In a deep game (200+ BB or equivalent per buy-in), I'd hope/expect players to bring 2+ buy-ins.
I always recommend bringing
three full buyins if you want a long night of poker and the ability to claw back if you get down early. Unless it’s a very low-stakes game where people don’t care about the money and are just fucking around shoving blind etc.
But that hardly means every player in a serious game is going to use
all three full buyins every game. Not even close.
To even get to a 1.5 buyins/player total still requires a lot of action, unless everyone buys in and rebuys for the max and is playing recklessly.
Some are going to play all night on their first buyin. Not because they’re tight, but because they’re winning.
Half aren’t going to need to reload fully even once.
Some only need to top off a few times.
Some are going to buy in short, or rebuy short.
At my last game two of nine players bought in for a total of three full buyins (200BB). Both played poorly but also ran into some coolers.
One player had to rebuy once.
Two never had to rebuy and never had to top off, because they were winning big pots from the get-go.
The others were a mix of modest losers, decent winners, and break-even players who topped off for an extra 40-60 BB here and there.
Plenty of action and lots of chips on the table. This was NLHE but we also played about 10 bomb pots (double board Omaha) which almost always gets big.