Fuck micro stakes

This is hardly a classic degen move in the grand scheme of things, but I think it counts since it involves me "going back to my old ways". I have a confession to make. I've been playing NL10 underrolled for quite awhile now

I was doing fine at NL2 and then NL5, and then I remembered something. A forum post where HSNL players were discussing their BR requirements after going busto or cashing out or whatever. Most of them agree'd that if they were to blow their roll for NL1000 somehow, and start over at NL25 or NL50, they would probably play a 10-15 BI game just because they are that confident they can crush it quickly and move the hell on up. So I looked at my shiny $140 BR, and decided that since I only play 6-8 tables of 6max at a time, I had plenty of breathing room to take a few beats and play higher limits. This is how I officially ended up at NL10. Now ever since then it's been kinda breakeven I guess. A few bad beats followed by some quality rebuilding, but I definitely dont like the fact that I'm breaking BR management pretty heavily here playing with as little as 10 BI's when I have a downswing, and 15 buyins when I'm running hot.

And it gets worse. I ended up shorthanded at one table and some mega donk running 71/5 @ 50 hands just keeps putting the beats on everybody. Naturally he tripples up off me busting QQ twice and something else, with his little miracle flops/rivers. Bitch hit n' runs, so I fuckin follow his ass to an NL25 table, cursing myself for doing this all the way. Naturally I score most of it back thank fucking god, but the point is wtf am I doing? I've been playing so much NL10 the last few weeks that it doesnt even bother me anymore to be underrolled.

Quick session stats reveal the following (fruity NL25 stats simply b/c i was trying to trap hit n run donkey)


So the ultimate question is, can I actually keep playing NL10 right now? My bankroll is $160, which is a good 16 buyins. I mean cmon thats pretty damn close right? Or am I looking at this all wrong. Should I force myself to play NL5 just to teach myself discipline? I did jump back to NL5 a few days ago, even with 12 BI's for NL10 just to see how I would handle it, and I felt so bored coming up 1.5 buyin's in 1500 hands when that could have been 1.5 buyin's at NL10.

One word sums up my attitude to my poker management skills at this moment, and thats "meh...."

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EDIT: Oh goddamnit, somehow I've ended up posting the same hand 10 times. No way I'm reposting, whatever. Sorry.

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So a few weeks ago I started a blog on this site to chart my progress and thought patterns regarding playing a 5 buyin rule, where I move up every limit I am rolled 5 buyins for. I started at NL25, which I did alright at, but could never get past NL50. Learned a lot of hard lessons that I had already read about, but had to learn them for myself to actually sink in.

You can read more here -> http://www.liquidpoker.net/blog/viewblog.php?id=671959

It would be interesting for anybody to comment on my notes to see if I have some serious misconceptions or not. These notes were engineered around a focused 1-table game of 6max, where 100% attention could be given to each hand. I expect to formulate a whole new series of notes for my next quest since I will be playing quite differently.

Part of Daniel's system was to never move down limits, but rather drop his buyin requirement to always be playing 1/5 of his bankroll, even if that means buying in for the minimum. He commented that he feels the whole small ball strategy works really well as players calling tendencies have little to do with bet size as they do with automation, they are either calling or folding regardless so it really doesnt matter what you bet. So definitely bet the least possible to get yourself off the hook, and the most possible when you have a great hand.

So I just finished a FR session at NL50 buying in short stacked and unfortunately lost what little of my roll I had left sitting to the right of a 100vpip fish who just called my BTN shoves with air. Precisely 9To, J9s, and KTo. He paired up every time.

What I dont think Daniel realizes is just how insane MSNL really is today. He doesnt play MSNL, what few times he plays on stars he's usually playing much higher limits, or goofing around at NL50 and such, showing face, fullfilling his contract no doubt. Now that he is actually trying to beat these limits, I think he is in for a rude awakening and the horrible variance that will come, something Chris Ferguson was well aware of when he set out on a similar quest some time back.

I truly feel I have tried every trick in the book, bent every poker rule out there, read everyone's advice and tried to push the envelope and prove them wrong when it comes to the best way to approach this game. And I have truly realized how wrong I was. I thought I could come up with something on my own, my own style, something not really read about, but something that works for me, with good enough results that I can proudly sit back and say I taught myself the game. Wrong wrong wrong.

I will now take this $25 roll, sit down with 100BB's at NL2, and start putting in thousands of hands at FR, never moving up till I hit 20 buyins for the next level. If I fail here, well, I might re-roll myself with $40 and try again since I lack the experience grinding away for hours and shouldnt worry about failing at first. But I have certainly failed at enough other shots at this game to realize it's time I just OBEY THE POKER COMMUNITY.

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I am starting a blog to act as a journal for myself, to be able to reflect back upon day after day, month after month, and see how my frame of mind changes and how my play evolves. Any comments will always be welcome.

I recently read about Daniel challenging himself to go from $10 to $100k by playing 5 buyins per limit at a time. This idea inspired me to try the same, albeit I will be starting at NL25 just because I feel like it, so that means a starting bankroll of $125, and I move up to NL50 at $250. I am simply doing this as I have reached a point where I lack much motivation with this game, and a new "system" like this has aroused by interest, so it's more for fun than anything. I also think it is a rather novel idea for a new challenge amidst all the bankroll building challenges out there which could have some interesting results, and at least offer a lot of excitement.

I may or may not stop the challenge at a certain bankroll, depending upon whether I wish to end it and play properly rolled for a certain limit or not. For instance, if I were to make $20,000, I would probably want to just stop, and either cash out with greed, and play whatever limit that would roll me for. Or of course maybe I'll actually have the discipline to continue playing all the way to 100k. Again, really just for fun since thats all that drives me these days.

Since I expect the swings to be pretty wild I'll probably update with progress after each session, since a good day could mean a new limit, and a bad one could mean dropping two. Since there is no real method to this madness, I have made a few rules of my own:

1) 2 BI stop loss no matter what, to avoid tilt
2) Have to regrind to 5 buyin's before taking another shot
3) Will play one table at a time only
4) If I double up at a table I will sitout on the next blind so as to avoid having too large a percentage of my bankroll on the table at any given point (see post #18)
5) I will play 6max only as that is the only game I am any good at
6) Buyin requirement may increase at higher levels if it looks as though I cant compete, at NL600 for example.

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