There's only what, 96 hours left in August?

Even if you played 24 hours a day you'd have to crush to hit that.


I'll take the under on that bet.

Yo JB,

I´d be happy to draw cards or flip for it, if that would help you out...

Agreed. It's a perfectly cromulent word.

I enjoyed reading this paragraph.

Win $750, double up betting black.

Repeat.

Agreed. Any win rate has attainiousness in the pits.

Hey guys quick update.

Still grinding the 1/2nl day games and the weekend evening games. Putting in 30-60hr per week. Monday's and Tuesday's have not been good as the games have been breaking and not lasting the night like usual, so I have been using these days to play online review and relax.
After a completely breakeven Vegas trip,
Summer hasn't been great so far. A lot of long stretches with no big momentum gains. Unfortunately, I had a small stretch over a few days of run bad getting AA and KK AIPF and not holding up. These small bad variance points are maybe the worst part of live poker vs online. The loss of volume in live pokers can really crush your soul when you hit a bad stretch.

Have been lucky enough to get 2/5 games started mid day with one whale and a bunch of scared money 1/2 players before the rest of the 2/5+ pool shows up - which has been really great for building confidence and getting used to playing higher more often. Have been doing well in these games which helps a lot.

Since the last month was pretty tough, I decided to still track all results (as I have for the last 3k hrs) but not LOOK at any graphs or monthly stats for August. I find that looking at the graphs etc makes the highs feel better and the lows feel worse. Also, having that idea in the back of your head of how the month is going to the dollar can sometime affect me as much as I try to ignore it. I'm really looking forward to seeing my stats at the month end of August and I will post it here.
Thanks

Moving down to regain confidence is definitely a good idea. I have had to do this at least once that I can recall.

However, you probably should not force yourself to stay there for a fixed amount of time. Once you feel good about your game again and your bankroll is ready for it, give it maybe 1 or 2 more sessions and then move back up.

Cash games aren't entirely different than mtts in the topping off/rebuying department. If you're on your last bullet of the night I'd avoid taking small edge spots because the risk of ruin is like a mtt, the night is done. Same with topping off, sometimes the table dynamics make for wanting to play a 75BB stack instead of 100BB, do that for a while, and you can double and table change or table change then top off.

Two sessions in and I'm giving myself a fighting chance at Operation 3000. Putting the team on my back to close out the month

8/25: +620 (5 hours, $124/hr)
8/27: +665 (7 hours, $95/hr)

I'll probably get 2-3 more sessions in before month end so I gotta average $570 per for three or $850 per for two

I support
#teamjohnnybuzz

I wonder if those of you who are saying don't move down or don't stay long are making assumptions based upon your own local room that may not apply everywhere.

First of all, we obviously need to pay attention to our psychological bankroll as well as the actual bankroll.

But after that, shouldn't we be saying it depends? Some 1-2 rooms are filled with short stacking weak tight players. Moving up to 2-5 is pretty key in spots like that. But other people report pretty enviable WR's at 1-2 and 1-3 in their rooms.

Obviously Johnnyb will figure out what's best for him over time. But I'm curious why some people seem to be assuming that the answer must be 2-5 for him right now.

10bb/hr in 1/2 is $20 while 5bb/hr in 2/5 is $25.

I see it all the time - people move up to 5/10 and think they need to buy in max and do few other things so they can appear to fit in and not look weak and out of place.

Last time I checked he's making $100/hr.

And 2bb/hr in 10/25 is $50.

Skill gap between 1/2 and 2/5 is minimal.

In rooms where I felt that wasn't the case, I don't have the sample size to confidently argue the point.

If you're a crusher in 1/2 at 10bb/hr, it shouldn't be hard to move up and beat the game for 5bb/hr.

But of course if you're just breaking even in 1/2, then 2/5 would seem out of reach.

Don't forget relative rake goes down @2/5 too.

And buying in for 100bb doesn't mean you play 6 hr session at 100bb... you can play deep with other people's money.

If you game select well. If not you will end up in games with little or no edge when moving up. And the swings are significantly bigger.

The problem I see more than any other is not players remaining overly flexible between stakes but the opposite.... players who move up stakes as a shot take or whatever then Maybe after running decent they experience some swings and either their ego or self dellusions prevent them from playing in their former game.

If only marginally rolled they go broke. The benefits of being over rolled for a game (even 1/2) cannot be overstated IMO. It's just so much easier to play correctly in all spots when you have way more than adequate cash and chips in your pocket or your home. A shot take or transition that would compromise our ability to remain over rolled at the lower stake is a significant risk.... Risk of semi-ruin I'll call it.

I've had some private convos with Cam about this but my general take has been:

- I've noticed a significant skill gap between 1/2 and 2/5 at my local room over the 80 hours I logged. 33% of the sessions, players were on par with 1/2 skill level. 67% of the sessions, players were noticeably better. I never felt outmatched, but I also didn't feel like the big fish (ha) in a small pond like I do at just about every single 1/2 table I sit down at.

At 1/2, I feel like I am hitting the ATM every time I go play. People are so transparent that I can't remember the last "tricky" spot I got myself stuck in. Things that worked beautifully at 1/2 were ineffective at 2/5.

Villains played back harder to standard c-bets. Now a lot of my game involves showing down the goods early on, building up a little stack, and then using my image and stack size to get even more aggressive and win pots without having a hand. Now maybe it was just bad luck or variance or whatnot, but I felt like I never went on a "roll" in any of my sessions. Every pot was fighting tooth and nail to win and I probably failed to ease up off the aggressive play style I like to play without having enough fuel in my "image tank" to support it.

So my next shot will be figuring out if the players really are better, if my instincts no longer work at 2/5, etc. or if I just ran into a sour patch in my first go round.

Guys got a post reported, so read through the last few days of this thread, and there's a bit too much chippyness going on ITT. Keep it civil and constructive please.

ELE.

Meh, never got in a real hand with me because I'd pegged you as good enough to have a tighter range in EP, so I folded my AT-AQo type hands when you were the opener, that I never would have folded against most of those droolers' EP ranges.

FWIW, my results at that room are only a few $/hr better than yours. Solid results.

Depends on the room in my experience. In most "mature" poker markets, I agree. In the midwest, there is a significant difference at most rooms. And in Vegas, you start to find pros/sem-pros at 2/5, where they are vanishingly rare at 1/2.

Most likely those 2/5 games are quite soft but you just aren't used to the stylistic differences between 2/5 and 1/2. That's even more reason you should be topping off to 200bbs.

You will likely need to make adjustments and improvements to destroy 2/5. I wouldn't go in with the expectation that you are just going to crush it right off the bat.

I don't think we're too far from agreement. In some rooms, 1-2 seems to be filled with terrible passive players mystified by the most basic of moves, while 2-5 has a mix of bad aggressive players and bad - decent regs. How one fares would depend on the mix and how well they deal with the significant difference in aggression . Ymmv

In smaller LLSNL games, almost all players will live and die by some basic rules that they always abide, because quite frankly, most of them are simply not capable of thinking too deep.

As stake goes up, players become less restricted by their own rules and in turn become less predictable by lower skilled players.