Well I broke the 200.00 mark.
Currently at 204.77
I immediately jumped into the .05-.10 game. I was uncomfortable from the start. I bought in for 10.00 at each of 3 tables and started playing. I decided to play the same way as I do at the level below, but slightly tighter. If that strategy doesn't seem to be working, then I will adjust from that point.
So I sat down and had a nice run of cards to start. I turned my first tables 10.00 into 23.00 and sat out. I played the other tables and had some fun hands like these:
KK
KK
AQ
I lost a bit, but maintained a decent game and ended up being up slightly after a good long session. I will say I felt uncomfortable with the stakes. Having 40.00 on the tables at once made me pretty nervous. I have considered grinding at the .04 tables for a bit longer. I haven't noticed anything too different about the tables, but I don't feel comfortable yet either.
Do you guys think I should just stay plugging away at .02-.04 or should I get more hands in at .05-.10 before I make my choice? Another option is not buying in for the full 10.00. I could buy in "short" for 6.00 or more.
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9 comments:
Congrats on the breaking through the double century mark!
My recommendation from my FTP FCC is to run both levels. In order to mitigate the higher variance of the 500/1000 tables, I have had sessions of running one 500/1000 and three or four 100/200 tables. The cheap tables keeps one foot in the kiddie pool while the other foot ventures into deeper water. I use the known EV+ revenue from the smaller tables to offset my antes, bring-ins, and losing hands. It is a good way to ease into higher tables because you keep some familiar tables around that you are comfortable with while still moving up to higher stakes.
Hmmm that does make some sense. Any other suggestions?
I don't know what the action is like .05/.10 tables but it seemed like there was a lot of all-ins on the .02/.04 tables. If that's the case then I suppose you could protect your downside by coming in short as long as you still have enough chips to protect against draws. You are of course cutting into profit from winning hands too but the move is to tune your variance, not to maximize EV.
Another suggestion would be to just build your roll up more on the .02/.04 tables. After I took that major hit to my roll on the big table I went back and ran it back up plus a little extra to give me more of a buffer in case I ran into some bad cards.
Wouldn't hurt to do a rough estimation of your EV and variance like what I outlined in my "Moving on Up" post to get a general idea of how bad a run of cards your stack can take before you need to say uncle and back off.
And along those lines, after I lost a third of my stack I gave myself some stop loss milestones at which I MUST take steps to either do a thorough evaluation of how I lost the money or if I go past the last check point, I HAVE TO step away from the table to ensure that I don't dig a deeper hole at the higher stakes. If I have a bad run of cards then I will patch the dent at the lower tables before going up again. I was able to biff off a ton of chips *in LIMIT* before so I made sure that I would give myself a cool down period if I ever started a big slide again to prevent me from tilting off a large share of my chips again. This would be even more critical in NL games.
I know I write a whole bunch of other crap in my write ups and it is hard to cull out the nuggets. Sorry about that. But I am also blogging about all of the lessons I'm learning from my FCC and since the play money tables are softer I am running into these issues faster than average. So hopefully the things I am finding can be helpful to True Cakers.
Higher stakes with less multi tabling is my suggestion. When I move up I play one table at a time. I play 2 at my lower levels.
Crushing the .02/.04 is not where you want to be long term.
Excellent work, Marsh! So great, and really validating for the challenge. With discipline, skill, and a bankroll-management plan, you have quadrupled up in a little over a month.
I have truly learned way more than I thought I would doing this. I thought I was just going to play out theories I already understood as an exercise. Instead, it has shown me a path to online success when I had basically written myself off as a "bad online player."
As for acclimating to .05/.10, I like Martin's idea a lot...if you multitable, don't make them all 5/10. Maybe your rule can be that you can only have X 5/10 tables open, where X = (Roll - 200)/10.
So, just play 1 5/10 table at a time until you are at $220, then do two, and so on.
Buying in short is also an option I like. I mean, I'm at $110, so by Ferguson rules, I could buy in for $5 at a 5/10 and be within the guidelines. The short buy is how I've been playing O8...just be a little nittier and a little more aggressive.
Jason sez:
Higher stakes with less multi tabling is my suggestion. When I move up I play one table at a time. I play 2 at my lower levels.
Crushing the .02/.04 is not where you want to be long term.
It is always interesting to see what Jason has to say on a subject. One of the reasons I multi-table is to reduce variance. I would rather average $20/hand on each of two lower tables than average $40/hand on a single higher table even though both would net me EV overall.
Another reason I multi-table is that it allows me to play more solidly. It is easy to throw away marginal hands when I know another better hand is right around the corner on another table and I don't want to be wasting my time on an iffy proposition when I could be working a much stronger hand instead.
One final reason I like to multi-table is to protect my chip stack from myself. I still contend that the biggest threat to any stack is the human element. When I am building my roll I want to be as close to Sushi CowBOT as possible and just shrug off beats and fold anything that doesn't fall into the correct parameters for a starting hand.
Yes, of course crushing .02/.04 tables is not where you want to be in the end but as been stated elsewhere already...how can you expect to beat any stakes game if you can't beat the game below it?
Great stuff Marty. I took your advice and played 2 big tables and 2 small tables and I felt much more comfortable. I think when I get my roll up a bit bigger I will switch over all the way.
Had a decent session last night, but did catch a pretty sick beat on the bigger table. Regardless, I felt more comfortable and will continue doing that until I have mo moneys.
Awesome job on reaching 200 man. Do you think you're going to keep at the online play past this challenge (however long it lasts), or do you see it as not as fun as live play?
I view the two quite differently. I don't have as much fun online, but it can be pretty rewarding. It's really all about the money online though. Live, I can get more out of it on a personal level (friendships, interaction, guy time etc).
I am not planning on stopping the Cake Challenge until I go busto or reach a level where I am not comfortable or not enjoying it. We set a loose guideline at 6 months for the first major check in, but that is fairly meaningless to me as we all have been able to put in different amounts of hands etc.
I am hoping to be able to get to the mid-low limits (.25-.50, .50-.1.00) and take it from there.
Overall goal? Make da moneys.
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