Quote Originally Posted by DavSimon
As a point of reference, I set my wife up an accout at Poker Stars and gave her $100 to play .05/.10 NL ring games with....average buyin at those tables is between $5-10. She has been down as far as $60...and is currently up to about $115 - you have to have the bankroll to sustain the swings. $50 is not nearly enough for .50/1....you are just setting yourself up for a disappointing experience. I would put more money into your bankroll or move down a couple notches to .05/.1 or possibly .1/.25 (even at .1/.25 - $50 is not really enough...2.5x buyin can evaporate quickly). I play .50/1 with a $400-600 bankroll....and buyin for the max allowable at the table, if I go down 10 BBs I reload - some people reload constantly to have the max at all times in case they catch a monster.

elanto: I concur with Fnord...I have been playing mostly MTTs lately and you should have at least 20x buyin - same for SnG's. I have gone on a 7-8 SnG losing streak at the $10+1 or $15+1 Turbo level.
Thats interesting, my rule of thumb was always to have around 80x the BB of the table(s) youre playing at. I started playing .25/.50 with about $45 a year ago and although I experienced swings, it was never more than $15-20. Note: im not saying that its NOT gonna happen, but ive had alot of success using 80xBB.

Ive actually had better luck using that at 1/2 and 2/4 tables (I attribute that to less variance because of the difference in gameplay).