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

[RamdeeBen]

most civil advice i could probably give at this moment:

try to make some friends who play poker at same/higher stakes than you and talk to them on skype/AIM/whatever regularly. preferably people that are slightly more loose with their BR requirements or maybe just a little less uptight than you etc. this will keep you from driving yourself insane and will help you gain some perspective on how other successful players operate. maybe for someone like you, you don't want those people to be too degen (some of my poker friends are too degenerate even for me), but you can definitely gather something from talking to someone like WVH i bet.


something to think about i guess?



edit: thanks for positive feedback on my post, i wasnt sure if i was getting a bit over the top with it

Yeah I do realise I probably I am bit of a nit in terms of BR management the same as FX and we do need to loosen up in that department a bit more. I think it's difficult sometimes, especially when you have grinded for months from single digit BR to over $200 to then risk it at higher stakes. You feel you have accomplished(sad indeed) something and I realise I must accept the down-swings are part of the package I just guess it's easier saying it than actually doing it.

I appreciate the feedback from you and WVH, I have tried to read most threads in the archive and it has definitely (for the minute) turned me into a winning player even if it's minimal which is all I wanted anyway so any feedback be it negative or positive is all good.

Gonna grind some and if I lose 2 BI start a new thread on how bad I feel about it.

Cheers.

 

[watchtowel]

I don't see why people panic about moving up. U'd have to be playing really crazy to lose 20 buy ins or whatever before you realise your out of your depth. Trying it out isn't going to cost you much. I just moved to 10nl and won $50 in two days but I was running really good. And i was a bit unsure about moving up. A few wins can get your feet wet and make you feel a bit more comfortable with the new pot / bet sizes.

 

[RamdeeBen]

sorry i was confused when you said


i thought you may have thought that i meant to try a newlimit when you only have 2BIs for it.

No, just when I read your post I didn't read it properly. I just saw "Try a new limit, if you lose a couple just drop down"

I assumed when you said a couple you meant 2 buy-ins just drop down regardless of my BR. That's when I said well I'd rather not try for just 2 BI's because I'm likely to swing with that especially at 6max.

I did re-read what you said and I see what you said now lol. Sorry

 

[vanquish]

Yeah I do realise I probably I am bit of a nit in terms of BR management the same as FX and we do need to loosen up in that department a bit more. I think it's difficult sometimes, especially when you have grinded for months from single digit BR to over $200 to then risk it at higher stakes. You feel you have accomplished(sad indeed) something and I realise I must accept the down-swings are part of the package I just guess it's easier saying it than actually doing it.

I appreciate the feedback from you and WVH, I have tried to read most threads in the archive and it has definitely (for the minute) turned me into a winning player even if it's minimal which is all I wanted anyway so any feedback be it negative or positive is all good.

Gonna grind some and if I lose 2 BI start a new thread on how bad I feel about it.

Cheers.

fwiw i think the single digit --> $200 BR thing is definitely something that influences you towards the nitty end of the BRM spectrum. this is something you will have to combat, because you'll eventually want to be playing stakes where one BB is more than your entire initial BR was.

a lot of it is in your head. if you keep having trouble, talk to others, or if you feel particularly anti-social (i get this), watch some videos or something. it'll help.

 

[RamdeeBen]

I don't see why people panic about moving up. U'd have to be playing really crazy to lose 20 buy ins or whatever before you realise your out of your depth. Trying it out isn't going to cost you much. I just moved to 10nl and won $50 in two days but I was running really good. And i was a bit unsure about moving up. A few wins can get your feet wet and make you feel a bit more comfortable with the new pot / bet sizes.

It's not so much the panic, it's more the grinding previously and months of earning the odd few dollars here and there. It isn't about the money because it isn't a lot at all and me living in England makes the dollar even more worthless in terms of what its worth.

It's purely based on the effort we/I put into grinding to then maybe lose 1 months of grinding by mistakenly moving up and then not being able to continue through a rough patch so have to move back down and grind again.

 

[vanquish]

haha. you make it sound like grinding isn't fun.



lil wayne: "how come gettin' money never gets boring?"

 

[RamdeeBen]

fwiw i think the single digit --> $200 BR thing is definitely something that influences you towards the nitty end of the BRM spectrum. this is something you will have to combat, because you'll eventually want to be playing stakes where one BB is more than your entire initial BR was.

a lot of it is in your head. if you keep having trouble, talk to others, or if you feel particularly anti-social (i get this), watch some videos or something. it'll help.

Yeah most definitely has something to do with it. I was always tempted to stick $1000 in from the start but I don't think the wife would of been to happy. So instead I stuck in $100 and before I found this site was playing $10 buy-in SnG's and so on. Lost most and that's when I searched for forums like this and hey, this is where I'm at now lol.

I'd love to play/move up in time and I realise most of it is in my head. So actually seen as you are here now what would you do if you was me with 200? Stick to the 5nl? Just give me a rough guide on what I can/should play with my 200 for now with some decent BRM lol.

I started a thread a few nights ago basically saying I tilted which I did for the first time. I lost 6 buy-ins in a very short period of time and went to the 10nl. After 300 hands I won like a $30 pot and got back even which I know was bad to do but anyway the point is I really didn't feel comfortable and was playing scared at 10nl yet called an all-in with my trips.

Basically 200 isn't any good for anything more than 5nl at the moment, is that correct? Slightly more needed?

EDIT: I love grinding I really do. I love the VIP programme/logging hands and so on...I meant more on the lines on if I messed up by moving up stakes and lost a months worth of grinding I'd basically be putting myself a month behind again, do you see what I mean? lol

 

[vanquish]

you can probably start taking shots at 5c/10c 6max anywhere above $200. if you're particularly scared about it, $250 would be fine. you will want to make sure you aren't playing too many tables, and make sure you're comfortable at the table. if you feel your hands getting cold because you're nervous, that's not a good start. pop a vitamin B supplement (they have lil ones where i buy em, you put a little red thing under your tongue) and itll calm you down within like 5 minutes. maybe grab a bottle of gatorade or something, find some tables where you can anticipate a few of the players to be fish that you can crush. this will get your confidence up (so if you see a table with 1 seat open and 3 guys don't even have full stacks, sit at that). you'll be majorly +EV at tables like this, and you can put in a short session (say 45 minutes) and see how you feel. obviously if you get coolered like 5 times, you should probably just quit early so you don't condition yourself to play when you're not mentally 100%, but most of the time you'll book some kind of win.

you'll start recognizing spots where you can regularly own people (be it by extracting tons of value or by bluffing or whatever) and you'll feel like you're in your zone the more you start playing. then higher rakeback will kick in and you'll feel like you're making more money every time you play, so you'll want to play more and play well, and then boom positive feedback loop and you're crushing 5c/10c in no time.


i knew this guy who could not for the life of him move up to 25nl because he felt like he was going to lose every session and was super scared of downswings. he eventually degened all his money away playing HU PLO SNGs because he was convinced he could never win at 25nl+.


don't be that guy.

 

[vanquish]

also wrt to you getting tilted and winning $30 at 5c/10c and not feeling comfortable, just treat that as an isolated incident.


yeah tilt happens. cost of business. try to avoid it, don't think about it too much, esp. when taking shots.

if anything, you'll probably be less prone to tilt when you take shots at higher stakes because you'll be more focused.

 

[watchtowel]

On pokerstars the buyins for 5nl and 10nl are the same, so if your rolled for one your rolled for the other. You could give 10nl another go and if you continue losing move to 5nl and work at improving there for a while. I had a bad run there and lost 3 buyins. Nearly always with kings which I have less than 50% win rate with now. But it isn't a big deal to the bankroll with $200.

So I think its a matter of whether you are skilled enough for 10nl and not whether your bankroll is big enough. I don't think it's a big leap if your beating 5nl

 

[bgomez89]

On pokerstars the buyins for 5nl and 10nl are the same, so if your rolled for one your rolled for the other.l

huh?

 

[RamdeeBen]

huh?

I thought that! Unless there are some 50BB buy-ins he's on about.

 

[RamdeeBen]

you can probably start taking shots at 5c/10c 6max anywhere above $200. if you're particularly scared about it, $250 would be fine. you will want to make sure you aren't playing too many tables, and make sure you're comfortable at the table. if you feel your hands getting cold because you're nervous, that's not a good start. pop a vitamin B supplement (they have lil ones where i buy em, you put a little red thing under your tongue) and itll calm you down within like 5 minutes. maybe grab a bottle of gatorade or something, find some tables where you can anticipate a few of the players to be fish that you can crush. this will get your confidence up (so if you see a table with 1 seat open and 3 guys don't even have full stacks, sit at that). you'll be majorly +EV at tables like this, and you can put in a short session (say 45 minutes) and see how you feel. obviously if you get coolered like 5 times, you should probably just quit early so you don't condition yourself to play when you're not mentally 100%, but most of the time you'll book some kind of win.

you'll start recognizing spots where you can regularly own people (be it by extracting tons of value or by bluffing or whatever) and you'll feel like you're in your zone the more you start playing. then higher rakeback will kick in and you'll feel like you're making more money every time you play, so you'll want to play more and play well, and then boom positive feedback loop and you're crushing 5c/10c in no time.


i knew this guy who could not for the life of him move up to 25nl because he felt like he was going to lose every session and was super scared of downswings. he eventually degened all his money away playing HU PLO SNGs because he was convinced he could never win at 25nl+.


don't be that guy.

HeHe, you make it sound so easy and nice...I tell you something if it was as easy as that I'd be there now. I just don't think I have the skills to play 10nl and indeed like your friend probably would be playing scared lol. The rakeback interests me a lot, well the VIP programme. Even a half decent player who can break even at quite good stakes can make good money, if that's right?

 

[vanquish]

dunno about "good money" @ stars. i feel like you only start making a reasonable amount of $ thru the VIP thing at stars once you're at like 50nl+, fulltilt is probably better for that.


i guess just work as much as you can on improving your game. feeling like you don't have the skills to beat 5c/10c is a problem you'll wanna get rid of as quickly as possible

 

[RamdeeBen]

The thing I'm really struggling at which you might be able to answer is this. 6max, which I guess you probarly know people raise with literally ANYTHING (at my level) Now, are you calling with K,Q/K,J/A,Q and so on? I often find myself folding post flop...or even if I hit top pair (ace) but kicker is J/Q and they are betting heavy I'm always putting them on A,K so I'm folding. I think I'm losing so much money with these sorts of hands but know you can't wait for Aces all the time..so what do i do?

And yes, I know it's a problem if I'm thinking 5nl/10nl in tricky because in reality it isnt..I am actually beating it for around 70dollars in the past 2week however I'm still convincing myself im riding good and still expecting to lose...all this poker isnt good for me mentally lol.

 

[vanquish]

oh boy i don't wanna get into all of this right now. i'm gonna try to focus on my studying. perhaps someone will want to step in and answer that, perhaps you'll have to draw some conclusions on your own. i think i've made my points about BRM, etc., if you want to try a different thread or maybe a HH in the analysis section, i'm sure people will be happy to help you

 

[RamdeeBen]

Ok no worries, thanks anyway for the help.

 

[bgomez89]

send me some of your session HH and ill take a look at it for you

edit- losing sessions that is

 

[RamdeeBen]

send me some of your session HH and ill take a look at it for you

edit- losing sessions that is

Thanks buddy I will look on the PC later on and see. Not sure how I find and extract my losing sessions on PT. Is it straight forward? lol

Cheers

 

[WVHillbilly]

It's easy. Find a day were you struggled, then go to db management. Select Export. Filter in export for the day you want. Change the number of hands per file to be greater than the number of hands played that day and then export them. If you then zip the resulting file the file size will be about 10% of the actual size but for 1 session it shouldn't be too large anyway.

 

[fx20736]

It's easy. Find a day were you struggled, then go to db management. Select Export. Filter in export for the day you want. Change the number of hands per file to be greater than the number of hands played that day and then export them. If you then zip the resulting file the file size will be about 10% of the actual size but for 1 session it shouldn't be too large anyway.

Couldn't you just filter your sessions by time, sort hands by amt won smallest to largest, click on the those hands and copy & paste those HH's into a word document?

 

[LuckyChippy]

Couldn't you just filter your sessions by time, sort hands by amt won smallest to largest, click on the those hands and copy & paste those HH's into a word document?

You could, or you could just do what WV said?

 

[joe steady]

try to make some friends who play poker at same/higher stakes than you and talk to them on skype/AIM/whatever regularly. preferably people that are slightly more loose with their BR requirements or maybe just a little less uptight than you etc. this will keep you from driving yourself insane and will help you gain some perspective on how other successful players operate. maybe for someone like you, you don't want those people to be too degen (some of my poker friends are too degenerate even for me), but you can definitely gather something from talking to someone like WVH i bet.

This is such good advice I had to point it out again. Post hand histories of spots where you're unsure of yourself, too - big help.

 

[watchtowel]

huh?

What I meant was most of the 10nl games on pokerstars are 50-100 bb. So $10 buy in.

 

[bgomez89]

You said if you're rolled for 5nl you're rolled for 10nl