When I first discovered uNL, I was starting NL2, totally clueless about full ring game. 80k hands and 1000 posts later, I am now inbetween NL50 and 100. uNL is pretty much the only forum where you can climb up the ladder that fast. I therefore decided for my 1000th post to write a guide to moving up, since moreover at uNL it is everybody's main goal.
This post is not gonna focus extensively on the technical aspects of the game, or in the differences between given limits. As I will stress it later on, they are too thin to be your main concern, as far as uNL goes. Besides numerous excellent posts did it before, and I thus invite you to check the main sticky and the CoTW. You can as well watch the excellent video series of Nolan on deucescraked, moving on up full ring. Let us here focus on the mindset.
I . What changes ?
The internet pokers holdem are played with two cards and five common cards. The best five cards hand made by their combination wins the pot. Good news is, that does not change.as you move up.
What mostly changes is the proportions : the size of the pots and of your potential profit/losses and the composition of the table. In fact, everytime you will move up one level, there will be a bit more competent regs, a lot more of regs and less of fishes. Therefore your edge over the field will decrease accordingly.
Nonetheless the main difference is psychological. Lot of players including myself at least once failed moving up because of "freaking out" about the new limit. After reading so many posts about how harder NL100 or NL25 were, it is easy to be under the impression of being outplayed all the time and to start playing back or fpsing in the bad spots. I agree that NL50 does not play as NL2, but you never jump directly from one the other. If you are a solid winner at NL25, you should be winning at NL50, because it is not really harder. Even if the blinds are now about a fiddy, guess what the fishes are still fishes and the bad regs are still bad regs. Just do what you do the best, take the former on a ride to value town and steal relentlessly the blinds of the latter. Do not sit with 15/12 type regs on your left. You will be fine.
At least uNL (and probably until 400NL) there is NO huge difference from a limit to the next one. The main difficulty is to get used to the new amounts involved, to
Do not try to change drastically your game. If you play 13/10 and show a profit with it, do not try to play 18/16 because "omg it's NL50 they are better". It will just result in an dramatic increase of the mistakes you can make postflop. And honnestly, it would probably end up the same way at your current limit. Do not try to 3-4bet light if you are not used to it and because you heard there was more 3betting light going on at NLXX. They are not playing back, do not forget that, moreover when they have no stats on you and you have no stats on them. Generally avoid fancy plays if you do not precisely know how to deal with them. You will see that as you get settled down at a limit, you will step by step start implementing new plays to your arsenal, which will result in a gradual change of your statistics. You will get a feel for when you can do a given play and when you cannot. And your game will evolve, slowly. You cannot wake up one morning and decided to be LAG after playing 12/9 for months. So do not do it when you are moving up, it is not going to end up well.
Do not be concerned about your statistics either. I hear some players whose game I respect saying "omg I played 20/18" the last 1k hands. Well you probably had nits on your left and fishes on your right. Or you got dealt good cards. Either way, it is no biggie. Normally as you move up, your statisctics should not change too much at first, but slightly evolve as you get more cognizant of how to exploit the field (and namely the regs) weaknesses. You shan't modify your game against fishes while moving up, because fishes are fishes and that does not change. Go for fat value, and do not play fancy.
As an example here are my stats limit by limit :
- NL2/5 11/9 : 12ptbb/100
- NL10 : 12/9 (small sample) 4 pttb/100
- NL25 : 14/11 4.5ptbb/100
- NL50 : 15/12 6ptbb/100.
- NL100 : 18/16 (but I screwed up and fpsed a lot) broke even over not many hands.
II . When to move up ?
It is hard to see a day on uNL without reading the sacred question "should I move up". People often call upon bankroll mangement to decided whether they should move up or not. It is definitely a valid point, yet not the only one to consider.
Beating your current limit for a good clip is important too. But then again numbers and statistics are one thing, you feel at the table is a more important one. I pretty much skipped NL10 (7k hands), because I won a donkament and felt really comfortable playing there. I was then rolled for NL25, and since NL10 was no trouble, I gave the higher limit a shot and never looked back. You may be beating NL25 for a good clip over a medium-sized sample (15k) and however feel totally lost in certain spots, which occur frequently. You may be runnig hot.
You should be able to assess honnestly how good you feel when playing at a certain limit :
- Do I run in a lot of troublesome spots wherein I am totally lost ? If the answer is yes, you should not move up. Post hands, watch videos. In one word : STUDY, this is the key to moving up fastly.
- Do I feel like I have an overall edge over the limit's field ? If the answer is no, keep studying.
- Can I psychologically cope with losing some buyins at the upper level ? If the answer is no, keep grinding and build up.
The two first points are critical when it comes to moving up. You can assess their validity with a simple experience. When you play and beat a given limit, just go down one level and play 1000 hands. You will see how at ease you feel, how you do not run in troublesome spots. It is the logical consequence of you beating a higher limit and of the added knowledge it takes to do so.
The last point is more related to bankroll management. I moved up to NL50 with 18 buyins and never looked back. Because I felt I could beat the game and had a two buyin stop loss (grinding back 4 buyins at NL25 was not too much of a pain). I ran good, probably played good to some extent and I was done with the quarter. Then again you just have to deem honnestly how much you could psychologically afford to lose at the higher limit, and how it would affect your game. If you feel you can get in in ev+ spots, not be too concerned about the result, and fullfil the aforementionned skill conditions, then just give it a shot.
III . How to move up ?
Here again it is related to your personality. Personnally I try not to sacralise the mere fact of moving up. When I feel I am playing good at my limit, when all the conditions are fullfiled I just add one or two good tables of the upper limit instead of two of my current limit. Some individuals prefer to focus only on the new limit, which is understandable. But do not make a ceremony out of it. Play your game, that is all.
Do not forget that you barely have stats on the new field and on the regs, and that they do not either. If you play on fulltilt, try to play deepstacked tables buying in for 200 bbs. Just to get used to the potentiality of winning/losing 1 buying of the new limit.
- do not play too many tables when you move up.
- be on a good physical/mental shape
- do not freak out if you lose a pot, it is 100BB after all. If you feel bad about it, move back down right away and build up until the pain of losing one buyin at the higher limit is bearable.
- preferably be on a upswing.
- do not sacralise it, it would lead to fps.
- read
this(optionnal).
- TABLE SELECT as it will ease the transition.
- do not start tables, just jump in short handed tables or wait list full ones. HU with a new higheramount of money may be scary.
- move down as soon as you reached your stop loss. It does not matter if there is a 200BB fish on your right, you do not fancy mess with your bankroll (actual and psychological). The next shot will happen sooner than you think. Moving down is not a shame, and it is part of your learning process. Every winning player did it now and then, there is no shame in playing a level under, for rebuilding your bankroll, your confidence or both.
- Do never consider yourself a reg at the next limit before beating it over a large sample and feeling comfortable. You are not a NL50 reg after 5k hands. You may hit the bad side of variance and have to move down. Never consider you belong a limit, it would be harder to move down.
IV . General considerations for moving up fastly :
I moved the level pretty fast. Overall the more useful things to me have been :
- Studying a lot, books, videos and 2+2. Posting hands and taking part in debates definitely was the greatest help. Do not be affraid of posting or of getting bashed. Do not be affraid of asking in the thread of by PM the why of a given judgement. Poker as every cognitive process is about confronting ideas, balancing pro and cons and conceptualizing and overall theory about every given segment of the game.
- Playing not too many tables : I personally found this of the greatest help (4-8 tables), since it helped me using the newly learnt concepts. I plan on starting mass tabling at 100, because you can make good money there. Until then I consider myself a trainee (even though you will be a poker student all your life). Some may argue that playing 16 tables with a greatest hourly and an lower pttb/100 may help you moving up faster. It is true when it comes to the BRM aspect. I could not disagree more for the knowledge/psychological aspect. Because doing so you will hit your ceiling fast. If you play less tables and improve faster, it will eventually make up for the fact that you play less tables, since you will be able to beat higher games faster. You bankroll will grow steadily, and if you are able to move up for short rolled shots, you will go fast anyway.
- Speaking to people : I cannot emphasize this one enough. The greatest improvements to my game came from speaking to people. Exchanging hands over AIM, doing sweats or just talking about poker with good thinking players was the greatest help I found. Besides being connected will allow you some opportunities (staking/coaching) and will not let you alone facing the grind. Poker is an individualistic game but having some people to share with is always a good thing.
- Not having super-high hopes. You beat NL25, fine. But you are not automatically the next durrrr. Your first 10k month is not coming tomorrow. Just take poker for what it is, a game in which you can have fun and improve at. With its good moments and its bad times. I read too much thread about people placing too high hopes in poker and getting mentally drained at the first downswing. Keep studying, improving, playing and see what happens.
- Play. It can seem stupid, but in my case it is relevant. I am so fond of theory that I could spend hours reading books and posts or running maths. At some point I felt that I did not know anything because I could not sort out all this new information. Theory is sexy, but it is useless if you do not (properly) use it.
