moving up in stakes
 

I'm trying to move up from .05/.10 to .25/.50 on Stars and am having alot of trouble. Over 9k hands at .05/.10 I had a win rate of almost 12 BB/100 (I know its not sustainable, but thats what i kept for 9k hands). Now for the first 800 hands of .25/.50 i have a rate of -7BB/100. How much should my play change when I move up in stakes? Should it be completly different playing or am I just on a downswing?

Re: moving up in stakes
 

I'd say it's just a down swing. There is little difference in these limits, IMO.

Re: moving up in stakes
 

I'll disagree. I made this switch many months back and went through a similar "downswing", but found that a lot of it was bad play. .25/.50 isn't difficult, but .05/.10 can be ridiculously easy. Go through your hands and make sure you're not LAGing it up, as I had been coming off of the nanos.

Re: moving up in stakes
 

I made the shift from the nanos to the Micros in December, moving from 0.01/0.02 to 0.25/0.50. The biggest difference that I've seen is you have fewer people joining into hands and they call down less as the limit moves up.

At the Nano you never had to think about continuing a flush draw, you almost always had odds+, at the slightly higher level you don't, if 4 or 5 see the flop only 1 or 2 may continue to the turn and river. Even more telling if you hit your bottem pair (5 OUTS TO IMPROVE), at the nano you had odds to call, at the micro I've only had the odds about 1/2 the time to see the turn and unless I hit then rarely to see the river.

You can't be as casual or passive in the game. There are differences in it's play and you must adjust.

Re: moving up in stakes
 

one of the things im wandering if i should do more of, semi- bluffing. if i bet with a four card flush or oesd on the flop, and that puts it heads up, if i miss on the turn should i bet again? for the fold equity?

Re: moving up in stakes
 

Well partly I think your were probably running well at the lower limit and are running poorly at the higher limit. 800 hands isn't many. You may also be getting used to the larger bet sizes and making mistakes that you weren't making before. Another factor is rake: There was none at .05/.10 and there is rake at .25/.5.

Re: moving up in stakes
 

yeah thats what i was thinking alot of it was (the running bad) and i know 800 hands is nothing, but to have lost that much that fast was just me thinking "am i playing really bad?" but after logging a couple more hands i am doing much better.. tightening up more, realizing the lower EV for hands, and also learning people will fold to bets in cases. and on top of that im running better, but thanks for the advice

Re: moving up in stakes
 

the ,25/.5 Stars games is a very good primer for .5/1 at Party. The players at the quarter game on Stars are comparable, if slightly better.

800 hands is nothing. You are probably on a bad run. I will say that your outrageous winrate at .05/.1 was a most likely a combination of running well and the fact that Stars does not rake that game.

Re: moving up in stakes
 

I'm on a bad run for my last 5 thousand hands and I'm not worried.

Re: moving up in stakes
 

The .25/.50 at Stars is ridiculously easy. You must just be on a run of cold cards. Anyone with any concept of the game can beat this limit at Stars.