Why so many of you experience downswings when moving up

[MEbenhoe]

My reason in writing this is to try to prevent the common posts which go something like this:

"I was beating the 1/2 game and had 300 BBs for 2/4 so I moved up, but now I'm down X BBs over X hands. I'm clearly a winning player because I won at the 1/2 games so why am I not winning at 2/4?"

My contention is most of these people aren't actually playing true winning poker yet, and even if they are playing marginally winning poker they aren't even playing close to optimally.

For example purposes lets take two friend, Bill and Dave. Bill and Dave both start with $300 and start playing $0.50/$1 HE online. After a month Bill and Dave have both built their bankrolls up to exactly $600, enough to move up to $1/$2. However, Bill and Dave both do greatly different paths to reach their $600 bankroll. Bill played 20,000 hands, earning 1.5 BB/100 along the way. His VP$IP was 12% and his PFR was 4%. Dave played only 6,000 hands and earned 5 BB/100. His VP$IP was 30% and his PFR was 15%. Both of these guys now have the 300 BBs to move up to 1/2, but the question is which of them is ready to? The answer I hope you all came up with is that neither of them are ready to.

Well why shouldn't they move up they have 300 BBs? The problem here is that people are in such a rush to move up that they become so results oriented that they only care about when their bankroll says they can move up instead of when their skill level says they should move up. There's two parts to this equation. I often see people saying they moved up from $0.25/$0.50 to $0.50/$1 or $0.50/$1 to $1/$2 after having played X hands at a winrate of 1.xx BBs/100. Despite the fact that these people will clearly eventually have the bankroll to move up, they are by no means ready to. If you are actually a winning player you should be crushing these limits. These are the easiest games you are going to find online, and if you aren't able to beat these games at a solid winrate, the chance that you'll be able to beat higher games is somewhat less. Furthermore, at this low of a winrate and with as small of sample sizes as you're using, due to variance you can't even be certain that you are a winning player. Just as a solid winning player can have a stretch of 10k hands where they are beating there game for 8 BBs/100, a losing player can have a stretch where they beat the game for 10k hands.

Now lets go back to our friends Bill and Dave. These two address another problem. Moving up limits when you haven't learned how to play optimally at your current limit. Bill is the classic weak tight ABC player. While these players are likely to squeeze out a marginal profit, they will never come close to being an excellent player. Dave on the other hand is playing too loose and this looseness will eventually catch up to him and turn him into a losing player. So knowing that they aren't playing good poker there is no reason that they should move up a limit where the hits they are going to take due to their suboptimal play are going to be more severe. Instead they should stay at their current limit until they have mastered that limit completely.

So when moving up through these lower limits its important to remember, if you're not crushing these games and if you're not playing at your best, holding back on moving up and working on your game instead will benefit you far more in the long run.

For further information on crushing these lower games, see this post by Ed Miller:

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh...mp;o=&vc=1

[Alobar]

The true reason is beacuse so many people don't sacrifice a young virgin to the poker gods before moving up. n00bs

[bonanz]

no offense but i think this post is kinda lame due to generalizations.

sure there are those that deposit a couple hundred, pump it up to a grand from bonus whoring and take shots at 2/4 and lose when they have previously never played poker before at all. those people are probably not winning players.

but anyone who spends a reasonable amount of time studying and playing can get solid rather quickly. you are correct probably about results oriented thinking affecting you as you move up. there are psychological aspects of seeing the amount of money you play for double. If the money you brought to the table was shown in BB's it might be easier to take a bunch of beats since it looks just like it did when a bb was .50. it can cause you to play scared when you take a beating and your account balance shows -2x the amount you're used to when you've taken beatings before and can cause you to play scared.

also you seem to assume that people are not continually studying and trying to improve their play. playing new limits can help you learn skill sets you previously didn't use very often, adjusting to a new general style of play from opponents can also make you seem like a loser at first but helps you become a better player.

everyone has different issues with moving up. some move up just because they ahve the dough and care about bb/100's instead of playing correctly, they make tons of posts about stats and not about strategy. some stay at a certain level for an unusually long period of time even though they have the roll to move up and are most likely a winning player. some people are under-rolled for what limit they play at and take shots at higher levels and gamble and aren't really worried about playing "correctly."

assuming you are a bad player if you have a downswing when attempting to move up is the same as assuming you can beat the game for 8bb/100 when you have done so for 5k hands. it doesn't really matter. thats what bankrolls are for.

if you are really concerned about becoming a winning player and take a shot at a higher level, you'll probably be bright enough to realize the point where you may need to begin to consider you have serious problems beating your new level and you'll move back down and regroup. and you'll also realize that starting off with a downswing doesn't mean much and won't let it intimidate you and you'll continue to strive to improve and play your best.

just my .02

[Zetack]

I disagree with your contention that one must master a level before moving up, and also your subcontention that one must be at least crushing or playing optimally at a level to move up.

I don't think there's anything magical about any given limit that says you have to do your learning at that level.

So you've built up you roll and you have enough to play higher and thats what you want to do. YOu're still learning and perhaps you've been lucky so far, or perhaps your win rate is pretty low for the level you've been at. If so you'll undoubtedly learn some new lessons at your new level. Or perhaps your learning curve will catch up with the deficiencies in your game before your roll crashes. Whatever.

Is .5/1.00 a better place to learn the game than 1/2? Is 1/2 better than 2/4? No, they're simply cheaper.

Do I personally want to have reached a certain level of competence before I venture into higher stakes? Certainly. But that doesn't mean this is a necessary prescription for learning the game.

--Zetack

[Rah]

I'd say that someone with a VPIP of 12% and a low PFR has stuff to learn, but they would still beat the 2/4. Not for optimal amounts of money maybe, but they'd still beat the limit.

[MEbenhoe]

[ QUOTE ]
I'd say that someone with a VPIP of 12% and a low PFR has stuff to learn, but they would still beat the 2/4. Not for optimal amounts of money maybe, but they'd still beat the limit.

[/ QUOTE ]

Personally I love having a player or two like this at my table. They're weak, predictable, and easy to bet off a hand. In my PT database I have 17 such players with over 50 hands who meet this criteria. 15 are losers, all of which are at worse than a -3 BB/100 clip. The 2 "winners" are both under 2 BB/100.

[MEbenhoe]

Let me ask you this, if either of the two people I presented as examples in my original post were to make a post on here laying out their stats and winrate, would you honestly tell them they should move up? If so, I don't believe you have these people's best interests at heart.

Is $0.50/$1 better than $1/$2 to learn at, $1/$2 better than $2/$4? I say yes, for the exact reason you used to say no. Its better because it is cheaper to learn here. These people are going to have to learn their lessons eventually, why not have them learn it at a lower level where the impact of such a lesson will not result in as much of a downswing?

Also, I believe that the idea of mastering these lower levels before moving up is better for a player in the long term. While moving up fast may create better short term results (note it can also create far worse short term results), the slow and steady approach will make you a far better player in the long run. You will have learned to master a wide range of game types which can only help you in the long run.

You say that you personally want to reach a certain level of competence before moving to higher stakes, and thats because you know that thats the best way to do it. So why not advise others to take the best route as well?

[hockey1]

Good post. I don't agree with 100% of what you say, but you raise some important points.

One thing I think you left out is that there are differences in the way certain limits play. E.g., Party 15/30 is considerably more aggressive than 10/20 (from what I remember). Changes in game texture require different skills, or at least non-trivial modifications to game-approach and tactics. Sometimes players don't appreciate the differences when they first move up and, if they've moved up too quickly, may not have be equipped to consistently beat the new type of game.

[Bodhi]

Hi there,
I'm new to poker, but have studied intensively and have made more than 7BB/100 hands at .5/1 Party Poker over ~8,300 hands. I know that's a very small sample size and my results may be anomolous.

In any case, I did try 1/2 for about 1500 hands and lost 25 bets to a cold streak when I two-tabled (single tabling I made a profit). It wasn't a big deal to me, but it did teach me that there's a significant difference between the two limits. I think I make a large chunk of my profit at .5/1 from the extremely bad play of my opponents. Anyway, I'm less than 80 bets away from the 300BB needed for 1/2, and when I move up I'm going to be more prepared and will wade-into two-tabling much more slowly.

[pokerjo22]

Many people experience downswings when they move up or cashout because of regression to the mean pure and simple.