[Clonexx]

I swear....

I started my online bankroll very small, $25. I worked it up to $120 playing .05/.10 cent limit on Pokerstars. I have tons of hands logged and pretty much have this level beat.

Whenever I move up to .25/.50 I play like a total ******* and I am not sure why. I start refusing to fold hands, even when my brain is screaming im beat, I still call down. I can not figure out why the hell I do this.

I also seem more scared of the money outlay into the pots. I shouldn't be, because the money really isn't anything I need, it's not like I am playing with money I can't lose. I just don't WANT to lose it, so I think I become either overly aggressive trying to win pots or I become too passive.

I end up losing money then dropping back down to .05/.10 and go back to playing well and destroying it. Then I move back up and once again I play terribly. The level of play between the 2 limits can NOT be that far off from each other.

ARGH....help =( Heh

[yeltzen]

Welcome to the club. I'm running into the problem a little bit now that I've moved up to $1/2. I was doing great in $.5/1 and now at $1/2 I'm playing more hands that I know I shouldn't be playing and playing them way too aggressively. I think I just want more money faster. Usually I'll just take a break and read over some stuff until I feel like I'm back to normal. Multi-tabling seems to help, too, since you're making decisions so fast you don't have time to get tricky preflop. Worth a try.

[Clonexx]

Originally Posted by yeltzen

Welcome to the club. I'm running into the problem a little bit now that I've moved up to $1/2. I was doing great in $.5/1 and now at $1/2 I'm playing more hands that I know I shouldn't be playing and playing them way too aggressively. I think I just want more money faster. Usually I'll just take a break and read over some stuff until I feel like I'm back to normal. Multi-tabling seems to help, too, since you're making decisions so fast you don't have time to get tricky preflop. Worth a try.

Ill try it.

I did try multitabling one .25/.50 and one .05/.1 table at the same time. It seemed to calm me down some by letting me see my play at the .05/.1 table and then trying to emulate that at the .25/.50 table.

I am going to have to re-read SSH and go back over everything in there to try and get myself back on track.

I am doing the same thing you are, playing too many hands and playing weak draws/weak made hands WAY too aggressively.

[dad604]

I find a big difference in skill level between .05/.10 and .25/.50 games. After that the jump in skill level still goes up but not as much as between the .05/.10 to .25/.50.

Just my $.02 worth.

[shadesofgrey]

Originally Posted by yeltzen

Multi-tabling seems to help, too, since you're making decisions so fast you don't have time to get tricky preflop. Worth a try.

Great advice. I am just now getting comfy at 1/2 & multi tabling helped a lot. I think part of it has to do with wanting all the $$ in the pot when its lower stakes you can take a beat down and it wont wipe out all your money in your account. when I play multiple tables i am less likely to chase a bad hand.

I tried to bump up one extra level in my ring game and got my account slaughtered. The skill level definately goes up with price. Try a $5 sit-n-go vs. a 20 or 30 table. there is a huge increase in skill level.

[yeltzen]

$1/2 seems to be worse than $.5/1 on Party. I think they're so much worse that I think I can get away with playing even more hands than I normally do. My biggest problem is not being able to lay down top pairs and such. Gotta work on that.

[imthatguy]

Originally Posted by Clonexx

I swear....

I started my online bankroll very small, $25. I worked it up to $120 playing .05/.10 cent limit on Pokerstars. I have tons of hands logged and pretty much have this level beat.

Whenever I move up to .25/.50 I play like a total ******* and I am not sure why. I start refusing to fold hands, even when my brain is screaming im beat, I still call down. I can not figure out why the hell I do this.

I also seem more scared of the money outlay into the pots. I shouldn't be, because the money really isn't anything I need, it's not like I am playing with money I can't lose. I just don't WANT to lose it, so I think I become either overly aggressive trying to win pots or I become too passive.

I end up losing money then dropping back down to .05/.10 and go back to playing well and destroying it. Then I move back up and once again I play terribly. The level of play between the 2 limits can NOT be that far off from each other.

ARGH....help =( Heh

This is my problem exactly. I started with $25, played in the .25/.50 limit games for a month or two (minimal multi-tabling) and wound up with around $230. Not bad, I'm feeling pretty good. I take a break for three weeks, study some new reading material, get back to the game, and things are going fine. I decide to move up to .50/1 and get destroyed. I move up again ($1/$2) to see if it's just reckless players that's beating me. It didn't seem to matter how good my cards were, I just wasn't winning. Much like you Clonexxx, I couldn't get away from hands. I knew I was beat, I could tell by the way people were betting, etc. I knew the foundations, but I wasn't able to stick with them. I was ready to quit playing online and stick to live tournaments.

I guess what happened was I started to care too much. Now that I'm back in the basement (back to my original $25) I've started to play a lot more aggressively, not worrying so much about the money, and focusing more on playing strong hands well, instead of playing strong hands poorly. Plus, I found that limit just destroys people on the river. Especially in low-limit, it can be very profitable to stick around with junk in the hopes of hitting your money card. People will play just about anything for a quarter!

[VARoadstter]

I did some study of the players and hands that I have in my database and it told me a few things:

Aggressive play is winning play.
Players tend to be either complete fish or playing more or less solid with only about 25% somewhere in between.
In limit, value bet, value bet, value bet.
In NL, sit back and let people hand their money to you (going all in with a bluff to your strong hands, overplaying their draws, betting into the nuts).

I can say with confidence that the playing styles have not yet changed significantly as I've moved up in limits. I have played everything from .25/.50 limit to 2/4. I have played NL .10/.25 to 1/2. The players are doing the exact same things. This just confirms the fact that there is no reason to use fancy plays at these levels. Opponents don't realize what you're doing and even if they have a clue they are still going to play anyway.

Don't get upset about a downward swing. Postmortem analysis of your hands is critical. Find those leaks and fix them.

I realize this is not any kind of revelation. It does bear repeating, though, as 90% of the time the reason we fail is because we're suddenly convinced we've "figured it out" or some other lame justification. Moving up in limits when you can afford it is great as it allows you to make more $$$/hr but don't kid yourself into believing that moving from .10/.25 to .25/.50 makes any difference in opponent skill. It just doesn't.

Disclaimer: I am not a great player. I'm probably not even a good player, yet, but I do learn from my mistakes.

[Rorshach]

I agree with Var completely. I started at .50/1.00 and now play 2/4 or 3/6.As I was moving up I welcomed the thought of less chasers and bad suckouts and perhaps more respect for raises and whatnot. But it's just not the case. I see the same bad play at any level I have played at so far.

Maybe once, and if, I get outof the lower range of limit, that might change. But somehow I doubt it.

[SpaceMonkey]

Originally Posted by Rorshach

I agree with Var completely. I started at .50/1.00 and now play 2/4 or 3/6.As I was moving up I welcomed the thought of less chasers and bad suckouts and perhaps more respect for raises and whatnot. But it's just not the case. I see the same bad play at any level I have played at so far.

Maybe once, and if, I get outof the lower range of limit, that might change. But somehow I doubt it.

I'll chime in with my own "ditto". Started at 50¢/$1 and $10+1 SnG's. I now play 2/4, 3/6 and 30+3, 50+5 SnG's. Same expectations as Rorshach, same results of bad play like Rorshach.