Status Update: 50NL 30k Hands

Posted on 08. Apr, 2011 by Johnny Cashout in No-Limit Cash Strategies

It’s been a pretty rough stretch for me as I have been testing the waters of 50NL full-ring cash games. I reached the 30,000 hands mark recently and it has been filled with up and down swings. That’s completely okay though as it it was what I expected–lots of variance and lots of adjusting, reading, reacting.

Playing $25NL is definitely cake compared to $50NL. For today’s post, I’ll comment on my current success / failures of playing 50NL as well as things I hope to improve on for the future.

My Initial Losing/Stagnant Poker Strategy

I went into 50NL with the same play style that I dominated the 25NL tables with. I multi-table about 6 tables and play a pretty rigid TAG / nitty style. Never tried to do anything fancy or mix it up too much against regs. After awhile, it was safe to say that I learned A LOT and that it obviously required being more than just a NIT to be a winning poker player at these stakes.

My last 30k hands have represented my learning curve and the things that I picked up on trying to exploit weaker players. It has been a pretty stressful, emotional ride, but I am starting to finally see a steady profit of 6+ buy-ins. Obviously that is not much at the time, but the road that I took to get there represents much more!

Consistency was a pretty big leak in my game. It was obvious from just looking at my winnings graph from HEM. There were huge dips and hills one after the other. As I continued playing, I definitely added more tools and tricks to my arsenal of poker weapons. It definitely took a lot of time to read up on forums, analyze hands, watch videos and etc. Lots of time and lots of resiliency…

My Newly Improved Winning Poker Strategy:

I definitely learned a lot through the first of many learning curves after moving up poker stakes. The tough part is maintaining and toning up these poker skills actively while playing. As a multi-tabler, it’s pretty easy to lose focus and attention. Here are some of the best poker tips I have picked up on through my struggles and progress through 50NL:

Isolating the limpers – This goes both ways. Any decent player will not let you limp just as you should make those who are trying to get in cheap pay. It is important to take note of table position while trying to do this though as you might end up donk betting into some trap plays. Isolating the fish / limper definitely helps bring in a lot of dead money..even just the small pots can be racked up enough to count.
Stealing and Defending Blinds – the difference from 25nl to 50nl in stealing blinds play is SHOCKING. I immediately noticed how aggressive players got with the button and also how often players 3betted as SB or BB. If you consider playing 50NL tables and up, you have to have the guts to play your blinds or they could add up and really hurt your bankroll
Knowing when to Cbet – This probably saved the most money. I used to continuation bet on almost every type of board as the pre-flop raiser (PFR). It is way more profitable to do so after considering your opponent’s range and your own range in relation to the board texture. Don’t cbet into draw heavy wet boards!

Some other poker tips I picked up along the way included when to float and double barrel flops. The major difference between 25nl and 50nl is how much more active and engaged you have to be while playing otherwise the other poker regs will exploit your obvious leaks.

Feel free to drop a comment on any of the poker strategies I mentioned above if you want to hear more about it in the next post!

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Tags: poker strategies, poker tips

Johnny Cashout