Your BRM is going to depend on your style of play and your WR (bb/100). The higher your standard deviation and the more volatile your strategy is the more buy-ins you are going to have. Lags will need more than Tags and tags more than nits. Then of course losing players will just need an infinite amount. Also depends on formats like Heads up, six max, full ring, MTT, sng, etc. Six max cash I would say 30 buy-ins should be enough, but if you tilt after losing 33% of your roll (10 buy-ins) then obviously you will want a bigger roll that is sufficient with your mental game.

I would lean towards an aggressive BRM strategy till 100 NL. You can consider a range of 5 to 10 buy ins to shot the next level, if it doesn't work you go back to the usual stake and grind it back.

30 to 50 buy ins is usually a good starting point, if swinging negatively affects your confidence you can consider increasing this range and be a bit more conservative in level ups.

Do you mean shot take a next level when you have 5-10 buy-ins for that level? I think you mean shot take and if you lose 5-10 buy-ins go back. With 30-50 bi's for the level you play at.

Yeah, you reserve 5-10 buy ins for the shot. If it goes well you stabilize at the new stake, otherwise you go back to your usual one and grind it till you have again some margin of safety for the new shot attempt.

I think its best to go on the tighter side and just over fold these spots. A5s is a big losing hand for me because I would copy preflop solver stuff that has this hand as a defend without understanding its based on 3bet / 4bet ranges / frequencies. In general the pool is going to under 3 bet and way under 4bet, so A5s just becomes -EV to continue in general. A lot of people don't have the skills post flop to play this hand aggressive enough to make the light preflop calls profitable being over folding top pair vs aggression or raising all in with a gutter etc. I still have no idea how to play this hand, so I end up over folding it a ton. You will see other coaches like Tyler, Elusive, Gary, etc over folding AJs from UTG vs SB 3bet, Folding AJo btn vs BB 3bet, KJs SB vs BTN 4bet etc. I think the coaches are well aware that people are just under 3bet/4bet, so it just leads to a lot of these close to 0EV hands being -EV. I honestly don't know outside of TT+ AQs+ AK which hands I should actually defend because pools 4bet ranges seem to be 2.3% - 4% range depending on the formations. Of course I am on a softer site, so a site like pokerstars you probably need to make these calls in these tough pools, but idk about any other site where you have to make these calls.

matlittle You seem very knowledgeable of this game from all the comments I see you make and PIO screen shots you share. What stakes are you playing? You would have my vote if you become a RIO coach :-)

RunItTw1ce is 2-4% a normal 4 bet %? And after how many hands is this reliable? At 10nl IPoker Network I sometimes see 6

It's very marginal vs normal sizings, snap fold with 7.5-24 like in the hand. I would lean towards folding as it's way more likely that the flat is going to be -EV (under4bet is very common at 200NL and rake is pretty significant), than +EV. Plus the hero has a huge leak overplaying top pairs and not being able to get away from hands, so it's better for him to start overfolding preflop and not getting fancy on flop and turns, not to call 4bets with A5 and call off barrels with top pair against AK.

It's very marginal vs normal sizings, snap fold with 7.5-24 like in the hand. I would lean towards folding as it's way more likely that the flat is going to be -EV (under4bet is very common at 200NL and rake is pretty significant)

Completely agree with all of this @Duchamp89. I would call:
vs a normal sizing from a good reg playing sufficient 4bets,
vs overly aggro rec
and otherwise fold (most common occurrence)

matlittle You seem very knowledgeable of this game from all the comments I see you make and PIO screen shots you share. What stakes are you playing? You would have my vote if you become a RIO coach :-)

Thanks for the nice words @RunItTw1ce. I play 100nl at stars, hoping to move up to 200nl at some point. Have been considering the idea of making videos recently, I will name drop you in my application! Does anyone know when RIO are next hiring coaches, and how to go about applying? Can't see anything listed on the careers section right now.

So fold everything but QQ+ and AK+, probably, right?
Thank you for highlighting the difference between microstakes and where you need to worry about it!

I then, might also be a bit too lose with 4-betting because I do 4-bet bluff once in a while when the hand and situation is right.

is 2-4% a normal 4 bet %? And after how many hands is this reliable? At 10nl IPoker Network I sometimes see 6

emsterdad the 2-4% is the "range" of hands that are being 4bet preflop, but not the 4bet %. Lets say you see 6% on your HUD, its 6% of their RFI range. If they are opening 25% of hands in the Co for example 6% is only a 1.5% range. Pretty much only AA/KK. As Francesco Lacriola said you need a huge sample for this stat to converge. Someone can have a nitty preflop stat because the 3 bettor has a very low 3bet %, so it won't make sense to 4bet them and you would exploit them by folding or calling for implieds. Where if you are against a maniac they might be 4 betting hands like 99 or AQ. Hopefully you watched the Uri Peleg video I sent you in the past to show how stats converge. 1.66% of hands is QQ+ AKs btw, so if you see 6% its likely this range depending on their opening position. I would play around with some RFI ranges and multiple the 4bet % you have on the person to get an idea of their 4 bet range. If you see a showdown though this is even more impactful to know if person is capable of 4 betting hands like AQo AJo KQo A5s KJs etc. Very important notes to have when you are deciding to 5 bet jam AKo or call 4bet or even fold to a 4bet jam.

Thanks RunItTw1ce that makes sense. Then most are very nitty 4 betting at the micros. And sometimes, people just run like gods. Do you have that video again? Not sure which one you mean.

emsterdad

Do you have that video again? Not sure which one you mean.

HUD stats via sample explained. Also recommend subscribing to his channel. Enjoy watching the high stake hand break downs.

RunItTw1ce Great video. Sorry I had not finished it before (I was at 3 minutes. Probably during work lol). I now use PT4 instead of HEM, but in the past you could also filter the HUD that a certain stat only shows up after X amount of hands. Looking at this video, I conclude:
- I would probably filter it for 10k hands except for VPIP/PFR/3b/F3b
- Player evolve. Especially at microstakes.

Even 3-bet is a bit dangerous, if you think it's high with 15% after 300 hands, the dude might also run a bit hotter. And then he adapts his game to a tigher 3-betting game... Linear vs Polarized... A hUD seems to be only valueable to get a general idea around a player.