Dilemma ..

[Godson]

Not sure if this is the correct forum for this but whatever. I am trying to build up a bankroll to play live limit, but not sure if I should grind 3/6 LIVE or take my bankroll to online. I have $900 atm. I have not played online seriousley for like 7 months, but when I did I was a winner, and I did not use any type of poker software. If I did take my money online, what would you guys recommend. Like say, SNG's, multi table 1/2 lhe, single table? anything would really help, thanks for any advice fellas.

Forgot to mention, my goal is to make enough money, considering I do put my money online, to make enough to play $9-18 with 500 bb's.

-Godson

[Harv72b]

Assuming you don't suck at poker, you can obviously expect to grow your bankroll faster by playing online. More hands/tourneys per hour, much wider game selection, far lower incidental expenses/rake, and the advantage of being able to play as much or as little as you want to, at any time. This is even taking into account the larger stakes you'd be playing in a B&M cardroom.

That said, it's getting to be a bit more difficult for Americans to move money into & out of online cardrooms these days. Not only could this be a direct problem for you, funding your account and then withdrawing your profits, this is also having the effect of making the games a bit tougher (though still thoroughly beatable, especially at the stakes you're talking about).

As far as how to grow your bankroll the fastest, it really depends on what you're most comfortable with. Cheap SNGs, particularly the $5 & $10 variety, feature some notoriously bad players. That means you're going to suffer some unbelievably bad beats (which I'm sure you're used to from live play), but that you can expect to profit with only a basic understanding of proper poker strategy...although you'd obviously have to be comfortable with NL play.

First single-tabling, then multi-tabling, microlimit HE tables is also an excellent way to grow that bankroll. The average player will be slightly better than the average micro SNG'er, but you'll suffer less variance and again, should be able to turn a steady profit with solid play & good game selection.

When I first started playing, I did a mix of both...nanolimit hold'em (.02/.04 at first) and $2 SNGs on Pacific. I clearly moved myself up in limits far too quickly, but I ran hot & it didn't take a whole lot of time to build myself a respectable bankroll. For the $8k you're talking about earning, at those stakes, I don't think 6 months (or possibly less) is impossible if you can manage 10k+ hands/month, play well, and continue to profit while moving up as your bankroll grows. Within a year is certainly doable for a decent player.

[Yoshi63]

Multi-tabling .50/1 or 1/2 LHE online can be very profitable. For a while I would play 3-4 tables at a time, for maybe 90 minutes, and would rarely post a lost on the session. So long as you play a good, tight-aggressive game, you should find pretty good success. You may find early success (the players are pretty bad), and be tempted to start playing more hands and more loosely. But just resist changing your playing style and you should do well.

[NedForrest]

I think 4 tabling full ring limit is the way to go. As you move up in limits you can move to 6max. I think you can easily make 500-800 bets a month at every limit up to 5/10 if you play enough (30k+ hands). So if you have $900 now you can easily turn that into $2000 4 tabling 1/2 online and then move up to 2/4 etc. I believe that once you see how much money there is to be made online you will forget about live play for a while and maybe play live once you ve grinded up a roll for 10/20+.