If you're just playing live part time, shot taking 1/2 and have separate income I wouldn't worry about having a full time pro bankroll. Unless you're planning on quitting your job just play with that 5 BI roll you mention in your post and see if you can build it. If not, go back to online, study and return to 1/2 live when you have a few more BI available to shot take IMO.

I like that plan. I just worry I'll play too nitty with only 3 buy ins in my roll. $1/$2 gets pretty scary going to the turn with TPTK and 4 people in the hand still with an SPR of 1. lol. I really want to be prepared for variance. Thats the biggest con I see in the strategy.

The biggest pro I see is as much as it sucks to lose $600 that is probably, well it is worst case scenario. You start running bad or are card dead for hours, get coolered, etc. you can get up and replenish what you lost and rebuild to 3 buy ins fairly easily (hopefully). And as you said rinse and repeat.

I think that strategy needs one more element though. Assuming a winning session at what point do you get up?

With a 3 buy in roll you always have at least 1/3rd your BR at risk on the table. You go on a heater and say triple up you now have 60% of your BR at risk. Your stop loss can be zero but were do you call it when you are winning in a session?

Fair points, I think mentally while trying to build a roll we have to block all that thinking though. Get to the poker room and play poker like we know how, how ever that is. They’re only chips until you convert them to dollars. Having the 3 bi stop loss just insures that we can make another trip soon without breaking the bank. Personally I’m not having a stop win. If I run up 10 bis in one game and get stacked after getting money in good or running into a cooler that’s ok that’s poker. See ya next week with my next bullet.

Glgl

Edit to add - another “rule” of mine I wrote down is to have a time limit and stick to it (unless game is terrible or amazing), so my shots I’d like to be between 6-8 hours, no more no less.

So long as you have a full time job and are easily paying the bills, then I wouldn't be *too* concerned about your 1/2 BR as it should be pretty easy to replenish if you go poker busto.

Having said that, if you are still concerned, especially when starting out with your lowest BR, especially when tripling up and having a huge percentage of your BR on the table, try moving to a smaller table (where every one is sitting with just 1 BI) or simply cash out and buy in for the 1 BI after your room's allotted time (although be careful about getting a rep for doing this as it'll be frowned upon). This is also especially true if you're not comfortable with deepstack (where on a limited BR you should probably never play deep).

Ggoodluck!G

yeah, I guess if it isn't about bankroll management and more about trying to play more poker and make it a source of part time income I'm over thinking it.

I like where your heading though, it’s where I’d like to be. I kinda have a “plan” consisting of the shot taking above, (I played thousands of hours in past up to 5/10 under rolled so we may have different backgrounds) then once around 15 bis plus 2 months living plus keeping job but cutting down hours to play more poker, basically a “semi pro” status 20 hrs a week. And build that to 30 bis and a year living expense before I’d even think about “pro” status, and would want a passive income besides poker also.

My bi = 500 btw I’m skipping 1/2 hopefully, this is all talk though from me until I make it happen. Getting it out here helps though so hopefully it helps someone else as well.

Yeah. The planning stage for some people lasts until their funeral. Just got to plan it out then pick a day to get in to the car and drive to the casino or card room.

I work a lot of hours, not insane but have 2 12 hour days, 3 8 hour days and Saturdays are mandatory. If I can build a BR that has 30 buy ins and 3 months of living expenses I will probably give my job the option to keep me at shorter hours or let them replace me which I would complete understand if they felt they had to. Then I'd find a part time zero ag job (cashier at Petco or something) and play poker 30+ hours a week.

Final goal is to be able to play full time and use some of that money to generate it's own income. No plans for that yet. Hopefully I have to figure that part of it out one day.

That's the idea in my head. I make pretty good money now and could stash away in my 401k and all that but I'll never be able to have that freedom of being on my own schedule. I would love to do what most pros have and have that one big WSOP or One Drop win but if I can be my own man and not have to be somewhere at 9am because someone told me I had to I'll be happy.

One thing to think of before you drop out of the work force. Do you plan to have a family some day? I use to plan on going pro at poker and am super thankful I never gave up work to try it.

Having a family and being responsible for raising a child, I'm not sure I'd be able to keep my sanity if I were playing 2/5 full time to feed my kid.

Also don't just think "oh I have a business degree I can take 5 years off and find a job.". Sure you might be able to find a job, but as someone who hires people I always want an explanation for any 6+ month gaps in a resume. And I'll probably be the most understanding interviewer you'll get if you say "poker pro" yet even I would need you to knock my socks off for me to take a shot at you.

I'm not saying don't go for it. Just make sure you look 10 years down the road.

Right now I'm working and planning on using poker as additional income so that maybe I can "retire" or go part time 5 years earlier than originally planned.

^ yeah that’s where I’m at at this point. I do have a family, twin daughters and a fiancé, is for sure want to keep a good job with benefits until I have a passive income that covers the monthly expenses and contributes to savings and college and weddings I’ll one day have to probably at least help pay for.

I want all that and then poker to unwind and hopefully run over expectation and make some extra money. Ah the dream.

If you have a source of income paying all of your bills then bankroll management is not necessary at all. The minimum you need to play is one buy-in. Personally I'd bring at least three because it would suck to come to the casino, lose and have to go home in ten minutes. Also, it's nice to have top-off money. If you think you would not be comfortable playing on three buy-ins then save up more, but it would be better to realize that it's unnecessary.

Stop losses/stop wins are a measure for tilt-prone people to make sure they quit when they aren't on there A-game. I do not use either one, but I will leave when I'm exceptionally tired/bored/tilted, the game isn't good anymore or I have other obligations. You don't need stop losses or stop wins if you are capable of assessing your mental state and proceeding accordingly. Definitely get up if it makes you uncomfortable to have 60% of your roll on the table, but again, you don't need bankroll management until you have an established roll that you would not like to lose.

You know what else sucks? Coming to the casino, feeling like you just punted over half your roll in a couple of hours, then going on monkey tilt and donating the rest. This is where I struggle. This is why whatever my bankroll is I feel I must divide it into a certain amount of buyins so that I can effectively fire off a few bullets without it getting to me, even if those bullets are small caliber short stack shots that will happen more frequently. Granted, if you have good emotional control then losing 80% of your "bankroll" that you brought with you wont have any impact whatsoever and you'll continue with your last bullet strong and confidently. If however you know that this can cause any sort of tilt issues whatsoever, I highly recommend you increase your usable bankroll by either splitting it smaller or saving up more.

I get kind of tilted if I don't have enough money to top up to the max BI so I bring like 3 or 4 full buyins and leave if I have less than a full buyin left. This is in 5/T+ games in smaller games I just bring a bunch of BI because I'm not particularly worried about tilting off stacks and I like feeling like I have infinite rebuys--helps me shrug it off when I get stacked.

And...I don't think you really *need* a bankroll if you have a job that can resupply it but I guess bring whatever amount won't lead to you punting. 3 to 5 full buyins is good for most games.

Same here.

I always buy 3x Max from the cage and pull chips out of my pocket every time I'm $25 or more below Max buy in. I play 1/3 and 2 / 5.

Last thing I want is to be in a situation where I'm not covering the players I think I have a significant edge over.

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I don't play live much and when I have I never topped off unless I was down to half a stack. Then'd I'd pull cash out. If you top off with chips from your pocket do you have to announce it and have the dealer verify your top off amount?

I never do.



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It's possible this might differ from room to room. I always constantly top off my stack (after every hand) to my desired top-off point by adding chips from my pocket. So long as you're not going north (i.e. adding on to create a chip stack more than the maximum BI) it's likely fine. But you could just say "adding $25 to my stack" to the dealer the first couple of times and if you get no flack then there is likely no room rule against it (and thus likely no reason to constantly announce it). If you're concerned, perhaps talk to the floor about the top off rules.

FWIW, I never announce (I just top off) but I also make sure I never go north (not even so much as by a $1).

GcluelesstoppingoffnoobG

IMO, constantly topping off is right up there with buying into a $1000 max buy in game with 10 black chips. You might as well announce to everyone that you are a serious player. Its bad for the game.

So what do you suggest?
Add money when your stack go down to X% of max buyin with cash at the table?

You want to do whatever you can to fit in and act like a casual player. I dont keep extra chips in my pocket. If I want to add on to my stack I pull out a $100 bill or two from my pocket just like all the recs do.

My suggestion is, if playing 2/5 and buying in for $500, when you get down to $425ish, just buy in for another $100. If you buy in for $1000, top off when you get under $900.

Topping off is fine. What's not fine (IMO) is pulling a green chip out of your back pack every time you play a hand and drop below your buy in level.

You raise $25, get called and whiff the flop. Grab a green chip from your back pack and top off. Rinse and repeat 4 or 5 times. Not a good look IMO. I sometimes even see guys topping off 1 or 2 reds at a time just to stay right at the max buy in. Its a bit ridiculous.

I'm usually all about being "good for the game". I disagree here, as long as it is done discreetly.

I do almost exactly this. I don't own a backpack though. For example the 1/ 3 with 400 Max game I play I buy 400 red, 400 green and 400 black from the cage prior to sitting down. When I top up I do try to do it discreetly. I bet that most of the time nobody even notices that I'm doing it.

Also maybe that I'm an old guy that doesn't fit The stereotype helps.


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Yeah, there's being good for the game, but this is just too much.

It's one thing to say "dont wear headphones", and it's another to say "don't have the max stack and potentially lose longterm EV"

I'm sure everyone is shuddering in their boots as I pull out a $5 chip to top off to $200 in my 1/3 NL / max BI $400 game.

With a lotta regs it's even a running joke ("you still got that squirrel in your pocket making chips?").

In fact, in our game where dealers are forced to do all money-to-chip transactions, it is actually a lot worse to do these transactions as it slows down the game. But, when in Rome.

GblameitonOCDorwhateverG

I know plenty of guys who constantly top up $25 at a time, over and over when there isn't even another guy with a max stack in the game. Some of these guys should use some common sense.

There's good image reasons to always have a big stack.