Poker Moving Up Stakes
Most of you are probably catching on to the fact that I approach poker in a somewhat systematic way. To me, this is the act of treating poker like a business. If you treat it like a hobby – well, it will likely come with all the traits that any other hobby does. It costs you time, and it’s not free – but most the time you enjoy it, because it’s a hobby. Whereas your business or job is like an investment of your time, to gain a return on that time invested, but not necessarily to be enjoyed all the time like a hobby.
Re: Poker & Advice for moving up in stakes Keep building where you have good results and when you are over-rolled for those buy-in levels then mix in a few of the next level. Microstakes players dream of moving up to higher levels online, where serious money can be made. But how do you rise from 25NL to 200NL? Mike Gano has done it, and he’s on the podcast this week giving specific strategies for moving up in online poker. We asked Gano what microstakes players should be. Moving up in stakes is a complex topic, and one I’m glad is a constant presence in poker forums. Everyone, from newcomers to old-school players, is a little curious about the process of moving from microstakes to small stakes, or from $2NL to $5NL.
What if you could treat your poker like a business while still enjoying it like a hobby? That’s what this article is going to aim to help you do better. I am writing this from pure experience. Not the ‘I did this once, so I know what to do now’ kind of experience either. I am talking about more than a dozen years of blood, sweat and tears (just go with it) to get to where I am today – with dozens if not hundreds of mistakes made along the way. The plan outlined below is designed to remove the possibility of a lot of BRM (bankroll management) mistakes from ever happening in the first place.
The Beginning – I love analogies, so let’s start there. You are fresh out of college, a real sharp kid and everyone wants to give you their money so that you can start a hedge fund and not only manage everyone’s money, but provide a return on their investment with intelligent and savvy investing tactics. This is a massive responsibility! You have to make sure that you are investing into (almost) nothing but +EV spots, otherwise the partners of the fund might get upset with you. You can’t be super risky, but you need to make some profits to keep everyone happy. You need to ‘game select’ in this scenario just like you do with poker. If you don’t you might lose everyone’s money and ruin your reputation.
Poker Moving Up Stakes Game
The same thing happens in poker. Players routinely build themselves up to be very solid winning players who can compete in a lot of different games and formats (similar to going to college) and then once they arrive on the scene and are ready to play, they make terrible decisions about what games to invest into and end up losing money, losing confidence, and losing the opportunity to continue playing.