INTRODUCTION
As a preface, this COTW isn’t for everyone. There are many players who play poker recreationally. They can re-load their bankroll from other income comfortably. Poker becomes a form of entertainment, like going to the movies. Therefore, being a consistent losing player isn’t a big deal, since it can be seen as simply another cost of their life. They never need to move down. Others are happy playing at the level they are playing, are winning, and therefore never want to consider moving up. Both of these are perfectly fine and there is nothing to criticize in those approaches. If you are in those camps, I wouldn’t bother reading what is below, unless you are interested in how other people will approach poker. It just doesn’t apply to you.
This COTW will cover what are really two different subjects, especially in how one looks at them. Moving up is highly dependent on the individual involved. There’s no standard right answer. What I hope to do is give what questions you should be asking yourself so you can find the answer that is right for you. Moving down is different. The hard law of poker is that if you are a losing player at a level, no bankroll management skill will keep you afloat if you don’t re-load. Moving down can be voluntary, but often it becomes a necessity if you treat your bankroll as irreplaceable. In the micros, that is almost never the case unless you chose to make it so. Most people can find several hundred US dollars if they chose to. As a personal opinion, if you plan to move up, you need to practice all your skills, including bankroll management when the cost of failure is low. More on bankroll management can be found
here.
Since I like to end with a high note, we’ll look at moving down first.
MOVING DOWN
This is an extremely difficult area for any poker player, no matter high they play. There are multiple reasons. The first is due to addiction. Part of what draws most people to poker is the gambler’s high. Phil Ivey recently commented that he enjoys gambling the most when he is on the edge of ruin and has to fight back. That’s why you see name pros doing prop bets that can be in excess to the actual stakes at the poker table. There’s no question that some people are more affected by this than others, but it is not an effect that can be ignored.
The problem with moving down is that the stakes move down as well. Because the stakes are lower, the gambler’s high is less. Without the high, poker is boring for most people. That’s why you see so many hot internet pros lamenting that they are unhappy and can’t imagine playing for the rest of their life. The high is gone.
Another reason is ego. You talk yourself into, “I’m a 25nl player,” instead of “I’m a poker player.” Your self-image gets wrapped up in the level you play. Leaving it means losing part of your identity. In addition, there the idea that you know lots more than the people you play against. “He’s an idiot, how could he call my raise with T8o.”
Variance. Variance allows us to fool ourselves. Virtually nobody admits to be on a heater. When we speak of variance, it is always forcing us to win less than we should. However, variance can keep us at a level where we feel like we can win. We win enough of the time that we can make an excuse like, “I just hit the top of his range.” Related to this is that poker does allow us to win hands. We remember the winning sessions more than the losing ones.
Bankroll supplements also keep us in the game. If you play on Pokerstars, there’s regular reload bonuses that allow one to top off, telling yourself that you’re just taking advantage of the bonus. Or you talk yourself into that you’re just running bad and will put a little back in to cover yourself.
Friends can sabotage you. No friend wants to tell someone that they can’t beat a level of poker, they just say they’re running bad. Your villains don’t want you to move down either, so they’ll say whatever it takes to keep you playing. Finally, there are VPPs or Iron Man rewards to earn. Moving down means losing status, as well as rewards.
Therefore, virtually everything and everyone is conspiring to keep you losing money. Sure, you could learn more and then hope to win. Yet as we move up, the work involved to keep up and improve becomes harder and the edges gained narrower. Your money may not last long enough for the improvements to take hold. You can count on only one to do this for you:
You.
The way is to be brutally honest with yourself. Humans don’t like being honest about themselves, but that is what separates people from winners in poker and everyone else. It means facing reality.
Reality Check #1: The average player in the micros loses over -3ptBB/100.
Yes, people lose on average more than 3ptBB/100. Being average isn’t good enough. You need to be in the top 40% to just break even. To consistently make money, you have to be even better. It goes beyond the old saying of, “if you can’t spot the fish at your table after 30 minutes, you’re it.” If you can’t spot a few fish and 4-6 meh regulars, you’re at the wrong table. If a majority of tables don’t meet these criteria, you really aren’t able to beat that level of poker. There’s nothing wrong with playing BE poker for a while as you gain experience and improve. However, don’t fool yourself into thinking you’re a winning player and things will turn around on their own.
Reality Check #2: If you can crush a level of poker, you won’t have a sustained losing streak.
Yes, variance exists. I know poker can be a struggle even at 2nl if that is the top level you play. However, most players in the upper micros would admit that that if they had a 50k hand break-even stretch at 2nl, something would be wrong with their game. The reason is that most upper level micro players can play at a level so superior to average 2nl play that even if they are running bad, it simply means they are running 2-3 ptBB/100, not the +10ptBB/100 (or more) they can run.
Therefore, if you are continually losing, at best you are a BE or slight winning player at the level.
Reality Check #3: We suck at poker, we play in the micros.
Nobody who plays in the micros has a completely solid game. We all have leaks and to top players, big ones. As you move up, the leaks get harder to fix because they have become habits. CMAR wrote a great thread on
this , and Alan Schoonmaker has written that winning poker is unnatural, because the natural thing to do in poker is to lose. The higher you play, the more expensive it is to break those habits.
Here are the things that should be warning signs that it is time to move down. The list isn’t exhaustive, but I think covers the big reasons.
1. You’ve made a fold because you didn’t want to risk the money.
If you are turning down a +EV call because you don’t want to risk losing the money, you are playing too high. It doesn’t matter what your bankroll is. This is one reason that live poker differs from on-line. Virtually everyone playing at 1/2 or 2/5 is underbankrolled to some extent. It does impact people’s decisions, both in making bets and calling. It is a huge edge for someone who is unconcerned about losing a stack. If you aren’t able to take advantage of it, move down.
2. Having less than 10 BIs for a level in your BR.
This isn’t the same as having 10 BIs in your account. Yes, you can lose it all in one night if all you have is 10 BIs. Minus 5BI swings occur on a routine basis for me. It happens fast.
3. Frustration.
If you don’t understand what people are doing to you, their betting patterns make little sense, or you feel the regs are outplaying you, move down. You need to study some things and try some new things out. It is cheaper to do it at a lower level as you work through your mistakes.
4. Your green line keeps trending down.
Obviously, you can run bad at times. If over time the peaks are smaller and the valleys deeper, you aren’t winning. How much time is subjective and depends on volume. I believe that if you have two months of losing at a level, you have sufficient warning that it isn’t primarily variance.
5. You want to make significant changes to your game.
It is much cheaper to make mistakes at a lower level. If you decide you want to move from a 12/8 Tag to a 20/18 sLag, you have to do a lot of learning how to handle trickier post flop situations. That will come only with time and you will make mistakes. Make them at a discount.
There’s no shame in moving down. Many top pros (especially cash players who have been around) have written about multiple failures in beating a level, but having the courage to move down, rebuild their BR, fix their leaks, and try again.
MOVING UP
Admittedly, reading about moving down is a bit depressing. Therefore, here’s a little transition
music to prepare us for the next subject.
One of the more popular thread questions is, “Am I ready to move up?” The answer is: You’ll never know for sure until you do it.
/thread
OK, there’s a little more to it. Deciding when to move is a personal decision, and is more dependent on your personality than lots of other things in poker. The baseline criteria are:
1. You have 12 BIs at the newer level.
Less than that, you are risking your BR (see above).
2. You have won money at your existing level for some period of time.
That means don’t move up because you think your “style” will win at a higher level. If you can’t beat 10nl, you can’t beat a higher level. Really.
Anything less than this, don’t do it. Nobody is really ready when they move up. How can they, they’ve never played at that level before? The questions below should help you decide if you are ready.
The first question to ask is how big of a bankroll do I need to make +EV decisions despite the potential risk of losing a BI. Everyone is different. Some can do it with as little as 12 BIs, but there are others that need 50 or more BIs. No one but you can answer that question. I'll simply note that the fewer the BIs you have at a level, the more ready you need to be to move down.
The next is to honestly ask yourself if you are one of the best players at the level you are currently playing. This gets overlooked frequently. Remember, you need to be in the top 40% of players to even BE at a level. Most regulars you’ll run into at a higher level can routinely beat the level you are at currently, even if they can’t beat that higher level. The competition is going to be tougher. You’ll know that you are in that top tier if,
1. There’s nobody you’d avoid or fear at a table.
It doesn’t mean you don’t respect them, but it means if it is a good table, you don’t leave it because they happen to be on it.
2. On Pokerstars at least, you’ll play the 50bb tables.
It isn’t a secret that the 50bb tables are tougher than the regular tables because the regulars like playing 50bb tables. If you’re avoiding the 50bb tables because there are too many good regulars, you aren’t in the elite.
3. You’re winning on weekdays as well as weekends and holidays.
Weekends and holidays are softer. If you can’t win during the week, you aren’t one of the best.
After this is the “King Spew” test. You play one table with the purpose of focusing on hand ranges and behavior. If you can predict what people will do and nail the hand ranges, you understand the level you are playing.
Doubling your bankroll is last. If you can double your bankroll, it shows you can win for a sustained period of time.
What I would not do is focus on having a specific WR over a certain number of hands. Poker is not a static game. Your game should be continually improving. The better players at your level are getting better, too. The WR will never converge, so don’t focus on it. Don’t limit yourself to a number of hands before you move. There is so much information on this forum now that a beginning player who worked hard could crush his way through the lower micros in weeks. To tell someone that they need 25,000 hands before moving from 2nl to 5nl is ridiculous if they are winning at 15 ptBB/100.
Once you move, just a couple of things to keep in mind. Everyone the first time is a bit nervous. That’s normal. You are a random to most of the players. The bad news is that you don’t have many stats on them. However, they don’t have much on you. People will tend to give you credit at first for your moves. Keep in mind that over a short period of time, people will start getting a handle on your game. Don’t change your game when you start. No level is vastly different that you won’t be competitive with what was a winning game before. More information on the differences between levels in the micros can be found
here. Finally, set a stop loss. Again, this is personal, so I can’t give specific advice. However, set it at a level just less than it would take to put you on tilt. If losing 2BIs at the new level will have you posting about the bad hit you took, set the limit at 1.5 BIs.
The big thing is that I encourage people to try to move up. Even if you lose, the worst that happens (if you follow the above advice) is that you move back down again. You’ll learn some things that you hadn’t seen before. Your leaks will get exposed and you can correct them. Since all you need is $40 (20BIs for 2nl), there’s little reason not to try to move up. Don’t let fear beat you. I believe that people move up too slowly rather than too quickly.
CONCLUSIONS
Moving down is one of the hardest things for a poker player to do. You can only rely on yourself to know when it is time which requires being brutally honest.
Moving up is more subjective and depends on your personality. Don’t be afraid to try, though.
Two Plus Two
Linear Mode
