Yea it does cover it. And that's my entire savings. Goal is to grind 1/2 until I have a roll for 2/5 and then take it from there.

If I lost it all, I'd have a tough time coming up with another roll.

You can buyin full (300) and then go from there. Win eventually move up to 2/5, lose and stop playing for a while and reevaluate. You don't need to go broke to figure out you can't beat the game.

You should be fine then. Covering your monthly expenses is the most important part. After that, your golden. Unless you have a sick amount of credit card debt or something.

You will be fine with 5k. Maybe set a 2 BI stop-gap loss.

Get some money in savings before moving to $2/5.

Appreciate the responses, thanks everyone.

I made a thread about two questions I had, I feel one I'm quite clear on but the other I've seen mixed opinions about

"Do you keep track of tips (to the dealer)? It's quite easy to do so through the app but I found myself forgetting a lot and then not being sure exactly how much I had tipped. I'm also thinking there is not much point in keeping track since tipping is simply another 'expense' like the blinds."

All that tracking and you will turn poker into a job...ugh.

I do not see much value in tracking tips. The only reason I could see it provide value is if you used the data to recognize overtipping patterns, or you were comparing different games/levels, or possibly comparing different styles of play (but even then do you really need that data).

Bad idea to grind 1/2 NL when the rake is $5 + $1 BBJ.

Recommend you stop playing poker and spend your time looking for another part-time job to start building up some more savings.

When you have more income and saved up a 10k bankroll from your work, then you can start grinding 2/5 NL in your free time.

In the meantime, please do yourself a favor and quit playing 1/2 NL.

Dude you live in LALA land, no person is saving 10k from working a bs job.

He has 5k already. Why not get a second job and eat some instant ramen until he saves up another 5k?

You guys are smoking crack if you think saving 5k is impossible by getting a second job And cutting some expenses...

There you have it everyone,
EZ way to get rolled for 2/5.
Get two jobs, work 60 hrs/week, and live like **** by cutting all expenses.
Be rolled for 2/5 in a year npnp.
Starting at 1/2 when you don't have much exp live would be silly, just start at 2/5 amirite...

That's what I tell everyone that asks me about playing poker.

Then I offer to give them a ride to the casino.

I just started grinding 1/2 NL but the rake is $5 flat, no BBJ. The game is also also makes the dealer button pay 1, sb and bb both 2, and the minimum "limp bet" is $4 to inflate pots.

I have no intention of using any profits for income, as I have a full time job.

I do, however, want to track my winnings and find out if I am a winning poker player, live (I believe I am), plus making some extra cash wouldn't hurt

Would you still recomend staying away from the game I just described?

LOL. This guy said his 1/2 NL game has $6 rake/hand. Do any of you understand how ridiculously high raked that is?

With that kind of rake, his 1/3 NL game is probably not beatable for anything more than $10/hour.

I would Mich rather get a part-time job than grind 1/2 NL for $10/hour.

If you have a full-time job, then go ahead and play with 1/2 NL with $5 rake for fun.

They key point is that you would be playing for fun.

The other guy who wanted to grind 1/2 NL with a $6 rake until he could start grinding 2/5 NL was significantly underestimating how the $6 take in his game is going to make grinding 1/2 NL self-defeating.

There are a lot of part-time jobs that pay more than $10/hour, so I would rather do that than grind a $6 raked 1/2 NL game for $10/hour.

I agree with this, but the thing is, starting at 2/5 where the 10k, losing, and swings would be a lot more intense than at 1/2, especially for a beginner.
Getting experience at the lowest level is going to be better than trying to just jump right into 2/5.

While bolded might be true for you, making your own schedule, gaining experience, playing poker, and making $10/hr is going to be a lot better than a job at $10/hr. Also just snap getting a job over $10/hr isn't super easy.

LolPony, the poster to whom we are referring already had a lot of online 6max experience before Black Friday and a little live 1/2 NL experience.

So he probably can jump into live 2/5 NL without grinding hundreds of hours at live 1/2 NL.

FWIW, I jumped straight into live 3/5 NL successfully without ever grinding lower stakes, so I doubt that I missed anything from those live 1/2 NL donkfests.

In any case you are just nit-picking. $6 raked 1/2 NL was a waste of time for that poster, and I did him a favor by pointing that out to him.

Im gonna beat 1/3 for $50 an hr with $6 rake

Vegas is beatable for the same

I cant beat 1/2 to save my life so no comment

You jumped into 3/5nl with a 10k non-replenishable bank roll?
A lot of online players have had trouble transition from online to live. It's a whole different beast.
Basically all I'm saying is that the experience gained from playing the 1/2 game > than getting a second job for a year and playing 2/5. Especially if he isn't used to losing a decent chunk of money(2k+) which could be pretty soul crushing to an online reg who was playing 25nl online. (which if he needed to ask this question, I'm sure it was probably 25nl or lower)

Does the $4 minimum bet amount change the ability to beat my 1/2/2 NL game? ($5 rake)

LolPony,

FWIW, I don't know any winning live NL pros in LA worth their salt who ever started grinding below the 2/5 NL level. All of them started grinding 2/5 NL or higher.

Bart Hanson and Limon describe this reason well in Bart's podcast. Basically, any live NL pro in LA had to start at 5/5 NL 500 cap or higher befoee they could make any real money because LA game structure and rake is so ridiculously absurd.

That may be the case in LA.
The rake and buy in structures are screwed up for lower limit games, and the cost of living is higher than in other places.

But the poster that you were giving advice to was in Philly, so I'm assuming he'd be playing either in AC or at Parx. In those rooms the rake is not absurd, nor are the average buy-ins. (It's 10% up to $5 max, so your small post aren't getting screwed, $200 or $300 max buy in.)

I went directly to 2/5 but I am definitely the exception where I play. Those of us who did skip 1/2 (and/or 2/5) did so because we had substantial experience as winning players online. That being said, many players, myself included, will still play 1/2 if the 5/10 and 2/5 games aren't that good (which honestly is not that often but by no means do I consider myself above playing 1/2).

My biggest concern is not the rake, which seems to be more than made up for by the extremely gawd awful play. My concerns with 1/2 are: tables are often severely short stacked, tables are sometimes extremely slow, and often times games turn into a limpfest which can really hurt the action (and also contributes to the game going slower).

Whoa. You need savings besides your roll. If you have 5000 to your name in total you are wicked underrolled unless you have a solid source of income.

They must have missed this.

Most people who want to be pros would be best served working part time when starting out. The income sustains your roll, helps cover your monthly nut, and keeps something on your résumé for when you fail and need to go back to find a real job. Plus many will do better mentally taking this gradual approach.

Treat poker like a business. Be an entrepreneur. Many successful business people do the ground work for their own business while they are still in their old job. And they save money from their old job to cover them while they are trying to get their new business off the ground.

So many aspiring pros are unable/unwilling to take the $$$ side of poker seriously. It will not work out for most of them in any meaningful way.

Oh yea, I did.

I'd suggest that if you're that underrolled, anything you play should just be considered taking a shot. Sit with $300 and another $600 in your pocket, and if you can get some run-good and win a bit, start building a roll with the winnings. If you lose $600 ... wait a month or two before taking another shot. It's entirely possible to run $300 into $2000 in a couple of sessions at a good $1/2 game, but it's also possible to lose $2000 pretty damn quickly if you run bad + tilt.