Bankroll Requirements

[pete fabrizio]

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Honestly, I'd say 20-50 buy-ins.

20's where I'd recommend someone start at lower stakes who's playing semi-recreationally. Yes, there's a chance you'll go busto, but it's pretty unlikely, and you can get a pretty good winrate with relatively low variance when you're playing lower stakes.

50's what I need to feel comfortable playing in a LAGgy high-variance game such as the 5/10 on Bodog the way it used to run pre-Neteller issues. It's definitely higher than NL though. If you don't feel comfortable playing NL with 25 BI, then you're going to want more than 50 for PLO.

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This is all strictly a function of winrate, variance, and what stakes you're willing to play. If you have a .1 CV (winrate/standard deviation) at every level and are willing to move down all the way to .01-.02, then the Kelly Criteria says you should drop down only when you have fewer than 10 buyins (strictly speaking, 10x your SD). If you never want to play below a certain level, then just add 30xSD at that level to the bottom. A lower winrate or uncertainty about your winrate significantly changes things obv. See Gambling Theory and Other Topics for a lot of great stuff about risk of ruin, and Mathematics of Poker for great stuff on the Kelly Criteria.

[Motorcycle Mike]

I'm new to Omaha from HE, and just have a quick question:

Are the stake limits the same here as they are in the other forums? By that I mean when Nsight7 says "Small Stakes", is he talking about up to the $200 tables, or does this run a little differenty with the smaller amount of Omaha games?

Thanks,
MM...

[Ribbo]

In all honesty, 40 to 50 buyins.

Explanation:

Omaha is about tilting. Assume you're a break even player and you constantly shove heads up with 50/50 equity. This means that once every 8 days you will lose 3 buyins at the start of your sessions. If you have say 20 buyins, that's a significant amount of your bankroll, which may cause a tiltola.
You really don't want to tilt in Omaha, very costly, more so than holdem as almost every flop looks nice.
For the sake of your brain, have a deep stack.