[lucky_mf]

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I was using some aggressive bankroll management, but I wouldn't say that I did anything that was outright reckless.....buying into a $200NL table for $80 with a bankroll of $84...play a level with as long as I had more than 2 buy-ins for it

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All you did was play recklessly with your br who are you trying to kid lol. That post belongs in BBV not in a beginner post asking for advice.

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I didn't pay recklessly, with the possible exception of the beginning (but even here losses where limited at $84 which is not very much "real world" money). I am not advising anyone to take their $80 5NL roll and make a run at 200NL: THIS WAS NOT MY ADVICE. I'm an experienced NLHE player at levels from 100NL all they way up to 2kNL. My run would be virtually impossible for a beginning player as they would have to seamlessly adjust to better, more aggressive, players and the increased amount of money in play. Additionally - losing the $80 would not mean the end to my poker career as I had money on other sites - and money available for deposit if I needed to go this route.

I am fairly confident that I could repeat the 80 to 10k feat though it might take me more than 8 days and 13k cash game hands.

The contribution of my experience is threefold:

(i) it often makes sense to take some limited shots

As I said in the earlier post, the money in NL poker (10k+ months) is at 200NL+. If you are playing lower than this, your goal should be to move up as quickly as you can. Most players are going to have to do a certain amount of grinding at lower limits to figure out how to play. Once you have the basics figured out and are a solid winner at say 10NL you should be aggressively trying to break through to higher limits.

Realistically what does this mean? For most people it doesn't mean sitting at 200NL with $80 in their account, but they should be taking a 1 BI shot at 25NL (or even 50NL) bankroll of $200. If you lose it isn't a problem to grind back the money at 10NL and they have the added benefit of playing with better players and higher stakes. If you win you are on your way toward establishing yourself at the next level and dramatically increasing your hourly rate.

(ii) it is possible to move up pretty quickly with some aggressive (but limited shot taking)

The conventional 2+2 wisdom says take shots when you are ready and have 20BIs for the next level. The part about being somewhat ready is correct, but the 20BI thing is insanely conservative. Assuming you are a 5PTBB/100 winner it will take you 40k hands to accumulate 20BI for the next level assuming the next level is 2x the stakes. Some of the levels changes involve more than a doubling of the stakes (2NL to 5NL, 10NL to 25NL) so it will take longer for some of the transitions. Using this approach it would take the 5PTBB/100 winner over 220k hands to move from 2NL to 200NL. This is 11 20k hand months. More aggressive shot taking could make this transition happen much quicker with fairly limited increase in risk (you shouldn't be all that worried about losing a microstakes roll because it isn't very much "real world" money). Also, starting at a higher level (say 10NL) would shorten the amount of time it took dramatically.

(iii) if you don't move up when you can you are costing yourself $.

If it took you 200k hands and 11 months to move to 200NL and you could of accomplished (with minimal risk) the same feat in 100K hands and 5 months you left a lot of money on the table.

One of the reasons why my strategy was so not reckless is that the potential winnings associated with playing higher stakes dwarfed my initial risk. I would have cost myself a ridiculous amount of money by trying to grind my $80 up playing 10NL (the lowest level on the site I was playing).

Look at the Chris Fergusen zero to hero thing - It took him over 1-year to move his roll from $0 to $10k. Do you think he could of done it faster without his restrictive bankroll rules? I do. He is apparently a decent tourney player and would proably have an edge in lots of cash games as well. What does a good player like Chris cost himself by taking so long and being so conservative? A lot of [censored] money. What would he be costing himself with a more aggressive approach to moving up? Not much. He might lose his meager bankroll in the beginning.

Lucky