What happens to winrate as you move up levels?

[random50]

40K hands in at 25NL and my win rate is at 3.2PTBB/100 and seems to be slowly edging up. (Pretty pathetic, I know, but for me this is just a hobby to make a little extra pocket money. I'm not bothered about being a great player.)

I am hoping to eventually move up at least as far as 100NL, though. How much of a performance hit is reasonable to expect at each level? In 5K hands at 50NL I'm running at *minus* 2.66. I know this is too small a sample size to be meaningful, I'm just curious to know from other people's experience how likely is a swing in results this dramatic from one level to the next?

[Abdullaev]

3.2ptbb/100 sounds like you're winning, so how can that be pathetic? As for your question, in my experience, every time I move up I do poorly at first. So I'd recommend doing it in small sessions till you "get your legs." The players at 50NL really aren't much better from the ones at 25NL. Also, you might want to rail a few 50NL games to spot the softer players. At 25NL, you're familiar with many of your opponents. That won't be the case at first in 50NL...

[SoreNuts]

I find the variance to be about the same at PStars NL 10,25 and 50 I just dont have the bankroll to play it. If your moving up I would suggest you tighten up till you get a feel/read for/on the players but will probably find it the same after that.

[mattaasen]

if u can run at 3ptbb/100 for the rest of your poker career, consider yourself extremly blessed

[random50]

Don't get me wrong, *I'm* happy with 3 PTBB, I've just seen (several times) people quoting 5PTBB as the min you should be aiming for at microstakes and 10 being achievable by the top players.

I originally started adding 50NL tables mixed in with 25NL tables based on bankroll level, but after trying it for a while, having a mixture seems to be a bad idea. Now I'm planning to just 12 table 25NL until I'm rolled to 12 table 50NL, which I guess is jumping in at the deep end. Also a bad idea?

[Abdullaev]

I don't do well either when I've got mixed tables going at the same time. I have tried when moving up to play fewer tables at first--works better for me but is boring. As long as you're fine with jumping into the deep end with more unknown players than you're used to, it sounds fun to me.

[Brimstead]

when i move up my hot streak usually comes to an end, so my winrate goes down, but give it 10k hands and it should go back up.

[Johnes Benjamin]

I wouldn't go right into 12 50nl but whatevs, just preference.

Don't worry about people talking about high winrates. First of all, you don't need to compete with the best at low limits. Second, most people are full of [censored] anyway. If they quote a high WR it is usually over a small sample or just totally inflated. Did you see the futuredoc vs blunty prop bet thread??

3.2pt/100 is totally solid. If you moved up to 100nl right now you might be very small winning or even losing player, but just keep learning and improving and you should someday achieve a 3.2pt/100 at NL100 too.
Just a reminder, 40k is not a very big sample either.

[br.bm]

uhm, is this your first level up?
simply play your normal game. NL25 and NL50 shouldn't be that big of a difference.

You should be able to get your same winrate at NL50 (without working on your game)

[random50]

I've actually been playing for a *lot* more than 40K hands, so I'm very confident I'm a winning player, but I only recently started tracking, so I have no idea about my long term win rate, or how it compares at various levels (I've played quite a few hands at 50-200NL before on other smaller sites. Most of my play has been tourneys though)

It seems like, in summary, if I follow the usual pattern, I can expect a big hit at first, but should adapt quite quickly.

I think I'll gradually start mixing in the occasional 50NL session, starting with 6 tables (so same money at stake) then adding more in if/when I'm confident I'm beating the new level.

Thanks for all responses.