay it off, then you should just ask for a monthly loan until you find work. And don't use it for poker. Then you can focus on the Internship and getting a job. Have you even calculated what your 1/2 hourly is going to be?

Now is the time to focus on the Internship and networking to build a career. If you want to play poker as a hobby on the side, that's fine.


That's such a sad small sample.

Losing AK all-in preflop in a fullring cash game isn't a cooler. Do you even understand the different dynamics in play between tourneys and cash?

If games are that tight, then you're likely going to have a low hourly. The rake will simply eat up most of your take. Assume your winrate is 0 or lower, and calculate how much you're going to bleed to the rake.

Your vocabulary says you're still green, and you have too many assumptions about how good you are. I'm not convinced that if you were losing money that you would be honest enough with yourself to consider that you were playing terribly.

I'm also not convinced that 1/2 is so tight/taggy that you need to adopt a lag style to beat it.

Internship first. I don't mind the idea of playing poker for some money on the side but don't let it take away from your career. Sounds like you have put in the work but not sure you have the experience. You played a few tourneys but they play so different then cash. You just need to play hands to get a sense for relative hand strength and how certain spots just feel. You can study all you want and I'm sure that helps a lot but i think when you first start out you are always going to have some pretty big leaks dude to lack of experience. I think 5k is too much to start 1/2 live. I mean its ideal but think you can get by with something more in the 3k range if you are just playing solid tag. If you want to play optimal high variance style 5k probably best. I would consider putting like 2.5k on a poker sit and play 25 to 50nl until you get over 3k and have 20k hands under your belt.

All in all think 3k is enough to start out and your a smart guy it seems and will be fine. Just stay away from high variance spots, even if they are slightly +EV. Think the lack of experience may hurt but just watch every hand at the table weather you are in it or not and keep working hard.