Moving up in limits
 

You currently have 15 buy ins for the level you are playing at, yes? I'd say to stay there until you have 20 buy in for the next level. So, if .02/.04 if next with a max buy in of $4, I assume, I'd suggest you keep grinding until you get your roll to at least $80 and preferably $100.

I know it seems crazy, and by all means, if you have $50 or $100 or whatever that you don't mind reloading, ignore this advice and do whatever you want. But if you never want to redeposit again and don't want to go broke, there is no better time than now to start playing with proper bankroll management.

Your graph looks nice, but realize that your sample size is tiny. It's easy to have a graph look like that for 2k hands and then watch it plummet after a bad run, even without moving up in stakes.

thanks for the reply. your figure of $80 to $100 doesnt seem crazy to me at all. I really screwed my stars account in the ass and I really want to buckle down and save it. I guess my real question isnt really when to move up, but how to be more prepared when I do make that move (I assume just being properly bankrolled is not enough)?

Also, I have been buying in for $2 each time, even though the max is $5. I know that many of you will suggest and have suggested to me before that buying in with the max is always a good idea, but I don't feel like my shortstack is affecting my play too, and my moves are still effective. For some reason this strategy is working really well for me right now.

you missed the reason why its suggested you buy in full, it has nothing to do with how it affects your play. It has to do with getting value with your hands. Like if you got AA vs someone elses KK and get it all in on the flop you lose $2 of expected value in that hand. you need to maximize your value in every single hands to handle the ups and downs of poker.

BUT if its working for you then good for you but I personally would never do it.

I'll chime in here, NOT because I am an authority or the most experienced on this issue, but because I am still grinding "up" my original online deposit, so it is an issue near and dear to my heart: take it for what it is worth (maybe very little;))

There are a number of issues involving short stack play when you are trying to move up and build your BR, and a number of opinions. The one that strikes me the most is that of maximizing my profits when I am getting the best of it.

As a player, if you are really working on your game, and at a level that you can handle (in terms of difficulty) you should be winning. If not, there are holes in your game that need to be worked on, and/or you need to move down. Given that, once you are playing a long term "winning" game, playing short means you are losing money when you have the best of it. Yes, you are also saving when you are on the short end of the stick, but we are assuming that you are playing a level that you are winning at. (short stack play is serving as a cushion in terms of how fast you can lose your money)

Ando has had success with short stack play and I won't argue with what works for a player if it is working long term and they are happy with it, but in the stakes I am playing, (.10/.25 NL) I find I am often able to take advantage of the players with 1/2 a buy-in in front of them, more often than I can take advantage of a player who is close to or greater than my chip count. (I pray I don't find myself against Ando in such a situation :))

*I will note that players who come to 25 max games with around 5 bucks in front of them give me a hard time. They tend to be shovers and I seem to do badly against them these days.

When your BR is VERY small, it can be hard to follow a lot of the standard BR management guidelines, but if you can't reload or just don't ever want to be in that spot it is very important to have some kind of rules spelled out before you sit down.

Before I had the proper bankroll for the level I was playing (I should have moved down, and yes, I got very lucky early on to not go broke) I had special rules. The big one was that I would quit once I had lost a buy-in. This was largely because I was still learning to gauge how I was playing (LAG or TAG, :thumbsup: or :donkey) and I didn't want to piss it all away during a foolish technical/tilty slide. Now I just go with how I feel I am playing and how the table feels.

I think in the end, you have to be able to work well with long term goals in order to grind it out. If you are an instant gratification sort of person, it can be difficult.

Don't worry about getting spanked down when you try to move up. I am going through the same thing as I am trying to break through to 50 max.

If you haven't already, check out anything you can by Chris Ferguson on the topic of BR management. He has conducted some cool BR building experiments where he was able to keep from going broke by following key rules about buy-ins and what level to play.



#2 and #5 are good



I know it's been hashed out before, but I thought I'd share what has worked out for me. I am not advocating anything here that I haven't directly experienced to be true.



EDIT: In the time it took me to type this out, Raistlin responded. Yeah, what he said. ;)

Good luck, no matter what!

yea but your post is better!

thanks a lot for your responses guys. i appreciate the advice, and hopefully I can use it to my advantage.

I think I'm going to stick with my $2 strategy for .01/.02 but I think I will switch to the full buy in when I move up to .02/.05. Not sure if its just a coincidence with this small sample size, but I've been able to get my $2 up to about $5 or $6 at least 50% of the time (hardly ever losing the full $2).

Your view of this whole "poker thing" is wayyyyy too short term. Also, buy-in full everytime you drop a penny under full.

True True! This is where PT comes in. It can track how much you are up or down. If I am triple tabling under my "carefull" rules, I'll quit once I down just over one buy-in "net". I'll also write down my account balance when I start and keep checking the cashier to know how much I am up or down on the night.

Like the Sgt.-Mjr use to yell "RELOAD RELOAD RELOAD!"

and ocassionally "RETREAT!"

Moving on up, moving on down.
 

Actually, I have a question on moving up, so I'll ask it in this thread.

say you are playing 25 max and you build your BR to 1000. You play 1000 or so hands at 50 max and vary from 1150 to 900. Sitting there, AA cracked with 900 in your account, do you move down?

How bad of a beating (in terms of monetary loses) do you take before you drop back down?

even though ur a winning player?

I think that if it makes you uncomfortable you should just move down. It's better to play it on the safe side.

Not so much of an issue of comfort. I was just wondering about applying that 20 buy-in idea for proper BR management. If you don't treat it like a hard and ABSOLUTE rule, then what.

hmmm. Wait a sec. When I say it that way, comfort is definitely an issue. :thumbsup:

Granted, In think the Q still stands. If I have built up to $1000 in order to play 50 max, how far below $1000 should I allow myself to be spanked down before I revert to 25 max (in general).

This thread has gone from semi-strange to well.... I don't know what.

Bankroll management has been discusses here dozens of times - hit the search box if you are looking for more.

But I will add:

Sitting with a short stack while learning and trying to improve your basic game (as opposed to a short stack specific approach which would be completely pointless at micro limits anyway) is a bad idea. Sit with a freaking full stack - or move down. I guess the exception to this would be when you are already playing the lowest limits available and can't move any lower. My advice then would be to stop playing, read some books, do your homework, whatever, until you are comfortable playing with a full buy in. Whatever you do, DO NOT move up until you are playing the current level with a full buy in. Don't even think about it.

And yeah, Ando (not to single you out, dude, but I completely disagree with what Invigilator said about you) claims his short stack strategy works, but from what I've seen, I don't believe it. I suspect any success he has had playing like this would be from short term variance more than anything else.

As for when to move back down after moving up, I'm not sure why this is even a question:

If you have $900, that's 18 buy ins at $50, right? So, if your limit is 20, you're below your limit, so move down. To avoid immediately having to move down if you take one beat after moving up, wait to move up until you have 25 buy ins and then move back down when you get to 20 (for example). Simple. If you insist on moving up when you get to exactly 20, move back down when you drop to 18. But FFS, don't sit there and blow your entire roll after things are going south, just because you WERE rolled for a game! That's the whole point of bankroll management and this 20x buy in guideline.

Right, so if you move up when you hit the exact $ amount that you need for the next level and then lose your first hand (or have a bad first session), do you move down?

I would say take a shot at it for maybe 1/4 of the roll (assuming the previous limit was about 1/2 the requirement) and then if you are down 75% move back down and rebuild and then try again. That way you aren't knocking yourself down too far at the higher limit and having to start over at the previous level.

If you do this, you're really making the limit 15 buy ins, which I think is a bad idea.

Think of it as "At what level should I move down in stakes?" and the answer as "When you have less than 20 buy ins" and maybe this will make more sense to you guys.

That's a more conservative way to look at it, of course, but I think it's better. Instead of sitting out of your lower level games and hurrying to move up the minute you hit 20 buys ins, maybe take your time and let yourself get up to 21 or 22...

I agree with the waiting till you have more than 20 BIs to move up. I would say 25 -30 is more like it if you are going to be moving down at 20BI. There has to be enough play to evaluate the new level or why bother (you are just hoping to get lucky and putting too much pressure to win on your first session or two at the new limit).

Wasn't it the standard advise in the past to play 5000+ hands at the new limit? No way to do that with only 1-2 buyins buffer before moving down.

If it was me, I would probably stick to 30BIs to move up and drop back down at 20 to rebuild if necessary.

Looking at it assuming you are set on moving up at 20BIs, I think the moving back down to rebuild at 15 is reasonable (although not ideal). You don't risk going broke, but you do risk having to spend more time rebuilding, where the more conservative approach gives you some protection against having to move down at all. :twocents:

Thanks guys. The whole buffer/threshold thing was what was on my mind and you clarified a lot of the ideas I was mulling over.