Quote Originally Posted by jameseyb
I must be doing something seriously wrong then...

My recent form on 5 and 10 dollar SNGs is woeful indeed and I am struggling to finish ITM. Ring is a bit better, but I am only making money at the IP $10NL tables. I play $25NL on Party and lose money in hands that I should be winning.

Ok, I'm new to all this as well (about 1.2k hands in four months) but, when people say that they moved up to 100NL in a few months, it makes me wonder how many hands they are playing and how much time they are devoting to poker every day.

I'd like to play more, but I have a job that takes up about 10 hours of my life a day. I also have limited money to spend on my learning tax, that's why I dropped down to $10NL. I plan to stay there until I murder the game every time I sit down, then I'm going to go back to the $25NL tables and play them until I murder them.

Is this the best thing to be doing?
1) Dedicate yourself to either ring games or SnGs. If you want to move up fast you need to obsess about your game. Analyse your big hands, think about everthing as you do it and why you are doing it. Read FTR alot, post hands, read and post comments on other peoples hands. Criticise and be criticised. If you do this you won't ever pay a learning tax.

2) Move up when your bankroll alllows. Be eager about moving up not scared. The players are never much better at a certain level than the level below. You won't notice the difference. It really is a very gentle slope. Set yourself a limit (in buy-ins) that you can lose before you move back down. I reccomend 4 buy-ins.

3) Learn to multitable. I play 1.2k hands in 5 hours. Start with one table then add another. Play like this for a few days and then add another table. Keep going like ths and very soon you will wonder how you ever played 2 tables. Consentrate on the action. Notice betting patterns. Check out the current issue of cardplayer magazine for an article on this (www.cardplayer.com).

4)
Quote Originally Posted by jameseyb
I plan to stay there until I murder the game every time I sit down,
This will never happen, get that idea out of your head. It's all avout the long term. On that topic, keep records. Know your win rate, (even though it will always be inaccurate) it helps your confidence. Mark your records with little comments about what happened that session. Things like "played well, lost with KK all-in preflop twice". This will help you feel better when you show a net loss over 4 days in a row. Yes, that will happen to you eventually. You goal in poker is to deduce the right action to take given the information you have available in relation to the particular situation you are in at the present time in the present hand. It is not to attempt to win every day or every hand.

5) Develop/learn a game, a system, and stick to it. Low stakes games can be beaten with a simple repeditive system of folding bad hands and playing good ones. Be weak-tight to a certain extent. Play ABC poker consistintly. Read all of Aokronglys posts. Be disciplined. Be patient and level headed. Teach yourself not to tilt, ever. If you get emotional step away form the tables. I remember I used to play 10NL and I would step away from the computer for a while if I lost a $2 pot. I have conditioned myself now to the point where I could lose $1000 in a day and not even blink or feel the need to take a break or be angry.

6) Never get cocky or arrogant. Cockyness will be the death of your poker game. You will have periods where you will run really good and play really good. You'll feel like you own the poker table, like your playing on an ATM. Make every effort to dispel these thoughts as quickly as possible. They will make you over aggressive and you will make mistakes. See the "Newbie circle of death" post. It happened to me and damn near ended my poker career, do yourself a favour and learn from other peoples mistakes.

6) To give you some idea of what it takes, here is a list of how many hands I played at each level untill I had 20 buy-ins for the next level.

13/6/2005 - I started with a free $10 that Royal Vegas poker gave me.

10NL - 30,000 hands of ring game play. I was breakeven over 15,000 of these hands, at which point I read a post by Aokrongly about his "19 hands" system. Then I started to win.
I also spent a month 1 tabling SnGs. About 200 of them in total - breakeven.
25NL - 6000 hands including my first 6 buy-in downswing.
50NL - 9000 hands. Then I moved to 100NL.
100NL - At this point I encountered my greatest test so far. I started well before losing $1200 in a week (Newbie circle of death), leaving me breakeven over 9000 hands. I got scared, withdrew half my bankroll and moved back to 50NL.
50NL (again) - Another 10,000 hands. Gaining confidence.
100NL (again) - Played a few thousand hands here before winning $3000 in a MTT and suddenly finding myself with a $5800 bankroll. I tentativly move to 200NL.
200NL - 16,000 hands. Confidence is high. I run good with no major downswings (>3 buy-ins). $2000 in withdrawals mean that I have to play some extra hands at this level, probably could have done it in 10,000 hands.
400NL (25 buy-ins) - Just moved up here a few days ago (16/4/2006). I haven't played enough hands to give comment but I feel I can beat it. Just need to keep a level head.

So there you go. Give it another 99,000 hands (which go past alot faster then you would think) of solid, patient, disciplined poker and you never know what you might accomplish!

Holy shit that's a long post. The things people will do rather than study!