pot limit BankRoll

Hi everyone,

I am wondering what kind of bankroll one would need for a pot limit game. I realise this is a very tough question to answer. Say for example, there are ten pot limit HE games going when you enter the room (very unlikely, but it makes my point). All games have players of the same abilities. The games are beatable, but not too soft. Your total bankroll is $10,000. Each table has a different average buy in, and most players have approx. that amount of chips in front of them. What game to you play?? $100 buyin?? $200?? $500?? $700?? $1000?? $1500?? $2000?? $4000?? $6000?? $10000?? Hopefully not the last one!!

Thanks

Often, the buy in is not a very good indication of the size of the game. It's more meaningful to talk about your stack relative to the blinds (LV, London and Paris all have fairly different minimum buyins as multiples of the blinds). You also need to consider the size of stacks the other players have and the frequency of pre-flop raising (and any straddling).


Let's say a game is nominally 100 buy in and the blinds are 2 and 5, but most pots are raised before the flop, and most players have 500+ in front of them. Well a pot with two calls, a pot raise, and both limpers calling again will be about 80 before the flop. Then a bet and a raise on the flop, and you're up to 480 before the raise is called.


If you were a winning player (which in itself is pretty hard to find out) I doubt if you'd have much chance of going broke with a BR of 10,000, but it wouldn't be impossible. If you bought in for 500, you could lose 1,000 in a single session through "ordinary" bad luck very easily. Four or five sessions like that in a row ...


If I had 10,000 and I thought I was a winning player but didn't know I would certainly start out in the game with 100 buy in while I figured out the answer to your question.


RFL

we all know that games with same buy-in and same blinds can be very different in terms of the size of the game, thus it seems to me that the best guide to how much yoy may need is found by looking at the stacks and watching the action.


BUT, in general, you need be ready to put 3 or 4 buys into a game. even if most players have (for example) $500 in front of them, there is nothing wrong with starting with the minimum to enable you to better value the game.