I have been playing micro-stakes online NL5 (2K hands) for a few months, and have made a couple trips to my local, recently opened casino (Encore Boston Harbor) to play 1/3NL and I am so far a winning player. However, I would really appreciate some earnest feedback and advice on my next steps. I know there are a lot of questions peppered throughout this post, but anyone who answers them as best they can will be greatly appreciated! I respect the knowledge of people on here.

I want to get serious about poker, but I have some questions about where to go from here. I've been reading books, I've been playing and keeping notes and analyzing my hands in PokerTracker when I have downtime. Hopefully, some of you guys can give me some advice on how I can improve my game and hopefully (if you think I am ready) start making some non-negligible profit. I am very willing to play live more, but I lack a great bankroll (I believe I should have at least a $10K bankroll to play 1/3NL live -- what say you?). Thus far, my strategy has been to improve my micro-stakes play through theory and practice before getting too serious with live play.

I have ~2K hands played on Ignition (0.02/0.05NL) and I have played two sessions live at Encore Boston Harbor (1/3NL). The only notes/records I have are from PokerTracker. My stats are as follows:

BB/100 is 24.19 which I think is good -- but with 2K hands is it too early to move up in stakes? Is there a particular number of BBs I should win before making the decision to move up in online stakes? What should my bankroll look like for moving up in online play, as well as for committing to regularly scheduled live play? If the best line to take is to stay at NL5, how should I progress?


My VPIP is 24, PFR is 14, Total AF is 4.53. I think these are OK.
My Fold to Steal is 69, and my Att. to Steal is 50. Should I be stealing more?


A major concern I have is that 2K hands is still a small sample size, and my winrate didn't really start to "take off" until I got to about 1,200 hands. That seems to be when things started really clicking and my winrate became consistently good. The biggest indication I have that my sample size may be too small to consider moving up in stakes is that my stats broken down by position aren't what I'd expect (i.e., winning the most on the BTN, losing the most in the blinds).


By position, I do have the highest VPIP on the button, followed by SB, then CO, MP, EP, and BB). But I have actually lost the second most $ by position on the BTN after EP. My winningest position by $ is actually the BB followed by MP, CO, SB -- and I am losing $ on the BTN and EP.


These figures make me feel as though my stats are still muddled by a short-term variance element. How serious a factor is this in making any judgments on my play and on determining the next steps I should take to start profiting from poker? Conversely, but not mutually exclusively, maybe my strategy/play on the BTN is weak. If so, I have to fix this since leaking $ from the most important position in the game is a massive problem that I'd have to solve before making any decisions about where to go from here. Indeed, PT4's LeakTracker tells me that wrt my BTN play, I need more hands for accurate results. I'm not sure the bar graphs in PT4's LeakTracker even give me any real guidance as to plugging any leaks I may have. Do you guys have any advice on useful Filters and Reports that I can run in PT4?

What do you guys suggest for my next steps? Poker training sites? Poker coach? Books? Specific filters and reports to run in PT4? Certain progressions for online to live casino play?

Play 50,000 hands and post again.

You obviously need knowledge and afaik theres only 3 ways of getting it , sub+videos+coach . All those cost money

Agree with the 50k sample as the absolute minimum. OFC that can cost you time and money also , but you are at such a begginer level than that is your best option.

Tony, thanks for your reply. Could you be more specific - any recommendations for sub, videos, coach? What are your thoughts on Upswing Lab or Red Chip Poker? My next purchase is going to be SplitSuit’s poker workbooks. I want to improve hand reading and range analysis. Is there any must-have software - like Power-Equilab and FlopZilla? I’m willing to invest a reasonable sum in study and practice provided there is a good ROI.

Heres my take:

I am a coach and have something to gain from advising you to take coaching.

However, this is not in YOUR best interest. Imo you would be best off just playing for now and gaining experience. You can always get into coaching later if you still need/want to.

At this point for you it would be a waste of money in my experience. Put in some hours and get that minimum sample of 50K hands. Maybe by that time you don't even like poker anymore. Or you're doing so well you don't need coaching at that time. Who knows. In either case you will be saving your money for a better use later (be that coaching at a later stage when it's more useful or something completely different).

Hope this helps.

Akroma

Thank you! I’ll buy the book because I enjoy studying the game but I’ll focus on real play and improving.

50k isnt even enough tbh, you need at least 100k and if your serious about poker and just beginning then the easiest way would be get pokersnowie and play against it. It's not perfect by no means but after 20k hands of playing and studying vs it you will have a solid understanding of how ranges work pre and postflop.

Also that 24bb/100 just means your running hot..expect some variance coming your way and your AF of 5 is absurd so you likely have some postflop issues to work on too.

Hey man - this is something I'm pretty opinionated on. Would like to chat to you about the way I approached this when I first decided whether to take poker seriously or not. As it stands now, I'm a working professional that plays poker on the side (in a 70:30 time and earning ratio). PM me and l'd love to give you my two cents!