Different NL Limits...Forever?

[chicagoY]

I was just reading the post on moving up in NL 200. I play different levels depending on the website. At some, a certain level is way juicier than another (and I don't know why). Does anybody else rotate back and forth between levels? Is it bad for a person's development? One of the sites has a NL level that I kill and kill. I just hate to let it go.

[Berge20]

There was a post this week up in Mid Stakes that really made an excellent point that we shouldn't think of ourselves playing one "Level" - Rather we should realized we are capable of playing at a range of stakes.

[KingOfSwords]

I typically play one NL50 and two NL25s in a session, all six-handed. If there aren't any 50s that I like, I play all 25.

At InterPoker, it seems like six-max NL50 is a sort of bastard limit between 25 and 100. There aren't too many of them while there are plenty of 25s and 100s, so I don't count on playing much 50 there, especially from 10-2 at night eastern time, when I usually play.

Why don't you try playing a mix of your safe limit and one higher? You don't have to officially switch over. Find good tables and play those regardless of limit. Also, keep an eye out to see if any of your favorite players from your old limit are playing at the higher one...that might help the transition.

[DWarrior]

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There was a post this week up in Mid Stakes that really made an excellent point that we shouldn't think of ourselves playing one "Level" - Rather we should realized we are capable of playing at a range of stakes.

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Do you have it bookmarked by any chance?

Without reading the original article, I definitely can see how this would apply to high stakes. For example, why bother with a tough 10/20NL game when there's an ultra fish in this 5/10NL game.

For our stakes, however, we can assume that we can always find soft tables on the stakes we play, so our BB/100 is pretty sustainable. We are then better off playing the most profitable limit.

This may not apply to sites that spread only 2 or 3 $100NL games and 1 $200NL game, I'm talking about Party, Stars, UB, etc. Party has at least 8 100nl FR tables and 30 100nl SH tables at any point in time (except after their regular crashes). I don't see the importance of table selection across stakes when you can always find a good table.

Also, a $50NL table must be TWICE as profitable as the $100NL table you're passing up. Even if the $50NL table is soft where you can make 15BB/100, you should probably stick around at the $100NL table if you can make 8BB/100.

[Pokey]

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Do you have it bookmarked by any chance?


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Here's the MSNL thread. In particular, pay attention to TheWorstPlayer's comments about 20 responses down from the top -- his comments in this thread are accurate and insightful. Of course, that's just par for the course from TWP: that's one of those folks who really knows his stuff.

[DWarrior]

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Do you have it bookmarked by any chance?


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Here's the MSNL thread. In particular, pay attention to TheWorstPlayer's comments about 20 responses down from the top -- his comments in this thread are accurate and insightful. Of course, that's just par for the course from TWP: that's one of those folks who really knows his stuff.

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Thanks Pokey, interesting post by TWP, but again, I think it's consistent with what I have said before: there's probably no reason to move down at our stakes because the games are almost just as juicy at 50nl as they are at 100nl, definitely never twice as good.

Correct me if I'm wrong, and I don't want to make a fool of myself at MSH, but what was the OP thinking in that thread? He claims to have had a 14 buy-in swing at $400NL over 14k hands, that's not what the graph is saying (he posted a link). The guy has a great streak then his luck ends and he ends up losing, he only lost 4 buy-ins from the day his graph began (that says April, so I'm assuming 2 weeks ago). The guy also says he's got 5k bankroll and 2k for a casino trip. He really went to play $400NL with 8500? That's just silly. He also admits that he made 4 genuinely bad plays over the course of those hands...well, how many bad plays does it take to drop 4 buy-ins?

Seems like at the root of this problem is just short bankroll, and I really don't like the recommendations on this site. 20 buy-ins is definitely not enough to stay at a particular level. No serious player is playing on 20 buy-ins, despite what the FAQ says.

Again, TWPs post is correct, but I don't think it conflicts with what I am saying.

[Jamougha]

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20 buy-ins is definitely not enough to stay at a particular level.

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20 buyins is not enough to guarantee staying at a given level. However, if you never play at a level where you don't have at least 20 buyins available, your risk of ruin is absolutely neglegible (Assuming you are a winning player [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] ) so taking a shot with 20 buyins is reasonable.

Having said that, his graph does not demonstrate great br management. OTOH there are other decent souls with that flaw. [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

[DWarrior]

Your ROR is always 0 if you're just taking a shot. You can go to $1000NL with a br of only 5 buyins and agree that you'll quit after 2, you don't have a risk of ruin.

If your ROR is something like .5% (I think this is what 20 buy-ins has been calculated to be), but that takes into account going down as low as 1 buy-in and then making a comeback. If you want to know what the risk of losing 10 buy-ins is, then calculate the ROR of playing with 10 buy-ins, and I don't think any of us can continue to play reasonably as we watch half our money evaporate.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but from the blackjack ROR charts I've seen, ROR skyrockets exponentially, so if ROR of 20 buyins is .5%, ROR of 10 buy-ins may 10+%. This is why you see the huge swings that you do and why nobody really recommends 20 buyins.

I'm just saying with 20 buyins you're going to have swings that are a high percent of your bankroll.

[Berge20]

I think what I gathered most from TWP's post is more that the "levels" we choose to play shouldn't be some grand mental barrier that a lot of people (myself included) seem to make it out to be and forces change in our play.

Personally, I still struggle with the $$$ that can fly around at $200NL both relative to my bankroll and to my real life job wages/finances. That obviously makes me not play optimally and hence my game adjusts for poor reasons. Even without the $$ portion, I know that when I first took a shot I did change my game b/c in my mind the players were so much better (hahaha).