I have played poker on and off all my life and even studied for a bit. I have a job that I am making a decent amount that covers my living expenses and lets me save 1,800 a month. I do not want to be at this job forever and I am looking for a way out. I genuinely love poker.

My play obviously needs plenty work. Too many rash decisions and hand-range too wide but Im not worried about that. I believe in my instincts but I do need to learn so much more.

I am looking for bankroll suggestions. Do I play live poker tournaments too? or strictly cash games? if so, how much?

Playing online as well. So far have deposited $150. What stakes and tournaments should I be playing?

TIA.

Find another job and keep poker a hobby...

Play whatever you like as long as it's within your means. Don't think you will be doing this for a living any time soon, if ever. A decent cash pro needs to be beating 5/T live so that's something to aim for, live tourneys are not a good choice as a main source of income IMO.

Set a budget, have fun and see where it goes from there. Just remember that 1-2 live is like 5NL online (or lower). Don't let the amount of money distort the poker playing skill required to beat the table.

IMO stay away from 'daily' casino tournaments, only play the bigger ($100-1100) BI events where the structure is slower and you can get some play in. These are typically the Sat/Sun or monthly tournaments with fields over 120 entries.

AND ... you need to worry exactly about what you say you don't need to worry about. Leave your pride at the door .. Live poker can be very emotional, especially at the lowest levels where you really need to know your player types and sometimes even that wont matter if they 'come after you' and get lucky.

Welcome to the forum. Keep in touch with your progress .. read and post some hands or exact experiences.

I've always suggested that you have a BR of no less than 20 BI and never take more than 3 BI to a session. But some will say you need a higher BR and you 'always' need to find a way to stay at a table that is 'right' even if you taken some bad beats. Your BR has to be completely separate from your 'home' budget. Don't 'not' start a retirement fund in lieu of topping off your poker BR. Investing early will snowball into a nice chuck later in life.

I agree with that sentiment as well ... but I'm not so sure you 'know' when you are playing well and just getting beat enough (as of yet) to stick around with a major portion of your BR.

If you get really lucky early or a couple of sessions in a row then take a stab at the next stake level and see how it goes.

To use a golf parallel ... You wont be able to hit 9 iron into the green as much when you go from the White to the Black tees. Not as many birdies available at the bigger games .. Pars are just fine. If you go for the green too often you will find yourself out of bounds in a hurry. GL

Be worried. Be very worried.

To be successful, you'll have to beat all three of those demons. That isn't easy and most struggle to beat just one of them.

Next step is to start playing regularly. Keep an honest record of your results. When you start making twice as much per hour as you are at your job over a 1000 hour period, then start thinking about saving up to go pro.

Thank you so much for the reply. And the shot take warning! I try to play in my limits or I don't feel right at the table.

Your golf parrellel went way over my head. Ha

What I meant by not worried was that I try to swallow my ego daily in my regular life. I was just playing hands I thought were good but aren't. Still eager to learn the game. That being said, I think I do need to leave more pride at the door and just play my best.
Yes I'm only doing weekend tournaments under 150 and micro stakes online.

I've already taken some bad beats that crushed me for no more than 2 hours. Grateful I had friends with me where we went for a nice dinner and walk on the beach so I completely forgot about it.

I,e. 40 of 210 people left in tournament... I had over pair QQ (120-140k in chips) on a 8 4 2 board. Shove all in and villan (top 5 in chips) had A8 and A comes on river. Only doubt I have in my head is that I think he re-raised 3x my raise from UTG preflop as well as post flop and I didnt think twice about calling and shoving. I was 'eager' to get it all in because I felt 100% sure I was ahead. My problem with my decision is that its rarely 100% and I had enough chips to fold until the money.

Even though I lost, I had an amazing f'in time. So much fun, which is how I find myself here. I love the tournament atmosphere and the competitive aspect of it.

Cash games arent on my radar until I learn them. .05/.10 is fine for me to practice without going broke.

Good luck and thanks again

Don't worry about bankroll right now. Assign a budget to your hobby, and focus on becoming a winning player. Once you have a strong understanding of your game and a proven record of winning at the higher stakes, then you can start thinking about bankrolls

This goes to show that you have quite a strong beginner mindset. Obviously this is fine, as we all start somewhere, but you should bin the long-term dreams for now and just enjoy poker as a hobby while studying the game best you can.

10nl is probably bigger than you should be playing, I would generally recommend starting at 5nl and picking up a tracker and a couple basic strategy books. Obviously if you're fine losing a little more, you have the disposable income to play at 10nl easily, but I think 5 provides a more appropriate challenge for a total beginner.

I wouldn't play any tournaments online bigger than $2.20 or so with that bankroll, though obviously if you're able to reload (which you probably are) it's fine to mix in $3-$5 mtts as well. Won't kill you and having slightly bigger scores at final tables is nice.

any recommendations for trackers and books?

Thank you for the reply!

The big trackers are PT4 and HEM2, which both have free trials. Check them out and see which you prefer. If you like neither, there are a couple other options (like Jivaro or something) which aren't quite as widely used.

For cash, everyone is recommending The Grinder's Manual these days. For tournaments, though it's sort of old I still recommend Kill Everyone to people, with Raiser's Edge after that. People also suggest books like Every Hand Revealed and Winning Poker Tournaments One Hand at a Time.

1) Just remember at higher stakes the skill level 'should' be greater. Thus you need to be careful how often you 'go for it' in a hand. Generally stacks don't go in unless someone has the 'near' nuts or a draw to the nuts.

2) What were the blinds in the tournament hand? That's important before we can comment too much. More than likely you should've shoved PF if you had less than 20bb. Most players wont be folding TPTK after the Flop when they have you covered in chips.

Not that too many here are going to say you needed to play this hand more conservatively, but it's good that you see what can happen when you take on 'another' big stack 'near' the money bubble. You have to set your goals, but this hand is pretty 'standard' no matter the way it played out PF or Flop ... again, we don't know the blinds or how much bigger your opponent's stack was going into the hand. GL

Blinds were most likely 800/1600 or 1000/2000. At least 50 Bb but then again, at the time I wasn't calculating BB. Now I'm trying to learn pot odds and equity. I'm catching up, looking back on some dumbass plays.

Don't beat yourself up on this one .. yet. Now we need to know what you raised to PF and was there any 'major' history between you and the 'big stack'. Before I even see the numbers I think this is a case of you getting caught up in a pretty marginal play by the V.

Poker players love the Monday Morning Quarterback spot. We can 'always' say "Well, I put him on AK!" after a hand is complete.

Although I think it's more than fine that you would try for some pot control here PF against a bigger stack I also want to point out that sometimes we fool (or give too much credit to) our opponents for understanding what we are doing. You are going for pot control but your opponents see this as widening your range when you flat ... because that's how they would play it.

I've heard plenty of times from PHellmuth (and myself) after a failed trap that 'we' could've had our opponent crushed, but the opponent just shrugs and stacks up the chips.

You can't always lead a horse to water ... sometimes our opponents just can't get out of their own way once a hand reaches a certain point. Once your opponent hit the Flop AND raised you he felt committed to TPTK and (maybe) whatever range of hands he put you on if we can give him that much credit.

Even without the exact hand information, IMO you got an opponent to call a shove (while crushed) after some very good hand play. If you win this hand you are looking at FT rather than just sliding into a min-cash perhaps. GL

Unfortunately, he had just sat down at the table and had bee playing aggressively for 2-3 hands but at the time it didn't matte because I wasn't even thinking about other players. I'm basically playing blind against everyone and because every time i sit down, everyone is new to me. I get overwhelmed trying to remember what everyone is doing. Started to take mental notes this weekend in a tournament and felt better but still working on it.

Also, seems a little more difficult to pay attention to players in an online tournament because it moves so fast.

I do have some good news. 14th place in a 130 entrant 5.50 full ring tournament and 2nd in a 3.30 sng last night. That was nice. Did get lucky at least once in both tournaments. Definitely could've played better.

First time for cashing and feel it's a direct result of studying! Calculating pot odds and equity was crucial. Although equity is a little bit longer to do in my head, I'd like to start memorizing. Thank you for your help.