New way to play?

I like to try new things and that doesn't stop when it comes to poker. Well today I wanted to try an experiment and put $30 dollars down to start it. What I did was played in cash game tables only when they were short-handed. I'd play until I was above my starting limit which at the tables I played were $10. Sometimes Id get a few dollars above, sometimes a few cents, but I noticed that eventually I did get above. Even if it wasn't by much I'd leave the table as soon as I was above and went to another, repeating the same thing. I didn't have to worry about huge pots because I never put myself in the position to be all in, but rather just took the blinds whenever I could until I came up. So far with just today to factor in and about 3 hours total of game time I've turned the $30 into $54.84. Do you think this would actually benefit in the long run?

No; this is the worst possible way to play. You're going to be playing for longer at the tables where you do worse. Chances are you'll run into a table where you are not good enough, and end up losing your buyin. By doing this, you lose the opportunity to find a great table and take advantage of horrible play, possibly making 3-4 times your buyin.

This will not benefit you in the long run. Think about it logically - why would you want to play MORE when you're at a losing table and leave as soon as you're beating one?

Long ago I played this way..Usually low limit tables, I would drop down 2-5 bucks and if I doubled I left. Probably over the period of 3-4 months I lost my stake 70% of the time. I DO NOT reccomend this. If you stay at one table yes you will go up and down but them you can learn your opponents as well.

Why wouldn't you just stay at a table if you were hot? It seems as soon as you would get a feel for the table(betting patterns and such), you would leave and lose all of that information to go to a cold table. This may be benefiting you right now, but I highly doubt it will for much longer. It just doesn't make sense to leave once you get hot.

One other problem I see...
A table with a 10$ buy-in with a $30 roll is a little out of whack.

By 'a little' I mean humongously.

But congrats on the almost 100% gain.
Still you are rolled for 01/02 if it's stars.

Yea, didn't even think about that. You are putting in 30% of your bankroll into one buy-in! That is terrible bankroll management. You need to be down at about 2-5%(5% is still high for a beginner), there for you need to be at about the .01/.02 tables, like cAPSLOCK said.

OP did state up front he was looking for new ways to play, meaning he is willing to experiment, and thus br might not be of primary importance to him.

So, while the dissenting voices here are posting valid responses, they may not be to point.

Doubling br in 3 hours can't be a bad thing, perhaps slower than might be, but better than I've done. Any profit is better than any loss. In the long term perhaps he will find all the dissenters advice valid, or maybe he will find that illusive compromise, the secret method, or just give up on this avenue altogether.

Actually I played on bodog and the blinds were .05 .10

And I think one thing you guys aren't considering is that I don't stay at the table long enough to figure out whether or not I've been hot or cold. Also, consider that I played at shorthanded tables, which I consider to be 4 people or less. It's not hard for the money to go up and down on those types of tables. It just so happens that when it goes up, or when the table fills with too many people, I leave.

You're playing for the ratchet effect. Have your chip stack go one way: up. Don't give it the chance to go down. A variant of the hit and run strategy. I see one big advantage for you in doing it this way, and that is psychological. Maybe you need to get a few wins, however small, under your belt in order to gain some confidence. If I'm running bad with a string of losses, I'll occasionally do this: just sit down, try to win even a nickel, then leave - FINALLY booking a win.

But it's not a good overall approach for all of the reasons stated above.

The fact that you almost doubled up in three hours doesn't mean much. Variance. Play that way for 300 or 3000 hours and tell us how you did.

I had a hot run in online Blackjack - a game I KNOW is unbeatable. Using a variant of the Martingale progression, I run $150 up to over $1200 in a couple days. My logic told me "this can't be working," yet it was. I felt like I had a license to print money. But sure enough, a couple more days and I gave it all back. Variance. You will have your hot runs and your cold runs. But how does it work out in the long run? You will hit tables where you'll take a bad hit right away and never get even. And you'll be staying, according to your criterion, until you get even and up a little bit. You could lose a lot that way. Why not just learn and play good poker?

GoodLuck Worden

If you want to just dik around, that's fine. Providing you don't care about your money and apperently you don't....it seems you're just meesin' around 'cuz yer bored or sumpin'---BUT, if you wanna PLAY POKER, I highly suggest Bank Roll Managment of some kind. And one of the best I've seen out there is an article by Chris Ferguson on FT--and with a Phd. in computor science the man is a mathimaticle genius! Check it out when you get ready to play seriously!

dj11, I wasn't saying that it was a bad thing that HustLaGFX did, I was just saying it wasn't smart. I too wish I could double my bankroll in three hours often. But I never necessarily put myself in that position because of my tight bankroll management. I play at the very highest 5% of my bankroll as a buy-in, so therefore to double my bankroll I would have to win 20x my original bankroll.

I think I may have trailed off there a bit, but my point was that I congratulate OP for doubling up, but I don't think it will last long, and I would take advantage of getting lucky and doubling that and use that extra money for some real play.