From small fish to big shark

Okay, so i feel i have acquired a decent general understanding on how to play the game.
Im approaching two months into online poker now. Ive deposited about 60-70 dollars on three different sites and my current bankroll is about 550 dollars.
Ive been playing low stakes tournaments (1-5$) (few sit n goes, mostly bigger fields) and high quality freerolls (either 200-500$ with 50-200 players or 1k-10k$ with big fields.) No cash games, ive always lost those.

Now, i want to learn the game more specifically. I know ive just scratched the surface so far. But its a jungle out there, so i was hoping someone could point me in a "non-time-wasting" direction.
Mind you, I have read absolutely zero poker theory, never used a calculator, no hand analysis, no books, no tv shows (except a couple high stakes eps), no nothing.

Where is the best place to start?

If you're going to stick with tournaments/SitnGoes, start with Harrington's first two books on tourneys.

And, check out the stickied thread in the videos section and watch the Hands Up videos from Dorkus Malorkus.

Well... I suppose I should ask what your goal is. Do you want to do this for a living, part time, or just for fun? Really it doesnt affect the fact that you should probably learn more about the game, but its something that would help me and im sure some others understand what you're planning to get out of poker and maybe help us better point you towards your goals.

No matter what, if you havent read any poker books its a good idea to do so... Harrington on Holdem tournament series is a good place to start... Books like Gus Hansen's Every Hand Revealed gets you into the mind of a winning poker player who has a style that can hold up well in tournaments that have become fiercely aggressive. Watching televised poker can be entertaining but doesn't have much value (Tournaments are greatly edited to the best hands, and cash games such as HSP are too high of a level in comparison to online microstakes).

Sounds like you're doing pretty well for yourself. With a 550 BR you're basically open to most of the lower buy in tournaments and SnGs... proper BR management is never a bad thing to follow though, swings are less pronouced in tournaments especially at a lower level, but they can still hurt your BR if you're trying to win 20 dollar SnGs with only 5 dollar SnG experience...

Other than reading though, not much else you can do other than play play play, get familiar with other peoples styles, your own style, and how you should be playing throughout a certain tournament or SnG. One other thing you should consider taking a look at is ICM, which I'm actually not too good at...

BRM: My 4K Post Bankroll Management.

ICM: Weekly Tournament Discussion. ICM

Thanks for great replies.

Well, i havent given it that much thought. Id say the closest to a plan was to continue the low stakes tournaments for something like a year, and move up the stakes if i manage to get properly into this. Im a slow learner and naturally careful (*ehem*greedy) with money so im pretty sure i wont make too many stupid moves brm wise.
So... continue low stakes, and slowly try to turn entertainment into a part-time job.
And, dont know if this is relevant, but i think ive been doing fairly well, yes, but i realise the way ive been doing it is playing real tight and making sure i get into the prize pool. My mentality has never been trying to win the tournaments but building the bankroll slowly. Its been effective, but i do want to aim higher...

yep, first step to everything is to learn about br management and follow this as strict as possible, this is the most important point if you want to move on getting good results on poker

Well yeah it doesnt really change my suggestions but if you play only part time and work irl at the same time you can do fine with just tourneys and SnGs, its harder to do so if you wanna do it full time because only the higher levels can give that kind of money without removing too much of your BR.

One thing you should change now that you have a good sized bankroll is that 'just cash' mentality, its good to squeeze in the money yes, but a lot of times its even better to make a few risky moves around the bubble or early in the tournament to make sure you dont bubble or 'just cash.' This is going to deplete your ITM percentage, no way around it. But it will make your cashes much larger (at least it has the potential to).

When I say make risky moves... I dont mean go crazy of course and chase draws by calling off more and more of your chips, but bluffing more, especially around the bubble can really help your chip count. This of course has to be done against the right kind of opponents (medium stacked tight players).

One more thing to realize is that your play past the bubble must be spot on, you have to be able to make the right calls and not be distracted by the fact that you may have a chipstack, or you've already made money. The first and last thing you think about in any hand should be 'is this going to get me to the final table?' Once at the final table the idea of ICM is truly key because the jumps in cashing are really pronounced, you might also want to check out Your First Final Table which is very helpful when you're playing your first few final tables.

Once you're cashing deeper (if not more often than not) you can definitely consider moving up. Also remember if you want to treat this as a part time job, you're going to have to withdraw... but if you move up to a new level, say 10 dollar SnG and MTTs, your BR should support them, like about 1K to 1.5K.

One last thing to note, winning pros believe that if you're cashing about 10 percent of the time in tournaments, you're basically a winning player. At the microstakes and low stakes levels its possible to be cashing above 50 percent when running good because of the weak play and skill sets. If you're also concentrating on getting deeper (which is much easier when you're up against bad opponents) you can really rack up the money for a low buyin. First place at full tilt for a standard 1 dollar tourney with 800-1000 people is 250, huge ROI.

Book-wise, I would concur with the Harrington volumes and also recommend Moshman's SnG book and Sklansky's NLH: Theory and Practice. I tend to to think that watching televised poker too much is bad for the beginning player.

I would recommend sticking with what works MTT/SNG (I think the advice above about getting rid of no cash game mentality is wrong).

You've read nothing so far... so I would go with this (in this order)

Phil Gordon's Little Green Book

Harrington On Holdem Vol.1 & 2 (tournament series... not the 'cash game').

If STT/SNG is something you plan on pursuing more of... definitely read Collin Moshmann's SNG Strategy (or Phil Shaw's book). Also, play around with Pokerstove & perhaps the free trial of SNG WIZ (a big part of being a profitable player in micro STT/SNG's is bubble play & to have a good shove/fold game.... if you can work on this you'll have a decent edge over the average micro player.... and KNOW that many players (even in the micros) are already quite adept at this).

There are lots of other good guides/articles on the web. Look around & you'll find them. Training videos is another great avenue to learn from.

If you play on Full Tilt, then I would definatley say take a look at the FT academy. They have some great info on there and you can also, get into there $5,000 freeroll and get other tournament tickets/bonuses.

Eeeww

Allright, lots of good stuff here, thanks alot for the help folks.