Story of a SSNL wannabe

[Asgrow13]

So I’ve been sort of lurking around SSNL for a while now, but thought I’d actually take some time to tell my story and get some advice on where to go from here. I’ve been playing online poker on an off for a few years now, alternating between SNGs and 6max NL cash games. Had some success in both, up a bit overall, but about 6 months ago I decided I wanted to get serious about cash games. I put 2k online, and started playing .5/1 nl 6max. Here’s what that looked like:



In the beginning I was running mad hot and became wayyyy overconfident that I was crushing the game when in fact, I was not. I was running at around 26/12/2 which I now know is pretty awful. As you can see, eventually my luck turned around and I quickly lost everything I had made. At first it was due to running bad, but I’m pretty sure I tilted off a few buyins in there too near the end. I was totally disheartened, having lost everything I had made so quickly and being forced to face the realization that I was not beating the game as solidly as I had thought, if at all.

Ended up taking a break from poker for a while, and when I had cooled off and was ready to get back into it, a close friend of my suggested I play 20k hands of 25nl where I KNEW I could beat the game. I was overrolled for this game, and knew this wasn’t necessarily the most profitable thing to be doing at the time, but it seemed like a good way to 1) gain back some of the confidence I had lost before and 2) work on fixing some leaks and improving my game. Over the past month and a half I’ve put in just over 18k hands at 25nl, which has looked like this:




Started calling less, getting into more of a raise/fold mentality preflop. Tried to get more aggressive postflop, become more positionally aware, value bet wider etc. Also learned a lot about dealing with running bad – it’s way easier to deal with getting sucked out on for $25 than it is for $100. I’m trying to reach a point where I can ignore the dollar amounts and just play my best poker at all times. It was nice cause the players are sooooo bad at 25nl, but I still think it’s been a valuable experience. I’m planning on finishing up the last 1700 hands over Thanksgiving break.

So for those of you who are still reading (thank you), here are a few questions:

1) Should I jump right back into 100nl, hoping that with the experience I’ve gained I’ll be able to be at least a slight winner? Hopefully I can continue to improve and eventually become a solid winner at this level.
2) Am I better off staying at 25nl for a while longer and continuing to tighten up my game and fix leaks? I still think the spread between my VPIP and PFR is too big, so working on getting that down (any suggestions?). I also think my aggression factor is too low, meaning it appears I do too much check/calling. SH58’s recent post about his downswing gave me some ideas on ramping up the aggression postflop which I think will be good.
3) Anyone have any thoughts on how winrates translate between 25nl and 100nl? I know this is tough to estimate, but I’m curious what a 6PTBB/100 winner at 25nl should be able to beat 100nl for. I’m also curious what you think most of you winning SSNL players would beat 25nl for…

I know this was long, and I know some of it relates to 25nl which is not SSNL, but I thought the post was relevant enough to post it in SSNL. Anyway, thanks for reading, please let me know if you have any thoughts or comments about any of this or what path I should take from here forward. I’m confident that with some more hard work I can eventually become a solid, winning SSNL player. Thanks for listening.

Asgrow13