Hey guys. So Im gonna be 21 in 4 months and i live in connecticut so foxwoods and mohegan is only an hour drive for me. My goal is to play professionally (trust me i have read many threads about it and i am not an ignorant or cocky "young kid")

Ive been playing for about 7 years and just recently i started taking the game very seriously. Been studying poker by reading as many threads on here as i can as well as Super System, Daniel Negreanus power holdem, and a few others. About to read Theory of Poker by David Sklansky. I also played in the $1500 Punta Cana Poker Classic in the Dominican Republic from an online satellite and made it to day 2(I was a much worse player then)

Anyway after winning about 1000 dollars at my local game i went up to Turningstone in New York because it is 18+ there and placed 300th out of 1500 in a tournament and played really well but didnt get paid. Then i decided to be an idiot and donk off 1200 bucks playing 1/2 over the weekend.

I was soulcrushed, but now i decided to try my best to save up 4000 bucks by the time im 21 so that i can have 20 buy ins for 1/2 and treat my poker money as a separate account than my spending money.

Sorry just wanted to give background information on myself especially because i just thought of this "plan." My main question is when i get to mohegan and foxwoods what should i buy in for? 200 for the max buy in? 100? I would be short stacked but since this money is like my life roll and my one shot to see if i can make it in the poker world im having trouble deciding.

Any tips would be appreciated


Edit: Failed to mention that i play about 5-8 hours a day online at 5NL and after 35k hand i am about a breakeven player. so obviously i have some work to do. I play on Blackchip which is a skin of Americas Cardroom(winning network) where i feel there are less fish than something like Stars. But im a "fish" myself so who i am i to judge.

Always buy in for the max. You want max value when you felt someone.

If you can make, and save $4,000 in a few months, continue doing that and play poker in your spare time.

Thats how ive always felt but my buddy was talking today about how he usually buys in for 100 so it got me thinking. Thanks

Haha thats the thing. Its gonna be a huge stretch to make that. and most of that income will come from playing my local game or at my buddies house. I work at a hardware store 3 days a week minimum wage.

Bad reg sits down with 200 and you buy in for 200 - You get AA vs his KK and stack him. Thats 200 profit to you.

Bad reg sits down for 200 and you buy in for 100 - You get AA vs his KK and win. You make 100 but really lost 100 buy not buying in full.

Show your friend he is missing out on value.

If you have an edge then you should buy in for the max. If you don't think you have an edge, reflect upon whether you should be at the table at all.

An argument can be made for playing a shortstack strategy (if you know how to do this), but 50bb is a bit too big for this imo, and the live environment isn't conducive to a shortstack strategy anyway for several reasons e.g. no ratholing, often little fold equity ...

I totally agree. Ive tried explaining that to him before but he just plays for fun and would rather lose less money even though that is flawed thinking. its funny because we grew up playing together but it just goes to show that putting in the hours and learning about the game really improves you as a player.

Very true. I need to work on realizing when im outmatched and walking away. Ive never really been interested in playing as a shortstack online. I feel more comfortable being deep. Ive played way more online than i have live so theres a lot i need to work on in my live game. For example i need to remember to calculate odds and play the same way i do online. Its just a lot slower obviously.

I would buy-in for 100bb. It's standard in the online poker games, and probably in some casinos too. So make strategy for that buy-in. With that amount you can set mine profitably, chase draws etc. Live raises are bigger than in online, so i wouldn't want to fold 22 vs 4x raise because it's -EV to set mine with 50bb. Rake is also an issue. When you are buying in for 50bb's, you won't get the advantage of winning big pots. Don't know how rake works in live games, but at least in online, at around 50nl you start to hit rake cap more often. If you are short stacking, you won't hit that cap very often, so you pay more rake and win smaller pots.
With bigger stack you start to have bigger advantage over weaker field. So when you are "skilled" you can start buying in for more.
A bit like Dwimmerlaike said, if there was some reg who couldn't fold KK post-flop, buying in for less amount means less profits. So you could stack a reg with set for 200bb's, instead of just 100.

The raises are much bigger in live games. It makes me Question what i should rasise preflop myself. online i do 3x. tournaments i try to to 2.5 when i feel like i have a postflop skill advantage. but live cash games my raises vary from 7-12$ just because i lack experience there.

If I were you, I wouldn't even consider playing poker recreationally until you demonstrate you can beat 10NL online.

As for "turning pro", if you can't beat 25NL online, odds are you don't have what it takes to play poker for a living.

Just food for thought.

oh, and I made a thread about the subject of turning pro

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/32...g-pro-1426688/

might come in handy.

I want all 2+2ers to do well. I do wish you the best of luck. But realize that having the goal of "becoming a poker pro" at 21 is kinda cliche and the odds are against you. If you are smart and patient about it, you can definitely shift the odds in your favor. BUt it will require a lot of work and won't be as easy as you think.

my advice to you is to slow down a bit. Its great that you are saving up $4k, but you haven't demonstrated that you can actually beat the game. Thus, that $4k is NOT a bankroll. Only winning players have bankrolls, everyone else just has money they set aside to play poker.

So, my advice is that you continue to play online, work a job, and play poker on a once/twice a week basis. Play once/twice a week for about six months while you work a job and study poker and THEN after that six month period reassess and reevaluate your goal of "turning pro".

Don't try to "turn pro" right out the gate when you turn 21. I know, that romantic fantasy has got to be overpowering. But fight it. If it is meant to be, it will happen "naturally". Anyways, not to rewrite my "turning pro" thread.

Good Luck

Thanks man I was hoping someone was gonna comment about this as well. I have actually already read your thread and thought it was extremely helpful. I know its a unrealistic dream and I know I have tons of work to do. My father died when I was 13 and im not going to school at the moment so I just want this to run its course and see if I can do it or not. I appreciate the input.

This probably isnt the right thread for it because people probably think im just talking about buying in by the title but im wondering how I can take my game to the next level? I mean dgiharris is right. I cant even beat NL5 even tho im much better than the people I play with during the week at a local tournament.

Max buy-in at FW and MS for 1/2 is $300

Oh really? Good to know. I assume everyone would recommend buying in for 300 then?

I have 3 comments for you.

1. Take what dgiharris says to heart. he knows what it takes to make a living at this game.

2. There's a red flag here. That you did not know that 1/2 at the CT casinos is a $300 max indicates a, shall we say, less that 100% focused approach. One phone call would have told you that, and you didm't know. Let's hope the rest of your preparation is more detailed.

3. On the plus side - you have the advantage of youth and as far as I can tell, no wife and kids, no responsibilities other than to yourself, so that puts you in a better position to try to make a go at this.

despite the warnings of others in this thread (and they're right - you will probably fail), the downside of failure may not be as bad as the downside of regret you'll feel later in your life if you never tried.

When I graduated from college in 1973, I wanted to bet horses for a living and I had a bit of a bankroll for it, I studied it every day. So i gave it a go for 2 years, did reasonably well for a while, but ultimately variance or my lack of true skill caught up to me and I went on to grad school and other things.

The moral of that story is now at 63, I never look back at my past and say "I wish I had tried to pursue that dream." I remember it as a great ride for a guy in his 20s.

Best of luck, study hard and keep coming back here for advice.

Fair enough. I probably should have made a simple phone call to find that out but I just assumed it was 200 max because I have played in 2 18+ casinos and thats what it was and since thats 100bb I assumed it was pretty standard. I do take what dgiharris says to heart as well as you and others because I know that you are all much more experienced than me. Thats why im here. I also agree that you're right I will most likely fail (especially the way things have been going) but I would rather "burn out than fade away" and give it my best shot to avoid future regrets.

These are the comments I like to hear because ive never really heard it from people who have more experience than me and have been through the up and down rollercoaster of the poker world