[Overseer55]

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Isn't the general rule 10x the online buyin = the live buyin?

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Probably for low/micro online limits (e.g. $25NL online = $1/2 NL live), but I'm highly skeptical that the trend continues all across the limits. For example, I would be willing to bet quite a bit of money that a winning $5/10 NL player online (that was breakeven or worse at $10/20 NL) would not be a consistent winner at a $50/100 NL live game...although, a $5/10 NL online player would probably be a winner at a $10/25 NL live game.

Reasons (which may or may not be valid):
1) The "fad" of online is largely over...people play online because they know something about poker (or want to get better). This is not necessarily true in B&Ms. Therefore, people at lower limits online $25NL, $50NL tend to have some knowledge about poker strategy.

2) New & casual players typically play the lowest limit that is available, affordable, and interesting to them. For B&Ms, the lowest NL game spread is generally $1/2. For online casinos, these same players would choose to play $10NL, $25NL or $50NL instead of $200NL. This supports the 10 to 1 ratio at the low limits.

3) Wealthy people (that are not super-rich) are much more likely to take shot at mid-NL full ring games ($5/5, $5/10, maybe $10/20) in B&Ms than to wire $5k through Western Union to PokerStars and sit down at a $10/20 6-max table. However, these people tend to play lower limit games unless they know something about poker. This statement supports a slightly lower ratio (maybe 5 to 1) between online & live at the medium limits.

4) These same wealthy people are probably unlikely to sit at a $25/50 NL or $50/100 NL game live because a) they probably derive less enjoyment from a really large game filled with pros vs. a medium sized game filled with a mixtures of pros, winning players & other so-so players and b) get more excitement playing black chip BJ than risk $5k on one hand of poker. I would say that most high-limit NL live games are filled with almost the same set of people that are willing to play high-limit NL online games. This statement supports a fairly low ratio (2 to 1 or less) for high NL games.

Personally, I think online players like to think that big live games are equivalent to paltry limits online so that they can brag that they are good enough to beat the big live games. Of course, then they tell their friends that they don't have the bankroll for the big live games...

Of course, I could be FOS.