Small Stakes No-Limit Hold'em

Post edited 3:57 am – June 28, 2009 by BT

I don't think that 100bi is a bad rule if you think you are at the level that maximizes your earn with respect to your skill value and you don't think it's reasonable for you to move up and play consistently at the higher limit.  This is just something that you have to judge for yourself.  Some people may eventually get to a point in their poker career where they have 100 buy-ins for a high limit but are negative EV in most of the games that run at that level, and that's not a good situation to be, so they choose to play lower.

I've never played with a bankroll that high myself, but then again I've never really played higher than $2/$4 and $3/$6 NLHE.  I think that most poker players should be willing to take shots at new limits as soon as they have shown a decent amount of success at their current limit because often the games aren't that much tougher if you are table selecting well.   I started playing at 25NL and slowly worked my way up to these higher games.  This usually involved taking shots at the next higher limit whenever I had 20 buy-ins for that next limit.  If I lost 5 buy-ins at that limit (1/4 of my roll), then I'd move back down to the lower limit (where I would still have 30 buy-ins). 

I have played almost 200k hands this year.  I've had 2 downswings of 25 buy-ins (currently at the bottom of the 2nd one – at least let's hope it's the bottom, lol).   This is why it is important to move down quickly when you lose some money so that you don't decimate your bankroll.  Before this current downswing, I was doing the bulk of my play at $2/$4 and $1/$2.  I had a decent roll online for 400nl at one point of almost 40 buy-ins.  But during this time I still kept playing profitable 200nl games.  This was great because I felt extremely overrolled for the game.  Playing with a large bankroll has advantages because it has helped me weather my recent downswing.  Currently, I'm still in a position to continue playing 200nl with 40bi and less occasionally taking shots 400nl when the games are good.  25 buy-in downswings will hopefully not be standard for you, but it's important to realize that they do exist and I think almost every player experiences them at some point.   Keep in mind that I am only a 2.3bb/100 winner over those 200k hands, so it is expected that my swings will be much larger than someone who wins at a higher rate.  It's really important for players to recognize how their bankroll fits in with their long term expectation.