starting ring game stakes

i have a few questions for more experienced internet players then i am and i am looking for positive or negative feedback on my thoughts. i am a good solid holdem poker player and regularly play in tough games where i come from, mainly tournaments. i have put alot of effort in to reading poker books and game theory and i am keen to start building a bankroll to play poker on the internet and continue to learn, keep growing a bankroll and continue to move up stakes, my first question is what ring game stakes to start at? my first thoughts were that i was going to earn 2000 dollars outside of poker and lodge it with an account at pokerstars.com, i said to myself that i am goin to play 1/2 $ pot - limit holdem and i will only use 10% of my bankroll on any given day. i began to realise that this would have been a mistake. for starters it was alot to risk when i had never played internet ring games before and that the stakes were to high. Could i beat this game regularly? i wasnt sure. Pokerstars even classifies 1/2$ pot - limit holdem as medium stakes! after thinking about a soloution that i was comfortable with i came up with an idea to shorten my bankroll to 500$ and play 25/50 cent stakes. I am very confident that i can beat this game 9 handed consistently. my plan is to sit down with 100 big bets (50 dollars) and play for a pre - set amount of time on any given night (say 3 hours). my questions are? am i starting at too high stakes or too low stakes? is my bankroll sufficient for the game intended? should i sit down with less than 100 big bets? what standard of players can i expect to find at these stakes? (tight players, loose passive game, unpredicatble players, sharks)

my next thoughts regarding playing other forms of poker. what games to people recommend i play, at what stakes to start with and does anyone know any good beginners books on these games(not books for dummies!)
any feedback would be much appreciated, dioufy77

I would start at 25NL or PL. Get used to online poker while risking less of your bankroll. Once you get used to playing, start playing 3 or 4 tables at once. Once you are comfortable with that, move up to $50 games. You should have at least $2500 in the roll before trying $100 games. You should be no where near the 1/2 games yet ($200PL).

I agree with Ahiltz. Dont jump to the 1-2 tables off the bat. With many exceptions, imo internet games are much tougher than live games. Start out at the nl 25 or nl 50 tables. If you have 2k you should be able to play the nl 50 tables. Play about 40-50k hands to see how you are doing, if your winning overall then maybe u should think about moving up.

I recommend using poker tracker at a minimum to keep track of your progress.

Remember that if playing to make serious $$$ then you have to keep in mind that poker is a grind. Grind it out at the lower limits to see where you stand, to see if you already have the skill set to be a consistent winner. Once youre bankroll is steadily moving up, then think about moving up. But remember, theres no rush. Its all about where you are years from nowm not weeks.

GL

I'm just wondering if I really need atleast $2500 to play at the 100NL level. My bankroll is $1500-2000. I've made $680, but I'm willing to risk my own money as well. I think if I play a solid TAG game, there is no reason I should down. However, I don't feel that i should move up to 200NL until I have about $13,000-15,000.

I'm just wondering if I really need atleast $2500 to play at the 100NL level. My bankroll is $1500-2000. I've made $680, but I'm willing to risk my own money as well. I think if I play a solid TAG game, there is no reason I should down. However, I don't feel that i should move up to 200NL until I have about $13,000-15,000.

Hi,

Please be careful, you sound like a good player. I used to have your attitude, something along the lines of (meh 10-15 buyins, close enough)
You will eventually go down SOME, it's that whole variance thing.
25 buyins in a nice confort zone for NL and you dont have to worry about downswings too much. I play 6 max, which tends to have a little more variance that full ring, but still dont play underrolled. It's a recipe for disaster that you dont need.

Peace,

Drew

You should never play with less than 20 full buy in at any limit. Can you get away from it? Sure, 95% of the time youll be fine. But going broke, or running so bad that you have to move down happens to a lot of good players. You dont want it to happen to you.

Whats the rush? Why risk your own $$$? You need to have the patience to build your roll to play at whatever limit you decide. If you have 1400$$$. multitable some nl 50 until youre at 2k. It shouldnt be a problem for you.

I see how those points are valid, but I am willing to risk "all" my money, which is about 3k. I'm only 19, but I have a job, and a full ride scholarship, so I don't worry about college bills. I guess I'm not under rolled now. I 3 table the 100NL, so I don't want to move down to 50NL unless I start throwing money away. I usually lose when I play 4 tables as I don't get good reads, which messes me up bad, so I stick to three, for now anyway. I can be patient at the tables, but I don't have the patience to grind at 50NL when the people at 100NL aren't that much better if any at all. My profit bankroll should take a nice jump soon though because I plan on doing the Absolute POker and Ultimate Bet bonuses, and I will be getting rakeback of 28%.

alrite heres the resolved plan, im gonna play at 10/25 cent pot limit ring games and my bankroll will be 500 dollars. only be using 5% of my bankroll. sit down with 100 big bets (25 dollars) sound okay plan?

You are only going to be playing one table at a time? That might get boring after awhile, and it will take awhile to make anything at all. I stopped playing at the 100NL and moved to 50NL, but I started playing 6 tables now, so I'm playing with the same amount of money at one time.

Advice:
Learn to use the <Shift> and <Enter> keys

Im thinking of playing 1 table to start while i get my feet wet and then maybe playing 2/3 at a time within a couple of weeks. I dont want to play too many at once as i like to keep track of whats going on at the table

Originally Posted by swiggidy

Advice:
Learn to use the <Shift> and <Enter> keys

enter key definitely, the 1 paragraph superlong posts are hard to read on 1600x1200.

I would suggest to start of at the conservative end i.e. $25NL for a BR of less than $2k but $50NL for above that. Reason being is that you are bound to get de-stacked even when entering the pot as favourite. I cannot count how often my AA got beaten by lower cards when AI pre-flop or straights on the turn get beaten by boats on the river etc.

I jumped up to the $50NL level with only a BR of $500 but I lost 5 buy-ins within a week when I put my money in the put while ahead!!! Just playing solidly alone doesn't cut it a lot of the time. Now back at $20NL I was able to make most of it back because at this level I can play aggressively and with confidence.

should i sit down with less than 100 big bets?

Although most people at this site will disagree with me,
I have been successful so far playing short stacks at 25NL.
I always start with $10.
I just started playing Towergaming.com, for the PokerOffice bonus, and I can find many tables with $10.00+ per pot with 40%+ flop players.
Yesterday I made $28 in 3 hours 2 tabling. That is maybe 300 hands or so. The day before I was up $11.00 , had a few beers and found myself down $3.00 for 2 hours of play in total. I am not using any kind of tracker at this site cuz I have Poker-Spy and it is unsupported.

I lost one $10 stack on one table, but on the other table I was up to $27.
Then I started over again and made about $6-7 on each of 2 tables.

So far I have been successful. I am no pro. I have cleared many bonuses, been manking around one FULL buyin per 1000 hands.

My point is that you can buy-in with 40 Big Blinds and still make money.
If you get stacked 3 times you are only down $30 instead of $75.
When you get aggressive it is easy for you to get pot committed. This means people are MORE WILLING to call your last $3-$5 if you go AI, where against a BIG STACK they will fold more easily.
Small Stacks = Tight Aggressive - minus the implied odds
Will somebody really try to bluff $3 into a $10 pot , cuz that is all you have left most of the time. Answer = YES!!!
So you get what I think is REVERSED IMPLIED ODDS. Which is extra money for being short. People just aren't afraid of you when you hold the nuts.

One day I will learn how to play deep lol

Flame me and hang me out to dry!!!

When you improve to a certain level your mindset will change from trying to prevent yourself from losing a full buyin into WINNING a full buy in. The problem with sitting with ten dollars on a table is that all you can win is ten dollars! You flop trips, other guy has an overpair, you win ten dollars! You have aces, he got kings, ten dollars!

Granted, all you can lose is ten dollars, but a good player will have more situations where he is going all in with the best of it rather than the worst.

Dont get me wrong, back in 2004 when i first started playing I would sit at a NL25 table with $9, and whenever i won a big pot I would quickly move to another table with $9 again. Si I understand the shortstack ninja mindset. I think the main reason players do this is that it minimzes tough decisions. If youre shortstacked you are probably pot committed by the turn , which means there are no tough laydowns to be made. As a player progresses he will need to have experience in making these decisions tho. How will someone learn such things as river play and pot control when hes all in by showdown? Believe me, whatever benefits that come from sitting short on a table are far outweighed by the costs.

By having a proper bankroll the psychlogical damage from losing a full buy in is minimized. You dont have to worry about going broke if you have 24 more buyins readily available. So sit with a full buy in, reload as soon as you are down even one big blind. I assure you, the potential for decent profit is MINIMAL for shortstack ninjas. At some point in your poker career you will have to start buying in full, you might as well do it now.

FYI

When people say that you should have 20-25 buy ins to play any given limit, they mean FULL buy ins.

I have a problem with a limited bankroll playing higher limits short stacked. See one of the problems isn't the amount you may lose but what about cost per orbit. This is a little excessive to prove the point but say I have $300 in my roll. I can buy in at a $200NL table short stacked but the blinds are $3 an orbit. My roll will only handle 100 orbits or 1000 hands at that stake if I never call or raise. Hell one reraise with KK or QQ and you have 1/6 of your whole roll on the table. How can you get enough hands to make this possibly profitable. At $25NL or $50NL it may be a little less obvious but play 10K or 20K hands and you see my point. Short stacking isn't a way to move up limits it's a way to minimize losses, or for some, a viable game strategy with the right BR. I could make 3x or 4x as much money playing $25NL than I ever could short staking $50NL just because of the blinds and bigger rake. Plus I play 8 tables, how could I afford the higher limits playing scared, and at the limits above your roll you will be scared.

HI,
Not trying to Hi-Jack here!!!

If I am having success at $25NL with short stacks, then why would I bring more money to the table??? I understand you can win more, but I can't see getting my winrate up much more than what it is now.

Also, clearing bonuses won't be any faster either (except some pots I would be in would be bigger with a deeper stack -- but not much difference overall)

In poker, you see many different styles. Just because one player does well playing TAG doesn't mean another can't do just as good playing LAG, or Tight-Passive , etc.

Usually I am not pot- committed by the turn. I can lay down a hand after putting $5.00 in against certain players, when I know i'm beat. In many cases I only have $3-4 left. Maybe that is a good skill to have.

One day I will play deeper, but maybe I will move up slowly.
Like go from $10 to $15 and see how I do. If I do good then go to $25. I have a good bankroll, but there is so much I want to learn first. Right now I am "dissecting" the Little Green Book which I just got yesterday. Seems like a really well thought out book , easy to read and in plain English.

Thanks for the advince.

I think the point is to play within your BR. If your roll is 20+buy-ins then go ahead and play short stacked if you want. Playng with a 20 minimum buy-in roll is probably not a good idea for the reasons I explained. BR management is about more than the buy-in you take to the table. It's about blinds, rake and the cost of playing the cards when they are cold as well as bad beats. You ned to cover yourself from moer than losing a buy-in at a time. What about a 20K hands downswing. It happens.

Playing shortstacked is a good way to learn. Later on youll think back about buying in with ten bucks and laugh to yourself . But by all means, do what you feel comfortable with, but keep in mind that at sooner or later youll have to start buying full.

Trainer jim, please change your avatar. That s..t is NASTY!

And to finalize this discussion, I will end it in a quote form :
No Limit Hold'EM: Theory and Practice (NLHTP)
Page.205
"Short stacks are somtimes best, and you'll improve your winrate if you understand that."

And I'm not saying that they are, but at least some guy that writes poker books agrees with me. (David Sklansky and Ed Miller)

I won't really know till I move up!!!
I might win more deep stacked or I might lose more.
Right now I will just settle for winning.

I'm sure one day, I may look back at this and laugh.

Originally Posted by Trainer_jyms

I think the point is to play within your BR.

The guy that plays short never advocated playing stakes he can't afford.

Certainly we don't need to hear to play within your bankroll again, do we?

As a matter of fact, they had an article at 2+2 where they were saying that not moving up sooner was holding back some players' advancement (talking about not moving up when they still had less than 20 buyins). I know it's traditional to link the article here, but I'm too freakin' lazy to do that.


Anyway, I'm just being an ogre in this post. Carry on!