Going to Vegas. How much $ should I take?
 

I'm going in mid-November for 3 days (Friday-Sunday).
I'm planning on playing $1/2 NLHE. How much money should I take in order to be comfortable?
thanks.

Re: Going to Vegas. How much $ should I take?
 

Depends...maybe 5 buyins will be enough. About 1k. Plus money for food.

Re: Going to Vegas. How much $ should I take?
 

As much as you are willing to lose. Same amount anyone should bring to Vegas [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

Re: Going to Vegas. How much $ should I take?
 

5 buyins won't do the trick if you hit a perfect storm, or if you're an action junky. We've all seen someone drop 6 buyins in 2 hours. We've probably all lost 4 buyins over the span of a few hours ourselves while playing correctly. So how important is not busting to you? And do you REALLY want to keep playing poker if you're losing your rear?

How much you need to avoid significant risk of ruin depends on how many hours you intend to play, how well you play, what stakes you intend to play ($200 cap, $300, $500, or maybe Wynn's NL1/3 uncapped game buying in for $2000 a shot), and what sorta variance you have. I would need to suffer the streak of my life to lose 8 buyins in 24 hours of play. Something like 3 buyins plus one more buy for every 4 hours I'm gonna play would probably put my risk of ruin into the <1% sorta range. I'm pulling these numbers outta my rear, of course. YMMV.

Or just bring $1000 to $1500 and figure if you lose it you shouldn't have been playing, anyway. I kinda like that approach.

Re: Going to Vegas. How much $ should I take?
 

How much money should I take in order to be comfortable?

Define comfortable.

As others have said it depends on your pain threshhold.

I travelled to Vegas in March and brought $3,500 to play poker for a four day trip. Thats my personal threshhold.

Its all about tolerance.

Fortunately for me I went on a heater and did not have too much of a downswing. However if I got stuck $2500 I do not know if I would have had the resolve to continue playing.

FYI I did not play no limit, I played $15-$30 limit and $8-$16 at the Bellagio.

Re: Going to Vegas. How much $ should I take?
 

If you're a strong winning player with very little tilt issues, just bring as much money as you feel comfortable carrying around in your pocket. If you have tilt issues, are not that great at poker, and plan to drink a lot, don't bring more than you feel comfortable losing.

It also depends on how much you plan to buy in for, as others have noted. If you're gonna buy in for 100bb, then you need less than if you're gonna buy in for 150bb.

Re: Going to Vegas. How much $ should I take?
 

If you lost $1,000, would you still have a good vacation or would you be beating yourself up over the loss.

I wouldn't bring less than that amount -- however, you could easily lose this within normal variation.

$1500 or $2000 is better.

If losing $1,000 would bother you, bring what you can afford maybe mix in some limit. Easier to control variance that way.

Re: Going to Vegas. How much $ should I take?
 

goin in nov myself was thinking of taken 1500

Re: Going to Vegas. How much $ should I take?
 

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I would need to suffer the streak of my life to lose 8 buyins in 24 hours of play.

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No, that would be a streak of my life. Dropping 8 buyins in a row being ahead on every all-in? Phht, piece of cake.

Re: Going to Vegas. How much $ should I take?
 

You guys heard of ATM machines?

Re: Going to Vegas. How much $ should I take?
 

Better to set aside money though. Kinda like if you were playing on a poker site and basically played off the credit of your credit card. After a few to many brew pops, things get hazy till the morning

Re: Going to Vegas. How much $ should I take?
 

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You guys heard of ATM machines?

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ATMs are not really good options in the casinos. Although I didn't actually use any, I read the signs on a few of them out of curiousity. There were huge transaction costs associated with them . . . costs that went beyond the usual small service fee associated with using an ATM from a bank other than your own. In particular, most of the machines that I saw charged a percentage of the money withdrawn on top of other service fees. I think that you are far better off bringing cash as opposed to relying upon a machine.

As for a decent stake for 1/2 NL in Vegas over 4 days... I would suggest $2,000. I played 11 sessions over 6 days, and although I ended up overall, there was a lot of variance. Particularly in the evening sessions, I found plenty of players willing to put their whole stacks in against me on a draw. I lost a good number of all-in confrontations with big hands against flush and OESDs. Even in some of my biggest winning sessions, I had to pony up another half-buyin or more to make up for a beat and keep sufficient money on the table.

I think that if you start with only $1,000 and hit a rough patch early on, you'll be tempted to play overly tight (and perhaps weak?) to protect your remaining roll and make sure it lasts for your whole trip. That's not a good way to play against the competition that I saw in Vegas.

Re: Going to Vegas. How much $ should I take?
 

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If losing $1,000 would bother you, bring what you can afford maybe mix in some limit. Easier to control variance that way.

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have you PLAYED limit?

Re: Going to Vegas. How much $ should I take?
 

You need to also factor a little in for food, taxis etc... as things are getting pretty expensive out there.
I would bring at least 2 Grand
You don't want to run out of money or use those crappy ATM's with the bad fees.

Re: Going to Vegas. How much $ should I take?
 

[ QUOTE ]
Although I didn't actually use any, I read the signs on a few of them out of curiousity. There were huge transaction costs associated with them . . . costs that went beyond the usual small service fee associated with using an ATM from a bank other than your own. In particular, most of the machines that I saw charged a percentage of the money withdrawn on top of other service fees.

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Those signs and percentage fees are for cash advances, not regular ATM withdrawals.

Jeff

Re: Going to Vegas. How much $ should I take?
 

All of it!

Re: Going to Vegas. How much $ should I take?
 

Well....thanks everyone for the advice....

I decided to take something between 1000 and 1500 plus money for food and stuff.
I might buy in short if I drop some buyins but hopefully I won't.

Re: Going to Vegas. How much $ should I take?
 

Don't forget lapdance money.

Re: Going to Vegas. How much $ should I take?
 

I played similiar limits on a similiar trip so here it is:
I went to san diego for 4 days, took 1k cash for poker, played 8-16/kill and was sent packing to the ATM on the morning of the second day. It took some soul searching for me to reload, hit the table again and make it all back plus some, knowing the whole time i could easily have lost it again. I didn't ever plan that ATM trip, but i knew my financial status could afford losing 2k, which is the only reason i played moderately well on the reload.
On the 4th day i moved to $1/$2 NL for a change of pace, and felt like i was playing with little desperate kiddies crying about $4 here and there. (the money came easier there).

My suggestion is don't play limits where you are praying for an early lucky streak, it's not a good way to improve your long term goals.

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Don't forget lapdance money.

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if thats a priority, then play poker in san diego and hit TiJuana for your lapdances+, definately higher expectation!

josh

Re: Going to Vegas. How much $ should I take?
 

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You guys heard of ATM machines?

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ATMs are not really good options in the casinos.

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Depends. They will charge you I think $4 for the transaction. But I have an ATM card that refunds up to $10/mo in ATM fees, so I could do two visits and it wouldn't cost me anything. But I also have a $300 cash advance limit ($500 on weekends, I think).

When I did Vegas vacations in the past to play small stakes I'd typically bring something like $1500 and if I lost half I'd reload at the ATM. When I came later aiming for bigger games I gave up on using the ATM and just brought a large pile. Last thing I'd ask the person at check-in was "where do I go to get a safe deposit box" and the majority of the roll would go into the box before I ever went up to the room.

Some people know they have no self control and will not bring ATM cards with them to Vegas. Good plan if you are that sort. I have a friend who did that when he came to visit around Christmas, and about 3 days in after getting stacked one evening at Tropicana (of all places) he disappeared for about 45 minutes after saying he'd be right back. Turns out he was at the cage working to get a cash advance of some sort (dunno what... credit card, check...not sure what he did). So much for not bringing the ATM card. His claim was "at least it's really expensive and inconvenient, so I won't do it often".

Re: Going to Vegas. How much $ should I take?
 

$2k

Re: Going to Vegas. How much $ should I take?
 

Since I've taken up poker I've only ever stayed at the Bellagio which have safes in the rooms. Do all the larger hotels have them? If not, I'm surprised that they'd take on the liability of holding on to your bankroll to parcel out as you need it.