Trouble moving up.

[gosam]

So as I told spoon on IRC I'm having trouble moving up to 50nl. I tried for like 4 times and dropped over 30BI lifetime there.

I'm a decent winner at 25nl, nothing awesome but winning nonetheless.
So here are my garfs/stats for 25 and 50nl at spoons request.

I'll be posting some troublesome hands during my last shot at 50 a bit later.

[Micro2Macro]

you aren't doing well at 50nl due to lack of correctly applied aggression which is rooted from the problem of poor hand reading.

looks like you do absolutely nothing to defend your blinds besides 3bet the nuts and are bleeding money from them. you aren't exploiting players who open wide ranges in later positions and are just giving up to them.

having negative sd winnings isn't a bad thing but having them drop this sharply is.

good news is this can all be fixed.

[spoonitnow]

What m2m said + you're a bit loose in EP.

[Santo2True]

I think $25-$50 is one of the hardest jumps. I mean I have no idea how it is up from there but I'm in your same boat. I've attempted $50nl with both good and bad effects and decided I need to stay at $25nl for a much longer period until I have corrected my major leaks. I need to sharpen my ranges/hand reading skills and figure out ev calls alot better before trying to move back up. $50nl players seem to be VERY aggressive and if you aren't prepaired for that they will take advantage of you. I wish you good luck in your journey and hopefully we can both come out of this alive! lol....

[gosam]

I went back to HEM and played a bit more with filters and found out that pots where I lost/won more than 50bb account for only -2BI. which means that I lost 8 BI in small/medium pots. Guess I have to work more on ranging and smallball play.

[spoonitnow]

Post your aggression, c-bet, fold to c-bet, and raise c-bet for the flop turn and river plz.

[gosam]

25nl :


I mistakenly cropped out flop aggro : 3.8

50nl :


Raise Cbet seems low to me. 10% is like sets/nuttish hands only.

[Jason]

Standard disclaimer that I don't subscribe to the philosophy of analyzing raw stats to try to improve one's game, so I didn't look nor will I comment, but I'll just pop in and say that the jump from $25NL FR to $50NL FR on PokerStars was the toughest one I've made from $2NL to $200NL thus far. Also, if you play on PokerStars, they've made changes recently that early indications sadly, I feel, will make the games harder.

So that's the bad news, but the good news is that once you get a hold of $50NL, it paves the way for $100NL, $200NL, and beyond and the differences aren't as pronounced. I personally found $100NL easier than $50NL and my win-rate was better there, but definitely don't skip $50NL. You have to prove you can beat $50NL. But, use that information as motivation to stick with it and to aim for that pot of gold @ the end of the rainbow.

The biggest changes I remember @ $50NL compared to $25NL were the aggressiveness and proliferation of regular players. Work on putting them on ranges and trying to put them in general buckets of "very tight", "likes to steal", "doesn't want to be stolen from", "only barrels if he has it", "always fires a barrel but will give up if he doesn't have it", "once he starts betting, not going anywhere", and the like. You have to start getting in their head because your ability to deal with them and maximize your earn against them is critical. Fish will always be fish, but I suspect your play against regulars is an area that needs improvement because if you're doing fine against them AND fish, you should be profiting.

It was also tougher to get PAID and extract money @ $50NL, so AGAIN you have to put ALL players on ranges so that you know when to go for the home-run when you have a monster, when to go for thin value when you've got a mediocre hand but the BEST hand and will get called, and ALSO when to bet small when you have a monster, BUT you know you villain won't call anything more. This stake is the first one where you have to hand read not only for survival to get out when you shouldn't be in there but also for value extraction to make the most money when you're ahead.

These are general concepts, but I still think they will serve you better than "be more loose, tight, or aggressive", because you need to know WHEN and WHY to apply a certain strategy based on your reads and the table dynamics. The stats will simply fall where they fall - you can't go in with a mindset to create certain stats and assume they will translate to profits, because that alone won't fix it.

[spoonitnow]

cool novel bro

It seems pretty clear that you're playing more passively postflop at 50nl than you do at 25nl over these samples. Psychologically you're going to be in a tough spot now that you've tried so many times, so my advice is to get a little deeper bankroll-wise than you normally would from now on when you're trying to move up. Play less tables starting off as well. glgl

[pokerfan]

Jason,I aggree that 50NL is more aggressive than 100NL.There are many times you have to deal with lots of habitual light 3 bettors.Also,50NL regulars overvalue overpairs or TPTK a whole lot and play these hands fairly aggressively even facing resistance which rarely happen in 100NL nitty games.