question for cash game regs

frozensprx · Nov 27, 2012

hey guys just wanted some other opinions on this. I have made most of my money from playing SnGs and I have played around 400 (small sample I know) and have turned a profit from the $5 sit n gos. I want to switch to cash so i can get good at it and play at a casino over the summer...my question is do you guys think i will lose my BR if i start out at stake of .10/.25? (BTW my current BR is hovering around $150) I have read many threads on players starting at the smallest stakes and working their way up but personally I think i play worse at the .01/.02 level because there are so many terrible players that all the suckouts are frustrating, and the wins are so small that it doesn't feel rewarding. Any opinions are welcome. Oh and just for information sake, I have spent many hours studying my game, watching videos of pros, learning to adjust to my opponents, understanding EV and such, so im not just splashing around haha.

WVHillbilly · Nov 27, 2012

frozensprx said:
hey guys just wanted some other opinions on this. I have made most of my money from playing SnGs and I have played around 400 (small sample I know) and have turned a profit from the $5 sit n gos. I want to switch to cash so i can get good at it and play at a casino over the summer...my question is do you guys think i will lose my BR if i start out at stake of .10/.25? (BTW my current BR is hovering around $150) I have read many threads on players starting at the smallest stakes and working their way up but personally I think i play worse at the .01/.02 level because there are so many terrible players that all the suckouts are frustrating, and the wins are so small that it doesn't feel rewarding. Any opinions are welcome. Oh and just for information sake, I have spent many hours studying my game, watching videos of pros, learning to adjust to my opponents, understanding EV and such, so im not just splashing around haha.

A 6BI bankroll is NOT enough. The fact that you don't want to play with terrible players and think suckouts are frustrating means you have NO CLUE about playing winning poker. With $150 you should be playing 5nl, no higher unless you intend to reload.

And the secret to winning at poker is playing with those worse than you, so seek them out any time you can.

xdeucesx · Nov 27, 2012

WVHillbilly said:
A 6BI bankroll is NOT enough. The fact that you don't want to play with terrible players and think suckouts are frustrating means you have NO CLUE about playing winning poker. With $150 you should be playing 5nl, no higher unless you intend to reload.

And the secret to winning at poker is playing with those worse than you, so seek them out any time you can.

re-read this and follow it ^^

youregoodmate · Nov 27, 2012

xdeuceswild81xx said:
re-read this and follow it ^^

''

frozensprx · Nov 27, 2012

Thats good advice, perhaps I am just too arrogant to play at the lowest stakes because I THINK I can beat the .10/.25 players. But I know to be a winning player you always have to remain open-minded and ready to learn new strategies etc

WVHillbilly · Nov 27, 2012

Really doesn't matter how good you are, with only 6BIs your risk of going broke it just too high.

A2345Razz · Nov 27, 2012

You can lose 4-5 buyins soooo easily without doing anything wrong in such a small window of time...

I personally would try to grind 20 BIs minimum before trying to grind a stake.

p.s.

STT play and Cash play couldnt be more different so....its hard to know if you can beat even the lowest stakes.

dmorris68 · Nov 27, 2012

Listen to WVH. Especially the part about playing with bad players and being frustrated by suckouts. If you can't beat bad players over the long haul, why do you think you can beat better players? The whole "they don't respect my raises" myth is just an excuse to lay the blame elsewhere.

That said, the part I do agree with (on a personal level) is that the reward at the penny stakes is unsatisfying. I shudder at the thought of grinding for hours on end to make a modest 5bb/hr winrate at those stakes. It's not fun to me. Even at 100bb/hr -- which is not sustainable -- it's just not an amount of money that is worth my time. Obviously that isn't true for everyone, so that part is a personal decision.

So you have to decide between your BR and your patience. If your patience cannot tolerate the return at the penny stakes, then pony up and fund a larger starting BR. And realize that your total BR is not necessarily just what you have online at any given moment, but what you're willing to commit to having online when you need it. So if you only want to keep say 20BI online but have 100BI on tap ready to be deposited immediately as needed, then that's fine.

Otherwise, if $150 is all you can possibly afford to lose, then you must find the patience to stick with the appropriate stake until you can build it up to move higher.

What you can't do (well, shouldn't do, but probably will anyway as do the vast majority of recreational players) is commit to only having a few BI's total and playing above your total BR. That is a recipe for failure and even greater dissatisfaction than suckouts by bad players.

Of course all of which is moot if you're a losing player to begin with. BRM as a concept is really only applicable to winning or at least break-even players. You can't manage a constantly shrinking bankroll. You'll either go busto and quit, or regularly deposit to keep it going which makes you a recreational player really no different than a common casino guest who plays the slots for fun when he has some extra cash to burn.

WVHillbilly said:
Really doesn't matter how good you are, with only 6BIs your risk of going broke it just too high.

Exactly. Even the best winning players can go on 10 or 20BI downswings. Pretty often actually. My all time record was a -30BI swing at 50NL. That one stung a bit.

fozziethebear · Nov 27, 2012

dmorris68 said:
Listen to WVH. Especially the part about playing with bad players and being frustrated by suckouts. If you can't beat bad players over the long haul, why do you think you can beat better players? The whole "they don't respect my raises" myth is just an excuse to lay the blame elsewhere.

That said, the part I do agree with (on a personal level) is that the reward at the penny stakes is unsatisfying. I shudder at the thought of grinding for hours on end to make a modest 5bb/hr winrate at those stakes. It's not fun to me. Even at 100bb/hr -- which is not sustainable -- it's just not an amount of money that is worth my time. Obviously that isn't true for everyone, so that part is a personal decision.

So you have to decide between your BR and your patience. If your patience cannot tolerate the return at the penny stakes, then pony up and fund a larger starting BR. And realize that your total BR is not necessarily just what you have online at any given moment, but what you're willing to commit to having online when you need it. So if you only want to keep say 20BI online but have 100BI on tap ready to be deposited immediately as needed, then that's fine.

Otherwise, if $150 is all you can possibly afford to lose, then you must find the patience to stick with the appropriate stake until you can build it up to move higher.

What you can't do (well, shouldn't do, but probably will anyway as do the vast majority of recreational players) is commit to only having a few BI's total and playing above your total BR. That is a recipe for failure and even greater dissatisfaction than suckouts by bad players.

Of course all of which is moot if you're a losing player to begin with. BRM as a concept is really only applicable to winning or at least break-even players. You can't manage a constantly shrinking bankroll. You'll either go busto and quit, or regularly deposit to keep it going which makes you a recreational player really no different than a common casino guest who plays the slots for fun when he has some extra cash to burn.

Exactly. Even the best winning players can go on 10 or 20BI downswings. Pretty often actually. My all time record was a -30BI swing at 50NL. That one stung a bit.

Great post, thanks

frozensprx · Nov 27, 2012

yeah great advice guys, so since i am trying to transition to cash what do typical downswings look like? like if i'm playing .02/.04 a typical downswing would be -4 or 5 BI? So to determine if i am indeed a winning player I need to get a huge sample size to determine if i am actually profiting and not just running good

benevg · Nov 27, 2012

frozensprx said:
yeah great advice guys, so since i am trying to transition to cash what do typical downswings look like? like if i'm playing .02/.04 a typical downswing would be -4 or 5 BI? So to determine if i am indeed a winning player I need to get a huge sample size to determine if i am actually profiting and not just running good

if you run good, you should not care. you will soon have the BR required to go up in stakes. the whole point of bankroll management is to safeguard about when you run bad (or are simply outclassed at a higher level)

the thing about micro-stakes is that if you are good enough, you just do not stay there long; and nobody will say anything bad if you win 20BI in 2000 hands and simply decide to move up. huge sample sizes are important if you want to know you actual winrate, or for other statistical purposes.

dmorris68 said:
Exactly. Even the best winning players can go on 10 or 20BI downswings. Pretty often actually. My all time record was a -30BI swing at 50NL. That one stung a bit.

i figure you are a BRM nit, then?

my worst downswing yet started at 100 and kept going until i was at 25 for a while. all that after comfortably beating 25 and 50 for 100k hands or so. worst two weeks of my poker life. the good thing about downswings like that is that a couple months later i lost $1k somewhere in the middle of a month and had not noticed it being a downswing at all

wait, let me show you a graph:

JCgrind · Nov 27, 2012

currently on a huge downswing. id tell you exactly how much but tbh im scared to look. id say its around 60 buy ins.

i have 10BI downswings at least once a week generally- so yeah unles you run ridic hot youre going broke off 6BIs for sure

spstevens · Nov 28, 2012

A SNG and a cash game are two different animals , if you have plenty of cash proceed as you like . If not it would be in your best interest to gain experience at lower levels first.In the higher levels they will give your raises , bluffs and moves more respect for a while , a very short while indeed though as it doesn't take a skilled player long to pick up patterns and take notes. I have seen it said many times here that if you cannot beat the lower levels that the higher ones will elude you , listen as they are correct.Good luck in your journey.

frozensprx · Nov 28, 2012

I have noticed thus far in my travels to cash that I play much tighter when money I put in represents my actual money and profits, as opposed to my more loose play in SnGs where the chips aren't actual money, I believe this is making me a much better player and allowing me to think through decisions more thoroughly, as opposed to trying any crazy method to get ITM in a SnG.

youregoodmate · Nov 28, 2012

JCgrind said:
currently on a huge downswing. id tell you exactly how much but tbh im scared to look. id say its around 60 buy ins.

i have 10BI downswings at least once a week generally- so yeah unles you run ridic hot youre going broke off 6BIs for sure

Shit me thats a lot, how have you not gone bust?

JCgrind · Nov 29, 2012

youregoodmate said:
Shit me thats a lot, how have you not gone bust?

rakeback babyyyyyyyy

vinylspiros · Nov 29, 2012

i wouldnt even touch a table under 10-25 cents unless im practicing. not fun. too much effort for no return. my advice save 500 dollars if ur any good at the game .deposit it ,and sit down at the 10-25 cents table. players there are not that great and if u have any kind of skill ull easily make 100 bucks a day. but i would recommend if u make like 50 a day call it quits and continue fresh the next day. anything under that for me feels like too much effort for no return. I mean comeon ,ur going to sit around folding all day or getting into wierd hands and when u finally hit the nuts and go all in and win ,your going to get what? 10 bucks? NOT WORTH IT. anything under 10-25 cents is total boredom. good luck buddy.

starting_at_the_bottom · Dec 9, 2012

"I think i play worse at the .01/.02 level because there are so many terrible players that all the suckouts are frustrating,"

Apologies if these issues have been mentioned, Im off out in a min and dont have time to read all the comments.

If you cant beat the terrible players at the lowest stakes, why do you think you can beat the slightly better players?

If you play correctly, with the numbers behind you and get it in good you will win long term.

Everybody I discuss poker with says they cant win because the standard of play is so terrible. This is so illogical its unreal. You need to look at at your own game and fix any leaks then start crushing the bad players. Note the leaks at 0.01/0.02 might be different to leaks at say £10/£20

The smallest of the small microstakes games requires a slightly different approach to small and midstakes. You only need to think on a lower level to beat these games, so im not sure how much use this would be in a casino where I presume the players are reasonable competent.

Have a gander at this, explains what I mean a bit better.

http://www.thepokerbank.com/strategy/psychology/multiple-level-thinking/

This particular paragraph is key

"The main reason as to why it is important to know about the different levels of thought is so that you can save yourself from playing incorrectly against different types of players. There is no point playing at level 3 if your opponent is playing at level 0, because there is no need to consider what your opponent thinks you have if they don't even have any idea about what they are holding themselves. You will just be ‘over thinking' the situation and wasting you time and effort."

Good luck

Jonny03UK · Dec 9, 2012

vinylspiros said:
i wouldnt even touch a table under 10-25 cents unless im practicing. not fun. too much effort for no return. my advice save 500 dollars if ur any good at the game .deposit it ,and sit down at the 10-25 cents table. players there are not that great and if u have any kind of skill ull easily make 100 bucks a day. but i would recommend if u make like 50 a day call it quits and continue fresh the next day. anything under that for me feels like too much effort for no return. I mean comeon ,ur going to sit around folding all day or getting into wierd hands and when u finally hit the nuts and go all in and win ,your going to get what? 10 bucks? NOT WORTH IT. anything under 10-25 cents is total boredom. good luck buddy.

You cannot possibly give this advice. He has a total of 6BIs for that and it isn't plausible for him to play at that level even with experience of cash games. Even the best players in the world could so easily go bust with this BRM.

If OP takes your advice and does this, he could easily lose his entire roll in a day. It's not unheard of to run KK into AA three times in a day which would be half the roll gone and even when you get your money in good you can still lose it. And this is just assuming he can play cash games very well which (no offence) I doubt given the fact he's talking about switching from SNG to cash.

Follow the advice already given by others, frozen. You're rolled for 5NL and that's the microstakes - perfect for practising cash games. Play that until you hit about $250 before considering moving up to 10NL.

It may not feel the most rewarding when you look at the actual money but try looking at it in terms of BIs instead. So far this month I can choose to look at my winnings as "I'm up £42 so far this month" or "I'm up 10BIs so far this month" - the latter sounds more impressive and although really, it's not amazing... to be honest, being a newish player myself, I'm pretty proud of my winnings so far and feel pretty rewarded!

vinylspiros · Dec 9, 2012

Jonny03UK said:
You cannot possibly give this advice. He has a total of 6BIs for that and it isn't plausible for him to play at that level even with experience of cash games. Even the best players in the world could so easily go bust with this BRM.

If OP takes your advice and does this, he could easily lose his entire roll in a day. It's not unheard of to run KK into AA three times in a day which would be half the roll gone and even when you get your money in good you can still lose it. And this is just assuming he can play cash games very well which (no offence) I doubt given the fact he's talking about switching from SNG to cash.

Follow the advice already given by others, frozen. You're rolled for 5NL and that's the microstakes - perfect for practising cash games. Play that until you hit about $250 before considering moving up to 10NL.

It may not feel the most rewarding when you look at the actual money but try looking at it in terms of BIs instead. So far this month I can choose to look at my winnings as "I'm up £42 so far this month" or "I'm up 10BIs so far this month" - the latter sounds more impressive and although really, it's not amazing... to be honest, being a newish player myself, I'm pretty proud of my winnings so far and feel pretty rewarded!

OMG,yes ur right.that wasnt meant to be advice .it was my personal game .i was just talking about what i do personally.of course he should not go to those limits with his current bankroll. thanks for clearign that out bud.u right. and if u look closer at what i typed,i started off by saying save urself 500 dollars and then try those limits. 500 being 20 buy ins.i know some say 25 but 20 is goood enough. and congrats on your progress man.good luck in your games.good to hear people that are doing well in the game we love so much. POKARRRRR!

MisterLongFace · Dec 10, 2012

just wanted to say hi everyone. Im new here. been readin a lot of these threads and the advice given is impressing me. when I hear people say things like, really bad players who dont respect raises and get lucky on suckouts, these are the folks you want to be playin against ... that makes a hell of alot of sense.

The thing is for me its like a breath of fresh air because I spent years on this other online poker community, I wont say the name, and they never said stuff like that. The general logic seemed to be that if you were a good player you have a better chance of winning against better players cuz they were more predictable and not out of control and trying to suckout on you, which of course is not logical on several levels, but if I ever tried to say something like hey if someone is playing like a donk and consistently beating you, guess what, they're not the donk, you are ... I would get berated so I gave up.

Anyways, so glad to be here, and thanks for some of these well thought out posts and the time taken to write solid stuff concerning strategy and BR management, I am really enjoying reading it.

GWU73 · Dec 10, 2012

honestly, I would play lower to start, but not because of the swings associated with poker. You need to develop the skills to beat the worst players in cash games. If you can ignore the stakes and play 20k hands at the lowest stake available, and get a feel for cash games and the true idiotic play you will face you will be in a better place to determine what you want to do and risk.

Cafeman · Dec 11, 2012

MisterLongFace said:
if someone is playing like a donk and consistently beating you, guess what, they're not the donk, you are

:icon_thum

frozensprx, I would take the advice given, you'll be glad you did. I was given similar advice when I first came here. After posting a couple of hands in the hand analysis section it was clear to the regulars here that I didn't have much of a clue, so I quit splashing about at 25NL or whatever it was, restarted at 2NL and worked damn hard at beating it and improving my game. It wasn't even a BR decision, I had plenty, but if you're a losing player then it isn't called a downswing imo, it's just an account of your negative winrate

question for cash game regs

frozensprx

Rock Star

WVHillbilly

Legend

xdeucesx

Bar Master

youregoodmate

Cardschat Elite

frozensprx

Rock Star

WVHillbilly

Legend

A2345Razz

Legend

dmorris68

Legend

fozziethebear

Enthusiast

frozensprx

Rock Star

benevg

Legend

Attachments

JCgrind

Legend

spstevens

Rock Star

frozensprx

Rock Star

youregoodmate

Cardschat Elite

JCgrind

Legend

vinylspiros

PIRANHA-------->< (((º>

starting_at_the_bottom

Legend

Jonny03UK

Rock Star

vinylspiros

PIRANHA-------->< (((º>

MisterLongFace

Rock Star

GWU73

Visionary

Cafeman

Legend

About CardsChat

Our Community

Our Site