Why am I struggling at 2nl but not so much at 5nl?

Why am I'm doing better at 5nl than 2nl? I am glad I moved up fron 2nl to 5nl because I seem to manage to turn a profit. Same at FR as well as 6max yet I'm really struggling at 2nl 6max. Is the sample size not enough so could just be variance or what?

It seems most all-ins seem to get turned over and thinking about it now, because 100BB ($2.00) isn't "much" maybe I'm more aggressive thus losing it as it won't effect more than say 100BB ($5.00) 5nl limits?

This seems to only thing I can think of because the stats aren't that different from each other at 2nl/5nl.

Hard to tell with those stats but could easily just be variance.

small sample size. Look for trends at 100k hands.

possible things to look at; table selection, times of day you play. How often are shoving or calling AI at the different levels?

Also your 3bet percentage is very low, too low for your FR stats. Over 21k hands you are only 3betting 1.94% @ 2nl FR. That's AA/KK/ AK correct? You also only fold to 3bets 61% of the time @2nl yet 73% at 5nl. Why aren't you folding to these 3bets? Are you 4betting or flatting and trying to outplay your opponents? There is very little 3bet bluffing at 2nl so don't try to out think your opponents.

2nl is the easiest level to play. Make sure you can crush that game before moving up.

Work on never having a 100K micros stakes hand sample in which to spot trends. If you do you're very likely focusing on the wrong thing (volume) at the expense of the right things (maximally exploiting your opponents).

Also there is NO need to beat any level before moving up. Play at the level you are rolled for and be willing to drop down if needed and move up as soon as you're comfortable with your BR.

All that said, you really can't compare your play between stakes because there just isn't enough of it, but then again there doesn't need to be. Play what you're rolled for until you're not rolled for it anymore and then move up or down.

Excellent post.

Couldn't agree more with WV. If you're rolled enough for a level, move up! I was a breakeven player at 5NL and 10NL. I did move up to 25NL to escape the atrocious rake, and managed to turn a decent profit at the level.

@fx20736 - When will you take a shot at 5NL again? Unless your name is Chipstar1, you can't just stay at 2NL forever! Higher levels = better players = self-improvement imo.

Chipstar1 doesn't even play 2NL anymore

I'm calling all-ins if I have top pair top kicker or top two pair. Obviously if no draws are out. I will only push if I'm sure I've got the best hand..

I won't fold to a bet bet if I believe it's a bluff or If I still have top pair..

I will flat call if I think I might have 2nd best hand but still could be best hand but not 100%... Especially in position I'll do that and if the turn/river draws up blanks and their checking I'll put pressure on them then.

Well, I did a thread in regards to 2nl/5nl/ I was told to stop being such a nit and move up because I had the BR for it. Which now I'm glad I did as I don't find the levels in skill different at all really and if you can stack of for a $10 pot against someone calling top pair on the board with a worse kicker. I find they often still think they have the best hand.

IE: A,K I raise they flat call. Ace hits the board, I bet out and I'm re-raised. I re-raise and he shoves. Now, I'm calling most of the time and if he has a set then fair enough I've lost but majoirty of the time They turn over A,Queen at best. Usually worse..

ps: iv not played FR for a long while properly. The profits are mainly coming from 6max.

Thanks for the other posts guys and yeah I'm hoping to build my BR with profits aswel as bonuses and move up to 10nl IF i ever get to 1k.. Time will tell I guess!

I'm still showing a profit of $70.00 at the micros from the past 2weeks and been getting my bonuses so hopefully things will be good soon. Fingers crossed lol.

What is it with you kids being such BR nits these days??? 100BIs is crazy for micro stakes games.

I moved up to 50nl the 1st time I hit $1K (in hindsight that was probably a bit premature but I stuck at 50nl when I hit $1.5K). Even moving to 100nl was done with 50BIs. 100 BIs to play 10nl recreationally??? I just don't understand it.

My Bankroll is around $ 111. I lost $ 37 trying my last shot at 5nl in November. Losing 7 buy-ins is not outside the range of variance as I have had several streaks where I have lost that much at 2nl. Aside from losing that much taking a shot @ 5nl, I tilted off about 11 buy-ins at 2nl after my failed attempt to move up. Over the past 3 weeks I have slowly rebuilt my BR back so that my 2nl earnings are equal to their highest level on november 20th. It has been a pretty tough sled, however as my win rate over that sample is around 2BB/100 which is well below where I had been running for 70k hands before imploding.

My stated BR goal for moving up to 5nl has always been $ 140-$150. Once I hit that target I'll try again. Since my daily win rate is around $ 1.39/ day I should get there around the 2nd week in January. That would make my tme at 2nl exactly 3 months. If I move up and take 6 months to take the next step to 10 nl and 9 more to get to 25nl I would be playing at 25nl in the Spring of 2012. Assuming I could maintain a winrate of 2BB/100 for 5000 hands/ week I would be making $ 1000/ month playing Poker. Is that realistic?

I know many here think I am being overly nitty by not taking a shot now but I don't want to risk another $ 25-$ 35 dollars moving up.

seriously



i took shots at 100nl with like 13 buy ins and i was playing a pretty aggro style


BUT NO YOU MUST NOW WAIT UNTIL YOU HAVE $5000 BEFORE YOU CAN FLIP FOR NORMAL WHOPPERS RATHER THAN JUNIOR WHOPPERS

i bet if you spent half as much time playing your A game and focusing on crushing opponents as you do calculating your winrate/pace/time spent/time needed/graphs/stats/other crap you seem to be obsessed with, you'd probably well on your way to moving away from penny stakes

imo youre too tight for 2 and 5nl

Oh man, what is going on in this thread?

How often do you play your A game?

What is 'too tight'? What are the consequences for playing 'too tight'?
What is the basis of your opinion? What stakes do you play? Do you play FR or 6max? What is your win rate?

and so on

Why are we so obsessed with winrates at 2NL? Improving your game is much more important.

Billy, I like you, you know your stuff and very informative but you can be rude sometimes! For a start, I'm probably old enough to be your dad lol. I'm not some young gun that's for sure! Remember, I'm still learning the ins and outs of poker and all this BR management.

Maybe before then (I hit 1k) I will make the jump up if I feel more comfortable with my playing style and probably will take a "shot" at it. I have played with minimal buy-ins at different levels numerous times and not felt comfortable in playing and just don't want to lose a rather large percentage of my BR.

Now I know for you, probably 20 buy-ins is more than enough for you but that's because you're far more experienced in poker. Even if we're new to the game, it's so easy to lose buy-in after buy-in. From the very first time I played poker, even before I joined this forum I wasn't very knowledgeable and lost around $50.00 in one evening playing 5nl..

That's 10 buy-ins! So as you can see, it's not very comfortable sometimes.

Anyway thanks for the input

I hadn't even looked at the stats until you posted this (bigger fish to fry) but yeah 13/7 seems pretty damn tight for 6-max.

I think my game is improving constantly. Here's how my game is improving; I rarely get stacked anymore because I can't put an opponent on a range of hands or guess what they might do next based on board texture. I also no longer think that (2nd nuts+assumed fold equity when I shove)=win. I also have really improved to where my tilt issues are so much better under control.

If I get stacked now it is when:

1. I am all-in preflop as a favorite and get unlucky
2. or if I am way ahead and my opponent has only 2 or 3 outs left on the flop to improve and gets lucky.
3. or I run into a set with AA or KK.

Then why are you still playing 2NL when you are beating it easily?

Are you sure the reason isn't because you only ever get it in ahead because you are playing too tight for 6max? There should always be marginal decisions or your game isn't loose enough.

When I said kids I meant new guys, not young guys. I know how old some of you BR nits are.

fwiw I don't think 20BIs is enough unless you can easily replace your BR but I do know that 100BIs is just wasting time. Personally I have at least 1 session every month or two where I drop 7-8 BIs. It's very common for me to lose 15BIs on some downswings. Good BRM practices allow me to keep playing through these downturns and yes sometimes I have to drop down but you have to be willing to deal with these swings to play poker. They're part of the game.


As far as being rude, maybe occasionally, but I prefer to think of it more as brutal honesty.

I play Full Ring not 6max. I've never played a single hand of 6max.

One leak I am aware of is my W$WSD % is too high. Since that # is around 58 I am either folding the winning hand a little too often or I am checking the river instead of value betting when I think I might be ahead.. I am working on it.

Is this your opinion on micros purely or at any level 100BI's being to many? I think I've asked this before and was told as you climb you need to increase the number of buy-ins.

15BI's to lose, wow...I don't think I could handle that. How do you deal with that in terms of motivation to get back to the tables and grind again? I lost 4 buy-ins at 5nl and just quit but managed to get that back today + a little more.

I know your stakes are probably a hell of a lot more so must be even more harder but do you just quit and carry on with the same right frame of mind or what?

ps: Yeah your probably more honest. You remind me of Simon Cowell, it's just the way you say things sometimes lol.

If these are the only times you ever get stacked you're doing it wrong.

Sitting around and waiting for the nuts will only get you so far (probably right about where you are). What about those times when you're way ahead of the villains range yet he shows up with the top of it? What about the times when you push the NFD into a set? What about the times you get AK in preflop but run into AA/KK? What about the times when you get it in against a drooler holding TPTK only to see that he's flopped bottom 2?

too tight is how he's playing. Consequences are you're probably not making as much as you could and you could be losing more. Personally, my 2nl stats I was a 30/15 or something with a winrate of about ~14bb/100 and at 5nl i'm probably like a 20/15 and beat it for 4bb/100

so the only way you get stacked is by getting coolered?

this is the truth. 100bis for these low limits is just nuts. I think that when you get a little bit over 20 BIs take a shot at the next limit and if you lose a couple BIs drop back down. Rinse and repeat.

Well I understand the logic. However, say you're getting it all in preflop within a few hands if you're picking up aces and they get cracked or just start of badly by losing 2buy-ins due to bad luck. You then step down but you're left wondering that you only lost due to bad luck. That's why I like having more of a cushion in terms of BI's because you basically just threw away some buy-ins.

Seems kinda pointless jumping up to a higher level for 2 buy-ins, I find it is pretty standard to go on a 2BI losing streak and back up even, to then get in profit then down again and so on within a 30minute stretch so playing for a couple of buy-ins at a higher level doesn't make sense to me as you're bound to hit that cold spell at some point during the session.

By the way, yeah I probably was playing to tighter. A lot of those hands at least half was before I became more loose at 6max and before I actually "knew" what I was doing. First 30k hands I was well down $ 80.00.

I was $50.00 down in 5NL prior to my changes and now I'm showing a profit.

I think for any recreational player 100BIs is overkill. Now if poker is your profession it's probably about right for 200nl+. I have increased the number of BIs I have used at each level I have gone through. I started at 25nl with 20BIs. Used 30BIs at 50nl. Tried 35 and 40 BIs at 100nl but just wasn't comfortable (likely because 100nl was the 1st level I was really struggling at) and finally settled in at 50BI for 100nl. I'm currently 1/2 way to having 50BIs for 200nl so we'll see how I feel about that when/if the time comes.

As for losing a bunch, of course it sucks. My biggest losing sessions have always had a few BIs of tilted spew thrown on top of some general runbad/playbad. I don't have a stop/loss although it might help me to avoid throwing away those last couple BIs and I just generally play again the next day. I try not to think of it as actual money, just BIs. If you dwell on what you could have done with those actual $$s it just makes things worse.

i stop playing if i'm not playing my A game

I used to try and raise and re-raise with nut flush draws until it was All-in in the flop but to make this move work you need some fold equity which is virtually non-existent at 2nl. You just can't shove and expect a fold at 2nl often enough to make it a reasonable strategy. That doesn't mean I don't do this on occasion but it's not my default strategy with nut flush draws anymore. If I was in a situation and I felt that there was enough money in the pot that my odds to call were less than my equity in the pot then yes I would shove


Agreed. My BI is at 57 BI. When I get to 70-75 BI I will take another shot.

Fold equity when you've got the nut flush draw & at least one over (or top pair) doesn't matter because they will call off with lots of pairs which you have overs to and weaker draws which will make it +EV.

Obviously I wouldn't expect you to get the NFD in every time, it's completely situational. In some cases it's better to raise when you hit than raise on the draw.

Having 57BI for the next level and staying at 2NL is burning money IMO.

you guys really need to let go of the "BR size" neurosis that a lot of you seem to have developed.

it's really not beneficial for your game to look at your bankroll over and over again and say things like "alright at this rate my BR should be $xyz in 2 months, then i can make $abc per day playing poker, that'd be good" and "well ive improved my winrate to $2/100 hands over my last 50k hands at 2nl, so i should be at 5nl within x days/weeks/months" and "how do you handle losing 1/10 of your BR in one session, i can't handle that"


this is not a personal attack on anyone (though it probably comes off as such) but seriously, just CHILL OUT and play poker. not every post/thread has to be about "which leak did i plug today" or "how did i improve the growth of my bankroll", poker is one long session and you should focus on having a healthy mindset and playing well, rather than compulsively going over every possible nitty aspect of your particular poker situation. it might be important to make sure your "won when bet/raised turn in 3b pot" stat is the way people tell you it should be, but its probably more important to take time to make sure youre playing with focus/confidence/positivity. this will help you when you're moving up in stakes (so you don't get psychological blocks preventing you from moving up to stakes you should be crushing), and will generally help you stay well-rounded at poker.


there is no secret recipe to every possible thing that might tilt you/annoy you/scare you about poker, but there are ways to approach poker that will reduce these negatives.




this is why mental coaches make lots of money.

I'm at 57BI for 2nl. For 5nl I would be at 22BI, not enough to take a shot, IMO.

what about the times where you pick up aces and they hold in a 3 way AIPF hand? Or what about when you crack someone's aces with kings? There's your new cushion.

Point is, it seems like you're expecting to lose and never win. That doesn't seem like the right attitude to have especially when you're taking a shot at a new limit.

yes it is

Fair enough then - its kinda normal when talking about taking shots talk in terms of the higher level BI, not the lower ones