Is my plan sensible?

I have said this before so sorry for repeating myself but I would like to find out a few things. I have deposited 50$ nearly 2 weeks ago and my br is now up to 76$. I would like poker to be an additional source of income for me as well as a hobby. Right now I aim to profit 1Buy in at NL2 cash games a day but this is not the "fun" part i am talking about.

I would like to have a bankroll for cash games which i will mostly focus on and here is my first qestion:

- As I was advised that i should not set myself a 1BI a day target, I wanted to ask if it's ok if I play until I lose 1BI. For example, i play 6 tables win 5$ then loose 2$ and finish for the day or i start playing get a bad beat and lose my BI straight away - i finish playing for the day. Is this a good idea? this would help with any tilt + my profit would not be a certain target but will depend on when i lose my BI.

Secondly, I would like to have a separate bankroll for heads up games and here is my second question:

- Is it possible to play 2-3 different types of poker (in this case heads up, NL cash and STT/MTT's) ? will they collide with each other and I as a beginner could get bad habits playing heads up?




The cash games would be the additional source of income and the heads-up or tournaments will be just to have some fun. (By the way how many buy-ins are recommended for 1.50$ heads up games? is 40 enough? and should i as a beginner play the hyper/turbo or regular heads up ?)

It's not terrible. Especially if it helps you avoid tilt issues. Ideally, though, your amount of play should not be infleuenced by how much you are winning or losing, but by how well, or poorly, you are playing. If you feel you have an advantage over you opponents, but have just suffered a bad beat, this is no reason to make you quit for the day.

Just the opposite, actually. You should want to continue to play IF you feel you have an advantage and IF you can avoid tilt due to the bad beat. I mean the common definiton of a bad beat is that you got your money in ahead, usually way ahead, and the opponent who put all his money in the pot while he was behind drew-out on you. Assuming that you can avoid tilt issues, why wouldn't you want to continue playing against an opponent who makes it a habit of getting all his money in the pot when he is behind?

As for the HU stuff..... I'm not a HU player, but there are several here who are. Hopefully they can answer your BR questions regarding playing them. I would just say you need "a lot" of buy-ins since there will be huge swings in any type of HU games, and these will get bigger as the format gets shorter (turbo, hyper-turbo, etc).

Personally, I think having a loss limit is useful as it can prevent you from going on tilt and blowing your whole bankroll. But if you're playing well and it's a good table, you should probably stay and maximize your profits as long as you can. Just be aware if your play starts to deteriorate or if the play at the table starts to change and be prepared to leave if things are less favorable.

As for playing different types of games, I've always believed in playing several different games because it gives you more flexibility in finding a good game. That being said, there are a lot of differences between cash games and tournaments, heads up and ring games, NL and limit. You might want to focus on one for a while until you feel you're achieving some success, then you can experiment with the others. Just be aware of the differences in each and adjust your game in the proper way.

Why not just set a stop loss? Stop losses are good ideas. It prevents tilt, and if you have lost 3 BI or so, you can't help but be slightly tilted.

What you are proposing isn't terrible, but what if you are in some game with a free money LAG and you are up $20 and then he gets lucky and wins $2 off you with 72o when you had AA? Are you really gonna throw away this great opportunity to make money because he got lucky once and took a BI off you?

With multiple games, why not play multi tables of the same game type? more volume = less variance

A normal stop loss where you quit if you drop X buyins from the BR you had when you started play is a decent idea. The more likely you are to go off your game if you begin losing, the better it is to have one, and probably the smaller it should be. 1 buyin is awfully small though; it's just one beat or cooler. If losing that little is enough to throw you off, that's basically a different issue, although there is some overlap.

As for playing different games, it's best to stick to one. Even if you don't make a lot of mistakes when switching back and forth, you will make some, and they'll cost you money unnecessarily. Also, more games means more to learn since you have to make changes and adjustments for each one. When you become a consistent winner at one, you can then decide if you want to widen your range of games.

i understand that if i fall back lets say i have my current br which is around 80$ and i manage to win 10$ in a day, if i loose 1BI it will make my profit 8$ but if i continue playing and loose the whole 10$ or more then whats the point? I sometimes do feel that i am not playing my A-Game but often its too late. When do i know i'm not playing as good as i should?

Personally I hate stop losses BUT their fine if you don't/won't stop otherwise. I just play until I have to piss or I make a play so stupid I ask myself "What the **** are you thinking?". Then I stop.

I really think you're focusing WAY too much on your BR. Poker is not a profit/day kind of game. As a beginner you should be worried about making the right decisions as often as possible. Do that and the BR will take care of itself. I'd advise you to try to play for a whole day without looking at your BR (just ignore it). Once you make it through a day, try a week. It's really much less stressful because you're not concerning yourself with every nickel won/lost and it frees up your mind to make better poker decisions. Try it.

WVHillbilly - I have played 6tables looking at my br nearly every hand and i ended up making mistakes as i was focused on every cent im making/losing. Another time i have tried 10 tabling and although i was sometimes making mistakes playing hands i shouldn't as there was so much going on that i was panicking, at the end of the day when i checked my br for the first time and saw a way bigger profit than i made when i looked at my br often. I could play until i stop playing my best + not look at my br for a day/week but it's just too tempting and this is the factor that makes me sometimes make wrong decisions. Any ideas how i could "Force" myself not to look at my bankroll ?

What site do you play on and do you use any tracking software?

i play at pokerstars and currently i'm not using any software but i might get one soon. I just wanted to see how i do without any software before investing in something.

Try Tiltbreaker (www.tiltbreaker.com). It's free for 15-days. Probably want to hold off on buying it since it's $50 but maybe using it for a week will let you see what it's like to live without constantly looking at the cashier.

I've seen that program yesterday and wanted to ask if its safe to use but forgot. Thanks for the link, will try it out