Moving Up

Posted by longclaw

March 26, 2008

So in my last post I talked about getting my ass handed to me to the tune of -$400. It hurt a lot, but maybe it helped a bit too. I spent some timing looking at my game trying to figure out what went wrong and what I needed to do to fix it. I think I got a little ahead of myself jumping into $1-$2 shorthanded limit. I have not played much limit hold’em at all and when things started going bad I didn’t make the adjustments I needed to make.I wasn’t really sure what I needed to do, so I decided to get back to the basics, back to what I know. I went back to the 9-handed No Limit tables. It is the game I know best and the one I have made the most money at. I needed to get back to my comfort zone where I wasn’t questioning my play. I jumped in and started clawing my way back.

I have been able to beat $25 NL for about 8-10 PTBB’s/100 which is really good. I started wondering about how much value I was giving up by not making the move to $50 NL. The problem has been I don’t play the same way at the higher stakes. I start slinking back into my weak-tight shell and start folding way too much. I was afraid of losing the money. Then I got to thinking, I just lost a bundle on a game I am not even sure I am any good at, why should I be scared in a game I know I can play just because the stakes are doubled? Forget it, put me in the game.

I did a little table selection and found one that I liked and I bought in for the full $50. The average pot size was about $2 and the “players seeing flop” was about 20%. I know it doesn’t sound like a good table, but I really like these. Players for the most part are tight and passive and they don’t put you in many tough spots. I started off playing tight until I got a feel for the table and my got some numbers on the players in my HUD. Then I slowly opened up my game until I was playing close to my normal style. My VPIP has been around 20% which is a little low for me, but my PFR has been around 15% and my aggression factor has been around 6 to 8 depending on the street which is way high for me. I picked up so many pots by c-betting it was scary. I flat out ran them over. Maybe I can handle this after all.

So far I have played about eight hours at $50 NL and I am running just under 10 PTBB’s/100, even after stacking off with Aces against a super-nit who obviously had a set. I knew it deep down but I pushed anyway. I feel a lot more comfortable than before and I have finally got off the “micro” tag on Stars and moved all the way up to ”
low” stakes. Every little bit helps. I know this is a really small sample size, but I hope to keep it up like I did at $25 NL. Either way I have accomplished one of my goals I set for myself for this year. Now I only have 97 left to go