variance in party $.5/1 for newbie.

[itsmesteve]

hello all. i've been playing party poker ($.5/1)for about 6 weeks now and seem to run somewhat hot and cold. some sessions i double up, others i drop a whole $25 buy in. (obviously the vast majority are somewhere in between) the good and bad sessions also tend to run in streaks. i know my play cold use some plugging up of leaks, but how much of this do you think is due to typical variance and how much is due to my own inconsistency? how "consistently" should i be beating these games is, i guess, the question.

one other quicky?does anyone out there also keep a seperate bankroll for tournaments? they tend to milk my bankroll.

[BusterStacks]

2 things, when I started at .5/1 the swings were tremendous. Don't worry about it, it's normal. Second, don't play tournaments until you are well into the 3/6 level.

[digdeep]

Welcome to the forums. Limits below $2/4 post in the MicroLimit forum. I tried playing limit and tournaments both when I started playing. Don't do it, unless you are going to do it with a different bankroll. Variance is huge at every level, losing $25 is nothing out of the ordinary.

[daveymck]

If you do want to play tournies play on a variety of sites, a number have freerolls which are a bit mad and on some sites big but are good experience.

Or play small buy in $3 or $5 types again available on other sites away from party.

Anything above that will drain your bankroll.

[itsmesteve]

thanks everybody, sorry for the misplaced post, but thanks for the advice/encouragement.
-steve

[StellarWind]

Variance is an unavoidable part of poker. The good news is the best 0.5/1 players have such high win rates that they rarely experience significant losing streaks (more than a few thousand hands).

Don't get used to it when you achieve it. Once you move up you will probably never enjoy that luxury again. Such high win rates are not possible at higher online stakes.

Paradise Poker offers nice $5 limit hold'em tournaments every afternoon. Look on the tourney board for "Parrot". If you can play this won't be -EV, although you can go a long time between the big scores (high variance).

If you are a winning 0.5/1 player who has read a tournament book or two, you should not find 5+1 limit sit-n-gos to be a drain on your bankroll. They are a nice change of pace and a cheap place to learn shorthanded and heads up skills you will need to move up.

[ QUOTE ]
others i drop a whole $25 buy in

[/ QUOTE ]
You should buy in for more than this. You should never play a hand with less that 12 BB in your stack.

Here's what can happen when you start with only 25 BB. You play a few hands and drift down to 18 BB. Suddenly a monster gets cracked and you lose 10 BB. The next hand is dealt before you can reload and there you are. A TAG without enough chips to play the whole hand. To top it off, you are scrambling around trying to reload instead of paying 100% attention to your play.

This is completely unnecessary. Bringing enough money to the table is the easiest thing in poker. I bring 50 BB and reload if I drop below 25 BB.