New Responsibilities, New Bankroll, what to do to try to build

A quick dilema. I recently came back from a Vegas trip and did fairly well. I came back about a $900 winner playing 1-2 NL. Well, I have a new baby that is 2 weeks old and feel kind of guilty reinvesting my money. I would like to put some of this online to try and build more bankroll without feeling like a complete selfish "you know what". Does anybody have similar experience or any advice?

[4_2_it]

Do you need the $900 for food or to pay bills? How much of the $900 can you afford to lose? Why would you feel selfish? Your baby won't figure out his/her dad is a poker dengenerate for at least another 6 or 7 years /images/graemlins/ooo.gif Sounds like your spouse might not be fully on board with your idea. Give a little more info and I think you will get some solid advice from this forum.

[Grisgra]

If you're feeling guilty about the prospect of taking the $900 to play online it's because either:

1) You're a moron.
2) You're whipped.
3) You suspect you're actually a losing player.

Or some combination thereof.

If you were an intelligent, winning player that had a spouse he could explain the situation to, you wouldn't be asking us this question.

This does, of course, assume that you aren't living in a septic tank and need the money to move into, say, a cardboard box. Given you just went to Vegas and played the 1/2 NL, I'm guessing that this isn't the case.

My spouse has been pretty supportive of me playing poker mainly because we're never late with bills and also because I usually do fairly well. I've had my ups and downs, but 80-90% of the times I've played at a casino, I've done fairly well profiting between $300 to $900.

As far as needing the money for bills, everybody could pay off debt quicker, but my credit is excellent and I am not completely hurting for money.

[4_2_it]

Then I suggest you agree with your spouse on an appropriate bank roll. 300 BBs is conventioanl wisdom around here. Scan the Internet Gambling forum and take advantage of bonus whoring and that which should never be mentioned (rakeback /images/graemlins/wink.gif) Start at the low limits until you get a feel for the site.

Buy Poker Tracker and add on Gametime +. There are several excellent bankroll management threads on this site, just use the Search feature.

Good luck.

Thanks for the advice. So if I played $1-2 NL my bank roll should be $600? and $300 for .50/1.00 NL?

[4_2_it]

That's the guideline for limit, which has more variance. I 5-table $0.50/$1 NL and find that having 15 buy-ins ($100 per buy-in) to be optimal.

I am probably being conservative, as I have never had a downswing of more than 8 buy-ins, but I want to be protected from the mother of all downswings. My guess is that a good player could get by with 8-10 buy-ins, while a beginner may need more.

Start at a level lower than $0.50/$1 to get a feel. I spent sevral months building my bankroll from $300 to $1,000 on the $0.10/$0.25 and $0.25/$0.50 NL tables at Pokerstars. I found that I learned more from the volume of play and my donk mistakes didn't cost me $100+ (like they do now /images/graemlins/smile.gif)

Good luck.