Journey To Being an Online Poker Pro

I was reading through some older Bluff Magazine articles and I came across a great one on bankroll management and requirements for moving up in levels.   I tried to follow these standards even before I read the article and I wanted to share some of the key points with you.  When talking in earlier posts about the requirements I use, I guess I was a little vague.  I had said that when I have 10x the big buy in, I will move up a level.  This is true but there are other factors involved besides just having the right amount to move up.  You want to be able to accurately assess whether your game is good enough to move up.  Maybe you went on a serious heater with great cards and a few suckouts thrown in to warrant you thinking about moving up.  Or perhaps you’ve had to grind your way up over a long period of time and now you’re finally got your bankroll to where it needs to be to make the move.  Neither example will show whether you are ready or not.  Let’s say that a player is playing the lower limits, like .50/$1 and has a bankroll of $1000.  Now, you play and get your roll up to $2000.  Based on the 10x Rule, he should be able to move up to $1/2 right?  Not so fast.  Something to take into consideration is how fast he made that $1000.  Did he win that money by earning $50/hour over 20 hours?  Or did he earn $10/hour over 100 hours?  There’s a difference.  One example has a guy making quite a bit in a shorter period of time while the other has him taking a lot longer, grinding more to get there.

For the most part, you’re going to find better competition as you move up in stakes.  That’s not always the case, as I pointed out in my Top 5 Poker Myths, but more often than not it’s true.  If you’re taking a long time to get the bankroll to move up in stakes, chances are you’re really not ready to move up and face the better players.  Chances are good that at best you’ll be a break even player and more likely a losing player.

So, how should we gauge whether we’re ready to move up?  What we need to figure out is our win rate.  The standard ways to figure out your win rate are by $$$ Won Per Hour for live players while online players use Big Bets Won Per 100 Hands, or BB/100.  A “big bet” is basically double the big blind.  So if you’re playing $2/4, the big bet would be $8.  According to the author of the magazine article, a win-rate of 3BB/100 is considered pretty good while a win-rate of 5BB/100 is considered VERY good.  I think that’s a pretty good gauge.  Now that you know how you should be rating yourself, how many hands should you play to be really accurate.  Obviously, the more the better.  Some say you should play as many as 20 000 hands.  I don’t know if you should go that high but I could be wrong too.  It’s definitely a big enough number to allow you to honestly assess whether you should move up or not.

The next question is, how do you keep an accurate count of how you’re doing.  There is plenty of tracking software out there that you can use.  I’ve started using PokerTracker and have used PokerOffice as well.  I like both, and would recommend either one.  I’m still learning to use PokerTracker at the moment as there’s a LOT of different stats to look over.  Right now I’m at about 10 000 hands but my win rate is ridiculous at the moment.  In those 10 000 hands my win-rate is 30BB/100 hands.  Now, obviously that’s a huge win-rate and in the next 10 000 hands I expect that to come crashing down to Earth a little bit.  I hope not but I’m not going to be surprised if it does.  If it doesn’t I’ll have a really good bankroll behind me for the next level.

So try to keep as detailed a record as you can.  Be patient and be honest with yourself as you look over your results.  I’m as guilty as anyone when it comes to thinking I was ready to move up before I was but I’ve learned my lessons after going broke a number of times.  Don’t be in a hurry to move up.  If you’re profitable at one level, maybe that’s where you belong in order to make the most for now.