Thoughts on Moving up in stakes - Entry #3

New to LiquidPoker? Register here for free!

Forum Index > Poker Blogs

MARSHALL28 United States. Dec 09 2007 14:15. Posts 1904

I’m leaving for Vegas in about an hour, and I’ve had more requests for this so I just thought I’d say screw it and put it up even though I think quite a bit of it is constantly regurgitated and it might be a little boring. So to everyone that wanted this .. enjoy.

I’ve had a serious lack of input coming in from outside sources about things that have sparked my interest in poker recently. I think a lot of this has to do with how soft the 400nl and 600nl games have been on stars lately. The weaker the opponents, the more necessary it is to play ABC poker. The more necessary it is to play ABC poker, the fewer interesting situations you will inevitably get into. So because of this, I thought I’d answer a question I’ve been asked quite a bit lately—What is it that helped me to improve so quickly from SSNL to MSNL? Just before I do that though, I want to remind anybody that’s interested that I am available for coaching from 50nl up to 200nl. I have three students now who I would definitely say have been improving, and if you are struggling, I’m pretty sure it’d really be worth it for you to give it a shot. Please PM me if you are interested. (To you haters out there, it’s probably not worth it to read this post if you are beating 400nl or better).

So anyways, about 4 months ago I was struggling to beat 100nl. I had actually spent about 8 months initially trying to beat 50nl. I must have gone bust about six times after building my roll up to at least 3k each time. And what they wanted to know was, what is it that I’m doing differently now that I wasn’t doing before?

I’m going to try to cover pretty much everything that I think has helped me to improve my game.

Keep records. I keep an excel sheet detailing every session I play. The top of it is listed in columns as follows: Date; Time In; Time Out; Time spent; Money In; Money Out; Net; Total Hands played. I separate these from 6max to heads up to tournaments. This way I know what games I’m struggling at and which games I’m doing well in. Of course pokertracker will do this for you, but this has some other advantages that pokertracker doesn’t allow. I do this religiously, as soon as I open up a session, I input the time I start and the bankroll I started with. I believe that by doing this everyday, it reminds me that I do this for a living and that when I open up the poker tables, it’s time for work, and it’s not time to mess around. I hate logging losing sessions, and I actually find that when I’m playing while away from my home computer without this excel spreadsheet, I tend to take the game much less seriously. This is also good to have for tax purposes, and if you are thinking about purchasing a big priced item, as you have a good idea as to how much you are making monthly, and hourly. I’d also recommend that you calculate exactly how much you are making by the hour, take that number and write it down, then put it up on your bulletin board, or somewhere you can see it every day. Then realize that that’s how much your time is worth when you are sitting at the poker table, or doing any other random task that isn’t helping you to achieve your goals. I really believe it will help a lot in time management, and to keep you off of tilt. It’ll also help you to…

Maintain your focus. I know you’ve heard it a million times, so I won’t spend much time on it, but it’s just so essential to being a winning player. While I was struggling at 50nl, I would 8-table for 3 hours at a clip, sometimes even up to 6 or 8 hours in a row—this got me no where. Some people do have uncanny abilities to multi-table and take all information in without missing much, but if you’re like me, as I assume most of you are, this is not going to help you learn the game. Nowadays, my sessions usually won’t last more than an hour. I average about 1.5 sessions a day, and I make so much more money than I ever did mass tabling.

Free yourself from distractions and give yourself permission to succeed. My distraction was a girlfriend. I struggled and struggled and struggled while I was with her. I couldn’t beat 100nl, and I had been trying for months. Right after we broke up is when I started to focus all my attention on improving my poker skills, I guess I always had an excuse to not be good—and as long as I had that excuse, the majority of my focus wasn’t on beating poker. Coincidentally (or not), we broke up roughly 4 months ago, this was pretty much exactly when I began beating 100nl. I’m definitely not advocating giving up on your relationships, but I really believe that you can’t succeed until you’ve made the choice that you are going to succeed and nothing is going to stop you. I had always chosen to be with my girlfriend over succeeding, so as soon as we broke up, I gave myself permission to succeed. It’s definitely true that you become whatever it is you think about, and if you are constantly thinking about doing well, chances are the results will follow.

Okay so, this part should be a little more interesting, I’m going to explain what I think you need to do about your game to move up in limits and improve your skill quickly.

The first thing is PLAY TIGHT! Beating micro stakes and small stakes is all about grinding. There is a reason you are playing these stakes and aren’t beating higher limit games, it’s because you don’t have the fundamentals to do so. So this is where you need to spend the time developing them. It’s true, grinding is boring. Grinding has to be the worst, but it’s necessary. Thinking about this actually reminds me of a scene from the movie Boiler Room. The one where Ben Affleck is talking to all of the trainees about to work at the firm, the dialogue goes like this…

“Your first six months at the firm are as a trainee... you make one hundred and fifty dollars a week. After you're done training, you take the Series Seven test. When you pass, you become a junior broker and you'll be opening accounts for your team leader. After you open forty accounts you begin working for yourself and then... sky's the limit. Now a word about being a trainee. The other brokers, your parents, whoever: they're gonna give you shit about it. And it's true, a hundred and fifty a week is not a lot of money, but pay no mind. You need to learn the business and this is the time to do it. Once you pass the Series Seven none of it will matter.

Your friends are shit. You're gonna tell them you made twenty-five thousand last month and they're not going to believe you. Fuck them! Your parents don't like the life you lead? Fuck you Mom and Dad! As a trainee you will be building a foundation for yourself. Think of it as the foundation to a building. Right? Gotta build the foundation before you can put up your skyscraper. You know what I built? (takes out a model). The fucking twin towers. Now go home and think about whether this is for you. If you decide it isn't, nothing to be embarrassed about. It's not for everyone. But if you really want it, then give me a call on Monday and we'll talk. Just don't waste my time. Alright. That's it.”

This is the same way I look at grinding micro and small stakes, and subsequently the reason for why I advocate what I do.

Don’t withdraw your funds. I’m sure some of you have to, but if you can do anything to keep this from being necessary, you will become much better much quicker. The reason for this is that you won’t be able to develop the skills you need in poker at small stakes. You get better by playing against better players, if you are always stuck playing people who have never played the game before, how much better can you expect to get?

Move up in limits as quickly as possible, and take shots often. This is very important. I really think the only thing necessary to moving up in stakes is being comfortable risking a larger amount of money. The more you are comfortable risking, the easier it will be to transition. Now I’m definitely not saying to use a 10 buy in bankroll for each limit. But if you seem to be doing well at the limit you are at, give it a shot and move up. The key here is to make sure you are able to move down after losing 2-3 buy-ins. If you aren’t capable of doing that, then you need to wait until your bankroll is bigger. The other reason I think it’s a really good idea to take shots is that maybe you will get lucky and run well when you do move up. If this is the case, you will become very comfortable very quickly with the limit, and this will in turn give you the confidence to beat those players. This is the reason good players will move down whenever they are doing poorly. They want to rebuild their confidence by playing against weaker players. And having confidence in yourself is probably the most important thing of all.

The last thing I’d recommend you do is hire coaches. Poker is the type of game where there are many correct ways to play, and the way you’re playing may be working out right now, but I think it’s really important to get outside perspectives. Even if the coach isn’t that much better of a player than you, I’m sure he thinks about the game in a very different way, and to have an open mind about what he tells you I think will help immensely in your attempt to become a better player. Don’t just hire one coach, hire many. There are a lot of them out there now, and some very good ones who will coach SSNL for like just 125$ or less. This is a deal considering a lot of these players are making 300$ + an hour just playing. Over the time they are sweating you, you might be able to pay for the hour of coaching just with your profits from the session in which he sweats you. I also think this is a very good idea for when you are taking a shot at a new limit, is to hire a coach to walk you through it, somebody who has already made the move successfully. Well, without getting into specifics about how to think about the game, there isn’t really much else I can think of including. GL.

1 votes

P1mpdaddy Austria. Dec 09 2007 14:27. Posts 1370

great read so far...will read the rest tomorrow when my hang over is over

r0cking your s0x

MARSHALL28 United States. Dec 09 2007 14:28. Posts 1904

I also really have to give credit where credit is due. I probably wouldn't have improved as quickly as I have if I wasn't living w/ JonnyCosmo ... He's definitely a far better player than me, and I really don't think I'd be doing nearly as well as I am right now if I didn't have him to discuss hands with. It really sucks to say this too, cuz he's the type of person to get a huge head about it.

Thanks, but you're still a scumbag JonnyCosmo.

gawdawaful Canada. Dec 09 2007 14:37. Posts 9012

I'm pretty indifferent about how you got trashed on some of your hand thoughts from prev. blog entry, but what I'll say is, I do enjoy reading your blogs because you put exactly what you think on paper (or E-paper w/e) so thanks for keeping a good blog

Im only good at poker when I run good

JYang United States. Dec 09 2007 14:59. Posts 2669

great post again

Cray0ns United States. Dec 09 2007 15:00. Posts 993

Very nice blog entry. Thanks for sharing your experience.

nolan Ireland. Dec 09 2007 16:32. Posts 6205

this is probably the most intelligent thing you do

On September 08 2008 10:07 Baal wrote: my head is a gyroscope, your argument is invalid