When to move up limits at Party Poker....

[Daggs911]

I have been playing 2/4 at Party Poker for roughly 2 months, having logged roughly 20K hands. I have been fairly profitable.

What size bankroll is necessary to safely move up to 3/6 for a profitable player?

How much will the level of play improve, i.e. should I expect much stiffer competition?

Is 20K hands at 2/4 enough to judge my ability - is it too soon to make the jump?

The last thing I want to do is move up limits before I'm good enough/rich enough. Any advice from higher limit players would be appreciated. Thanks.

-Matt

[J.R.]

I like to have at least $2K to play 3-6, mostly because treat it as a part time job and make routine withdraws. The 3-6 is more aggressive and tighter than 2-4, and more dramatically so in my opinion than the difference between 3-6 and 5-10 full games.

You should be able to judge your ability to beat a game from the play of your opponents, not from your stats. 20K isn't a bad sample size and is generally going to be fairly indicative of your performance.

If you multi-table, replace one of your 2-4 tables with a 3-6 table and feel your way up. Be more inclined to watch the 3-6 table before you sit down and get a feel for who is nuts and who you need to watch out for. The biggest difference in my experience is the bad players at 3-6 tend to overplay their hands while the bad players at 2-4 tend to overcall to much. Good luck.

[steveyz]

I agree with JR. I made this switch about 3 weeks ago and have logged 10k hands and have been doing pretty well (better than at party 2/4 surprisingly).

I think Table selection is much more important for 3/6 than it was for 2/4 where just about every table is loose passive. Some 3/6 tables are fairly tight while others are a bit looser, but almost all are much more aggressive than at 2/4.

Keep track of who at the table likes to overplay their hands and who are the complete nut-jobs. Don't be afraid to cap it on multiple streets with these guys without the nuts. I think a lot of my winnings come from these people.
Also, tend make more "crying" calls for turn/river raises as you'll be surprised how many times you will win. Some people will semi-bluff raise the flop AND turn with a flush draw. Plenty of people raise the river with nothing if they miss their draw. And if someone bets out on the turn (after check-calling the flop), and the board doesn't look dangerous, they are almost always semi-bluffing a draw that they just picked up.