ITH Poker Forum

[Kewlb]

Hey everyone!

Two questions..

I started playing poker about 4 months ago. I kept myself in low-limit ring games (.05/$1) while learning the basics of holdem. I purchased Ken Warren and Matthew Hilger's books; both of which have really helped me play better poker. I felt that the earn rate on the limit ring games was very slow and I could standing loosing my whole bankroll so I decided to try NL Holdem which has become my game of choice. Is there a good book out there dedicated to just NL holdem that anyone would recommend?


Second question:

I have seen articles and read in the books how to calculate your needed bankroll for limit games, however have not found anything for calculating your needed bankroll for no-limit games; is there such a thing? I started at PartyPoker and deposited $50.00... I obtained a $15.00 bonus and a $25.00 bonus for referring a friend. This number fell to about $14 while playing the limit games. I decided to just take a shot at the NL games with the rest of the bankroll. I grew my bankroll from $18 to $250.00 which I withdrew $150.00 and kept $100 for myself and deposited another $50.00 at Poker Stars. Now that I am playing with winnings I have grown my bankroll to just under $500.00 playing NL $25 on partypoker and NL .25/.5 on PokerStars. Anyway what I am asking is if anyone has a good calculator or a good strategy on maintaining your bankroll while playing NL holdem. My Current strategy is a simple but probably bad one. I take my winnings from the previous night and set that as my quitting point. ie: I win $50.00 on Monday... Tuesday I will play until I loose $50.00 or until I feel like quitting. Say I win $18.00 on tuesday I drop the amount I will loose before I quit to $18.00.. this seems to minimize my losses on my off-nights, however I also know that all it takes is 1 hand to make up for the lost winnings so that is why I am looking for a different strategy.

Hope my ramblings made some sense.

Thanks,
Brian Clark

[Denise]

Matthew thinks that Ciaffone may be working on one due to his articles at Poker School (www.pokerpages.com). A lot of posters have asked that question, so do a search (button above), but there's not much written so far. Or scroll through the general board, as it was asked recently.

I started in NL and did very well, then switched to limit and am not doing as well. The majority of books are for limit, since that is what is at the casinos, especially at low limits. There aren't any (or many) low-limit NL ring games in casinos, so there isn't much info, but it's exploding on the internet. You can find a LOT of free info at cardplayer.com, in the archives, and the pokerpages.com free articles.

I'm thinking about devoting a week to NL and see how it goes. The influx of WPT and WSOP watchers love the NL and play very badly. I think if you're playing low limits, there's a lot to going for NL games, and if you're profitable already all the better. It's easier to be in control at NL games, and nuts frequently get all-in calls, so playing tight pays off much better.

D

[Lepton]

Kewlb, thanks for your post. I started 8 days ago with a money account at PokerRoom.com and started with $300 playing $0.50/$1 limit games. I saw my initial meager increase quickly dwindle to just under $200 with bad beats, etc. I've been playing NL tournaments at a casino with some success, and realized that NL really gives the winning hand a chance to control the pot to prevent draws.

Two days ago I switched to $0.50/$1 NL games with a $50 buy in. Now my bankroll is up to $398, doubling my bankroll. I really think NL is the way to go.

I have the same question as you, what kind of bankroll is necessary to sustain NL games? This is what I have worked out for myself - I want my bankroll to represent 5x to 6x the buy in. For a $50 buy in I feel comfortable with a bankroll of $250. This allows me to have a total loss session or two, losing an all in, and still be able to recoup (knowing that I shouldn't go to too many showdowns against bigger stacks with 2nd best hands!).

I will jump up to the $1/$2 NL games, with a $100 buy in, when my bankroll reaches $500.

[mchilger]

Hopefully I'll have a tool to help with this sometime during the first quarter. Once you know your earn rate and standard deviation...

1/ Determine the number of hours needed to ensure a profit:

n = [(3 * SD)/(2 * ER)] squared...(I don't know how to put a little 2 on the keyboard,

2/ Once you know this you can calculate the bankroll needed:

BR = (ER * N) - (3 * SD * N) squared

Sorry for being so technical...of course, the big question is what should be your earn rate and standard deviation for a good player and I am not sure of the answer to that question in the Internet NL games. In both cases they will be higher compared to normal Limit games.

Matthew

[SharkBait]

Who can explain standard deviation.

I see in PT that my SD is @ $17-18. My BB/hr is @ 7 ... only 55 hrs logged. I have no idea what this means.

[Kewlb]

Kewlb, thanks for your post. I started 8 days ago with a money account at PokerRoom.com and started with $300 playing $0.50/$1 limit games. I saw my initial meager increase quickly dwindle to just under $200 with bad beats, etc. I've been playing NL tournaments at a casino with some success, and realized that NL really gives the winning hand a chance to control the pot to prevent draws.

Two days ago I switched to $0.50/$1 NL games with a $50 buy in. Now my bankroll is up to $398, doubling my bankroll. I really think NL is the way to go.

I have the same question as you, what kind of bankroll is necessary to sustain NL games? This is what I have worked out for myself - I want my bankroll to represent 5x to 6x the buy in. For a $50 buy in I feel comfortable with a bankroll of $250. This allows me to have a total loss session or two, losing an all in, and still be able to recoup (knowing that I shouldn't go to too many showdowns against bigger stacks with 2nd best hands!).

I will jump up to the $1/$2 NL games, with a $100 buy in, when my bankroll reaches $500.

I feel the exact same way! In the NL tables I know when I currently have the best hand (or at least the hand that should win) which allows me to make people really pay to draw to a better hand. Slowplaying also works well in NL situations as sometimes you have someone bluffing with a large bet to try to win the pot. I have my money bouncing around a few different sites right now, but at PokerStars they have a .01/.02 NL table that you can bring a max of $5.00 to. I have been playing this for a week and while slow I leave with about $25-$30 from the table every single night after about 3-4 hours of play its slow but pretty safe way to grow my bankroll until I can really start playing the higher no-limit games (PartyPoker is my money account, I am just trying to see how well I can grow a $50.00 balance at different sites.)

My new campain is now growing the $15.00 that Prima deposited into my account, I want to see if I can make it last the 75 hands I have to stay in and how much I can grow it.

[WizardOfOuts]

First off, I can't remember which book I read it in but I believe the bare minimum bankroll requirement is 10 times the buy in not 5 and I think even that was seen as overly aggressive. Secondly, in reply to SharkBait. The Standard Deviation number expresses a range in dollars that you will most likely be up or down by at the end of 1 hours play if your number $18 then 68 percent of the time you will not be up or down by more then that. 95 percent of the time you will be within double that ( 2SD ) and your results will exceed three times that number only once in 400 hours....Unless I am completly misrembering my high school Probability and Statistics class...which is entirely possible LOL. One more thing Shark...make sure you are looking at your stats for only one set of stakes otherwise the figure expressed in dollars could be very misleading... Perhaps someone with greater math skills could step in now and tell you the real story, my memory is not to be truste


GL all

[WizardOfOuts]

Mathew I would really like to be able to tape your starting hands table to my computer but I can't get the book flat enough on the Xerox to make a copy and I don't want to deface the book...Do you think you could post the table on this site in some sort of downloadable form so I could just print it up?

Thanks...great book

[Kewlb]

Mathew I would really like to be able to tape your starting hands table to my computer but I can't get the book flat enough on the Xerox to make a copy and I don't want to deface the book...Do you think you could post the table on this site in some sort of downloadable form so I could just print it up?

Thanks...great book

I have been working on a VB program to do just this. I am, for the most part, going on my knowledge of the starting hands so facts could be a little off. If anyone wants to help me with this project they are welcome to. Pretty much you just enter your starting hand (ATs) and it gives you recomendations for pre-flop and post-flop play as well as how the hand ranks (Group and rank out of all possible starting hands).

[Denise]

Rob put it in PDF and I have it in Excel so I can have it opened behind my room and just alt-tab. PM me if you'd like it and have Excel, but I'll confirm you have the book first.

D

[Lepton]

WizardofOuts, I really appreciate your reply to my earlier post. 10x the buy in is probably the better figure. I suppose I'm feeling a little cocky and am willing to feed my bankroll in a pinch!

Last night at the casino I talked with two pros that regularly play the NL tables that have $3/$5 blinds and max $100 buy in. They both concur that they come to the table with a minimum of $500 to $1000. The problem at that table is getting "traction". If you buy into an established table at $100, you are up against players that have been there for hours with stacks often over $1000. This forces you to go all in several times until you can work up to a defendable stack.

So far I haven't seen this stack differential on the internet. The largest I have seen is 6x the buy in, but it is usually around 3x the buy in on an established table. This is probably due to shorter playing sessions.

The internet also has the advantage of table shopping, to find a table with smaller stacks and also trying to avoid the big stacked aggressive players (yes, I am keeping a list). At the casino there is usually only one NL table, sometimes two, with the same pros sitting behind their big stacks every day.

[gameofskill]

WizardofOuts, I really appreciate your reply to my earlier post. 10x the buy in is probably the better figure. I suppose I'm feeling a little cocky and am willing to feed my bankroll in a pinch!

Last night at the casino I talked with two pros that regularly play the NL tables that have $3/$5 blinds and max $100 buy in. They both concur that they come to the table with a minimum of $500 to $1000. The problem at that table is getting "traction". If you buy into an established table at $100, you are up against players that have been there for hours with stacks often over $1000. This forces you to go all in several times until you can work up to a defendable stack.

So far I haven't seen this stack differential on the internet. The largest I have seen is 6x the buy in, but it is usually around 3x the buy in on an established table. This is probably due to shorter playing sessions.

The internet also has the advantage of table shopping, to find a table with smaller stacks and also trying to avoid the big stacked aggressive players (yes, I am keeping a list). At the casino there is usually only one NL table, sometimes two, with the same pros sitting behind their big stacks every day.

Personally, I don't avoid the overly aggressive players with big stacks. I seek them out. Why you might ask? Because when I make a hand I get great action on it, often doubling or tripling up. Sure, it's a little harder to make hands, but the great thing is that they'll call your AA all in with top pair and a bad kicker. Draws are a little harder to make, that's for sure, but if you try to sit to the left of them, you know what kind of pot odds you are getting. Position is definately very important, and the swings in this kind of game are larger than normal, but they pay very well if you have the discipline to choose your time wisely.

[raildog]

Bob Ciaffone AKA (the poker coach) has a book called pot-limit and no-limit poker revised in 1999. He claims sales of this book are starting to exceed his newer middle limit hold-em book. I am going to pick one up myself. I know it is available at the gamblers book club.