buy in amounts in limit poker

[Downstream 0]

I usually buy in for say $20 at a .25-.50 and my full amount ($80-$100) at .50-1.00. I just started playing at .50-1.00 since I had a good run the last few days and haven't been blowing money at the SnG's.Do larger buy ins intimidate other players? Do you think this is a factor at all? I see people playing .50-1.00 with buy ins at $30 and lower mostly. I don't think that its real bright of them to play here with that little, since that's likely all they have.What do you buy in for at a limit poker table online?

[Smasharoo 0]

I don't think that its real bright of them to play here with that little, since that's likely all they have.I but in with $30 at .50/$1 because the chance of me losing 30BB at one table is about 1 in 100 so it's pretty pointless to buy in for more than that.I allways buy in for 30X the BB at whatever limit I'm playing. If I get short to the point where I wouldn't be able to cap every street, which hapens occasoanly, I add some chips.As long as you're not buying in really shot, like 10BB I don't realy think it matter much at all.

[Awful 0]

I used to buy in with 30, but I've gotten so lazy that I just take the party "standard" buy-in of 25BB. So I have to reload a little more often when I drop below 12 big bets, but not often.For NL, keep yourself maxed out if you're the best player at the table or at least better than the field. No need to artificially limit the edges you can take. That's also why in Limit you keep enough on the table to play an all-capped pot.If you suck at NL, you can actually receive advantages from a short buy-in due to getting excellent pot odds in certain situations. If a poker site allows the widely-despised "ratholing" it's possible to ensure yourself great pot odds in many circumstances when there's multiway action. Most don't, and everyone will hate you, just an aside I wanted to make for reasons unknown.

[Erudis 0]

I don't play limit poker all that much, but when I do, I buy in for 50xBB (big bet, not big blind) and will leave the room if I get down 25BB's. The reason I buy in for 50 and not 25 (when I plan to leave if I lose 25) is because I never want to be all in in a limit game. So if I'm down 20 BB's I want plenty of ammo to fire away at a hand I think i'm getting value for.I don't buy in with my full bankroll for 2 reasons:1. I don't want to go back on my personal rule of leaving whenever I'm 25BB's down and having my full bankroll (or any number more than 50BB's) makes it too tempting for me to stick around.2. I don't like having my bankroll on display (just personal preference I guess)As to psychological effects of your buy in amount... again, I don't play a whole lot of limit poker but to be honest, limit poker is more heavily dependent on the mathematical correctness of your moves and less heavily dependent on psychological factors and reads.In NL buy in for the maximum allowed if you are a high-quality player. If you're not, buy in for half. There are many reasons for this but I think this is pretty much universally accepted anymore and doesn't really need explanation.

[KDawgCometh 2]

I don't play limit poker all that much, but when I do, I buy in for 50xBB (big bet, not big blind) and will leave the room if I get down 25BB's. The reason I buy in for 50 and not 25 (when I plan to leave if I lose 25) is because I never want to be all in in a limit game. So if I'm down 20 BB's I want plenty of ammo to fire away at a hand I think i'm getting value for.

I feel 50 BBs is way too much and almost encourages you to be a bit more loose especially at the lower limits. I think 30 or 35 BBs is perfectly fine. It also acts as a stop loss too

[Smasharoo 0]

I feel 50 BBs is way too much and almost encourages you to be a bit more loose especially at the lower limits. I think 30 or 35 BBs is perfectly fine. It also acts as a stop loss tooI think that's kind of scary, the stop loss part anyway.It should be pretty rare that you're down 30BB at one table. It'll happen, but really not very often.

[Markmadness 0]

when i play .50/1.00 limit. I bring 45. That way its not too showy and its not too little, and yes i think it does intimidate. Specially when you atthe table for awhile and new people come in the room and they see 45 bucks, or ifyou up say 15 bucks at 60. They think damn he started with 25.

[MrConceit 0]

I don't think any of this matters very much at all. I personally think stop-loss stuff of any type is kind of pointless, but I'm utterly fine that other people want to do them. If I'm playing poorly, tilting, or strangely there are really good players at a table, I leave. Up or down. If I lose 25 or more BB due to monster suckouts, running into AA with my KK, or missing 8 straight flush draws, so be it.If the table is good, stay, if it isn't, leave. Only if your play is off from too many bad beats or you have a prior engagement or something, should you really leave for reasons other than good or bad table.I personally do buyin for 50 BB instead of 25, but that's a weird holdover that became habit from when I played on a party skin called Eurobet. On Eurobet, (dunno if it still is this way, this was a number of months ago) they seriously do not have the rebuy button. It's a party skin, but if you run out of cash, you'd have to waitlist the table again, so I got into the habit of double the standard of party's 25, and it stuck. It doesn't really matter to me, I could change it back down farther, but I don't think it matters one way or the other.

[KDawgCometh 2]

Personally I normally Ignore what I said about a stoploss. If for somereason I drop down to 10BBs I ususally go ahead and rebuy for 15BBs. REally thought my point was that 30-35 BBs is more then enough at the limits your playing at, anymore then that is just excessive and will ususally lead to looser play

[Downstream 0]

Thanks for all your replies. I guess $30 is ok for .50-1.00, I just see so many people whittle that down in like 15 minutes that it seems too low. Of course when you don't play like a fish, its not a problem. At Poker Room, where I play, the minimum buy in is $5 at the .50-1.00 tables and the default buy in is your entire bankroll. Sounds like the Party default is about right. I don't care about other people's buy in much anymore. When I first started, I used to go "wow that guy has 124.65, better watch out." I have since learned that they are usually bigger fish than the others. The guys with their last $5 before re depositing are fun because they will all-in with garbage just to end their suffering.

[KillerPanda 0]

i buy in for 30xBB. don't be intimidated by anything and anyone, especially not larger stacks, especially not in limit. :shock: "limit hold'em is all about pound, pound, pound. no fear."-Jennifer Harman, SuperSystem 2

[Briguy 0]

I absolutely love it when someone buys into the $.50-$1.00 game for $100.00. I pre-emptively note "LAG maniac" upon their arrival. I'm usually only proven wrong 10% of the time.I buy in for $20 on those tables, with the intention of either rebuying or finding greener pastures if I drop below $10. $20 is probably a bit low, but I'm so used to it now that I probably won't change it up. Two or three suck-outs or bad beats will usually bring me down to $10 on any given table.

[TheMathProf 0]

I buy in for 50 BB because it's a nice round even number. :)Every once in awhile, if you're truly bored, what's fun to do is to just periodically buy-in for another 5BB (say every once or twice round the table). People who somewhat pay attention to what you bought in for but aren't paying a ton of attention to whether or not you personally are winning hands will sometimes see that you're up by several BB and tighten up when you play the hand with them. Not guaranteeing that this will work (at one table I tried this at, it had the opposite effect, where everybody assumed my "rush" would end, and I created a load of calling stations), but if you've got some rudimentarily-observant folks, it might be worth a try.

[Scruff 0]

I ALWAYS try to sit to the left of the player or two with the big stacks at the table on line in limit (2/4, 3/6, 5/10) play, assuming I have no notes on anyone at the table.With no other knowledge of the players, I do think the better players tend to be the one or two with the bigger stacks (and if they aren't good, they are maniacs, even better!). And even if not, it's good to have position on the guy with the most to burn. I'm not talking about a guy with like $180 when everyone else has $50-150, I mean the guy with $4, 5, 600, etc..And I always buy in for a non-descript stack, based on those at the table, generally $100 at a 2/4 and $150 at a 3/6, though I vary it a little (I'm pretty anal, so sometimes I'll buy in for $92.60 if I have $492.60 in the account or something, so I easily know how much I have (just add $400) overall (I love to keep score :-) ).In low limit online play, you don't want to intimidate the other players, if buy in with $2K to a $2/4 game (we had a guy the other day sit down the $4300!), you 1) become a target for the good players 2) scare away the bad players 3) look like an idiot.This has worked for me, as more often than not I end up with position on the good players, and I rarely become a target until it's too late (when I have most of their $$), as far as I can tell.

[Scruff 0]

"That way its not too showy and its not too little, and yes i think it does intimidate. "I don't want to intimidate in low limit. I want to blend in. If you intimidate all it means is that the bad players will get up and leave, it's not like a packed casino where you are stuck at the table you get. I don't want them folding when I have a good hand, and you can't bluff most of the people that would be intimidated by you anyway.Sklansky has a pretty good take on this in SSHE, IMO.