Okay, so I've been playing Poker in some form or another since 2006. I've played online before (in 2007 with Bodog) and gradually lost about 50 dollars at mircos over a period of about 6 months.

After making a concentrated effort to get better I started playing online on pokerstars about 2 months ago. I bought in for 100 dollars and quickly lost around 60 of it (I tried playing heads up cash, only had 100 dollars, didn't know what I was doing and their smallest blind structure at that level is .25/.50 so that didn't end well.).

I finally decided to make a concentrated effort to improve at a lower cash level and really understand poker instead of just waiting on good cards and trying to trap people.

I started off playing heads up tournaments (2 dollar buy in) and for the first 2 weeks more or less broke even. Then I started to turn a profit, and after doubling my bankroll to 40$ I tried to play heads up 5.25. Again, I more or less broke even. Then a week ago I started playing 4 man heads up tournaments, 5.25 buyin.

I don't know what happened, but all of a sudden I started to get things. I really began to appreciate the value of position, learned how to control the size of the pot and I've really started to win. I started multi-tabling (only 2 at a time but still) and I'm winning about 85% of the time. My bankroll has grown from 40 or so dollars to 300$ in one week.

A lot of this is running hot I'm sure, but I definitely understand the game better than ever before. I know where my opponents are at in a hand now, I notice trends in their game and all of this little stuff that I don't feel like typing out. It's exciting like you wouldn't believe to finally be making money and understand why it's happening.

Now let mefor a minute and get to the advice request.
How many buy ins should I have before I move to the next level ($10 buy in)?

I was thinking I'd get to 500$ and then move up, but I'm not sure what a good number is. I want to manage my bankroll more carefully rather than playing so close to the edge like I've played in the past.

How big of a skill jump is it between levels? From 2.20 to 5.25 the only thing that really tangibly changed to me is there are less ultra tight players and guys will stand up to you once they lose like half their stack.

I'm also curious about a play that I like to make and if it's only working because my opponents or weak or if I'll have to abandon it at some point.

I min raise like 70% of the time when I have position (half the pot). I follow it up with a cbet for 50-100% of the pot most of the time on the flop when I get a call, and they run away. When they call most of the time they have something and I get out of the way. I'm turning a really nice profit this way.

Does it make more sense for me to make full bet pots with position though (only giving them 2 to 1?). I refrain from doing that because it makes them more likely to defend themselves on the flop (out of desperation?) and I'm not really looking for confrontation. I just want to whittle away at their stack for a bit and then lean on them at the end. However, I've played a few guys at 5.25 that actually know what they're doing a little bit and they like to often make full pot raises instead of half pot pre-flop (I can tell because they don't constantly overbet the pot whenever they try and take it, fold with more discipline, defend their blinds, will follow a medium pair down on the right board and value position more).

When they raise out of position most of the time the flop misses them and I call their cbet then float them on the turn or river but when they raise with position I have some tough decisions. When I get raised for a third of the pot I call a lot even without position because when I hit my implied odds are high enough that it's worth it because they take a stab on the flop, and will often call one re-raise with or without anything. But when I'm playing guys that only given me 2 to 1 out of position I run into a lot of trouble when I call because the pots get out of control or I get whittled down when I don't play back at them. So is the full pot bet with position pre-flop the smarter play?

I really want to read some books on heads up but all of the books I've read (Harrington's books, Doyle's super system series and Mark Caro's) don't have detailed heads up sections.

Also is there some way that I can plug my hand history into an excel sheet or something and see what hands are netting me the most money and what sorts of hands I'm playing at bad spots? I intuitively feel like I don't always make the right decisions with some hands and in some spots but I'd like to be able to study what I'm doing more. I requested a hand history of the past week and I just want an easy way to go through it.

P.S. Its awesome because I've done some 2-5.25 dollar tourneys (between 4-180 man) the past few days and a lot of this stuff transfers over. Raising on the button or other spots where you're going to be close to last to act once the flop hits with bad or passive players in the hand makes you a lot of money/chips. I've gotten in the money or close in almost all of these tourneys.

Anyway, that's all I think.

Hey

I did a bankroll building series from $50 - $500 playing only HUSNG's.

I think the skill level between the $2 games to the $20's is much the same. There are a few solid pllayers at the tens and 20's but there are way more fish.

I play quite a small ball style and like limping lots of pots to see how my opponent reacts and then i adjust accordingly.

I played with about 20 buy ins for each level but I think with the swings and variance of heads up play, 30 would be better especially if you're not 100% sure of your game yet.

I c-bet between 50% to 70% of the pot unless they are a calling station then I c-bet bluff never and make pot size bets with a hand as you have no fold equity so you may as well value bet the hell out of them when you think you're ahead.

You really need to focus of identifying player types as this is where you make your money. There is no one size fits all strategy.

Here is an example of how I adjust my play for two different player types.

One is a calling station and the other is a very tight, nitty player. See if you can see the difference in how I play both of them.

The Nit (Tight/ Passive player): http://www.tagpoker.co.uk/pages/how-we-roll-7.html

The Calling Station: http://www.tagpoker.co.uk/pages/how-we-roll-8.html

I hope that helps.

Good Luck

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