thoughts of moving up affecting play

[CFANG]

Just wondering if anyone had experienced anything similar. I find that as i approach the BR I want to move up in stakes i find a decline in my play ability. I'v been playing the 5.50 1 table SnG's at poker stars and doing comfortably well but now that i'm getting near what I want to have to move to the 10's I find i'm getting outplayed everywhere in situations I would normally find reasonably strait forward. I'm curious if anyone has experienced this kind of pre move up tilt.

I haven't actually moved up yet. still playing the 5's just to clarify.

[tdmlb24]

I haven't been tilting but through 90 $5 sngs I had a 50% ITM and 35% ROI so I moved up to $10 sngs and through 10 I have a negative ROI.

I think it is just variance so far but I am moving back down to $5 to bring my bankroll back up

[daluchy]

I found the same thing. I'm negative ROI at the $15's so I dropped back down to the $6 to recover my BR.

I'm not sure what the problem was. I think I just ran into alot of pre-flop/flop aggression that threw me off a bit.

[drmcboy]

Maybe the 'BR you want' is a little too much? I hate to encourage risky BR play but it sounds like once you've got... and I'll guess here... a 200 BR and maybe you're waiting for 25x buyin to go to the 10s - but now with 40x buyin at 5 you don't respect the investment anymore. Obviously these are made up numbers... but if you're in that range it might be worth it to gamble and play 3-5 10s (maybe wait until you win a 5 or two, pretend they were sattellites to 10s) and see if your play gets back to normal - if so you'll know. How to fix it is up to you, but IMO it's worth living on the edge a bit to move up a little early in the low levels - 15x buyin maybe? You can always drop back down if you hit a bad run.

For me it was tough at those lower levels because I knew I could replace my BR if I busted out (did so several times ) - I ended up just giving up mostly on the lowers and gambling at the 20s until I finally caught a rush and had a real BR that I didn't want to reload. At some point I think you'll find a level where the amount of cash you have 'on the table' will bring you right into focus.

[aleksandr]

How about just to get comfortable with the $10 ones, play one for every two $5 ones?

[aleksandr]

Oh! Also I recommend reading Dav's post on a pre-poker ritual. That'll definately help you out.

[SnoT_III]

Maybe the 'BR you want' is a little too much? I hate to encourage risky BR play but it sounds like once you've got... and I'll guess here... a 200 BR and maybe you're waiting for 25x buyin to go to the 10s - but now with 40x buyin at 5 you don't respect the investment anymore. Obviously these are made up numbers... but if you're in that range it might be worth it to gamble and play 3-5 10s (maybe wait until you win a 5 or two, pretend they were sattellites to 10s) and see if your play gets back to normal - if so you'll know. How to fix it is up to you, but IMO it's worth living on the edge a bit to move up a little early in the low levels - 15x buyin maybe? You can always drop back down if you hit a bad run.

For me it was tough at those lower levels because I knew I could replace my BR if I busted out (did so several times ) - I ended up just giving up mostly on the lowers and gambling at the 20s until I finally caught a rush and had a real BR that I didn't want to reload. At some point I think you'll find a level where the amount of cash you have 'on the table' will bring you right into focus.

I've had a similar problem to this in the MTT tournaments. Yesterday I was playing in a $10 buy-in with around 200 people. I was just under the average stack size with about 50 people left and found myself getting tired. It would be a few more hours of play to place and i said 1st is only 405 anyway. Then I slapped myself in the face. Why did I just brush off 400 bucks like it's nothing? That's 1/3 of my bankroll. I refocused and ended up taking 3rd in the tourny for 150.

The point? Stay focused if you're going to play. Sometimes it's hard to realize that you're playing with money since your bankroll is just a flucuating number when you click the cashier link. Play at a level where the money means something if you win, but it's not so much that you can't lose. That's where you will play your best poker.

[CFANG]

thanks for the repplies. Its probably a combination of these things that just have me off my game. It never fails to amase me how much of playing good poker has "nothing to do with poker".

[ihategnomes]

I have the opposite problem. If I play $22+2 SnG's on stars, then I am the suck, but when I play $33+3's I am good to go. Maybe its a mental thing where the reward is not big enough. Its sad to think that something so trivial could cause me to play different.

[drmcboy]

it happens to every one, playing the FPP tourneys (at least the MTT, never tried those FPP SNGs) you can tell everyone is just like F it, it's free, 3rd pair is good enough.

[CFANG]

Well I seem to be back on my game. Took a couple of days off and read my freshly ordered copies of HoH 1 and 2. They were by far the most usefull poker books i'v red so far.