Hello all.

Nice to meet you all. My first post but I hope to be a regular here.
I am looking to finally break into the cash game in about a month or two. However, before I do that, I figured I need to be better prepared. So below is a list of questions and some of my history and thoughts.

Thanks in advance to any replies and my apology for the length of this post.

1)Online game site:
Which site do most of you play?

2)Transfering money to game:
Is paypal the main form of transferring money to a game site?
Do you have a separate account just for this purpose?

3)My short term goal:
Play single table online $5-ish tournaments and .01/.02 cash game for Fun and to learn.
I have no desire to play multiple tables. After saying this, I may, at times, have a tournament up and cash game up. So max two tables.

4) Why am I playing:
Yes, I want to win, but this is not a job for me; Its a form of relaxation. Father of 4 and full time job I have about 2 hours free about 4 nights a week.

5) Reading other players:
I can get a general feel on players but I havent really started tracking players. Down the road I may end up using 3rd party applications but at the moment I want to try to learn to do it on my own.

Should I just follow the 3rd party applications and try to track Preflop calls/reraises, 3betting, and stealing blinds, post flop continuation betting, folds to Cont bets, went to the river and etc?

What stats do you track?

6) History of my play:
I have been in a house game for the past two - three years (about 4-5 times a year). $20 tourny(1500 chips) and afterwards $20 cash game with 25/50bb. 8-14 players (I win tourny about 1 out of 3 games and cash games 90% time walk away with more money).

I watch alot on TV.

I have been playing online for free for the past few months. I do decent in 2000 chip tourny making the final table about 1 in 6 times.

I have tracked the hands I play in various positions against various tables/players:

UTG & MP: Loose Table (Player(s)) (13 hands)
Pair(8):AA, KK, QQ, JJ, TT, 99, 88, 77
Connectors Suited: (1): AKs
1 Gap'd Suited(1): AQs
2-Gap'd suited(1): AJs
Connectors not suited(1):AKo
1-Gap'd OffSuited(1): AQo

UTG: Tight Table
Cutoff: Loose Table (Player(s))(32 hands):
Pair(5): 66,55,44,33,22
Connectors Suited (8): KQs,QJs,JTs,t9s,98s,87s,76s,65s
1-Gap'd Suited(1): KJs
3-Gap'd suited(2): ATs,A5s
Connectors not Suited(1): KQo
1-Gap'd OffSuited(1): KJo
2-Gap'd Offsuited(1): AJo

MP Tight Table (Player(s))
Button Loose Table (Player(s)) (36 hands):
2-Gap'd Suited(1): KTs
1-Gap'd suited(1): QTs
Ace with Suited Kicker(2): A9s,A8s

Cutoff Tight Table (Player(s))(45):
1-Gap'd Suited(2): J9s,T8s
2-Gap'd suited(1): Q9s
3-Gap'd suited(1): K9s
Connectors not Suited(2):QJo,JTo
1-Gap'd OffSuited(1):QTo
2-Gap'd Offsuited(1):KTo
Ace with Offsuited Kicker(1): A9o

Button Tight Table (Player(s))(69 Hands):
Ace with Suited Kicker(6): A7s - A2s
Ace with Offsuited Kicker(7): A8o - A2o (Tight table)
Connectors Suited(1): 54s
Connectors not Suited(2):98o
Kings with suited Kicker(1): K8s
Tens with suited Kicker(2): T7s,T6s
Mediums cards suited (5):97s, 96s, 86s, 76s, 64s

I didnt include blinds; depending on situation I may play any hand or go very tight and only play the top 13 hands.

Am I playing to many hands, not enough hands?

In chess, people are asked which piece represent them, for me its the Pawn. In poker, I like the 1-3 gapped hands and my favorite hands are J-9, J-8 and J-7.

7) Knowledge of the game:
I figure I know about 10% of the game (the basics) and still have lots to learn.

Thanks!

For now:

5$ Multi table tournements are worlds away from 0.01/0.02 Cash games. As a guideline I *personally* would want 40$ to play consistant NL2 and 500$ before I would play 5$ MTTs. If you are quite happy reloading if you arn't sucessfull one month then 20$ and 200$ might be fine. Less than this and you risk reloading very often.

The skim read of ranges looks fine, and noticing how table dependent it is, is hugely important.

Poker tracker 3 tracks all of these things for you, as does holdem manager, however play at the microstakes these may be too big of an investment currently at about 90$.

Good luck on the tables.

What would be an equivalent tournament buy-in to match the 0.01/0.02 cash games?

Thanks for the reply.

Probably the minimum they have 1$ or tops 2$. I would step back from the Stars micro super turbo's as they are a complete crapshoot.

When I started playing poker I used a 20buyin for cash and 80+ for tournements rule. I planned to never redeposit, so if I busted that was online poker over for me. I am now using a 25buyin rule for cash and 120+ for tournements due to the amount I have invested.


*Even if you are able to reload I would use less than 10 buyins for cash and less than 35 for tournements, even if playing 1 tourney at once. Single table tourements maybe 15 buyins, (I don't play these).*