Monday, February 23, 2009

Goodbye 5NL, Hello 10NL

Wow! This didn’t take long at all. I started 5NL on Feb 1st and as of last night I’m covered for 10NL following my 30 buy-in rule.

Stats for 5NL are:

Playing days - 15
Hands – 6,271
Profit - $114.53
BB/100 – 18.26
$/HR - $4.83



That was unbelievably faster than I originally anticipated. I initially thought 4-8 weeks and I’d be able to move up.

Over the past 22 days I’ve found myself to become so much more comfortable playing cash games and enjoying them as well which is most important.

Question - Why did I fail for all of last year and all of a sudden I’m succeeding?

Answer – As crazy as this may sound I have found such a difference between 2NL and 5NL. 90-95% of my focus last year was on STT SnG’s. So when I played ring I was playing an approach I use in SnG’s, obviously didn’t work. I really convinced my self that the shockingness of 2NL would be the same at 5NL. There were still unbelievably bad plays and the stupidest people I’ve ever had misfortune or fortune to come across. But I felt I smashed the limit. I made solid plays and big lay-downs. I made a few AIPF calls with hands like AQ & JJ to drop a buy-in or 2 here and there, but nothing that couldn’t be recuperated within 30 minutes.

I had 2 sessions that I lost money from and fortunately I remember them and remember why I lost money.

1) I played for ~20 minutes and dropped about 3 buy-ins. I played incredibly impatiently and made the dumbest calls I’ve ever made. I deserved to lose that session.
2) My 1 and only attempt on 6 tabling. 4 tabling worked fine so for the time being I’m sticking to it.

Aside from this I couldn’t be happier with my results in this limit.

It’s also worth I mention that I still haven’t got the HUD turned on. Perhaps now that I’m going to 10NL it may become more necessary but I’m a massive believer in “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!” I’ll need a few sessions on 10NL until I make my decision.


First 10NL Session.

So excited about the level increase I had to play last night. I opened up 4 tables with the intention of playing super tight. I set myself a 1 hour time limit so win lose or draw, I’d be able to get used to playing the next limit up for that period of time, I certainly didn’t want to do a ‘hit & miss’ session.

What I found really strange was the lack of apprehension I had at the tables. All last year when I went from the $3-$6, $6-10, $10-15 games I played like crap for the start, sometimes weeks only due to fear of the higher limits. To be honest I was a little fearful to begin with but that passed after about 20 minutes. I remember I was about $7 down to start with but ended up with a healthy 1.5 buy-in profit after 1 hour. Not only was a win rate of $15/hr great but the hands below gave me taste of getting max value for a hand at this level.






So that’s where things are at. Graduation from 5NL to 10NL in 22 days. How long will it take to get to 25NL? I can’t wait to find out

Custo

4 comments:

WVHillbilly said...

Great job on your run to 10nl but just watch out on assigning too much credence to short-term success. Your sample size at 5nl was very small and I'm sure short-term luck played it's part.

That said, don't worry about moving up. The game is the same at 10nl. Keep playing solid and you'll be a winner there too. Just don't be surprised if you run into the other side of variance.

As for playing more tables, don't add 2 at a time. Once your comfortable at 10nl, just add 1 table for a few weeks. Start every session with 5 and if you think you're playing bad because of the extra table, close it. Eventually you'll get comfortable with it and then you can add a 6th and so on until you figure out your exact best number.

gl and congrats

Anonymous said...

Yay for 10NL.

The monkey has officially been pried loose.

peel said...

Well done man, I'm glad WVHillbilly thinks luck might have played a part :D but only because you've made just under twice as much as me over the same amount of time :P

I linked your blog on mine, it's just something i do to notice easier when people have updated, good luck at 10nl, hopefully i'll see you there next month!!

Anonymous said...

Please, please please lead out when you hit that set of 4s on the second hand you linked. Check raising is so bad for giving away the strength of your hand as well as missing value depending on villain's hand and the board. Trust me.