Low stakes no limit Texas holdem poker can be fun, but if you’ve been playing them for awhile, you may feel you are ready for a greater challenge. But are you? If you’re playing low stakes no limit, with blinds of $1/$2 or less, here are a few signs that you may be ready to move up.
You are consistently beating the game
This seems like an obvious one, but you must have a good understanding of what “consistent” means. Winning $100 in one session is not a sign that it is time to move up, nor is even a week of more winning days then losing ones. If you can honestly say that you are averaging a win of several big blinds per hour over a period of months, it is time to move up. Honestly means averaging all your losses into the equation, even ones you might feel “shouldn’t count” because you played well and got unlucky.
You are not being challenged by the game
If the stakes are so low that the amount you win or lose is meaningless to you, you may need to move up to a higher stakes game. The competition may be stronger, but it is very difficult to play your best poker if you don’t care that much whether you win or lose. You should never be playing at stakes so great that you are afraid to make the moves you need to make, but at the same time, playing at stakes that are insignificant to you given your financial situation will probably not allow you to improve.
Other players are avoiding you
With the number of players involved in online poker, it is unlikely that enough players will remember your screen name that it will be difficult for you to find opponents. However, if you notice that during your live casino games, players tend to look for poker tables other than the one you are sitting at, or that you are not getting much action from other players in your regular online game, you may have gotten too big for the stakes at which you are playing.
With most poker players, there is always a temptation to move up as soon as possible. Few of us got into playing poker with the fantasy that we would be able to grind it out at the lowest limits for our entire poker career, although there are certainly recreational players content to stay at this level. However, you will be most successful and happiest with your poker experience if you move to the next level when the time is right for you. If you move up and find yourself suddenly consistently losing, there’s no shame in dropping down a level while you identify and shore up the leaks in your game. There will be plenty of bigger poker games available when you are ready to start beating them. |
