Ask Spoony About Poker, Life, and Anything Else

[MiLEHiGH]

How many hands do you think it should take (on the average) to win 20 BI's at a specific level (i.e. 10NL, 25NL, etc)?

To be honest, I tend to get frustrated and doubt my abilities if I don't reach +20 BI's in around 20,000 hands. I then either make changes to my game and/or tilt, which in both cases negatively affects my winrate. Which is probably a big reason why I can't get past the micros.

Also at what point should I do some major leak finding? In other words could you please fill in the blanks:
"I've played _______ hands at xxNL, and I am currently break even (or worse). I need to get my ________ together because it is obvious that I'm not beating these current stakes.

[spoonitnow]

How many hands do you think it should take (on the average) to win 20 BI's at a specific level (i.e. 10NL, 25NL, etc)?

To be honest, I tend to get frustrated and doubt my abilities if I don't reach +20 BI's in around 20,000 hands. I then either make changes to my game and/or tilt, which in both cases negatively affects my winrate. Which is probably a big reason why I can't get past the micros.

Also at what point should I do some major leak finding? In other words could you please fill in the blanks:
"I've played _______ hands at xxNL, and I am currently break even (or worse). I need to get my ________ together because it is obvious that I'm not beating these current stakes.

A few things. First, your win-rate in terms of big blinds per 100 hands drops drastically from around 2nl to around 10nl. Second, you should be increasing the number of buy-ins you want at each level. So if you wanted say 20 buy-ins at 10nl, then you should look to try for 25-30 for 25nl, and 30-35 for 50nl, and so on.

As for dealing with your tilt, you need to get to the root of things instead of the external manifestations. You're not really tilting *because* you aren't moving up as quickly as you want. The true cause for the tilt is probably some sort of insecurity about your ability to succeed or something along the lines of fear of failure. If you deal with the source, then later on you don't have to deal with other manifestations, like if you feel like you're getting out-played a few stakes from now.

I'd say you can do that after about 10k hands and get something useful out of it most of the time.

Good questions btw.

[MiLEHiGH]

A few things. First, your win-rate in terms of big blinds per 100 hands drops drastically from around 2nl to around 10nl. Second, you should be increasing the number of buy-ins you want at each level. So if you wanted say 20 buy-ins at 10nl, then you should look to try for 25-30 for 25nl, and 30-35 for 50nl, and so on.

As for dealing with your tilt, you need to get to the root of things instead of the external manifestations. You're not really tilting *because* you aren't moving up as quickly as you want. The true cause for the tilt is probably some sort of insecurity about your ability to succeed or something along the lines of fear of failure. If you deal with the source, then later on you don't have to deal with other manifestations, like if you feel like you're getting out-played a few stakes from now.

I'd say you can do that after about 10k hands and get something useful out of it most of the time.

Good questions btw.

Thanks for the advice. Wow, I've never thought of my 'tilt' in that way, but that's probably spot-on because I'm dealing with those type of issues in other facets of my life.

Also I just passed my 10k hands mark, and will definetely need to do some leak finding. I just wanted to know how reliable is the 'All-in EV' stat? For example, if my 'All-in EV' suggests I should have a 5.00 bb/100, but my actual bb/100 is like 0.35; do I assume that it's variance and I'll be a winner in the long run or do I assume that I am break even with room for improvement?

Obviously there's always room for improvement, but I just don't want to any drastic changes to my game by if they're not needed. Thanks in advance.

[spoonitnow]

Thanks for the advice. Wow, I've never thought of my 'tilt' in that way, but that's probably spot-on because I'm dealing with those type of issues in other facets of my life.

Also I just passed my 10k hands mark, and will definetely need to do some leak finding. I just wanted to know how reliable is the 'All-in EV' stat? For example, if my 'All-in EV' suggests I should have a 5.00 bb/100, but my actual bb/100 is like 0.35; do I assume that it's variance and I'll be a winner in the long run or do I assume that I am break even with room for improvement?

Obviously there's always room for improvement, but I just don't want to any drastic changes to my game by if they're not needed. Thanks in advance.

All-in EV is a tricky topic. On one hand it shows you where you "should" be at over a sample, but on the other hand there are a lot of other things that contribute to how good or bad you're running. For example, if you get AA vs KK 20 times in a 1k hand sample, and KK vs AA twice, you ran good in that aspect, even if you happened to lose 1/2 of the AA vs KK all-in preflop, which would send your AIEV way off.

If you're breaking even and your all-in EV shows you as a winner, just use it as a sign that you shouldn't get discouraged, but keep trying to improve anyway.