What I mean by you're not there yet is that before even begin to think to start playing poker, you need to have a bankroll. Basically, a bankroll is an amount of money which covers your poker expanditures. Though you must be conscious that you must not put yourself in a bad position by investing too much of your own money through poker. You need a budget, and one that does not go over your financial capability. It can go from 5$ to 5 000 000$ if you want. Everything depends on how good you are at a poker table and on the money you can invest without being in trouble if you lose it, because yes, you are going to lose money. Your goal is to win more than you lose and I will talk about what you have to do with your money so that can happen.
If you want to get used to the game before starting to play for real money, poker sites often offer you the opportunity to play with play money which you can use to play freerolls (tournaments with no entry fees) where you can earn experience of the game. Once you are ready to invest your money and that you have chosen an amount that fits with you, you have to manage it properly. If you are not interested in using your own money, there are some sites that give you a starting capital totally free.
http://www.pokerstrategy.com
This is a great site for everyone playing poker. That site offers you 50$ starting capital on almost every online poker room as long as you don't have an account on that poker room and that you are 18 years old. It also teaches you to play while you advance through the game. Another advice I could give you is to keep a record of your earnings and losses so you know where you are.
Once you're started, what do you do with your money? Let's say you begin with a 100$ starting capital and that you play on PokerStars. If you don't want to be broke, it is obvious that you must not invest it all in one shot. You have different playing possibilities, even more online. You may play cash games, where you put your money directly on the table. You may also play tournaments where you invest an amount of money to get a certain amount of chips and the person who has all the chips at the end wins the tournament. It usually pays off 10% of the people registered in the tournament and the winner has a high percentage of the prize pool.
Chris Ferguson is a professionnal poker player who went from 0$ to 10 000$ on Full Tilt Poker. That room offers freeroll tournaments with a prize pool given by the site. It took him 9 months to get from 0$ to 100$, and then 9 other months to get from 100$ to 10 000$. He wanted to prove that when you manage your bankroll properly, you can have great results. He forced himself to apply some management rules that he made by himself.
For cash games, you must not invest more than 5% of your bankroll on a table and if you have more than 10% of your bankroll on the table, you have to leave that table. So, still with your 100$, you can put 5$ on a table at maximum and if you get to 10$, you leave the table. For sit'n'gos (1 table tournaments) you must not invest more than 5% of your bankroll. Again, you cannot go over 5$ with your 100$ bankroll. Finally, for tournaments, you must not invest more than 2% of your bankroll (Representing 2$ if you have a 100$ bankroll). Following these rules will help you to save your bankroll on losing streaks, and it will give you enough money to win some through different types of games.
