Just a general thought/question about bankroll...

I have ~$220.00 in my stars account and have been advised on here to play $10 NLH until I reach at least $400. I don't seem to do as well in the $10 as I do in the $25. I feel like I am chasing too much and calling preflop too much with marginal hands because it's "only" $10. When I am in the $25 NLH room, It seems to mean more to me and I feel like I play a better game.

I realize this is a disipline problem...does anyone else find this to be the case with their own playing?

Just curious...thanks.

Play the same hands preflop, and consider bets as a percentage of the pot, not as an absolute figure.

You need more than 9 buy ins to cover variance so the advice is correct if that $220 is your entire bankroll. If you have more funds that you can use (and still pay the bills!!) by all means go for the higher level.

I've used the figure of 25 buy ins before going up a level (ie, you need $5000 to move up from 50c/$1 to $1/2, which gives a safe buffer, and drop back to the previous level if you lose 20% of your bankroll to build up again)

This is just recent experience over too few hands to be statistically significant, but when I had moved down to NL10 after my first failed attempt to make it at NL25 I did rather well. Well enough to get back to NL25 much sooner that I expected.

I believe my NL25 losses taught me to be patient and aggressive. So when I did drop down the number of times I called fell dramatically. I folded troublesome hands pre-flop, and folded post-flop like a washer-woman too - unless I hit and then I'd value-bet to death. OK, I'd hang around on a draw to the nuts in the face of those silly 1/10th pot bets [you know, where you hit one of your nine outs, call villain's all-in and then get called a fish].

And I still 'visit' NL10 when my confidence needs a boost. If after a couple of hours at NL25 I have only broken even, or worse, it's nice to take another look at a NL10 tables.

Again, too few hands to be statistically significant, so it could just be variance - but you did ask.

However, without knowing OP's winrate we can't know whether 25, 50, or 500 buy-ins would reduce his risk of ruin to 1%. If we don't know if he's long-term winning we can't know if any bankroll is reasonable.

Confusion over bankroll issues is rampant. We discussed it a bit on a prior thread, and you've convinced me to publish a not-yet-finished blog post. Check back after I finish the post tonight.

To the OP: I agree that you should focus on discipline and playing right despite the stakes. As a short-term accomodation, you could play NL25 short stacked and reduce variance, at the cost of substantial boredom from playing much tighter.

There's a great probability that it's just dumb luck, not worse play. If you wish, post hands you think you misplayed at NL10 on here.

If it really is poor play at NL10 but not NL25, then you really need more introspection on why you think you play worse at NL10. But I'm not convinced it's anything other than a small sample, until you post examples or winrates over 100k+ hands!

Post hands in the micro stakes forum and improve your game!

I probably do not have a good enough sample at either level. But here are my details...

Got tired of losing my poker winnings on bodog by betting on horses...
Deposited $50 into stars Dec. 2nd. Started playing $10 NL ~6 to 8 hrs per week. Kept bouncing from $30 to $60...no giant loss and no great gains.

After a few weeks moved to $25 NL and really started making strides...went over $200 and then questioned my bankroll here. When I moved back to $10 NL I just felt like I was being impatient...calling too much for flush/straight draws, playing weaker A's out of position...things like that and losing my money $10 at a time!

Went back to $25 NL and brought bankroll back up to over $200. Again...this is all in a matter of just over a month...so, it probably is in no way a good sample. I was just curious if anyone had ever felt the same way...like you take too many chances at $10.

I certainly don't want lose my bankroll...I would really like to see it grow...so I guess my best bet is to disipline my play and stay at $10 NL to build it.

Dont think of the money on the table as x amount of dollars, think of it as x amount of bb's. This presonally helped me.

I experience the same. When you know you can beat a particular limit you may begin to get sloppy if the money means less to you.

you must realize that eventually the 25nl will become as "boring" as the 10nl and after that level gets old you will want to jump again. if you are getting better than you have a shot but if not your in for some trouble.

qft

i had this same problem but its better to learn bankroll management now then at higher limits

multi tabling also can be a big help