[7csCB]

jordiepop,

stud is just a plain great game.

Variance is really difficult to understand. The best players have admitted to downswings of 300BB! This means that, at 2/4, you should have a bankroll of at least $1200 to make up for the swings. And this is for a player with a winrate of around 2BB/100 hands (which is real good). As the winrate becomes lower, likely a bigger bankroll is required. IMO, it takes a history of 100,000 hands to determine winrate with any kind of accuracy. A winning player can easily lose over the course of 1000s of hands.

Re.:
"1/2 is easier, id stay away from .5/1 cause the players there can be a little too loose (4 or 5 seeing 5th and 6th street most hands)"

I disagree with this statement.
Every level requires a different style of play. There is no such thing as a table that is _too_ loose. The notion that it is more profitable to play against stronger players has got to be wrong. Surely, at any level, you would always want to sit at a table where "4 or 5 seeing 5th and 6th" is the norm. The only problem with the lower tables is that though your winrate should be higher (again in BB/100), your actual winnings (in total $) will likely be lower than what you can achieve at a higher level. And that is the crux of the matter: Finding the stakes at which you will maximize your winnings.

This is what I would do to maximize my winnings:
1- Spend $55 on PokerTracker. Don't even bother trying to glean anything about winrate till you're at 15,000 hands. But you must peruse the db everyday to understand the wealth of info there.

2- Decide on your starting bankroll and, ergo, the stakes at which you play. I suggest 500BB multiplier. There is nothing wrong with starting at .04/.08.

3- Play. If you keep as a goal the building of your bankroll, make sure you are always one of the 2 best players at the table.

4- Every 10,000 hands or so, you must remove a % from your BR as profit. Probably no more than 100BB. Notice that if your winrate is greater than 1BB/100 hands, your bankroll will continue to grow.

5- Over time (10's of 000's of hands), and using a nultiplier as above, your bankroll will determine the stakes at which you should play.

cheers