So basically ive been winning at 5nl now for a 7-8 months all be it at a snails pace, the rake has been killing me!
That said is it time to move up to 10nl where the rake a lil less?
The thing is ive got so comfortable playing 5nl that the swings at 10nl seem to really effect how i play to the point where ive had to move back down to 5nl a few times now!

Question is do i keep running up untill my bankroll is up to $600 or is life to short and get stuck back in and maybe move back down after i lose 10 buyins?

here is my graph from 2nl 5nl and 10nl but 10nl is a small sample so hard to judge if im actually a losing player there yet esp considering im running 10buyins below ev!

2nl 6max
hands 52,208
14.96bb/100
EV 10.74bb/100
net $172.35
rake $109.42
https://ibb.co/ZTVsTRB

5nl 6max
hands 172,273
3.42bb/100
EV 3.21bb/100
net $290.69
rake $731.61
https://ibb.co/FHYQ1dt

10nl 6max
hands 20,221
-6.82bb/100
EV -2.39bb/100
net -$137.91
rake $197.38
https://ibb.co/y8nLp4Z

Bankroll after playing the odd mtt shot now and then with rakeback is $402.69
As you can see moving up from 2nl to 5nl was a bit of a rocky start as people are no longer throwing money at you! But also could be just veriance. From my limited experience going from 5nl-10nl there isnt a Huge difference like going from 2nl-5nl But the fish are better and the regs are better from what i can see, but that said it could be just my mind playing tricks on me as i find them stakes a bit intimidating with only a $400 roll

Also ive noticed most players open 2.5x as instead of 3x i guess that makes sense as it gives players less insentive to squeeze as players at 10nl are more aggro on avg?

Intersting side note, at my rate of winning at 2nl i actually make more, a lot more playing 2nl than i ever have at 5nl lol but just seems a bit counter intuitive moving back down there! HAHA

Thanks for reading, any tips for moving up to 10nl will be welcomed greatly!
Jay

Move up as soon as you can. But looks like you need to study way more. 3ish bb/100 is a pretty terrible winrate for 5nl.

yeah i deffo found it hard transitioning from getting free money to actually needing to think about my play more. I just coasted my way through 2nl.The bad start of slightly losing/breaking even for around 80k hands for the first 3 or so months deffo makes my graph look worse than it is. That said If you look at the last 90k hands at 5nl my winrate is more like 8bb/100 which i think its a lil bit more respectable.
Any suggestions on ways to study? Tbh most of my studying involves watching youtube vids of other people playing, i dont know anything about these sims everyones been talking about for the past 2-3 years?

depends how much time you have or are realistically willing to put into poker

I have as much time as i want, i have no kids, not working atm no girlfriend, plus its lockdown here in the uk, so i can go balls deep into poker

so my last 90k hands at 5nl
here are my stats from all positions at around 8bb/100
maybe i need to loosen up from the button and cutoff?
my big blind winrate is killing me!

https://ibb.co/8bddfS6

seems i'm getting raked at something like -46 -47bb/100 at 5nl on stars if my maths are correct?

alright then, but I will say, it's going to take a while, there are no quick fixes / cookie cutter stuff in poker. might take you a good 6 months+ to start getting comfortable with the game. you're looking to develop a thought process that you can replicate at the tables and that will give you confidence to play and your volume will increase as well as a result
I suggest the cheaper sub to RIO (run it once), it's 20-30$ a month I think
at least you have plenty of structured content that you can follow in a logical order, instead of picking up random pieces of info you can't yet place when you watch youtube vids
start with preflop, watch the theory vids, apparently gtowizard has free 6m ranges, get those, spend a week or 2 learning preflop well enough that you can replicate it at the tables. this stuff is the easiest to learn, it won't change much over time, but it's the basis of postflop play and there's absolutely no reason to play bad preflop in this day and age
then you go into postflop, start from wider ranges and higher spr (single raised pots) and work your way down to 4b pots. your edge will be more important in big pots, but it's important imo to understand wide range / high spr spots first and then as ranges get narrower and pots get bigger, you can more easily distill the info and narrow everything down, the game will slow down the less complex the scenario is
at some point you will have to invest in a solver if you're serious about the game, gto+ is 75$ and everything you need, might as well invest that now so you can follow along with the theory you learn. take your time with the solver as well, there's a learning curve, don't get discouraged, time passes and you get new ideas, you try new stuff, you learn as you go. hopefully you have access to a computer with 16gb+ of ram. I can show you where to get a cheap one on amazon if you don't.
oh and zenith poker has good free content, prob too advanced for you atm so for now I'd say do the RIO basic stuff first

thanks for taking the time to reply, i will take on board what youve said, i think i will start on i will start by signing up to rio, i think then i will invest in a solver. My pc has 16gb ram so that should not be an issue. thankyou bro

Sorry with a -32bb/100 from the big blind the rake is -14 -15/bb100 which seems very high, I honestly can’t work out why I’m paying -15bb/100 is that because I play a higher variance style and play a lot more bigger pots? Everywhere I’ve read online says at PokerStars I should big losing more like -10bb/100 on average at 5nl?

No difference in skill between pools so just rather play 10nl with lower rake cap. Yes you will face some few players whos got potenial to move up. Rest of the players we dont care about even stats might look half desent they are losing EV all over the place anyway.