Cash No Limit Questions.

[Cambo71]

I have a few question about no limit cash.

Is the game play between $100 nl rush and 9 man ring similar or is rush much weaker?

Is the 200 nl rush much tougher than 100 nl rush? (9 man as I dont play 6 max unless in tourney)

How much profit or hands played should I have before I can assume I am a winning player at this format? I think I am up about 1k in 7k hands

For this question keep in mind I am primarily a tournament player.
Assume I will play 4 games at 9 handed rush poker.
How much should I win at 100 nl before I move up to 200 nl?
What should my bankroll be before I move to 200 nl?

Is playing rush poker going to help my overall tourney game?

[pulpfunction]

I haven't played many hands of rush poker (maybe 5k) but it seems like my edge is a little lower there. A large part of my edge comes from players who play to many hands from early and middle position. It seems like people fold from early position more often in rush poker taking away this key part of my edge. For this reason I would much rather play 8 tables of full ring rather than 4 table of rush.
As far as 1-2 being harder than .50-1. I have a few hunder thousand hands at .50-1 and about 100,000 hands at 1-2. The $100 buy in game is much easier to beat. At $100 you can most often 3 barrel value bet top pair or better. At 1-2 that isn't the norm. I have found the biggest jump in skill sets from my opponents to be from $100 to $200. It took me a very long time to make that jump.
How many hands before you can be assured you are a winning player? This can be a very tricky question to answer. I have over half a million hands and a win rate of 1.5 bbs per 100 and I still can feel as if the game has passed me by when I have a large down swing. 7k hands is not even close to statisicly say you are +ev. One of the best mid stakes grinders on the planet, (leatherass) his first name is dusty, wrote a very good article in card player a few month ago. It had a very good insight as to how long a winning player can lose. He has millions of hands under his belt and has had down swings that have lasted 100k hands. Now he has (I would guess) a larger edge over his opponents than us. So we to could have 100k or more hand down swingings also. I myself have had a 75k hand down swing. You could go a whole year losing before you get back in the red. There are many players out there that have been winning who are really -ev players. To answer the question. I would say if you are winning after 100k hands you can tell all your pin pals you are a +ev player. As far as bankroll is concerned I'm going to hear a lot about this because I'm much more liberal about my roll than most. I follow most of jesus's rules. You can find them on full tilt or the internet. The basic rules for me are simple. Firstly I search for all known fish, that's key. I always buy in for the table max. I never put more than 5% of my roll on the table. If a table dosent have at least on fish I leave and replace that table with another. I of course break these rules when I find super fish at high limits. These are pretty liberal and I have come close to ruin a few times but so long as you are willing to grind lower limits to rebuild and you are not depending on poker income to put food on your I see no harm in a little risk. To simplify I need
$1000 to play the $50 buyin
$2000 to play the $100 buyin
$4000 to play the $200 buyin
$8000 to play the $400 buyin

I hope that answered some of your question or at minimum start a conversation. Good luck in the cash games.

PS
I did all this on my blackberry and didn't edit myself as far as grammar is concerned, sorry if this frustrates you.

[AAron the B]

<- one and the same thing in ru$h

[MJ21]

Great Advise Paul!