Common mistakes when moving up limits

Bloggers / Matthew Pitt / 17 September 2009 / Leave a Comment

The majority of poker players you will speak to will all have a common goal they want to achieve and that is to move up in stakes. Some will just want to progress from the micro-stakes to the low stakes games, whilst others will have their sights set on rubbing shoulders with the pros at the nosebleed stakes.

The obvious reason for moving up in stakes is the potential to win more money but a lot of players seem to assume they will do just that, win right from the off at their new stakes or they fail to realise at what rate they need to win in order for their new limits to be more profitable than the level from where they have just come from.

As an example, say you are a 15% ROI player at the $10+1 SNG, meaning on average you will win $1.65 from each SNG you play. You then move up to the $20+2 SNG where you will have to achieve an ROI of at 7.5% just to earn the same amount you would have done at lowers stakes.

Obviously this does not take into account rakeback and bonuses but you can see that you still have to be quite a solid winner, against potentially better opponents and with more at risk just to win the same amount you would have at the $10+1 level. This is a simplified example but I know of people who have moved up despite having a 3-4% ROI and then basically played break-even poker higher up.

Another mistake people make when moving up is doing so before they have a significant sample size to prove they are actually a winning player at their current stakes. Too often people hit a patch of positive variance and think they are much better than they are, quickly move up through the ranks and then go bust at stakes they simply should not be playing in.

If you are an online player you should not really think of moving up in cash games until you have at least 20,000 hands and to be honest you should really be beating your current level over closer to 50,000 hands. For the SNG player, you need a significant sample size of a minimum of 1,000 games though closer to 3,000 would be more ideal. Multi-table tournament players are a law to themselves, there is a school of thought that suggests you can never play enough tournaments to prove you are a winning player due to the huge variance involved but that is for another discussion.

The most common mistake people make when moving up is doing so to chase their loses. Whilst taking occasional shots, within your bankroll, should actually be encouraged, you should move up in stakes to try and win back money you have lost in an earlier session.

The main reason for this is because you will not be in the correct state of mind as you could be on tilt or play more aggressively or passively than you usually would in order to win back your money. It should be obvious you can also lose at a much higher rate than you have been doing previously, which has potential for disaster.

Basically, if you are moving up you need to ensure that you are properly bankrolled for the new stakes you wish to play, be honest with yourself and be prepared to move down if it does not work out and make sure you have been beating your current level over a significant sample size before taking that shot.