I am very cautious about moving from lower stakes even with a consistent win rate, because I hate losing my winnings and going backwards.

I wonder if there's a particular level of performance you should be looking for before you gamble on higher stakes. Also, what are the bankroll/budgeting considerations?

Any advice appreciated.

There are some fairly standard rules for what kind of bankroll you should have for different games. It is however, somewhat situation dependent. For example, a lot of players, if poker is their main or only income, will be very conservative, playing a given tournament only if they have 200 or more buy-ins at that level.

It doesn't sound like poker is your source of income, and I don't know what you play. SNG, MTTs and cash games all require different bankrolls.

In general, the numbers usually go something like this:

You have a decent bankroll if:

you play cash games and you have 25 buy-ins
you play SNGs and have 50 BI
you play MTTs and you have 100 BI

That means you're safe where you are. If you want to move up, there are different ways that you can look at. A very conservative player might not move up until he is bankroll for the next level, for example, if he's playing $1 MTTs now, he won't move up to $3 until he has a $300 bankroll.

A different strategy, once you're safe where you are, it to take shots at the next level once in a while, see how it feels and see if you think you're ready to make a move.

For example, let's say that you're playing $1 tournaments, your bankroll is $225 and you want to move up to $3 tournaments. In that case, you could start mixing in a $3 tournament once in a while and see what happens.

A few cautions:

1. First, don't attack the new level too hard. Make sure that only a small percentage of your tournaments are at the higher level.

2. You might get hammered when you move up and that's OK. You might not be ready, or it might be variance. If you lose some money, that's OK. That's why you have a bankroll, to get through the downswings.

3. Don't try to make up your losses. If your bankroll goes from $225 to $205 while you're taking shots, just slow down and get yourself together. Don't panic. Downswings are normal. You've proven that you can make money at $1, just stop taking the shots and grind your bankroll back up playing $1.

When I was playing $5 SNGs on PokerStars I decided to take some shots at $10 and I was killing it, doing much better than I did at $5. Eventually things calmed down and I played about breakeven for a couple months until I saw that FBI logo on my screen. That was Black Friday.

I had a big winning streak when I moved up. That was positive variance. It could have just as easily gone the other way. Don't get too excited with positive variance, don't get too discouraged with negative variance and you'll be fine.

Excellent advice, thank you. To be honest, I think I do and have done pretty much as you have suggested, but I always second guess myself and question whether I am ready even if I am doing quite well.

You're right that poker is not my main source of income and I am not looking to rely on it. I am just a recreational player, but poker does provide me with additional income and I would like to capitalise on what ability I have/push my game as much as possible.

Amazing advice, sounds like we got a plan

you will know when to move up if you can look at the higher stakes table and see you are going to be one of the best players there. if you cant do that you are not ready.

bankroll size is more for those that have a set bankroll to play off of and if they lose that they are busted. if you have an income then your bankroll is unlimited up to what you are willing to risk.
good luck. play every hand independently of the past and only if you can make it a winning position. then you will be the long term winner.

This is true to an extent, but I watch a lot of poker, with all kinds of different players and situations. I often think I would have taken a different line or that such and such player is not playing very well, but I am not arrogant enough to think that I would necessarily do a better job in the long run.

then you are not better than your opponents and dont belong at that table. it has nothing to do with arrogance.

Exactly, even the top players know when to leave a EV- table.

Nothing that you said is incorrect, but we all started somewhere. A beginner might now know how to figure out where he stands against the rest of the table until he gets beat up a few times, but the only way that player will learn is both playing and studying.

I played online for several years, but when I played my first live tournament I was totally lost. I didn't have the mechanical skills to keep track of pot size and stack sizes and how many cards the guy on my left was playing. I was used to seeing numbers on a monitor.

They had house rules that don't apply online for example, where the betting line was. There was no physical line on the table. I broke more than one rule that day and had to sit out some hands. I was even more frustrated when I asked for a copy of the rules and nothing was in writing.

I was so confused and overwhelmed that some players were mad at me for holding up the game and others were mocking me.

I went back the next week, knowing that I was in way over my head. I went to work fixing my leaks. That tournament I got beat up again, but I worked on adding the bets in my head so that I would know what the exact pot size was.

Eventually it all made sense. The point is that I kept going back, knowing that I was the fish at the table. That's the only way you learn.

thats one way to learn for sure. but i took the approach of not paying to learn but getting paid while learning. i managed to do okay with that scenario. thats why i recommended it.

Most of us started with a hot streak, which allowed us to weather the first downswing. I cleaned up for 3 months, the 4th was BE, the 5th I lost 3 BI over 9 sessions (actually all in one session), next month down 2 BI again. Fortunately I had years of online experience so I understood (intellectually and mostly emotionally) how small this sample size was, and I got through it. But if that hit had happened up a level, I prob wouldn't be here to write this. Emotionally I wouldn't have been able to handle losing 3BI at a higher level, even if my play was fine.

I'm not saying don't take a shot or two, just that eventually this game will gut punch you, it might be nice to have experienced some cheaper losing so you're ready for it.

hahaha, playing my first live tournament tonight, I shouldn't have read this

but yea I agree, everybody (or almost everybody) kinda suck when they begin. We have to get through this if we ever want to be successful at anything.

I've been following Clif's pointers and am doing well so far.

I didn't find this very helpful.

As I said before, I think you're right to an extent, but you don't know what you don't know. If you're used to playing at a particular level and you watch players at a different level, you might very easily think that you're better than them. However, you have to ask yourself whether those players are taking lines that you simply don't understand. Maybe they are, maybe they're not, but I don't think it's as easy as just watching players and knowing immediately that you are better or worse.

All players make mistakes or apply strategies that don't always work. You can watch a session or two and see those mistakes from your armchair and lull yourself into thinking you're watching a donk. That is not always the case and you might find yourself struggling when you actually come up against them.

Don't get me wrong, I sit at tables and I take a view. I often think I'm the best at the table and should be able to win, but that's different from knowing it.

Although I posted this in the Beginners Questions, I am not really a beginner. I have played for a long time and have consistently made money, taking breaks here and there when I lost interest in the game.

I have had ups and downs with poker and I know about downswings, but this post was more about okay, I may experience an upswing or a downswing, but how do I factor that in and keep moving forward?

Are you multi-tabling?

What I used to do when moving up was either to play on one table for a while, until I felt at ease. Or, if you bankroll allows it, keep the amount of tables at the old level that you used to play, minus one, and instead add one table at the level you are aiming for. Then, as you feel more at ease, add one more table. Repeat until all your tables are in the new level.

Plus, always have a stop-gap if things go awry. The goal here is acclimatation at minimum risk. Better to risk one BI testing the waters than 2 or 4.

Yeah, I always multi-table.

I've been playing most tables on the stakes that I'm used to then a couple on the next stakes up.

So, in April I crushed for a while then had one really bad day where I lost a lot of my profit, but am up overall for the month. In fact I did as well on the higher stakes as I did on my usual ones, so overall a success, although the returns are more volatile than when I'm gambling smaller stakes. I guess as you would expect.

I'm finding that I'm one of the best players in 6-handed regular SNGs for the stakes I'm at, although I have lost to a few excellent regs. With 9-handed SNGs I'm struggling a bit more to make profit.

Let's see what May brings.

Hey, man.
I am currently doing a BR challenge and have been wondering the same things. I have found that when you move up a stake, try to play at the short buy in tables to get a taste of what the action is like without putting up as big of a buy in. Also, there are capped games, which are less action as well, but I really like playing the short stack games.

As a general rule when I'm moving up I'll play my main level most of the time and then play the level I'm moving up to when I expect the competition to be soft to get my feet wet. Then if I'm doing well at the next level I start playing it at other times.

brawndo that is a good way to go. never jeopardize your full bankroll moving up. and as i always say only move up into games you are sure are really soft and you can see you are one of the best players there. there is little benefit ever in playing in games you are not a good favorite.

So I did even better in May. I played mostly the lower stakes games with a couple of the higher stakes games thrown in each session. Weirdly I crushed the higher stakes games for most of the month and they generated all my profit, as I lost money on the lower stakes games, maybe because of where my attention was focused.

Playing different stakes is definitely helping my game and building confidence as I feel like I'm good for all the stakes I'm playing at. I'm not sure whether to just work in more games at a higher stake level, jump to the next level up, or both.

Also found this video interesting:



JNandez suggests firing ten buy ins on higher stakes. Is this a good idea? I feel like it's maybe not enough.

How much volume do you have at the higher stakes?

Don't let a small sample size be the final factor in you moving up. You also have to remember as you play more hands, the regs will be adjusting to your play.

I have played 364 9 handed games, 372 on the 6 handed. My stats show my ROI after rake is 21% for the 6 handed games, -0.9% for the 9 handed, but the 9 handed ROI is a bit misleading. This is because I tried moving up a while back and did not do so well overall. I think at the end of that it was minus something fairly significant and then this time around I've brought it way back up.

I know what you mean about sample size, but I'm feeling fairly confident and have a good feel for all the games I'm playing at the moment.