bankroll requirments, other questions from a newbie

[bholdr]

I've been playing online poker for about 6 months, probably avaraging around 20 hours a week. I started and still play mostly the lowest NL games, 25 and 50$ buy-ins on pokerroom and paradise. I make about 4-5$/100 hands when i play 2+ tables more if i'm only on one.
I also play some 7 stud hi lo and omaha 8 (.50/1$ each) but these i lack feel for (for now) so i just play real tight and try to build the pot when i hit the nuts. this seems to add some stability to my win rate as each of these tables yeild about 3-4$/100 hands.
I am poor and self employed so cannot afford to put more money into these sites, sometimes i even need to withdraw some funds to cover the phone bill, etc. bottom line: if i bust out, i'm done for a while.
my roll is only about 500$ (which i consider impressive since my buy in was 50$), most advice i've read says this is not nearly enough for my limits. i also cannot stand playing the super micro limits as i am trying to get better and i already know how to wait for the nuts.

Is this strategy valid (hedging my NL play with easy hilo games) and even if it is, are there better strategys out there? how can i tweak mine? should i play more small buy-in tournaments? i hate tournaments.

How about that win rate? any good? it's still a hobby, but i'd like it to help me out in the winters (i am a career ski bum)

I've read a load of online material on pokerpages and now here, also have read sklansky's theroy of poker and supersystem (which i understood well enough not to apply it where i play), and Killer poker online by Jon V-something (i can never remember his name). any other good books/sites I am missing?

I know this is a lot of stuff but any advice will be considered and very much appreciated.

[GMan42]

If you can get more comfortable with the hi/lo games, the lowered variance will help--your $500 should really be enough to play the $1/$2 games already. Ray Zee has a good book that covers both Stud8 and Omaha8, and Tenner & Kreiger's Omaha8 book might be a good starting point for the low-limit tables. I play a lot of O8, and the "play real tight" strategy is about right for these tables, at least the ones at Party and it's skins--save the tricky play for the higher limits.

[bholdr]

bump (sorry)

[DrewOnTilt]

Welcome to the boards bholdr.

Try posting this in some of the other forums: No-Limit Small Stakes forum for NL, Micro-limit forum for low-limit ring games, and Stud or Other Poker forums for Stud and Omaha. You'll probably get more responses. The Internet forum (aka "The Zoo") is mainly used for disussion of bonus hunting and other random internet gambling activities.

One suggestion if you are looking to build a bankroll - look for some online freeroll tournaments. Multipoker (an affiliate of Party Poker) I think offers daily freerolls. Also, they offer a deposit bonus. Check it out.

[wjmooner]

bholdr,

No doubt you are on the way to becoming a winning poker player. There are many people like you and myself who don't have the money to instantly fund a bankroll.

Your bankroll is close enough to play the NL25 games as well as 50/1 limit.

I would also suggest that you seek out sign up bonuses on the various sites, what is referred to here as "bonus whoring." You can build quite a bankroll that way.

gl
C

[lorinda]

Whilst you should always be looking to learn every available game, until your bankroll gets a little more stable, it may be worth sticking to just one or maybe two games.

When you have a bigger roll, it is a great investment to play other games occasionally, but for now it is probably worth sticking to one game type, getting really good at it and increasing your bankoll.

Lori