I've been crushing 5NL and have decided to make the move to 10NL. I'm a little underrolled, but given my success recently, I think I'm ready to move up. I'll have 16BI plus Take2 I'm counting another 5BI to be tacked on.

Any thoughts? I know not to make too large of an adjustment right away, but what should I be keeping in mind? Anything I should be mentally alert for?

ABC Poker. If someone is playing back at you big, you are most likely in trouble. Don't try to be a hero and make crazy calls. Pick your opporunities and be patient.

By the way, what do you consider "crushing" $5NL.

I recently came up through the stakes at FTP and imo 5nl and 10 nl are A LOT alike.

You see more of the players that can adjust at 10nl, thinking type players, so just spot 'em and avoid 'em, but otherwise pretty much the same game. Definitely beatable if you were beating 5.

Good luck.

2-25NL play the same, just for different dollar amounts. IMO play straightforward and don't level yourself and you'll be fine.

Made about 17BI in the last few weeks.

I made my move up through stars, and 10NL is the first level where I ran into players who were thinking about the game. My win rate dropped dramatically from 2 and 5NL. It was still great, but I had been so spoiled by 2 and 5NL that I though 10ptBB was bad. Really hurt my confidence for a while. I know a lot of people who are already up through the stakes say that all of the micros are basically the same. I really think they haven't moved up the stakes or its been so long that things were different when they moved through them. I started my progress in December. I can say that I have noticed a distinct difference in each level that I have moved up. As an example, at 10NL I didn't sit at a table unless the Players per flop was over 30% (and thats with 18 tables at a time!). At 25NL, its 25%. I will say that when I go back to 10NL now I can really crush it in a manner that I never thought possible before, but 4 months ago I thought it was tough.

Also, number of buy ins is not nearly as important as BB/100.

Play a straightforward TAG game. Respect raises unless villian gives you a good reason not to. Value bet. Get rakeback.Profit.

I don't have my tracker in front of me, but I believe it's about 12BB/100. I don't think it's a fluke since the upswing is coincident with adjustments I've made in my game.

When I moved to 5NL, I had decided that I'm going broke playing 5NL. Not moving back down to 2NL. (I had 25 BI at the 5NL level) I won't make that same commitment this time. I'll allow myself 10 BI. If I lose that, then I'll go back down to reload.
I do think I'm playing solid poker now and in terms of my own relative ability, the best poker I've ever played. (not saying much since I just started no limit like three months ago and poker in general 6 months ago) Perhaps a bit on the nitty, nut peddling side, but not extremely so.

I've played about 20K hands at Full Tilt 10NL as my first foray into online poker. I feel a lot better about my play (though far from "crushing" it) over the last 10K hands, which have been profitable, simply by following the basics by reading concepts and HHs here and sticking to it. The first 10K hands were charitable (I chalk it up to learning).

1. Table selection can be frustrating. Regular tables are full of shortstackers (often times 4 or 5 seats). Better and more formidable competition at the deep tables. Try to find deep tables with one or two fish on a roll and play patiently.

2. I've found play pretty nitty in general--lots of 6/4 type setminers at the deep tables. I play about 18/14 and seem to be the laggiest regular player at the tables. I find a lot of folding to cbets post flops. Lots of steal opportunities. Also, lots of made hands that get no action after standard cbet on a flop that cries for it.

3. I don't think you'll find the play appreciably better than at 5, and in fact may be worse (or at least different) at the non-deep tables due to the shortstackers. Learn how to exploit this.

4. The deep tables will at least get you a substantial majority of 100bb+ stacks. Sometimes half or more will have 200 bbs. Learn some "deep" concepts, like not falling in love with TPTK hands and playing dragonslayer hands for value in late position.

5. The rake sucks.

6. I'd like to move to 25 but need to get a hell of a lot more hands under my belt. 20K, while good for fixing obvious and bad leaks, isn't predictive. I may be running great over the last 10K and suck worse than when I started for all I know.

7. Please sit on my right. Unless you're a nit, then my left is fine. GL.

Thanks a lot for the tips, guys. I'm really excited. I can't wait to hit the tables. Well, probably just one table for the time being. Maybe two for the full tilt promotion.

I really see no difference in play on anything under 25NL.

That is not true. The jump between 10NL and 25NL on FT is pretty big right now.

Well, first thoughts, the tables seemed to play quite a bit more aggressive than they did at 5NL. I didn't play the deep stacked tables, so they were maddeningly short stacked. I think when I get used to it a little more, I'll move to the deep tables so I don't simply get into shoving matches. I got 3bet quite a bit and I think that tilted me some. Got Qs and Ks both in against As preflop. My Ks sucked out again (four out of the last five times). Lost 100BI over about 400 hands. Pretty bad, yeah. My only huge loss was when my Qs lost to As preflop. My second largest was when I had top pair of Js and lost to slowplayed Qs. That was only a 30BB loss, though. Not really seeing any bad mistakes I made. I should probably have slowplayed pocket aces as long as I was facing short stacks and didn't face the reverse implied odds problem. I'm also getting used to the new money amounts. Seeing a raise of 30 cents scared me more than it should have. I'll get used to it.

But wow, the short stacks are really grating. And the games actually seemed worse than the 2-5 games. Just amazing how loose everyone was. I saw a hand where five people paid 10BB to see the flop. Yes, calling 10BB with a 120BB stack and a 79o. I think the tides would have changed if I stuck around for a while and waited for good cards. Kind of a disappointing start, but it'll be fun tomorrow when I get back at it.

That must hurt.

hahahahaha

Um, yeah. I like to have a LOT of bankroll when I move up.

100BB over 400 hands.

Figured :P

Ugh, does the river become more treacherous at full tilt? Had trips with a better kicker. Villain rivered to pair his kicker.

There isn't much difference between 5NL and 10NL at least on Stars where I moved up. A few more mass tabling nits running 8/6, a few more "regs" playing 15/6 etc.
You really shouldn't have to adjust much to beat 10NL, you'll make slight adjustments later when you have a better feel for the flow of this stake.

Not a bad day two. Got some hands today and got callers with good hands. I had premium position on a very spewy player. Directly to his left. Unfortunately, he became REALLY tight on the river, so my large value bets didn't pay off. I had a few good hands on him in a row, so I was hoping to get into his head. I think at one point, he folded trip Ks (which would have lost to my boat)

And I never folded Ks preflop

The shorties will drive you nuts. Last night I must have jumped tables 4 or 5 times because every time someone got up they were replaced by a shortie. Most of the shorties tend to be hyper-nits - I'm amazed at how many 4/4 and 6/6 players I see with 20BB. They'll just wait for QQ-AA/AK and shove 3-bet or raise and push flop.

Overall play is quite passive. Aside from the 4/4 nits you'll find most players have fairly wide gaps between their VPIP and PFR. Lots of 18/6, 25/10 types.

/thinly veiled blog thread

The deep tables are quite a bit better. Not everyone buys up to 200BB, but almost everyone seemed to have at least 100BB. And there's a lot more action at the deep tables at 10NL compared to 5NL. Seems like there's always half a dozen full deep tables running at any given time.

I got clobbered at the deep tables last night. Just clobbered. Hope you got some of it . . .

I made a really stupid shove early on and got stacked 200 bbs. That was only the beginning . . .

Never seen more weird min-raises and baluga theory turn hijacks than last night, of course when I'm holding TP type-hands that could be reasonably be beaten by villian's range. I'm never ahead here, right?

By the end of this godawful session, I didn't know up from down and was playing scared, fit-or-fold poker.

Gotta regroup.

Best player I saw last night was a 20/4. He was tough post-flop and never showed down crap.

Unpossible