I have recently started playing micro stakes (1/2 cents) cash games (after and have been running at +145 BB/100 hands. Is it bad, average, good?

At what stakes are cash games becoming significantly harder than 1/2 cents?

What kind of win rate should I achieve before moving up in stakes?

If you ran 145BB/100 over a sample of more than.. 500? hands then you're some kind of 2NL god. 145BB/100 is not realistic at all, winning 1.5 buyins every 100 hands? An average grinder winrate is something like 5BB/100 I think. I guess at 2NL if you get good hands you get paid off so such a high winrate is achievable there.. but move up.

I ran over about 4000 hands. I understand this is not representative. But I need some targets. 5BB/100 seems very small. Really, at 2NL it is what, 10 cents per hour per table?

Jeez you are crushing 2nl lol. I would move up as soon as you are bankrolled for the next level. I think real poker starts at 25nl, but I'm not sure.

Well, I think the difficulty of 2NL is very comparable to playmoney. As in if you hit anything better than top pair and your opponent has top pair, you get their stack. So the same results don't really occur when your opponents have fold buttons. I can't say much about changes in difficulty as I play 25NL currently myself so my experience is a bit capped but it's been pretty gradual so far.

If you are really 145BB/100 over 4000 hands, that's +120$ from 2NL? You easily have the bankroll for 5NL (and 10NL really but skipping a level probably sucks).

About 5BB/1000 being small it's really not. I run steady 8BB/100 at 25NL currently which is +200$ every 10000 hands (I started playing poker 2 months ago only), I think that's fine. I believe at 100NL/200NL there are alot of players just rakeback grinding with table winnings as low as 2BB/100.

Edit: I just put this into perspective. Are you seriously almost 120$ up in 4k hands at 2NL? Winning a full buyin every 150 hands is really insane, like I don't believe it. I need to sleep.

thanks for the feedback. I have been playing cash games for just 2 weeks so I do not have the bankroll yet. I played MTTs before, but the variance there is too difficult to take

I'm of the opinion that if you play generally tight and solid, and don't have spew issues, you can play the micro-iest stakes (2NL and 5NL) with a short bankroll, as low as 10 buy-ins.

I also think 5NL is a GREAT level to stay at for a while, because it's where you can best get used to:

a) playing deep stacked (pokerstars allows 200BB buy-ins at 5NL)
b) how to target certain fish and certain stacks

both of which I think are essential for development and will help when you move up.

145 BB/100 over 4000 hands of 2NL is $232 so you're certainly rolled for 5NL if not 10NL.

wow you're absolutely crushing 2nl. I played play money for 2 years and 50nl live for a year and my current 2nl winrate is 1bb/100. Actually if you're playing 2nl that well, I think you should stick to it. 200 plus over 4k hands is 6k dollars a month. month.

I thought I need to have 100 buyins. For 1/2NL, this is 200-500 USD. I have about 200 only

The more I read these posts, the more I realize how unsustainable it is. Must be a lucky streak

No. Minimum needed for a level with proper management is 20 BI's. $200 is min you'd need for 10NL.