New member here. Been playing NL since '02 with various degrees of success......and failure. Since joining, I've played 1983 hands at .05-.10, 6 max at Pokerstars. I'm up $54.36, for a win rate of about 27 BB per 100 hands.
My bankroll is now $176.51. Needless to say I'm VERY happy with my results, and I give all the credit to what I've learned here.
I'm itching to move up to the .10-.25 tables. I have $200 that I can add to my online bankroll, which would give me 15 buy-ins for that level ($376.51).

So here are my questions:

1) Is 2000 hands at my present level enough to get an accurate assessment of my abilities? (I've played enough poker to know I'm not getting a great run of cards, and have even taken some suck outs and hard hits during these last 2000 hands).

2) Is 15 buy-ins enough to start with at the $25 tables? Or, should I build it up more, just to be safe?

Any advice would be appreciated.

I reread Article #3 about "Bankroll Management" and see that it is recommended to have at least $500 to play at the $50 tables, so I should be OK at the $25 tables with $375 (15 buy-ins).
So I quess my only question is: Is 2000 hands enough to get a pretty good picture of what my win-rate is at my present level? I've played about 2100 hands, and am up $58.00. That's about $27.50 Big Blinds per 100 hands.

Well don't take my word for it, I am no pro or expert. But I do have an opinion on it. In microstakes, I think you should play as high as you comfortably can. As long as you are not playing with scared money, then do it. Bankroll management doesn't seem too important at $10nl or $25 nl because it's not as hard to replenish your bankroll from your wallet.

From where your roll is at now, so what if you lose half? You can start over at the $10nl and rebuild again. Or if it is feasable add more dough to the roll. It doesn't sound like you are a losing player, so you probably won't lose your bankroll anyways. So, I guess I would just say, try it. If it feels good keep doing it. If not, drop back down.

the main thng is to be comfortable and confident in your game and to not play scared, sounds like first 2 are check and check, and you have backup bankroll. i would say take a shot and if it goes well great rock on.
if you lose a couple buyins (even if they were bad beats) you have options to drop back down and rebuild roll. It sounds like you are in a position to give it a shot and calmly evaluate results.

i say crack a cold one and go for it.

gl hg

Thanks for the encouragement, Filobetto, and hockeyguy. I did in fact try the $25 tables last night, and came away with a pretty good showing; up about $20 after 229 hands. I used the same justification you both suggested. I figured I could drop back down if I lost what I had in my account ($180), and just load the other $200 into the site. I've put the $200 away for now, and hope to build the $202 at PokerStars to $500, and move to the $50.00 tables. I'm sure there will be setbacks along the way, but I felt VERY comfortable at the $25 tables, and don't think I will have a problem winning in the long run at this level.

All that aside though, I can't resist giving this site a HUGE thumbs up!!! You guys are advocating and TRAINING a style of play that I've always wanted to master, but could only dream of until now. It's like a big light bulb went on, and suddenly it all makes sense. Seeing it happen on the training videos has done the trick for me. It's the proof in the pudding, so to say. That said though, it will probably take viewing each one 3-4 or more times to get all the value from them. I feel like I'm just scratching the surface and breaking old habits. So I'm looking forward to improving my game as I get more accustom to the style, and better at spotting and exploiting opportunities.

tboneman wrote:It's like a big light bulb went on, and suddenly it all makes sense.

i think that is my quote from the login page, when i first came here to OP and watched atta22 , it was like hallelujah.

gl hg

That must be where I saw it. I know I remeber reading it somewhere and chuckling to myself, saying "yeah, that describes me to a T".

tboneman wrote: 1) Is 2000 hands at my present level enough to get an accurate assessment of my abilities? (I've played enough poker to know I'm not getting a great run of cards, and have even taken some suck outs and hard hits during these last 2000 hands).

2) Is 15 buy-ins enough to start with at the $25 tables? Or, should I build it up more, just to be safe?

Any advice would be appreciated.

Congratulations on your success so far! A few words of caution:

2700 hands is no where near enough of a sample to determine anything. I've had 50,000 hand break-even stints before, followed by 50,000 massive heaters. People massively underestimate the variance in poker (and which is why you'll often hear people say it's rigged or whatever).

However, if you are confident in your game and have a solid bankroll, there's nothing wrong with taking a shot at the next level up, and moving back down if the shot doesn't go well to grind back your profits. I would say 15 buyins is a decent bankroll to take a shot at the $25 tables. Have a strict stop-loss of 2 or 3 buyins where you move back down if things don't go your way.

Good luck!
Tim

Tim,
I should have taken your advice about the 2-3 buy in "stop loss"! Actually, by the time I read your message, I was down 4 buy ins. Hit some bad beats, then started chasing. I was down 6 buy ins ($150) before I wised up and went back to the $10 tables.
So....I've run the $100 I had left back to $242 (10,770 hands to do it). I'll run it up to $275, then throw in another $100 to have 15 buy ins for the $25 tables.
My goal is to get to the $100 tables, and master them. Then we will see where I can go from there (that's when I talk to you about 1 on 1 coaching). I have to keep reminding myself that I'm not wasting time at the $10 tables. I'm laying the foundation, and developing a lot of disciplind.
Thanks again for the advice (I'll follow it this time). I hope I can soon post on here that I've made the jump to $25 successfully!

fyi- what i did when i was moving up from those stakes was play like 2 or 3 10nl tables and ease into 25nl by playing one table of the higher stakes w a few of the the lower games i was totally confident i would crush, that way i had enough tables to always have action so i wouldnt force it at the higher game or get bored. I also played a bit tighter and avoided big pots unless i had a very big hand at the higher level table until i had a better read on the game and players. I stayed w/ this until i was beating the one higher game in my table mix. Fortunately it only took a session or 2 to see the concepts from Atta22 videos worked at the higher level pretty much the same as at the lower level. This allowed me to have a chance at growing bankroll faster with less risk of taking several beats if i was 4-6 tabling at a new higher level. I applied same methodology up to the 100nl, when i played 200nl i just started there w fewer tables to ease into it .

hg