how much should I buy in for?

Should I be looking to buy into games with the minimum buy in to reduce potential loss, or should I be buying in with the max to increase the amount I could possibly put into a pot?

I'm only working with $29.18 and I've been weaseling up my way at the $0.01/$0.02 cash tables. I started with 0$ doing freerolls.

SnGTurbo said:

Should I be looking to buy into games with the minimum buy in to reduce potential loss, or should I be buying in with the max to increase the amount I could possibly put into a pot?

I'm only working with $29.18 and I've been weaseling up my way at the $0.01/$0.02 cash tables. I started with 0$ doing freerolls.

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If you're better than the other players, you'll want to buy in for the table maximum. The key is to just tailor your strategy to the stack size you have. Stacking off with TPTK is totally fine 50 big blinds deep. However, stacking TPTK 400bb's deep is a great way to go broke.

^ what c9 said.

What I'd add is if you're going to buy in for something other than the maximum, know why you're doing it and what your strategy for playing that stack size is. You don't want to be calling a lot of 3BB raises before the flop if you're only playing a 40BB stack, for example.

What is TPTK

TopPairTopKicker

I would think at the 2nl level your BR should be able to handle buying in for 100bb ($2), assuming your game does.

Keep on playing the micro limit until your bankroll is 700 BB of your limit.
Play only tournements with very low buy in.
If you loose one big buy in than all your money is gone.
Do not forget the bad beats that will probably happen to you/anyone.....

Your buy-in depends on what strategy you want to play. If you intend to play alot of hands, raise it up, and build pots; you need to buy in for the max.

Since that strategy is not real well-suited to microstakes, I suggest a small-stack strategy of buying-in for 150% of the minimum and waiting for premium hands. I win with that, but slowly. Not everyone has that much patience, or is satisfied with a low hourly win-rate. I don't rebuy, which makes me only play premium hands, rather than take a flyer on a margainal hand or chase. When I get up around the max buy-in, I might change my strategy; but more often I will just switch tables (or games) and buy-in again with a small stack.

Thanks for all the responses. GDRileyx, your strategy makes the most sense to me so I'm buying into a game right now for $0.60 and I'll stay with that for a while. I am very patient and I only play the best hands. I may bluff 1 time out of an hour or two. I'll see how this plays out for a few hours.

As I understand it your bankroll determines the dollar value you should go in a game with and over time not lose all your money. Five percent of your Bandroll is about the maximum. But your total bankroll has the affect to reduce you to about 2% if it is very small - that is about where you are now. If you win 10% of the games you go in - that pretty good.

I'm in USA and the visa gift cards I used to put money in the poker cites has dried up, therefore it is essential that my bankroll grows. It is just recreation for me - I don't expect to ever become professional - If I lose my bankroll, I'm stuck until I find a safe way to fund my recreation.