Hey people, I am wondering when the time to move up limits is. I am aware of bankroll requirements and such, but am curious how much experience (# of hands) you guys like to get before moving up. Assuming you are a solid winner at a particular game and have the proper bankroll, should you still put in at least 10k hands before moving up? 20k? more?

I have played almost exclusively LHE for a few years, seriously online for one year. In 2006, made about 1.9 BB over 40k hands (not playing every day obv) playing 5-10 up to 40-80. Decided to switch to NL bout a month ago. Only played $200 max-buy shorthanded so far, up 9.3 BB (pokertracker BBs) over 7k hands. Is this a good winrate for NL (small sample I know)? What winrate would be considered "crushing" a NL game?

I definitely have the bankroll to be playing $400 tables, but think maybe a little more experience needed. Move up at 10k hands, 20k, or more?

If your not to proud to move back down if your unsucessful then take a shot at 2-4NL for 10-20K hands. Revaluate after about 10k or if you drop 12 buy ins the first day.

9.3 bb's is absolutely killing it at that level, and 7k hands is surely not enough hands to determine your actual win rate. In fact, I would bet that many losing players have 9.3bb runs over 7k hands (not suggesting by any means you are one, just trying to give some perspective). Considering you've only been playing NL a month, I would guess that you are running extremely hot right now. I would put in about 35k hands more and see where your at. 6max can be extremely swingy, and if your new to NL I'd much rather experience my first downswing at 200NL then at 400NL. If your over 3bbs/100 after 40k hands, absolutely move up. Good Luck!

HT, your posts in the strat sections definitely indicate to me that you are a pretty good player. Given your experience, even if it is LHE, I certainly think it would be alright to move up. If you multi-table, maybe try a 50/50 mix of $200 and $400 tables.

Don't worry about putting in a set number of hands or making "absolutely sure" that you're a solid winner before moving to the next level. If you've got the BR, and you think you can win, then just give it a shot. Put in a few thousand hands at 2/4 and see how it goes. I've only played maybe 3 sessions of NL since the Internet Gambling Act went through, so I don't know much about what the games are like now, but when I used to play NL regularly, the 2/4 games were just about as soft as the 1/2 games. The difference between them was very small. Worst-case scenario, you can always move back down.

this might seem like a stupid question but I'm a sit and go player. What does 3BB/100 mean?

Like I've played cash games b4, just 1/2 and 2/4 and have made a few thousand over what I would estimate 10k hands. I really don't play that many cash games.

3 BIG BETS / 100 HANDS

so if you play 1/2, that means you win $6 for every 100 hands? That's not that much

It is when you can play 500 hands/hour, and add on to it bonus and rakeback. Not to mention 1/2 is pretty well micro stakes.

if you 4table thats like $20/hr depending on how many hands/hr your tables do. if you have rakeback this becomes very lucrative to the average income person

Currently for me, 9.66 BB/100 x 4 tables = $138.24/hr so I can't complain.

Also, it probably helps that over 7k hands, I have gotten all in preflop with AA or KK for full stacks ($400+ pot) a total of 5 times with every one of them holding up! (against KK twice, AKs twice, and ATs (lol)) These account for about $1k, one third of my profit

Thanks for the posts guys.

Its different for NL, don't confuse it.

Poker Tracker calculates the winrate in terms of BIG BETS not big blinds.

In limit games we list stakes in terms of BET sizes. 1/2 Limit means .5/1 blinds.

In no limit we list stakes in terms of BLIND sizes. 1/2 no limit means 1/2 blinds.

In Poker Tracker NL winrate is calculated in terms of BIG BETS (you'll see it abbreviated as PTBB) which is twice the size of the big blind. If your NL winrate is 3 PTBB/100 at 1/2 you're earning $12/100 no $6.

How about a little update HeadTrauma?