$5 NL Stats and BR advice please

[wesrman]

Can someone pleas tell me what constitutes a good day on 2 tables at $5 NL (.02/.05) please??? How much should i be averaging to consider myself successfully beating them?? Do i go by the amount of Big blinds im up??
For example today i plyed 561 hands and only won $6, but thats quite a few big blinds, so i dont know how to look at it. Either its only $6 or its 120 big blinds.

I here everyone talking about PTBB per 100 hands and stuff like that, but i don't have poker tracker yet.
Any suggestions on how and what to keep track of ???

Also my bankroll is $124, proper BR management says it should be $200 right?Should i be worried enough to drop down to $2NL ??
If so please answer the first question with this in mind..
thanks

[Chopper]

you can still track your ptbb/100. it just gets harder. you can use excel (for that you need to elicit help outside me) or pen and paper.

- watch the site you play on and its "stats" window. they all show how many hands you have played.
- watch your bankroll the minute you log in, and the minute you leave.
- chart your progress. gains and losses and hands played for EVERY session.
- convert your winnings into big blinds. for NL, multiply by 2 (hence, ptbb) and divide by the number of 100-hand-blocks you played.

viola!! ptbb/100 right before your eyes.

if it gets to difficult or time consuming, just keep the numbers on paper for each session and do all the math once a week.

and, for those of you saying, "thats too hard. that takes too much time," you need to read any one of the big boys articles concerning the numbers of notebooks they have gone through taking notes on players and charting their own progress before computers and the internet.

serious players do whatever it takes until they have the means to make life easier.

[Chopper]

as for "what to expect?"

obviously, anything over 1 is winning money. but, i like to be over 5 ptbb/100. if you can, shoot for 10.

but, watch your bankroll more than the winrate. as long as it is climbing steadily, you are doing well.

[wesrman]

Thank you.. nice and straight forward. Very much appreciated.

[meeloche]

Worrying about money can get you into trouble. I would focus more on how you're playing. Ex Being happy that you put your money in bad and got lucky isn't ideal and neither is being pissed cause you put your money in good and got sucked out on. If you only focus on money you will snowball your downswings when they happen and trust me they will. Try to evaluate your play first, the money second and then be happy when you play well and make money.

[wesrman]

Thanks, good point and NICE AVATAR ! ! !

I will work on that.

[Chopper]

Worrying about money can get you into trouble. I would focus more on how you're playing. Ex Being happy that you put your money in bad and got lucky isn't ideal and neither is being pissed cause you put your money in good and got sucked out on. If you only focus on money you will snowball your downswings when they happen and trust me they will. Try to evaluate your play first, the money second and then be happy when you play well and make money.

no offense, meeloche, but i never understood that. i kind of see what you are saying, and agree that getting pissed over suckouts can snowball downswings, but...

what else do we measure success by over the longer term? its accumulation of money. suckouts will come and go with variance. but, you should still be accumulating money. sometimes faster, sometimes slower. but, over significant periods of time, you should still be growing.

i dont know about you guys, but i dont pay closer attention to my "sklansky bucks" graphs than my bankroll. do you?

[shazbox]

I think what meeloche is saying is that the money you make (long run) is pretty much exactly related to how well you play.

Play bad = Lose Money, Play good = Make money.

If you just pay attention to your bankroll you will get pissed because it's smaller than it was when you started your session. As long as you played well though, there is no reason to worry because eventually you should make the moneys.

[spoonitnow]

as for "what to expect?"

obviously, anything over 1 is winning money. but, i like to be over 5 ptbb/100. if you can, shoot for 10.

but, watch your bankroll more than the winrate. as long as it is climbing steadily, you are doing well.

I'm not sure if this is true any longer, except maybe at 5nl-10nl and below.

[Chopper]

thats where i am talking about. OP is talking about playing 5NL.

spoon, since on the subject, what do you consider good and great at 25NL and 50NL? just curious.

[wesrman]

i've actually decided to play $2NL, because my roll is only $124.
However im worried that i will learn bad habits because allready (im an hour in) i want to make bad calls due to the horrible plays these guys are making.
Spoon is it worth playing at $2 NL????

[Chopper]

at $100, you are rolled for 5NL. thats 20 BIs.

[wesrman]

at $100, you are rolled for 5NL. thats 20 BIs.

Max buy in in $10. Does proper BRM go by max BI or what??

I hope this is right because this is making me sick.lol

One guy keeps raising 70 cents and the big blind is 2 cents.

[spoonitnow]

thats where i am talking about. OP is talking about playing 5NL.

spoon, since on the subject, what do you consider good and great at 25NL and 50NL? just curious.

For 50nl I'd say like 3.5 ptbb/100 is good and 6 ptbb/100 is crushing. 25nl I'm not sure. These numbers are +/- 100ptbb/100 obv.

at $100, you are rolled for 5NL. thats 20 BIs.

Max buy in in $10. Does proper BRM go by max BI or what??

I hope this is right because this is making me sick.lol

One guy keeps raising 70 cents and the big blind is 2 cents.

Just buy in for 100bb.

[wesrman]

Just buy in for 100bb.

Any particular reason to not buy in for the max???

I am taking your advice and buying in for 100BB, but i just wondered.

[Chopper]

several.

if you can beat the competition, it is a nice advantage. you simply make more money. you get more money on the table with weaker players. you maximize your advantage. of course, they need to be buying in deep, too.

if you cant beat the comp. or dont know if you can, you may want to limit your losses and buy in shorter.

the deeper you are, the more you can figure on in the way of implied odds, too. your 67s hands, if used properly, can go up in strength/value against other fellow deep stackers.

but, play w/in your bankroll. i cant stress that enough. you have 20 BIs for 5NL, if playing 100 bb deep. and, you only have 10 BIs for either 10NL, or buying in at 5NL 200 deep.

it kind of depends a little on how much you are buying in for. i just assume 100 bb stacks since thats the max for most places online.

[jyms]

Just to reiterate I want to give you an example. If you buy in for $5 at $2NL or $5NL the BR requirements are the same, but as the hands play out it goes like this. You get AK and raise 4xBB preflop, get two callers, flop is an A96rainbow. You bet they both fold. Would you rather have made 12BB's at $2NL or $5NL?


It's not about the stack size, it's the avg pot size. On average, the $5NL pots will be larger. Stacks only change hands once in a while. People call bets and fold tons of hands in between.

[Pythonic]

At 5NL stacks change hands quite frequently. Less then 2NL but still quite frequently. The play is not much better at all.

[wesrman]

Thanks guys...
That clears it all up for me.
I really appreciate you taking the time to help me out.

[Ash256]

Probs you need about 10k hands to get an idea of how you're beating the game.

[wesrman]

Probs you need about 10k hands to get an idea of how you're beating the game.

That's the plan (10K hands at least), but i want to make sure i'm beating it good and not just scraping by. That way i'm ready when i move up.

[Chopper]

nah... >10k...but you know that, ash.

hey, wes. when you are in the chat, keep the sound up. otherwise you cant hear my incessant beckoning.

where the hell were you?

[jyms]

Wes? Get PT. Even the 1K hands free trial will help us evaluate your play enough to turn around some glaring mistakes. If you really want to improve, you need to find a way to look at your HH's, stats and play. PT is great for this. I suggest you get it as soon as you think it's affordable. at least have your HH's downloaded to your machine so you can look them over.

If you find it hard to look thru a bunch of HH's then open a notepad doc. Copy and paste a few bigger losers, winners and hands that you are unsure of whether you should have folded or not. Post three or four a day in one thread and ask about the play. Do not show the results. We should be able to help out with the obvious problems right away, and turn you froma marginal $5NL player to a decent micro stakes winner rather quickly.

[spoonitnow]

Wes? Get PT. Even the 1K hands free trial will help us evaluate your play enough to turn around some glaring mistakes. If you really want to improve, you need to find a way to look at your HH's, stats and play. PT is great for this. I suggest you get it as soon as you think it's affordable. at least have your HH's downloaded to your machine so you can look them over.

If you find it hard to look thru a bunch of HH's then open a notepad doc. Copy and paste a few bigger losers, winners and hands that you are unsure of whether you should have folded or not. Post three or four a day in one thread and ask about the play. Do not show the results. We should be able to help out with the obvious problems right away, and turn you froma marginal $5NL player to a decent micro stakes winner rather quickly.

I suggest playing 10nl until you get to $500 + cost of PT then buy PT and play 25nl.

[wesrman]

If you find it hard to look thru a bunch of HH's then open a notepad doc. Copy and paste a few bigger losers, winners and hands that you are unsure of whether you should have folded or not. Post three or four a day in one thread and ask about the play. Do not show the results. We should be able to help out with the obvious problems right away, and turn you froma marginal $5NL player to a decent micro stakes winner rather quickly.

Thanks man.
I can't afford it right now, but i could use anything that will help.
I'm having serious issues right now..lol most my fault and some bad luck.
I really appreciate you taking an interest. Anything you can do to help is welcome. I'm terrible but dedicated at least.
I started an operation to force myself to find my leaks. The link is in my sig.
Add me to msn or aim or what ever u use, if u dont mind.
Also i was looking into grinderschool.com but cant afford it right now cuz im not working.

Chopper, my chat fucked up somehow. Don't know what the problem was but for a while after i couldnt even use my internet explorer. sorry, was looking forward to chatting too.
ill look for u in there another time chopper.

[Chopper]

honestly, you can find me in there quite a bit now. i have been in there with pythonic making friends.

it really is an underutilized feature here at FTR. of course, you dont want be in the chat while you are trying to grind off several hundred hands for the day.

good fun.