If you have $1000 in the roll, then you should be playing at least $10 NL. It's crazy to play the $2 game for bankroll reasons any longer than necessary.

My advice is:

(1) Pick one game, and stick with it -- it's just too hard at the beginning to try to keep straight the differences among the games, and move back and forth;

(2) If you have followed my advice in #1, and have chosen NL cash games as your game, then move up to $10 NL TODAY.

(3) If you have done #1 and #2, then please also purchase pokertracker. Import all your hands into it. After say 5,000 hands, look for leaks in your game (starting hands that are losers for you). Also check your winrate.

(4) As soon as you have a positive winrate of at least say 3-5 PTBB/100 hands, over a period of 5000+ hands, and have plugged some of your leaks, move up immediately to $20 NL or $25 NL. The game isn't any harder and you'll win twice as much. And you still have 40-50 buy-ins for it in your roll, which is way way more than enough.

Good luck!

I guess cash games are where its at. I already have poker tracker and GT+. I also imported the correct auto-rate rules for NL games as well.

So when PT says n BB/100 I then multiply n by 2 to get PTBB/100?

Thanks for the thoughts. I now have some things to think over a bit.

I was thinking just play $2 NL even though I have the loot for bigger games but I don't have the skill set thats needed as of yet.

No, the win rate number in PT is your PTBB number

If it says 8.0, the your win rate is 8.0PTBBs or 16 actual BBs.

Hey SNG,

You can move up to $10 NL. I didn't realize that you had that much money backing your action. The $10 games are only a small bit more difficult than the $2 ones. You just won't find as many people pushing PF with 86o, that's literally it. The skillset of your opponents will be the same, and if you're planning on playing at UB, they are for the most part weak-tight. But stay away from my tables.

I'd reccomend you wait awhile before moving up to $25 - on UB at least, there are quite a bunch of semi-solid multi-tabling grinders who have it when they say they have it, and don't pay off sets, and things like that. Don't get me wrong, they're not that good, but as I've learned, you will pay for your mistakes much more than at the other two levels. Your bankroll is still adequate for the game - I'd just play maybe 10K hands (of course I wouldn't balk if you wanted to play more) with a winrate over 10PTBB/100 at $10 (mine was 13 when I left and I was doing 30 at $2 - this is very doable at these stakes with nothing but ABC poker - trust me).

As far as SNG's go, I stared my poker career with $5 SNG's. They rely on luck much more than cash games do, have huge variance as a result, and quite frankly you can make much more, even at $2 NL than you can by playing $5 or even $10 SNG's, unless you have a torrid run. Like the others said, stick to money play - this is where it's at. Play a $1 MTT for fun or something or take a $8 flyer on a sub-sattelie for the Party Poker Million if you're jonesing for some tourney action, but I reccomend dedicating your time to the ring games.

You seem like you're committed to making it - I wish you the best.

The reason that's said I think is that there is a limit to the absolute MOST a person can win playing SNGs, around $200/hr I think for the very best of players 8tabling the $109s and $216s, and once you get to that point and you want to improve your game, you really have no place to go other than MTTs which aren't really the same anyway. That's why you'll see a lot of top SNG players moving to limit hold'em or other walks of poker because they want to make more money/become a better, more well rounded poker player.

You can surely make a good deal playing mid-limit SNGs but i'd only use it as a roll builder, cash games ARE where it's at.

Hmm, "only" $200 per hour. Just as a guess, someone playing $2 NL doesn't care much about that limitation, at least for now.

I think some SnG players make a fortune - the first guy to go supernova on Stars multi-tabled about 20 at once didn't he?

But obviously at that no. he is just ignoring first 3 levels unless AA or KK and even after that is just push-botting.

I think push-botting detracts from the skill needed and caps out the high level learning and probably earning process at SnG's - it means that MTT's or Ring are the way for the pro to really push their edge in skilful play, reads etc. against worse players.

I think Im going to focus on cash games for now. My numbers for the $2 game are in the red since when I first started I dropped a few buy-ins. Im going to get those numbers in the green and then move up to the $10 game.

I think once I get to $10 I will whore the primas for bonus. I have been looking at Pokerroom (skins) vs prima and it seems prima has the easier bonuses.

Looks like my stars bonus will have to wait till I hit the $25 game. I don't think it will clear at $10NL. If I whore the primas I should build my roll quickly (I hope) and add some more padding for when I take my shot at the $25 game.

Thanks for the thoughts and suggestions.

Move up when you feel combortable with the amount of stacks you would have on your new level.. and whatever the case is when you beat the game