how much hands should I play ?? (Micros)

[Miguel Chacon]

I'm talking about micro limits and in the time of a month

I've been trying to give poker a chance and I want to play cash games and move up stakes I wanst to know what do you think of how many hand should I play before going up on stakes like from NL2 to NL5...

I've read that the correct thing is to have at least a decent sample of hands like 100k and if my results are good like with a winrate of 4 or 5 BB/100 and then try for a shot at the next level

but well I want to know what do you think and your advices...

do you still play on Micros ? how long ? are you planing to go for next stake?

How long took you to move up stakes? for example from NL2 to NL5

how many hands per week do you play?

any advices and experience that you can share to encourage me or help me in this journey of being a poker player

Thanks in advace.. good Luck on the tables!

 

[bagoly696]

The micro bet game is a relaxed game. I'm playing on a micro bet if I have little bankroll. At a higher bet, $ 0.25-0.5-1-2 is the game's aggressiveness. That's why I always move up. A high stake loss is difficult and can only be recovered by aggressive play. That can bring additional losses if we don't stop. For me, the cash game is always a lossy long run. The big bankroll is losing $ 100-200 loss. But you can quickly fail more if I'm in the wrong series. I have when I have 3-4 hands with extra winnings but I can't stop. No self-control. this is my problem with my game.

 

[Misaki]

as you mentioned it's all about winrate. If you feel you crush nl2 after a decent sample like ~50k hands then you have no reason to stay longer there. There is never exact number. If you feel confidence then move up, if not then work on your game. But truth is nl2 isn't best limit to learn poker. Just make decent preflop ranges, valuebet recreational players and you will make a success soon. Anyway on nl5 you have to be prepared that things can be diifferent. More tags, less recreational players, more 3bets and in my opinion it's a first limit where you can really improve your game before going higher.
Rest of things about how many hands, how long took someone to getting higher is really indivudal things. You can't expect that if someone said that he beat nl2 in one week then you will do the same. Poker nowadays is not as easy as it used to be in the past.

 

[fundiver199]

If you use some sort of bankroll management scheme, it will give itself, and as long as you are willing to move down again, if you lose, everything will be fine. I personally dont think, its all that usefull to spend a lot of time at 2NL, so in my opinion as soon as you feel, you are ready for 5NL, then just go for it, and when the bankroll is ready go to 10NL.

After this it gets a bit more difficult, because at 25NL you start to see a lot more professional players, and the games get noticeably more aggressive. So now its realistically not enough to have the bankroll, you also need to have the skill set, and that might take longer to develop, than it takes to grow the bankroll.

I have played for around a year, and I am personally at that point now. I have kind of build enough bankroll for 25NL, but I am not finding the going there so easy, so I am still mostly hanging around at stakes like 10-16NL, looking for bad players and picking up the easy money.

 

[bagoly696]

In the cash game, it is dangerous to give a higher raise to a chance position. However, if you do not come, the loss is ready.

 

[TheGenera1]

Personally, I think 4-5bb/100 at 2nl is not a good winrate and you should be looking to at least double that before moving up. 2nl is free money and people will regularly donate to you and pay you off. If you are not getting c10bb/100 I believe you will find there are very large exploitable flaws in your game.

My experience at 2nl is that the two big reasons people do not have a high winrate is
1) They cannot fold enough. Fold the overpair, fold the flush, fold the 2nd nut straight and yes, even fold the bottom set on certain boards against certain opponents. It's all about hand reading
2) They do not value bet enough. We should be betting close to pot or even 110% or even open shoving against people we know we call. I'll stack off with AK on Axx board against a station, but I'll be very careful stacking off against a nit/ tight passive.

Good luck on your move up.

 

[fundiver199]

Personally, I think 4-5bb/100 at 2nl is not a good winrate

I tend to agree. For what its worth, I saw around 10 BB / 100 for 2NL on pokerstars, when I played those games, and that is surely not the limit of, whats possible. However if you spend a ton of time at 2NL, you might be perfecting some strategies, that only really work there, because this game is kind of unique with complete beginners and people, who just dont care about the money, they are playing for.

So for me personally I think, its better for your long term development as a player to get to 10NL relatively quickly. In that way you will be spending your time perfecting strategies, that are at least a bit closer to those, you need to use when moving up further.

Today you see a lot of mass multi tabling "regulars" at 2NL. Personally I do find that kind of insane, even though I can understand the motive of each individual doing this, and they are obviously not breaking any rules. But even so, I think, many of these people could get a higher hourly winrate, if they moved up, and it would also be better for the overall poker eco system, if serious players moved up even a bit.

As it is, because of all these insanely nitty 2NL players, the experience of new players is, that whenever they have a hand like top pair strong kicker, and the pot gets big, their opponent always show up with at least an overpair or a set and cooler them. And that likely does not exactly increase the chance, that they will reload, when their initial deposit is gone. Or come over to the poker rather than casino section on a more regular basis.

 

[TheGenera1]

As someone who has spent the last 100k hands at 2nl, I think that does happen, but I can assure you that there are many fish who go to war with each other, if you game select properly you'll find 50:50 reg to fish at that limit. And plenty stack off with top pair.

I think the best thing for the eco system would be to just get rid of 2nl all together. Inflation is a thing, and 2 dollars 15 years ago would cost $2.70.

Better for all, to remove 2nl and just replace it with either 4nl or just make everyone play for $5. It's still not very much for fish, and it's an afternoon of fun.

 

[fundiver199]

I could certainly be on board with merging 2NL and 5NL into 4NL and make the smallest tournament buyin a dollar. Today sites offer SNGs with buyins of 10c or even less, which is frankly just a bit silly. I won a bunch of those 10c tickets on PokerStars during a promotion and had to play their 360 man turbo. Even if you take one of those down, its like 5 dollars or something for outlasting 359 players.

 

[maxi_j]

It depends on site. But lets say in poker stars I would move up if my win rate would be bigger than rake in that stakes.

 

[Marowin]

hmmm it depend

If you have 30 buy in and more.... you can move up stakes (30 buyin of higher stake ofcourse).
If you feel comfortable why you stop your development? Go higher and higher only remember of responsible bankroll management.

 

[darpblog]

As little as possible, there's no point in playing for pennies, as soon as you feel comfortable with your bankroll move up, better to discover soon if you are ready for the big leagues, than spending months playing the micros

 

[Bozovicdj]

I'm talking about micro limits and in the time of a month

I've been trying to give poker a chance and I want to play cash games and move up stakes I wanst to know what do you think of how many hand should I play before going up on stakes like from NL2 to NL5...

I've read that the correct thing is to have at least a decent sample of hands like 100k and if my results are good like with a winrate of 4 or 5 BB/100 and then try for a shot at the next level

but well I want to know what do you think and your advices...

do you still play on Micros ? how long ? are you planing to go for next stake?

How long took you to move up stakes? for example from NL2 to NL5

how many hands per week do you play?

any advices and experience that you can share to encourage me or help me in this journey of being a poker player

Thanks in advace.. good Luck on the tables!

Very hard to give you a specific answer, but I will try to crunch some of my numbers for you to give you a general idea of things.

On average you will play about 80 hands online in an hour, so if you are playing full time poker, which is probably about 8hrs per day, it means you are able to play about 640 hands per day, or close to 20K hands per month.

That is not enough of experience IMO to move up in stakes.
However, players usually do two tables at the same time when playing online, so it's actually closer to 40K hands, but that is still a little short for moving up.

As for the BB/100 winrate good enough for moving up in stakes - no definite answer.
Every bb/100 that is above 0 should be good cause it means that you are profitable, but if you are winning 4bb/100 it doesn't need to mean you are good enough for higher stakes. I wouldn't say that 10bb/100 should be a definite proof that a player is ready to move up.
I would use bb/100 as a show of how comfortable you are playing a certain stake.

You should mostly pay attention to your bankroll and how much money you have, going into higher stakes. If you have 200$ and are crushing NL2, that's really only 40 buy-ins for NL5 and I wouldn't feel comfortable playing higher stack with that BR.

 

[fundiver199]

On average you will play about 80 hands online in an hour, so if you are playing full time poker, which is probably about 8hrs per day, it means you are able to play about 640 hands per day, or close to 20K hands per month.

If you are a full time online poker player, or even a serious part time player, then you are obviously going to be multitabling. So that number need to be multiplied by whatever number of tables, you are playing.

At 888 poker you can play up to 6 tables simultaneously, which would make it 120k hands per month. This might seem high, but lots of full time players are probably playing even more than this, especially on Stars, where up to 16 tables are possible.

 

[Bozovicdj]

If you are a full time online poker player, or even a serious part time player, then you are obviously going to be multitabling. So that number need to be multiplied by whatever number of tables, you are playing.

At 888 poker you can play up to 6 tables simultaneously, which would make it 120k hands per month. This might seem high, but lots of full time players are probably playing even more than this, especially on Stars, where up to 16 tables are possible.

I agree completely, which is why I usually read the entire post

Best of luck!

 

[killbello]

It is not matter of how many hands, what matter is your win rate in the level you are playing. If you feel you are crushing the level in just 20K hands, then is time to move up, if you reach the adecuate bankroll for the next level, then move up. But do not do it if you feel you are not handle the game well.

 

[pentazepam]

As other posters have stated it is the win rate not the amount of hands that is important.

The problem especially if you are an new player is that you can't know your true win rate before you have a lot of hands.

One approach if you want to take shoots at a higher stakes is to jump up as soon as you have maybe as few as 2-4 extra buy-ins for the next level. The important thing is of course that you immediately move DOWN again if you lose these extra buy-ins.

So say you have a "normal" bankroll of 20 BI (40 dollars at 2NL). That is your base level/bankroll that you never risk at another level. As soon as you have say 50 dollars you can jump up to 5NL.

That form of aggressive bankroll management can be applied at every stakes thereafter as long as you always have an insurance in form of a basic/starting bankroll left that you can grind up money on.

 

[Twisterman]

I played 300 hands a day. so you can count....