I read another recent post about this and someone mentioned that its too hard to build a bankroll playing at the low limits because its too luck oriented. I have to agree with this, especially when it comes to sitngos. I consistently get my money in with the best hand but in these STTs all it takes is one suck out and you're crippled and with the amount of people that will call an all in with nearly anything, you will lose quite a bit to worse hands. I think these low limit STTs do come down to catching cards too much because you can almost never bluff anyone off of anything. I have never played a sitngo for more than 5.50 so I dont know how the play changes as the stakes increase(maybe different on different sites), but I have found building a profit playing these sitngos to be very slow. Anyways I was just wondering what other people thought about this, and if people thought that in order to build a bankroll faster than $50 a month, you must be willing to take some chances at a slightly higher stake. I'm not talking playing with your whole bankroll like shipitthisway but maybe if you win a 5 dollar, then try a 10, if you win that, play a 20 and see what happens. Any other suggestions or strategies or just comments in general would be appreciated as well.

Hobotree...

Unfortunately you are going to have to learn to not just "accept" all these bad beats, and awful players, but actually WANT them. A good player salivates when he sees a table full of total idiots with chips in front of them, playing a poker game. Yes, he will experience a LOT more bad beats at this table, on average, than at a table full of good, solid players, however he also realizes that this is a good thing...

How can this be a good thing? Nobody wants a bad beat. Do they?

Well the answer is tricky. Okay, no, nobody literally wants a bad beat, however they do want their opponents to be the kind that are most LIKELY to give a bad beat of any opponent. Basically, if your opponents are attempting to give you bad beats, by putting their money in with by far the worse hands, and are fighting an uphill battle against you, and against the odds, they will occasionally give you bad beats, and hand you a nasty losing session every now and then in the short run, but in the long run, you will win MASSIVELY, and they will lose MASSIVELY.

In fact, in order to drive the point of just how "great" it is to have TERRIBLE opponents, think of it this way. In a high stakes $100/$200 limit ring game, you are expecting to make about maybe half or maybe just 1/3rd of a big bet per hour, at a full limit-ring-game of this sort. That is because your opponents will almost never fck up. They wont be giving you bad beats, or at least not very often. Everyone is playing well, just like you are, so your hourly expectation on th game is miniscule (in terms of blinds-earned-per-100-hands). Way less than one big bet (1 big bet means 2 bigblinds) per 100 hands played. Luckily it is a high stakes game, so even just half a big bet per hour is 100 dollars per hour, but in terms of purely just blinds earned per hour, you arent making much at all. Whereas, in a very weak $0.50/$1.00 limit holdem ring game on partypoker (their lowest stakes limit holdem ring game) I have seen people's long term (wellllll over 100,000 hands) pokertracker data have them at OVER 4 big bets earned per 100 hands on average. Thats over 8 big blinds earned on average per 100 hands played. This is 8 times better than how one expects to fare in the 100/200 game. Thats because they are making 8 times more mistakes, which naturally gives you 8 times as quick of a profit in the long run, in terms of bets earned per 100 hands played, compared to if they had been playing good solid poker. This doesn't mean that .50/1.00 is more profitable to them than 100/200 in this case, since even .5 big bets earned per hour at 100/200 is still a lot more money per hour than 4 big bets earned per hour at .5/1.00, but it DOES mean that if the player could choose to have crappy opponents (for example the kinds of crappy opponents that are giving him FOUR big bets earned per 100 hands at a .50/1.00) rather than good opponents, in his 100/200 limit game, he would instantly say "yes!!!!!!!!!!!" and would then make 8 big blinds per 100 hands at 100/200 limit, which would be sick. You WANT the opponents to suck. You really do!

Okay now that you understand why it is so CRUCIAL that your opponents SUCK, and are NOT good players, let me tell you why you probably thought you should have been looking for better opponents (which is wrong, you shouldn't look for better opponents in reality, as I just explained).

What probably happened is this.

1. You lost money, over quite an extended period of time, so long in fact, that you started to wonder whether bad luck, in terms of bad beats taken, could really last THAT long, or whether something was just wrong, and that there was just NO WAY you were ever going to make money at the low stakes.

2. Because of this, you decided you need to move up in stakes to find better opponents who wont suck out on you, and thus, you created this thread.

Okay here is what I am almost positive REALLY happened. You took no more, and no less bad beats per hand played on average than the rest of us do, in the long run, but you DID lose money, but NOT for that reason. Here's what I think happened. You played against awful players using a strategy that would have worked well against GOOD opponents, but actually works horribly against bad opponents.

Let's just for fun say you were playing a 0.10/0.25 no limit 6 max ring game on partypoker. Say you find yourself looking at pocket kings. You raise to 1 dollar. 4 people call (wtf????). The flop comes out, 10 8 3 with two spades. You are first to act. You bet out 3 dollars into the 5 dollar pot. Its folded to the button, who raises all-in for 21 dollars more. You call. He shows you 8 3, and you get no help on turn or river. You just lost 25 dollars, an you just increased your hatred for bad players, who are calling 4-times-the-big-blind raises with 8 3 offsuit.

Lets think about this for a second though. If this were a game you were playing, at higher stakes, against much better, more solid opponents, you probably would have won. Either everyone would have folded preflop, or maybe you would have gotten someone to call with ace queen or ace king or something, and then fold to your flop bet. You would NOT have had to face 8 3 offsuit, that's for sure.

Now, that isn't what happened. What happened was, your opponents DID suck ass, and were NOT good players, so they all called with totally random marginal hands. Here is the important thing though. When you play against opponents like these... you have to play differently. They do, so so should you. You have to adjust what everything you do actually does. For example, the quad-raise (raising .25 up to 1.00 preflop raise) would normally get everyone or all but one person to fold preflop in a game against solid opponents. In this game however, you just saw, a quad-raise didn't do anything. They all called. Now if that was your intention, then okay... but it WASNT. You didn't want 4 or 5 people seeing a flop against your kings. NO! You wanted like 1 opponent. Right? You want 5 opponents when you have 67 suited, not when you have KK. Okay so here is a great example of adjusting your play. Take note of what kind of preflop raise you can thin a herd with. Is it a raise from .25 all the way to 2 dollars? 3 dollars? 5 dollars? What does it take to thin the crowd to just one opponent usually? Once you figure this out, say it happens to be 3 dollars, you then raise preflop from 0.25 to 3 dollars with your KK, and get ONE opponent, who has a good hand, and then you get your beautiful, non-dangerous (against one opponent) flop, and now if you get all in, you probably have the best hand when the cards turn up, or you can win a healthy pot if he folds.

Another thing to note, is that you simply can't limp into every single hand, and see a flop for the minimum price and then fold whenever you dobnt flop a monster, and try to get all in everytime you do, against GOOD opponents. It doesnt work. They raise preflop way too much, so you'd have to limp-fold a lot of hands, unprofitably, and they are smart. They would see what you are doing, and then just fold whenever you didn't go away on the flop.

Against BAD opponents however, you can make bundles doing this. If you notice your opponents are all very passive preflop, but then very agressive post-flop (something you'll find all the time at the low stakes), you can limp in with any two cards, from any position, every single hand... literally... and then whenever you flop a monster, just rape whichever willing victim obliges, and at these low stakes, against such crappy opponents, SOMEONE WILL OBLIGE!!!

Are you starting to see why its so great to have crappy opponents? You just have to adjust your play accordingly. Many strategies, and fundamentals that work well in a higher stakes game, work horribly in a lower stakes game, and vice versa. You just need to learn how to adjust your game to best take advantage of your opponents poor play, otherwise you'll be using an incorrect strategy, and somehow, theyll be the ones taking your money, whether they know why or not.

Good luck man, I hope this helps.

Sir, only thing I can say is if ur only making fifty dollars a month im afraid its probably something ur doing instead of the bad beats. In the words of Gidders if ur playing correctly u will have chips to take these hits when u get bad beated and u will also gamble n spots and give bad bad beats urself.(not sure those are his exact words but same theory basicly) Play more aggressive is my only tip..

jdor and bfactor are entirely correct. In fact, bfactor's response should be required reading for anyone who has ever complained about low limits being unbeatable because its all luck and the need to play more skilled opponents to make money. Low limits are entirely beatable. You do need to change the way you play (think) and you have to be patient - it can be very boring. You probably need to be the tightest player at the table - not in terms of getting a little money in the pot but definitely in terms of getting most of you money in the pot. Some observations; Don't slow play your very strong hands - you want to win these outright or get all your money in against one player if possible (maybe 2 but definitely not more). See lots of flops. Learn to fold, often. Avoid bluffs. Avoid small or "standard" raises without the nuts or close to it - you'll get too many callers. Others will often bet your hands for you.

Again, kudos to bfactor - v good article.

If you are beating the $5's then you can play the $10's. Bad players, however, are EASIER to beat than good players. If you are not beating these bad players, then you are a bad player, or perhaps do not understand the structure, or the strategies of the sng, and should not try to move up until you learn how to play.

Only short term results, are as you say, luck oriented. You should show a strong and consistent profit against these bad players, in the long run.

I suppose it depends on how much you play and how many tables you do at the same time, but it would seem a very very very easy thing for instance to make $1000 in a month playing the stars $6.50 turbo sngs.

I would give two to one odds to anyone who said I could not do so. I would insist on a no ringers caveat.

When I first started out I was grinding the $5 dollar SNGs on PokerStars with a $60 bankroll. The process was painfully slow to me and I also was sick of Pstars so I moved my roll to UB. I played a lot of the 2-3 table SNGs and had a couple of nice cashes. Then I started focusing on 10NL-25NL and was a breakeven player at those limits, making a slight profit. With my roll somewhere near $500 I began focusing on MTT's. I had never cashed in an MTT to that point, but my first ever cash was a win. It was a $5 buyin with nearly 550 entrants, and I won $670 dollars. It was a big score. After about a week of MTTs I decided to focus in on cash games again. I put $250 on my PP account and grinded the 25nl 6 max games for a good profit, eventually getting up near $550.

Then a friend of mine who plays 5/10 NL on Party had faith in me and staked me to play 200NL. I won almost 1k that night and now I'm overrolled for 50NL and have been beating that game for a nice profit and I plan on being up to 100NL in a matter of weeks.

This was how I built my bankroll, hope this helps. My roll total is at 3k and I deposited 50 to start, lost that playing way over my head, and then redeposited 60 and haven't had to redeposit since.

I revised my post a bit, and added a little stuff, and submitted it just now as an article. Let's see what happens!!