I was wondering if any of you play both MTTs and NLHE cash games and if so how do you manage your bankroll. What I have in mind for my BR is to have 30BI if I am moving to a higher stake cash game and go back to the lower stakes if I get back to 25BI.

In the same time I want to be playing MTTs occasionally (Saturday, Sunday and sometimes during the week), so I was wondering if I should have a completely separate BR for MTTs or just use my cash games BR and just reg for MTTs I have at least 100BI for.

What would you suggest me?
How do you guys manage your BR if that's the case with you?

I only have one bankroll, and just restrict myself to whatever games I can afford. If I was using strict BRM, I might choose 30 BI for cash and 100 BI for tourneys. With $150, I could play 5NL (30 BI) and MTTs up to and including $1.50s.

The funny thing is that recreational players tend to play 10NL and $10 MTTs interchangeably, which is one of the many reasons why tourneys of the same buy-in level are much softer than cashgames. The variance is insane with MTTs though, which is why you should give yourself plenty of extra BIs for those.

Yeah, that's kind of what I had in mind. Glad to hear my view of BRM is sound. Thank you for taking your time to share what works for you.

Let's be honest, you probably don't really have a bankroll at all, you probably really have a budget. The only recreational players that actually have bankroll must have found a suitcase full of money or something. If you happened to lose your bankroll, would you ever play poker again? I think you'd simply wait until you saved some extra money from your job to be able to play again. So get get too concerned with bankroll calculations. If I'm wrong, we can talk again.

You are kind of wrong. If I don't start managing my small budget like a bankroll, how is it going to become a bankroll in the first place? This is precisely why I am posting the question in the first place and I think your comment is neither relevant nor helpful. If I'm wrong, we can talk again.

I think you are wrong and I think my post is relevant. I think you don't really have a good feel for the underlying math, nor what your true goals are. I think you've heard of bankrolls, and you think you should have one. But I don't think you've thought this all the way through. You haven't even convinced anyone you actually need a bankroll at all. I don't mean this in a rude way, just a very frank way, because frankly the same is true for the vast majority of poker players.

Let's start at the beginning. What are your goals? What are your concerns? What are your fears? What are your doomsday, worst case scenarios? How much risk are you willing to take?

Note that if you went to a financial advisor or insurance agent, they would be asking these same questions, even if you started out by asking them where to invest your money and how much insurance you should get.

This is way more relevant than your previous post, since your previous post stated nothing else than the mere fact that I don't have a bankroll yet and I assume that you assumed this only because I am posting in this section.

My goals are to be a professional live player simply for the thrill I get from playing poker. I have won several live tournaments here in London but the buy in for each was less than 100 pounds. I have been playing poker seriously for about 2 months and I am more passionate about it than anything I have done in my life so far. I am only 21 years old though, but I think age is not an important factor when it comes to what you are passionate about. I have played poker since I was about 10 years old with friends and there were always stakes when we played no matter our age. After not playing poker for about 3 years I accidentally opened a WSOP video on youtube and realized that one of my favorite hobbies was in front of my eyes the whole time and I just have been neglecting it.

My concerns. This is the question that made me realize you are a serious person that has something constructive to say to me instead of just some old forum hater that came to hate on the newbs. I have many concerns. I am concerned that I like this game too much and my parents might think of it as gambling or something you can't make a living out of. I am concerned that I am ready to abandon everything (my education, my very strong social life, probably my future) just to learn all the depths of a cards game and to be honest this is kind of frightening. I have missed 2 exams for my computer science education in the past 2 months just to have more time to play and study NLHE. Those are my fears. And obviously I am ready to give up everything I studied for the past 4 years just to pursue this new passion/addiction of mine. And this makes me think I am ready to risk everything I have worked for so far, which frightens me the most. I imagine myself barely paying bills and living on my own in a year, just because I was not able to get good enough at poker to make a living. But a couple of weeks ago when I asked myself if I imagined that I'd work at some office or at home programming endless codes for a stupid company (something that I hate doing even though I am very good at) the answer was no. So I think I am ready to take chances with poker, just because I know that when I want to learn something it is not going to be hard for me if I am committed. And being the knucklehead I am I probably wont give up until I make it big or I go completely broke.

Now that you know how serious about this I am I hope you can actually give me some advise no matter how scolding it is. And I am pretty sure I have a decent feel for the underlying math since I have gone through what equity 70% of the hands have against 15%-50% villain ranges and I have been banging my head against the wall with PokerStove for 2 weeks straight, taking notes with a pen on a notebook (something nobody studying computer science does in 2017). I have went through many push/fold charts just to compare them and get a feel of what other poker players feel about their hands/ranges. I have memorized all the success % of what amount of 1-17 outs hand has on the flop and on the turn. I am pretty serious about my math. Putting villains on hands is a whole different topic and it is something I have been getting in recently as well as thought process and action planning on every street.

Sorry if I made that too long and I am sincerely grateful that you took your time to post in this topic. Any further criticism or advise would be greatly appreciated.

Bob Dylan — 'A man is a success if he gets up in the morning and gets to bed at night, and in between he does what he wants to do.'

Well, since you actually want to be a professional, like any other kinds of business, there are many ways of going about this, not all of which require a "real" (true mathematical) bankroll.

You're young, if you were a little older and married what some people have done is gotten the support of their wives who have real jobs and can pay the life support bills if (when) you can't contribute. But that's off the table.

If you're actually going to be a full time professional, not only are you going to need a bankroll, you're going to need a nice little nest egg as well for several months living expenses. This is standard, most people who get laid off from their regular job is going to get some kind of severance, in addition to probably unemployment. You're going to have to fund all that yourself. What I would highly recommend doing is finishing your degree (while playing in the mean time obviously). Then you either have something to fall back on, or you can actually start in a job building up some nest egg while playing playing poker part time. Until you can make the switch over.

As Kevin said, you can look up online what the math equations are for risk of ruin bankroll requirements if you plug in the risk factors you desire.

As to tournament vs. cash, tournaments are a tough row to hoe. The variance is normally too high to be a mid level professional (the successful ones get lucky early on.) The higher level successful pros have books, coaching, online endorsments, etc etc to hold them over. Also, they stake pools of players. Which takes me to my point. Probably the best thing to do by going that route is to get a backer. For example, a friend of mine is (or was) backed by Eric Lindgren, who backs a pool of players. This reduces your payout of course, but smooths everything out to a manageable level. To get a backer, you'd have to prove yourself as a good player over the long term. And thus, getting back to having a job in the mean time.

For cash play, it's easier because the variance isn't as crazy (although still enough to drive you insane if you're not careful.) It's very difficult at low stakes to both
a) build up a bankroll and
b) pay for your living expenses

Getting a backer doesn't help with these, because even though it reduces your risk in higher stakes games, it reduces your income as well. Again, thus getting back to having a job while you build things up.

I personally am only a part time pro or semi-pro. Poker money is part of my income. I quit my corporate job to go into business for myself, which allows me another means of income, but at the same time the flexibility to work when I want (or more accurately, to not work when I don't want to - when there is a good poker game.) I do have backing, in fact one game that's very good is a little too high stakes for me, so I have a deal where I can't lose. All my losses are covered, and I give up half my winnings. (Of course I don't get the winnings until my losses are covered, but I can't ever be cash out of pocket.)

Perhaps you could find a similar work situation as mine by writing custom apps or doing web design consultation. Then you can pick your own hours.

I am thinking about giving full time poker ago this summer and see if the numbers make sense at the end (the end of August). My parents are going to support me with living expenses for probably at least another year and then I want to take things in my own hands. Hopefully I can do this by the end of 2017. If poker doesn't work out I will probably just concentrate on app dev.

I don't really like the idea of staking, but might have to look more into that.

I find myself to be very successful in live tournaments, I think I pick up a lot on tells because I find myself making so many hero calls with A/K high just because I can see it written on some people's faces that they just don't have it. I have shipped a few here and there but the prizes were under 3k pounds. Online poker reading is quite hard for me.

I am currently thinking of applying to some coaching platform like The Poker Lab, do you have any recommendations?

Thank you for taking your time to give me your advice and help. I really appreciate it. Happy Easter!