Stepping up the stakes

[Rhino_Power]

Hi I can often get paid in 10pays5 or 6pays3 STTs of $2 $5 and $10 games but as soon i step up to $20 games i lose. I dont feel this is because i am playing better players but more to do with the stake effecting the way i play. I tend to fold all too easy and limp in or i get carried away trying to force an early double up and get caught out. Should i just stick to the lower staked games or is there some way of taking my play up to the higher staked tables. Cheers Rhino

[Samba_SamPa]

Re: Stepping up the stakes About time you joined, nobody will believe I have any mates ;) You know what I think, so won't say any more in here, will let others tell you what I said :lol You've definitely done the right thing joining up though :ok

[AJ]

Re: Stepping up the stakes

Hi I can often get paid in 10pays5 or 6pays3 STTs of $2 $5 and $10 games but as soon i step up to $20 games i lose. I dont feel this is because i am playing better players but more to do with the stake effecting the way i play. I tend to fold all too easy and limp in or i get carried away trying to force an early double up and get caught out. Should i just stick to the lower staked games or is there some way of taking my play up to the higher staked tables. Cheers Rhino

You just need to play better. You also need to have a proper number of buy ins for the level. You can't go to the table with scared money. Set aside 30 to 50 buys for the level and relax. Are you beating the lower levels, what is your ITM figure and ROI ? If you don't know the answer to these questions, start proper record keeping, without that you're wasting your time. You don't need a double up, that is the biggest mistake that most people make on these games. I've cashed in plenty of these games with 100 chips. Oh, and Welcome to the PL :welcome

[ubermonkey1]

Re: Stepping up the stakes :welcomerhino. there shouldnt be a big jump in skill levels once you get past freerolls and the jump between 10-20 games is pretty slim i'd say.it sounds like you already know the problem and playing scared wont help at all;) best advice i can give is to only think about the buy in (and the possible winnings)when ur actually buying in:ok just make sure you have a bankroll for whatever you play when you are buying in(25+buy ins)then forget about it. this is especially helpfull if you say win a sat for a tourney,it might be a $200 ticket etc but should that effect any decisions you make? no you should make the right decision in terms of play;). hope this helps and good luck

[GaF]

Re: Stepping up the stakes :welcome Rhino What's your alias? Your sharkscope stats will help provide the answers.... It sounds like you dont have the bankroll to play the $20, so are "scared money" - so as AJ said - I think you need to make sure you have the right bankroll to be comfortable at that level. I use a number of "automatic" conditions that I reevaluate before every game to tell me what level I should play at: 1) I must always have 20xBuy Ins (an aggressive, risky bankroll management) 2) I allow myself to play at the most profitable level (dollars per game, not ROI) with at least 100 games history and 1 level up. After that - the money (game by game) isn't improtant - as I dont choose my game level - it's just a question of playing to get the right result at the level I happen to be playing at.....

[Rhino_Power]

Re: Stepping up the stakes Thanks so far guys. I have a bankroll of $210 at the moment which i won mainly on an MTT. I am not on sharkscope because i play at Ladbrokes. Rhino

[Rhino_Power]

Re: Stepping up the stakes By the way what are these ITM and ROI figures i should be taking account of. I keep a running record of my total winnings overall since i started playing 2 years ago. I make a slow profit because of the losses when stepping up. Rhino

[ELCAKER]

Re: Stepping up the stakes Rhino may I make a suggestion that I was given a couple of years ago. Play the Ladders on Ladbrokes. These are a great way to learn to play aggresively at higher levels but still relatively cheaply. IF you dont know how they operate you can start at $3 and play a ten seater sng. Top 3 qualify for next level and so on through $10 - $30 - $100. The $100 table is the final with the top 3 getting paid, $500, $200, $100. Pay attention to how people are playing especially at the 30 and 100 and adapt their strategies into your game. I promise you the first time you take a $3 stake upto the final table, then cash and you'll be loving it! Typically your problem will be with aggression, forget the buy-in, they are just chips - use them!!

[Samba_SamPa]

Re: Stepping up the stakes ITM is In The Money - so how many times you finish in the money in the tourneys you play ROI is Return On Investment - so say you play 100 $5 STTs, you will have paid $550. If you cash in 30 of the 50 tourneys you will have received back $600. This gives you a profit of $50. Your ROI is your profit as a percentage of your outlay - $50 / $550 = 9.1% ROI. The above example winning 30 of 50 would give you a 60% ITM figure. Now you're here, have a look at the Challenges section, and start one of your own. Your bankroll of ~$200 'qualifies' you to play STTs with an outlay of $8-10, depending if you're going to keep a 20 or 25 buy-in bankroll. I would do a $5 'Challenge' first. Play 100 of the $5 10-pay-5's, and play nothing else. No MTTs, no 6-pay-3's, no other buy-in STTs. Keep a record of every tourney, and after the 100 of them, this lot on here will be glad to help review how you're doing, what you should do next etc etc :ok

[Rhino_Power]

Re: Stepping up the stakes :zzz A hundred 10pays5 games! By the time i finish that challenge it will be summer time!! I guess those ITMs and ROIs are important as the higher the quicker youre making money. I will commence the challenge and see how i go......... Rhino

[GaF]

Re: Stepping up the stakes

I have a bankroll of $210 at the moment

You're not bankrolled for $20 games then - no wonder you're "scared money" - even if you were Phil Ivey, you'd face a not insignificant risk of going bust playing $20 games, just through the normal swings of variance that we all face. You are just about bankrolled for $10, with an aggressive bankroll management strategy - if your roll falls at all though, then you will be insufficiently bankrolled for the $10 games.

[GaF]

Re: Stepping up the stakes

:zzz A hundred 10pays5 games! By the time i finish that challenge it will be summer time!!

If that kind of game isn't your thing, then I think you'd be better off playing something you prefer :unsure Think it's great advice to stick to one type of game for a batch like that - will allow you to really think about what you're doing and how to beat it, rather than mixing up conflicting ideas from different structures :ok Do you multi-table at all?

[AJ]

Re: Stepping up the stakes

:zzz A hundred 10pays5 games! By the time i finish that challenge it will be summer time!! I guess those ITMs and ROIs are important as the higher the quicker youre making money. I will commence the challenge and see how i go......... Rhino

Yuo can multitable then easilythough. Some people on Stars are playing 2500 of these games a day I'm playing about 200 a month which is nothing, once I get my new monitor I'll treble this

[GaF]

Re: Stepping up the stakes

I can often get paid in 10pays5 or 6pays3 STTs of $2 $5 and $10 games but as soon i step up to $20 games i lose. I dont feel this is because i am playing better players but more to do with the stake effecting the way i play. I tend to fold all too easy and limp in or i get carried away trying to force an early double up and get caught out. Should i just stick to the lower staked games or is there some way of taking my play up to the higher staked tables.

The other comment I meant to make on this (but forgot :$) - and please dont take it personally - it's not in any way directed specifically at you (I dont know anything about you or your game - it may apply to you, it may not - it's intended more as a general observation)..... The nature of poker is that when you're out of your depth, when you're being outplayed, you can very seldom see it - what is going on at the table between the other players is just going way over your head - not in a way that you dont understand it, but in a way you just dont look for it, notice it or see it (where "it" is whatever your opponents are doing successfully that you are not). It's a good job poker is like that (if you're a winning player) because it's what keeps the fish playing, and what keeps people playing out of their depth! Every now and then the fish get lucky, and this reinforces their misbelief that they are competing with their opponents. There is only one measure of whether you are better than your opponents or not - and that is profit (or loss) at any particular level, given enough games.

[GaF]

Re: Stepping up the stakes

Some people on Stars are playing 2500 of these games a day

Sorry - I simply cannot believe that - that's over 100 per hour - say they last an average 20 minutes each (to allow for losing games) - that's about 35 tabling solidly for 24 hours - it cannot be done - certainly not consistently (and probably not as a one off)

[AJ]

Re: Stepping up the stakes Such claims are made on pocket fives and appear to be accepted over there. Hadn't given it much thought, can you 60 - 100 table these ?

[sugleh]

Re: Stepping up the stakes Rhino: My short advice is what others have said, keeping good bankroll management is key (not playing scared). When I have played above my bankroll I have been way too passive and afraid to bust. Aggression is necessary... Also, thinking about your poker bankroll not as "real money" but as simply the poker bankroll or poker chips has been a help to me.