No Limit Ring Game Buy Ins

August 29, 2005

How much do you buy into a no limit holdem ring game with? Most games have a minimum and maximum buy in. As an example for this column, we will use a game with a minimum of $20 and a maximum of $200. If you have played very much holdem you have probably seen players who buy in for the minimum and try to double up. When they lose, they buy in for the minimum again. These are usually the same players who will take money off the table if they can get away with it after a win. Do you fall into one of these categories? Is there an advantage to managing your bankroll this way?

A few assumptions are made before starting the following discussion. These are that you have a sufficient bankroll to play the limits you are playing and that you are a decent player. If you don’t have sufficient bankroll, it does not matter how good you are the short-term variance will eventually break you. If you are not a good player, it doesn’t matter how big your bankroll is you will consistently lose.

My belief is that you are always in the bet position when you have as much money on the table as possible. For this reason, I recommend buying in at the maximum, $200 in our example. The largest reason for this is I want to be in a position to maximize my profits when my opponents make a mistake. Almost 100% of my profit from no limit holdem comes from maximizing my profit on my opponent’s mistakes. One of the biggest mistakes made by poor players is overvaluing hands like AK, QQ and JJ. When a player overvalues one of these hands, they will often over bet preflop and commit themselves to the hand. I have even seen players often move all in with AK preflop because they are afraid to make the necessary decisions after the flop. When a player makes this mistake against an opponents AA or KK, they lose a large amount of money. Though this situation rarely occurs, when it does if I bought in for the minimum then I can’t win as much as possible. Another mistake that I am often able to capitalize on is players with high pocket pairs who don’t raise enough to make me fold smaller pairs. A quick look at the mathematics and implied odds are as follows. Roughly one of every eight flops I see with a pocket pair will give me a set, so my opponent who makes a raise that I can call and still have a chance to win more than eight times the bet when I hit a set, has made a mistake unless he or she will be able to get away from a high pocket pair after the flop. You will find very few players able to do this until you hit the higher limits. For this strategy to work, my stack must be as deep as possible.

Don’t miss out on some of your best opportunities at profit by buying in short. Until next week, good luck at the tables!

---

The Poker Column is published weekly. Send questions for the author or subscription requests to