Table selection??

Hey All!!!

Have been read the forum for a while and decided to join and hopefully improve my game. I have been playing online no limit poker for a few months and built my bank roll up about $180 from $50 in the last few days. I have mostly been playin the $10 before this. But have found some successs playing bigger tables like like the 0.25/0.5 table, only buying into these tables at $10 at a time.
Is this a bad idea, and shoud i stick to the $10 tables until my bankroll has significantly increased??

For NL, you want about 20 buyins for whatever table you are playing. With $180, you should play 10NL. Try the games at UltimateBet or Paradise as they are easier than the games on Stars. Also check out some of the 'stickies' at the top of the beginner forums. I suggest you read all of them.

buy in for the full amount and move down to stakes where you can afford 20 full buyins. You may find it harder at first but you will learn alot faster, and when you become competant you will find the freedom of a full stack will be a much bigger advantage than the protection of a short stack.

yea i know it better to stick to $10 buyin tables, but hav found that the players at the 0.25/0.5 seem more eager to lose money!! lol! i just play good hands and stay out of it when i dont have the best hand. I also quiet the table if i hav made +$10-$20, so i cant lose it, then just buy into another table for $10 again.

are you talking 0.25/0.50 blinds? which is $50NL or are you talking 0.25/0.50 Limit? If you are talking about 50NL then I can assure you most of the players there will be alot better than most 10NL players.

Originally Posted by cj__dj

yea i know it better to stick to $10 buyin tables, but hav found that the players at the 0.25/0.5 seem more eager to lose money!! lol! i just play good hands and stay out of it when i dont have the best hand. I also quiet the table if i hav made +$10-$20, so i cant lose it, then just buy into another table for $10 again.

You are just running well so far. Variance will catch up. There will be times when you get sucked out on or your KK runs into AA. I know at my tables when someone buyins short I look to bust them.

sorry, i am talkin bout no limit, i really cant see a difference in players at $50 compared to $10. Apart from a raise with a strong hand is usually called. I was getting fed up of raising say 0.5cents in a $10 table with Ak etc only for everyone to fold. Or limping in with the same hand only for someone to call and make a hand from there rubbish starting hand.

If i make it passed say $25 on a table i will quit, this is so it does get sucked out and moved all in on a single hand.

An example $50 hand

- KingOneSeven sitting in seat 1 with $53.25
- sully1375 sitting in seat 2 with $80.85
- dasher2469 sitting in seat 3 with $20.85
- nls sitting in seat 4 with $21.20
- cj__dj sitting in seat 5 with $15.40
- foldin_fool sitting in seat 6 with $55.72 [Dealer]

KingOneSeven posted the small blind - $0.25
sully1375 posted the big blind - $0.50
** Dealing card to cj__dj: Jack of Spades, 10 of Spades
dasher2469 called - $0.50
nls folded
cj__dj called - $0.50
foldin_fool raised - $2.00
KingOneSeven folded
sully1375 folded
dasher2469 folded
cj__dj called - $2.00

** Dealing the flop: 3 of Spades, King of Spades, 4 of Spades
cj__dj checked
foldin_fool bet - $2.00
cj__dj called - $2.00

** Dealing the turn: Queen of Hearts
cj__dj checked
foldin_fool bet - $3.00
cj__dj called - $3.00

** Dealing the river: 8 of Spades
cj__dj checked
foldin_fool bet - $5.00
cj__dj went all-in - $8.40
foldin_fool folded
cj__dj mucks: Jack of Spades, 10 of Spades
cj__dj wins $27.40 from the main pot


Not sure if the $1.50 call pf was a good call, but the table had been raising with rubbish! If I had not hit the flop i would of folded to any significant bet.

Another hand, with only 3 players at the table, i thought that this hand could be called with no raise pf.

** Game ID 681764406 starting - 2006-02-11 02:14:40
** Roswell [Hold 'em] (0.25|0.50 No Limit - Cash Game) Real Money

- cj__dj sitting in seat 2 with $17.95 [Dealer]
- EtherTokaro sitting in seat 3 with $90.05
- SL831TL2 sitting in seat 9 with $18.80

EtherTokaro posted the small blind - $0.25
SL831TL2 posted the big blind - $0.50
** Dealing card to cj__dj: 5 of Spades, 6 of Spades
cj__dj called - $0.50
EtherTokaro called - $0.50
SL831TL2 checked

** Dealing the flop: 5 of Diamonds, Queen of Diamonds, 5 of Clubs
EtherTokaro checked
SL831TL2 checked
cj__dj checked

** Dealing the turn: 2 of Diamonds
EtherTokaro checked
SL831TL2 bet - $0.50
cj__dj raised - $1.00
EtherTokaro folded
SL831TL2 called - $1.00

** Dealing the river: 6 of Diamonds
SL831TL2 checked
cj__dj went all-in - $16.45
SL831TL2 called - $16.45
SL831TL2 shows: 4 of Hearts, Ace of Diamonds
cj__dj wins $35.40 from the main pot

You made a great first step by asking us for advice. Now shut up and make a good second step by listening to it.

Play the 10s, or you're putting your bankroll in too much risk.

Here is why you have to play with in your bankroll and for the full buy-in:

Imagine you are at the 50nl table and you buy in for 10 dollars.

In the first hand, you pick up a pocket pair of threes and call a small raise.

With two players the flop comes 3AA and your opponenet with AK goes all in for his 50 dollars.

You have essentially lost 40 dollars on this play.

When you play, in the long run, your profit per hour depends on your getting full value for fortunate hands like this one. In essence, its virtually impossible to profit when you can't get full value for your big hands. Sure, you don't lose as much when you lose your whole stack, but the win more than makes up for the loss.

woo hoo I am a straight now!!!

got my BR upto $240. decide to the take the advice and move back down to $10, until im BR'ed for the $20 or $50 tables.
Also started to play 15 people $5 buyin tourneys.
Anyone had any success at these.

cj,

be careful. the advice on FTR is usually outstanding, but in your thread you have players commenting who prefer playing with deep stacks. there are several styles to play when buying in.

1) Deep stacked usually buys in for the max and tries to outplay you post flop.

2) Short stacked buys in for the min and doesn't like having to make decisions on multiple streets. for me, these guys are a pain to outplay because they force me to make a critical decision too early. you eventually get them, but you have to slow down and tighten up against them.

3)(my preference) buy in w/ 75% of the buy in. a lot of people cover you making it easy to get all your money in when you have a great hand, but you don't have enough money to really intimidate somebody from calling your preflop raises. you also DO have enough to play bigger draws(only with odds) past the flop w/o having to commit everything too early in the hand only to miss your draw.

all have their strengths and picking one is a matter of personality.

i would suggest you adhere to bankroll standards when thinking about moving up a level because you don't want a 3 buy-in downswing(which will happen no matter how good you are) to put you "on the rail." even if that doesn't wipe you out completely, it will alter the way you play and have you questioning everything you thought you knew in life.

i read that there is no noticeable difference form $10NL all the way up to $100NL. and, although, all levels may be bad, each increase does get tougher...if only slightly. and the higher you go the more chances you create for yourself to bump into a better player than yourself.

although you sound like a fundamentally sound player(already above most) you need to log about 7500+ hands at a given level and track your win rate(BB/100 hands) before considering a "promotion." sounds like you are "funded" well enough to DABBLE with $25NL(10 buy-ins), but remember you're on a rush of good cards right now. don't be afraid to step down if things don't go so well due to VARIANCE(bad luck).

i played $10 for a long time. built my roll to $200, made the jump, and it worked out for me. but i had played 15,000+ hands at $10 and was beating the game at 14 BB's per 100 hands. and even then, i was ready to step back down to $10 if i went on a downswing...fortunately, that didn't happen right away, but it did after i had built the roll to withstand it.

hope this helps.