Moving Up and Down in the Micro-limit World?

My question is about moving up and down in limits when you're NOT playing 25 and 50 buck NL tables, nor 2/4 buck limit tables.

I like to play 10 buck NL tables of late and I have played a lot of .25/.50 limit with occasional forays into the .50/1 world.

Just today I dropped down to .10/.20 to regain some confidence, though in all honesty, I don't think the players at the next limit up or the next limit after that are any better, it's just that I don't feel so comfortable with how much I can lose at the .50/1 tables.

Conversely, at the 2 buck NL, I feel that there's little point in playing since so little money is at stake, players can try anything.

A bit of a pre-amble there, but is there a significant difference in skill level at anything less than 25 buck NL and 1/2 buck limit?

I play at Paradise, by the way, if that is of any use in any answers.

Jigs

Moving down for confidence can be a good move but what I “read” from your post is that you are not playing within your bankroll. If you were, then there is no reason to pop between the different stakes like you do. Read the BR management sticky-post at the top. Play within your bankroll so that a downswing will not immediately force you to lower limits.

Th difference between $2, $10 and probably even $25 NL will be minimal. If your playing good poker you'l do ok.

Thus you should be playing the stakes corresponding to your bankroll.

Playing $2 with a $200 'roll is pointless because you wont care. No risk, no poker.
Conversely, playing $25 NL with $100 'roll is also bad because you are playing with scared money and wont be playing your A game.

So, stick to your bankrolls limits is all you can do.

I don't know anything about limit so I cant comment on that.

I've indeed read a bit about bankrolling one's self and I am playing more or less within my limits. I started with 150 bucks -- this time (long story, not interesting) -- and was mainly playing .25/.50 limit.

The reason I dropped to .10/.20 is because I wanted to avoid going on a bad tilt. I worked my 150 up to over 200 by switching to no limit, and then in the course of a couple of days was back down to 150. I've been much lower before, and I think I wisely decided to chill out by dropping down.

I'm not particularly new to the game, but I'm new to asking questions on forums about it, that's for sure. I really want to get my game up from break-even.

I sometimes find it very hard to beat tables of morons at the lower limits, though, that's where my discipline fails and I move up out of my comfort range.

I know this is a different question, but I really have a tough time deciding which game to focus on: limit of no-limit. Maybe I can do both?

Jigs

with a br of 150 you play 10nl (15buy ins) as you approach 375 try the odd 25nl table to get a feel for it when you know you are on your a-game (not when you just lost a buy in to a beat and want to get it back quicker!)
Otherwise you have to plug away against the morons (yes i play against them too!) until you are br'ed for a higher limit. Once you get into the 15buy ins for the next level you can begin to play at the higher limit on a few occasions but dont just move straight up.
Otherwise happy plugging.
(it will come if you play the odds and the numbers!)

Originally Posted by Jiggus

I sometimes find it very hard to beat tables of morons at the lower limits, though, that's where my discipline fails and I move up out of my comfort range.

Then you need to do it more and solidify your discipline. I was on the $2 tables at Paradise for about a month and a half...not because I didn't know how to win, it was 'cause my discipline would fail. I feel I'm a better player for overcoming that.
That and being able to divorce the money from the chips is a good skill to have. It's not a $.16 raise, it's 8BB.

I play on paradise too, so my observations may be of some help. My BR usually fluctuates from 100-200 because I've been playing a lot of MTT and haven't had a good finish yet ... I'll lose my $15 at the MTT and then play an hour and a half of .25/.50 limit to get it back. At one point, when I first started playing online, my BR got down to $8 from a night of stupid drunk poker (haven't done that again). I could have just deposited more, but I'm stubborn and wanted to rebuild without depositing again. So, I decided to play the $2 NL tables. I only had to play them for about 2 hours 3 tabling to get enough to move to the .10/.20 limit. From my experience at the $2 NL, it was very much worse than the $10 which is a little worse than the $25. Good, patient play should be able to make $1-2 an hour at the $2 table. It's that bad.
The $2 table is easy to beat. It's easy to beat because people there for the most part have no concept of odds or choose not to use it because the stakes are so low. You can make a 10 or even 20XBB raise preflop with your Aces or Kings and get called. People call so loose that you can play your speculative hands like suited connectors and low pp and clean up when you hit the flop. Basically, you just pick your spots when you know you are ahead and take someone's stack once every 40-50 hands while losing very little in between.
As for limit, I've found the .10/.20 and the .25/.50 to be about the same. Both are easily destroyed by solid play. 5BB/hr is very attainable. I would say the .10/.20 is generally looser post flop with calls and raises ... so you can pick up some huge pots when you get a monster. I haven't played the .50/1 tables quite as much, but it is definitely harder to beat than .25/.50. The post flop play isn't much better, though you will find more tricky players there. The main reason this level is harder is that players are much more selective preflop ... as I'm sure you know, %to see the flop is around 30% compared to 40+% at the .10/.20 and .25/.50 tables. Smaller relative pots also mean a little more lost to the rake.
One more interesting point about the .50/1 tables. People will try to blind steal much more often here, but they don't know how to play if you defend your blind aggressively. If you are in the BB and it is folded around to the SB who raises, you can reraise and then bet when checked to on the flop. They fold way too often. This play works far more often than it should.
Also, on paradise, the 1/2 pineapple tables are cake. You'll take a lot of bad beats, but at least half the players are total donks. It's pretty funny to see a big action hand with a pot of 25BB and one guy shows a pair of Ks and the next guy shows Aces, and the third guy mucks when there was a straight/flush board. Play only 2way nut hands (about 20% when you add in your BB) and only continue with the nuts or a nut draw with odds, and you will clean up. As long as you can play it well, $150 is plenty BR to play a table.

Xanadu, thanks muchly for that reply.

I must say, I had a horrible couple of sessions of bad beats at the .10/.20 limit tables this weekend. My three aces lost to a full house, my three of a kind lost to a bigger three of a kind, my two aces lost to a KK which got a lucky two pair, etc. You know. It really started to get to me, but since I wasn't losing a lot in comparison to say, 10 buck NL, I continued plugging away.

I think I'm going to focus on .25/.50 limit and 2 buck NL for a while to try and get back up. I'm at 130 now which ain't bad I suppose.

Regarding NL play, I'm VERY tight. I won't play connectors unless well up. Generally, I play about 25 to 30 starting hands, full stop. I've also been using AOK wrongly's "counter-play" a lot at tables with morons. I do believe that you cannot beat 3 players who just will not fold. Not without serious bankroll damage. And, as his post states, the danger of going on tilt after a bad beat is very real.

Funny what you say about a BB every 50 hands. I'm afraid I'm not having that sort of success, more like 1 BB every 100 hands.

One thing I don't have is poker tracker. I think I'm going to download it now and see what my game is like. I have something like 20,000 hands in my mail archive,...

But it's good to hear a couple of people saying that these tables can be beat.

Even if you're getting 1BB/100 in NL, you're doing better than 60%+ of onlien poker players. However, you should be looking at maybe 10BB/100+ before you can say you've cracked the level. I'm on 9BB/100 right now, having had 1,000+hand runs where my BB/100 has been 46 on on occasion and -50 () on another, and I don't feel I'm ready for $50NL yet.

Excuse my ignorance, but when you all say BB/100 does that mean per 100 hands where you see the flop, or just 100 hands dealt?

Is Poker Tracker the only way to actually quantify this statistic?

It's per 100 hands dealt. You can roughly keep track of this yourself by coutning how many times you are in the blinds.

I think when people talk about BB for NL, they are talking about 2xthe big blind(someone correct me if I am wrong). So for the $2 buy in NL, that's $ .08. I didn't say 1BB/40-50 hands for the $2 NL, I said $1-2 per 40-50 hands. This is around 20BB/100. I think 20BB/100 is quite possible at the $2 NL. 1BB/100 is only like four cents an hour.