question about 25NL

[shark_fishin]

hi all, i wondered how many hands should it take me till i can beat 25NL? and how will i know i can beat it

took me 13k hands to beat 10NL, but iv been at 25NL for 3 and a half months and played 64k hands, and my roll is $560 when it has been at $900. what do you guys think? have i played 25NL too long and should accept the fact im hopeless at poker and cant even beat micro stakes?

[basementproject]

Never 'accept' being hopeless at poker. If you're breaking even, you're not hopeless anyway. Find some leaks in your game and plug them, get the winrate up. If you're playing without trying to improve at all, you won't be moving up anywhere- keep that in mind.

Also, 64k hands isn't a ton of hands by any means. A lot of people play levels a lot longer than that. There's really no set time limit you can impose on yourself to move up. For instance, at the game last night we sat with a long-time microstakes grinder. He plays 100NL and 200NL about 40hrs a week. I asked him how long it took him to get to those levels from playing freerolls, and he said about a year and a half. FWIW.

[shark_fishin]

oh really? ok thnx for the advice
iv played for 10 months and spent a lot of time on poker in those months, a lot of the time i spend reading hand histories and watching videos.

im currently spending 50 hours a week on poker, 38hours playing and 12 hours in HH section and watching vids.
would you say this is an effective use of my time?
i also get coaching 1 hour per week.
i just dont feel like im improving lol, not really that sure how to find leaks also, do you find them in the HH sections by reading other peoples lines?

really would like to make $10 per hour playing so i can quit my depressing job :-\

[allyasia]

i don't understand it
do you mean you start 25NL with 560 and now is 900?
or start with 900 now is 560?
because if you start with 560 (20buy-in) and now at 900. you are consist winner at 25NL...what's the problem?

[MrBump]

[ QUOTE ]
hi all, i wondered how many hands should it take me till i can beat 25NL? and how will i know i can beat it

took me 13k hands to beat 10NL, but iv been at 25NL for 3 and a half months and played 64k hands, and my roll is $560 when it has been at $900. what do you guys think? have i played 25NL too long and should accept the fact im hopeless at poker and cant even beat micro stakes?

[/ QUOTE ]

I have recently moved up from $10NL to $25NL (full-ring). I was a winning player (about 3ptBB / 100) at $10NL over about 30,000 hands and my winrate was a lot higher for my last 5,000 hands at that level (after I had plugged some leaks)

Since I have moved up to $25NL I have noticed very little (if any) difference in the level of play of my opponents and I am currently beating the game for 10 ptBB / 100 over 5000 hands. A small sample I know, and I admit I have been running good, but I still feel I am a significant winner at this level.

65k hands is a large enough sample to know if you're a winning player at this level IMO. What is your winrate ? If you don't have PT, I would strongly recommend you buy it so you can analyse your game.

I suspect you have a few leaks in your game or are prone to tilting when on a losing run. If you have PT, sort your hands by biggest losses and try and analyse the type of hands and reasons you lost. I did this at $10NL before moving up and discovered I was overplaying TPTK.

GL

[basementproject]

[ QUOTE ]
im currently spending 50 hours a week on poker, 38hours playing and 12 hours in HH section and watching vids.
would you say this is an effective use of my time?
i also get coaching 1 hour per week.
i just dont feel like im improving lol, not really that sure how to find leaks also, do you find them in the HH sections by reading other peoples lines?

[/ QUOTE ]

First off, let me say that you're extremely lucky to be able to spend this much time in a week on poker. As for an effective use of time- i'd put in a bit more time studying if i were you. 30/20 would be a good blend. I myself put in a lot more time studying 2+2, my hand logs, and various books than I do actually playing. The studying at low limits will pay off when you move up.

You say you're spending 12 hours in the HH section. How are you spending it? Are you just reading through hands? Browsing around? Remember, in order for you to actually learn anything and improve, you need to be learning actively. I remember outlining in another post how I personally study- printing out my biggest losing HHs, and calculating pot odds/equity/different lines of play all the way through. I probably spend about 5-10 minutes analyzing each hand I print out. I really had to force myself to do this- when I first tried, it seemed redundant and pointless, but the rewards have been awesome. Can't put a price on solid fundamentals.

Finding leaks- do you use poker tracker? If you don't, you should. The way most players find and plug their leaks is by analyzing their stats. Read this post to get an idea of how we identify and plug leaks.

Any more questions feel free to ask.

[shark_fishin]

@allysia: what i mean is, i moved up to 25NL when i hit $500 from 10NL, and i have been hovering around 600-900 for 3 months.

@mrbump: yes i have PT, sixthsense, and realtimeHUD.
thnx for the info about plugging leaks, im allways interested to hear about this stuff, as im not really sure how to do it myself.

@basementproject: yes, i work part time and dont spend much money, i dont really care about social life or relationships, all i care about is getting good at poker, i focus completely on poker.

i post hands i loose $10+ on a pay forum i use, and i read and answer HHs on different forums, not just this, thats why my post count is so low.

so why did you carry on spending 10 minutes analysing each hand if it seemed pointless then?, could you give an example of this so i can understand and try plz? [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

yes i use poker tracker and thnx very much for the link and the help [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[basementproject]

[ QUOTE ]
so why did you carry on spending 10 minutes analysing each hand if it seemed pointless then?, could you give an example of this so i can understand and try plz? [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[/ QUOTE ]

Why did I do it? Because the only way to learn is by doing things repeatedly. I always wondered how top players knew how to make mathematically-based decisions so intuitively, and one day I realized that it's probably just becasue they've studied their asses off to know their stuff. Kinda like a math professor being able to calculate derivatives in his head. Kinda like an old hand in this forum can come in here, read a HH, and automatically know which line he would've taken.

Calculus is actually a great example. While I'm sitting there for hours just doing problems that seem completely redundant, I hate life. However I don't do calculus problems for fun, and I don't do them to get an A in the class- I do them so that I can really learn the material.

I'll give you an example of what I'll do. Keep in mind this is purely a math excersize and has nothing to do with reading opponents. That's a whole other animal. I'll work out the pot odds I'm getting on every street, and the pot odds I'm giving villain on every street. I'll run a hand sim in Pokerstove using villain's VPIP in pokertracker as his range, to figure out my equity. I'll then figure out the EV of fold/check, call, or raise just for fun. I'm writing all this down on the HH printout as I go along.

Once you do this for any particular hand, you're never going to make whatever mistake you made in the hand again. It's helped me a ton, and since you have the time, I'd say you should try a couple hands a day to get started!

[allyasia]

so is good idea to invest in pokerstove?

[saal13]

shark_fishin,
Are you playing 6-max or full ring?
What site do you play on?
How many tables do you play?

PS PokerStove or HoldemRanger is a good idea. Both are free.