Poker Strategy: Advice for moving up

After my September article was so hand history intensive I thought I’d make this month’s more qualitative in nature so what follows is my guide to shot taking or moving up.

1. Have a stop loss. This is by far the most important thing to come up with before you jump into a new game. When playing my normal game and limits I’m pretty good at not tilting. I know when I make mistakes and how to correct them. I know how much I’m likely to win or lose from session to session and when to quit when things aren’t going my way that day. However, when I play a new game I’m not used to the way hands play out or the bad beats or seeing myself make a lot of mistakes as a result of not knowing what the right play is. When I play a new, higher limit I am not used to the big swings and it’s only a matter of time of playing at that limit before I lose a larger amount of money than I am used to in a session. Both of these feelings are uncomfortable and at times can become very tilting. Over time as you gain more experience, your comfort level will increase and you will become much less prone to tilt as a result of these things.

In the mean time, playing tilted at a higher limit than you are used to is a sure fire way to lose a third (or more) of your bankroll in a single day and have to spend the next couple of months grinding it back. At a certain point you are going to tell yourself, “Oh what’s the difference I’m already down $x, what’s another $y, but if I get back to even I’ll be much happier!” This should set off alarm bells in your head that you are on tilt and you should quit immediately. Unfortunately, saying you are going to do something and actually doing it are two very different things. What I recommend is that you practice having losing sessions. Sound weird? No, I don’t mean purposely losing money obviously, I mean next time you sit down to play a session at your normal limits, set some sort of stoploss and make it your goal to quit when you reach it even if you are not on tilt. For example, set a stoploss of 1.5 or 2 buyins next time you play a session and quit immediately if you reach that mark. Do this a couple of times, and even if you only play a 10 minute session I think it will really help you next time you take a shot at a higher game from going off the deep end for a steep loss.

One quick thing to add is that in my normal games I don’t use a stoploss at all and don’t really see a need for one. I know myself well enough to know when I need a break and am not playing well and it’s quite obvious to me and easy for me to quit. However, when taking a shot at a bigger game I REALLY recommend using and implementing one as you will be out of your comfort zone and not know yourself as well and be much less able to gauge whether you are playing or A game or not.

2. Take a shot when there’s a fish in the game, not when you have $x bankroll. I’ve heard a number of very good players say this before, so I definitely don’t take credit for this but it’s definitely true. When people ask, “How many buyins should I have before moving up?” It’s really a bad question. You shouldn’t move up when you have $x amount of money, you should move up when you are going to make more money playing the bigger game than you would your normal game and aren’t at risk of going broke by doing so.

Take a look at the games you are trying to move up to. Are the people sitting at the table the exact same players at your normal slightly lower stakes? There’s a good chance they are. Do you have an edge on these players? Is there a big 90/10 fish in the game? I think if you spend a lot of time game selecting and only play when you have a big edge when shot taking you will actually find that the games are softer than your usual game. For example, if you usually just load up 6 random $1/$2 tables and play them without much regard for table selection, but when you play $2/$4 you always make sure there’s one big fish at the table that you have position on, you will find that the $2/$4 games are MUCH easier even if the 4 other regs at the table are twice as good.

3. Just because your shot went well does not mean you should never move back down. I read in an irockhoes post a couple weeks ago in response to the following:

Originally Posted by wtfbbqs
what do you guys do when shots go bad? not super bad, but i should have been up about 5k last night after about a 3hour session at 5/10. lost aa vs aq aipf for full stacks, qq vs ak aipf for full stacks, i only finished down 1.5k but its disheartening that if it wasn’t for run bads i would be on top of the world right now, i think im not going to play poker for a few days.

irockhoess Posted
You seem to be confused about the reason to take shots. Its not to make 5k and feel super. Its to slowly desensitize you to the higher stake while maintaining a cushion at your stake below so that in the long run you can get better by playing better competition and constantly be moving up.

It’s pretty good advice and I can’t really word it any better than him. I’ll just say that there should never be a moment where you say, okay I’m done with that level, never playing that again. I advise more of a fluid movement where you are playing a range of stakes. There are some days I’m just not feeling like playing my A game so I might play a stake or two lower than usual, or I just don’t feel like gambling and losing a huge sum of money to me that day. Then again, there are days I’m really feeling on and want to give myself a challenge, those days I play bigger. There’s also times where I spot a big fish and just load up whatever tables he’s on. Doesn’t matter what stakes. It’s all about finding the right stakes for you for that particular session to maximize your win and minimize your losses.

4. Most importantly, RUN GOOD!

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Alright time for some more Ivey vids! Seriously how can you not be a fanboy? He’s not only widely accepted as the best poker player in pretty much all the games, the dude just knows how to live. I hear a lot of online players say, “Oh I’m just going to play for a couple more years. Then I’m done and I can really start to enjoy life with all the money I’ve made.” Well Ivey doesn’t have or need to play anymore but he does anyways for the love of the game(and money of course). But he genuinely enjoys what he’s doing in life and I don’t think he’d trade it for anything.

Life of Ivey in Cabo

ESPN: 360 Preview

I bet you can’t stop watching this vid halfway through! It’s like trying to only eat one potato chip!