This is my first 2+2 post! I come from a live cash background. Been wanting to get good online because I am young (20 yrs old), and I think I can get much better much faster playing online vs live. I have started to play some on ignition at 50NL. Currently have a very small sample size of about 8k hands and feel like I am for sure winning in the games and able to "spot the fish" very easily. I currently am "winning" at 13.6 evbb/100 over the sample. However, I know 8k hands is way too small to tell anything. I feel like I am for sure winning (not because stats but because my view of other players) but also would wager I am not winning at 13bb which I doubt anyone is.

My question is how many hands I should wait before moving to 100NL. I have seen stuff like 50k or 100k hands and that just feels really nitty with moving up when I am pretty sure I am winning in the current game I am in. Is 15-20k hands a good enough sample to move up if I am still winning at a good clip. Obviously if I get my head crushed in I can move down no problem, trying to do this right and yall's help would be appreciated.

Do you have a poker bankroll? How much is that in terms of actual dollars?

Why did you start at 50NL?

How have you studied poker in the past?

What is current bb/100 (not evbb/100)?

First off , congrats and best of luck on your poker journey!I hope to see you at the 2023 wsop.
I would recommend a bit of caution, mostly because it's Ignition. Ignition is a soft site and I guess your up what, 10 buy ins? To me what this says is you definitely have what it takes to beat 50nl on ignition. I'd play some more; that's high enough to where if you're crushing it and multitabling you can make some real money right where you are. I'd recommend measuring your success on a different site as well and if you're crushing it on both sites over say a combined 40-50k hands, then take a shot at higher stakes.
OTOH, there's really not much harm in mixing in some shots at slightly higher stakes if you know what you're doing well enough to beat 50nl consistently so only you really know how aggressively you should run it up.

I have plenty of bankroll in terms of dollars. I have made a lot of money over the past two years in live poker. I have done a good amount of studying haven’t been deep in the pio streets (though I have used it some and ran a few sims) I’ve been more in the training sites type streets (crush live poker and a little bit of upswing.


I started at 50Nl because that study and anything below that felt like a waste of time. Also in bb/100 I’m like 6 buy ins below EV already at like 3 bb/100 in real dollars. But the $ doesn’t mean much yet vs what I was playing live

What is the idea on playing on sites other than ignition if ignition is a soft site why player harder games for less money? Not trying to be sarcastic it’s a genuine question.

What is the idea on playing on sites other than ignition if ignition is a soft site why player harder games for less money? Not trying to be sarcastic it’s a genuine question.

That's actually a really good question, you're correct from a bankroll perspective.

My idea is that since there are lots of soft sites, and you want to move up, and at the same time are basing this off 8k hands, maybe just get more hands in at a level you're currently beating and get a wider breadth of data before you move up. You may or may not have a huge natural talent, you're very young, beating 50nl, and hungry for more competition.
I have no idea if this natural talent exists( or its extent )because all I know is you're beating 50nl over 8k hands. If you are crazy crazy good at nl holdem then then it might be good to take shots with 20 or so buy-ins and move up to a level more fitting of your talents.

Not knowing you at all, I know that statistically speaking you probably don't have that level of talent. And that makes it statistically irresponsible for me to just say, yeah start jumping levels.

A nice middle ground between a tried and true responsible suggestion of making sure you have at LEAST 100k hands in a db showing you're beating that level at a decent clip, and the statistically insane suggestion of saying "yeah just jump into 200nl or 500nl and start crushing wonderboy ." is playing about 50k hands across ignition and another site. That's my suggestion if you're keen to move up.

Keep in mind, crushers I know Often play 5k-10K hands A DAY. I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt since to me you seem smart, and just giving you my best overall opinion.

Makes sense. Will probably play at least 10k more hands within the next week or so and if I’m still 8bb+ We will see. If I come back down to earth we can grind out 50k hands or so.

I'd play 25k hands at a specific limit before moving up.

Everyone will have different rule of thumb answers for this because there is no "right" way to do it.

I think if you're willing to move down and still won't be stressed about the money it's completely okay to start taking shots at higher stakes quickly. Maybe 25 or 30k hands of real crushing would be enough.

If either of these things isn't true (mental game struggles moving down or problems maintaining solid play on short bankroll), being more conservative is probably the move. As a winner with plenty of roll for the stakes, it sounds like you should fall more on the aggressive side here.

Not many people out there playing 10k hands a day but many people out there playing more than that a week, so it really is next to no volume.

It is mostly in how good a player one is. How well one is educated for the game and how much experience one has. If those show green light, then it is still a personal preference and could be 20 stacks or 40 stacks in NLH (I have used 30 to 50 stacks in PLO online, but it is not the final roll - that's 100 if not 200 stacks). If multitabling, one of them can be of higher limit - and then two, especially if one is winning in the current limit and has become an expert there (not a master as it is a waste of time) and how many hands that needs depends on technical learning and the game quality and how many tables one plays, and could be 20k to 100k hands per limit or a pack of limits (micro pack, low pack). It is in the relative skills and how fast one learns the experience also. The win rate, depend on game quality and the rake; in the long run in NLH (if not in PLO also) one is thinking like 2 to 6 bb/100.

the point of 50k or 100k hands is so u play a big enough sample where you see enough where it feels like youve seen it all... bad downswings breakeven stretches insane back to back10x in a row coolers hit n runners colluders.. u need to be able to take the emotional pain of not getting ur way while still being confident. i have done 10k hands in a single day and trust me no matter how good u are over 10k hands u could go either way very easily based on luck alone. when u get to 50k hands is a good spot to evaluate if u feel u have learned enough... but realize enough is never enough but at 50k hands its understandable to start getting ur feet wet higher. thats kinda the point is to work your way in slowly testing the waters and keep pulling back to your comfort zone... aka where u have 50k or 100k hands w good ev bb/100 and good bb/100 winrates when things dont work to build confidence. u need to study every single day and play every single day like 2k or 3k hands a day bare min if u really wanna do it right imo. and on highend id say 5k to 10k hands a day anything over that and u face possible burnout unless ur yadadamean or somethin