[Octopus]

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As far as bankroll management goes, if I decide to sit with a 50BB stack, would it be ok to jump up to the next highest game?

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For example, say you have $100. If you play the $100 as a 50bb stack in a $1-$2 game, your variance will be higher than if you play the $100 as a 200bb stack in a $.25-$.50 game. However, playing a $100 stack in a $1-$2 game will still be lower variance than playing a larger stack in a $1-$2 game.

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I have looked at this some and I you are exactly right. My experience, and the experience of several others, is that playing super short (20BBs or so) is about half as volatile (IN TEMRS OF BLINDS) as playing a 100BB stack. A 50BB stack is actaully closer to a 100BB stack in terms of variance, but it is still less volatile.

If you are looking at bankroll requirements, though, the correct way to think about this is terms of dollars (or if you like in terms of buy-ins), not in terms of blinds. In that context, playing $100 at a .5/1 table will be half as volatile (in dollars) as plying $100 at a 2/5 table. If these two strategies had the same win rate (in dollars), then you would need a commensurately bigger stack to have the same risk of ruin playing the short stack strategy. (If one had a higher dollar win rate, then that would be in play as well.) I do not have a huge amount of data on playing with a 50BB stack, but similar logic would apply. Playing up a level but with half the stack would likely be higher volatility and higher win rate (in dollars), but it is not at all clear to me how those two would interact. Whether your win rate in a given game with 50bb vs 100BB stacks is higher or lower depends on much. EDIT: See Sunny's post immediately above. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]