Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about whether or not I should raise the stakes in my online play. For the past two years I have stayed strictly to mini-stakes ($1-$5, but mostly around $2 & $3). I am quite proud of the fact that I have played hundreds of games and for over two years on only $55US. Yet, as my game improves I’ve been wondering if I might be ready for a greater challenge. Here is a run down of what I have been doing lately to try and expand my horizons and maximize my poker profits!
First: some background on me. I was introduced to NL Hold’em at a friend’s 30th birthday in 2005. My poker experience at that point was so thin that I had to have a little cheat sheet that night, showing me the relative strengths of each poker hand! Still, I am a lifelong card player so I picked the game up quickly and made it to 4th place. Most importantly, I LOVED the game and was immediately hooked.
Shortly after this experience I made my first deposit to an online poker site and stretched that $25 out for a couple of months. Disappointed, I retreated to play money tables while hitting the library and reading a big pile of books on the subject. I’m a very competitive person by nature, so if I was going to take on this new, exciting hobby, then I wanted to improve my game and learn everything I could.
Fast forward to 2006, when I made my second deposit on a different site. Here I eked out all the pennies I could, and slowly improved my game, eventually turning my $35 into $150 or so. (Did I mention I am super-cheap?) It took me months to move from the $1 tables to $3 ones; even longer to take the odd stab at $5 tables. To be honest, these $5 games were very scary to me – here were players who really paid attention to what was going on! They stole blinds, even! LOL. These “high stakes” were too much for me though, and I soon went back down a level.
In March of this year I moved some money onto yet another site. I had some initial success here - say the first 5 to 10 games - but soon was below my initial deposit of $75, and actually getting down to my last $15-$20 by the end of April. And this really was even worse than it appears as I had earned $30 in bonus too, so I was about $80 in the hole. Not good. I was playing 9 player sng's almost exclusively, at both $2 and $5 buy-ins; I would have the odd win here and there, but I didn't seem to be making any progress. (I have stayed at single tables for the most part ever since I read Mike Sexton's book, Shuffle Up and Deal, as he suggested that players should learn to play with only the one table's worth of opponents to study, until they feel they can safely move up to a multi-table format.) I couldn't seem to find a table that had a) enough fish, throwing their money away, and b) few enough sharks, eating my money! Different times of day, as well as the days of the week, affected my results. (Weekends are often gonzo bingo matches, which are unpredictable and hurt my bottom line. Late evenings at the $5 buy-in are FILLED with really strong players who pay VERY close attention to everything, so they almost always trounced me.
A peek on Sharkscope.com showed that my greatest return (most profitable game) was at the $2 level, gaining slowly at about 20%, and that at the $5 I was actually slowly losing, at a rate of about 10%.
At the start of May I noticed a few entries on rec.gambling.poker discussing when one should move up to the next level. There seemed to be agreement that once your rate of increase (ROI) is 20% you can be comfortable moving up, although others argued that your bankroll had to be considered too, and that you shouldn't move up until you had 20-50 or even 100 buy-ins at that level.
Another discussion thread that I thought was interesting was by a few guys who seem to know a lot about statistics (which I DO NOT have a brain for AT ALL). They said that if you look at your results for 100 games, you should have a good enough sample to gauge how well you are doing at that level.
Obviously my strategy needed some tweaking and I decided to amalgamate these ideas into my own plan. I would play 100 games of 9 player $2 TURBO sngs, keep track, and then see where to go from there. I also started playing fewer games, often quitting at just one a day, whereas before I often would play two.
The first 7 games went VERY badly, placing in the money only once. I re-evaluated my plan and ditched the TURBO format. Starting over, I went to the $2 - regular speed - 9 player sng and immediately saw much improvement.
I didn't get any money the first game, but beyond that one, I have always been in the black column. Over 29 games, I made it into the money 15 times, (7 - 1sts; 4 - 2nds; and 4 - 3rds) for a total profit of $33.75. Including rake, I spent $65.25 and had $99 to show for it, showing a return on investment of roughly 33%. A profit, yes, but still very little to show for all of that time playing. I kept track of the time, roughly: 23.5 hours of playing netted me $33.75 - - - or $1.44/hour, $1.17 profit/game!!! If I’m trying to make money, I might as well open a lemonade stand outside my house!
Added to my discouragement over these piddly profits, I was also getting pretty bored with this same game over and over again. Out of sheer boredom I played a couple of $5 - 9 player sngs, and then tried a $5 - 18 player game...and came in 2nd, for a profit of $20.50! I kept playing these 18 player games and have now played ten, for a total profit of $86.50 in 10.5 hours of play. I have paid $55.50 to amass $142, showing a rough ROI of 150%, if my math isn't off. At this rate I am profiting to the tune of about $8/hour. Perhaps most importantly, my balance is finally above where I started ($75 + $30 bonus), for a balance of $138 and change.
Why am I more successful here? Well, for starters, there are MANY donks in this game, willing to chase. I am playing tight-aggressive and almost always doubling or tripling up by 30 minutes in. Even when I don't have any cards, just by playing tight I can get to the final table, and wait for my luck to change. Although the blinds move quickly in this game (every 6 minutes), the raise is VERY gradual - only 10-20 chips for the first 45 minutes. This really lets me take my time, conserve my chips until I find good cards, and then really control the game when I catch something big. Also, I am finding that the game REALLY tightens up by the final table, as people just try to get into the four paying spots. I bluff my patootie off here, and steal many pots.
Of course, it is really early in my experience at this tournament level, and maybe I will tank as I continue. Still, I am finding this methodical approach really interesting, and it may help me fine-tune my game. Maybe some of you might benefit from trying something similar to analyze your game and maximize your profits.
Lori “OllieStar” Astle
