Winning Money:

Now this is a critical time, it’s very easy to become over confident. Examine your play and ensure you are not getting lucky. When you are making money you need to know why you are making money. Even though you are winning, you should still be examining your hand histories and posting hands in the forum. You might think you have made a great play that you were actually a 4:1 shot to win. You could start winning money with luck going your way (you remember the lucky players who turned $50 into $3000 from part 1 right?). Make sure you know that when you have won a hand, you still played it correctly. You can win poorly played hands and lose hands played perfectly. That’s why poker is such a puzzle.

Once you are routinely doing all this, and are making money consistently (making money is fun!), you have two choices:


Cashouts
Start making small cash outs (Is there something you want to buy that special someone?).

There is a rumour around the net called “the cash out curse”. That is when people win at online poker, make a cash out, and then go on a losing streak. These people think that because they have taken money out of a site, the site has saw fit to punish them. The reality is DingoDave deposited $200, played good poker, and made $600. He’s now moved up in limits with his new and improved bankroll. He then takes out $400. He’s left with $200 now, and thinks to himself, "wow that looks small, I had $600 a minute ago." Sub-consciously he knows he doesn’t have as much money, and starts playing differently. He won’t bet as much to protect his hands, etc. As a result his play has changed from that of a winning player into a losing one.

Also, it’s quite common in poker to have up-swings and down-swings. You may win for 3 days and then, through no fault of your own, lose on day four. As long as your upswings are stronger and more frequent than your downswings, you have nothing to worry about.

If you are going to make a cashout, make it a small one - an amount small enough that will not affect your play when you see your smaller bankroll. Keep repeating this cycle, make small cashouts, slowly let your bankroll grow, and make small cash outs. i.e. - for each $100 you make, cash out $50 and leave the rest in your bankroll.


Build Your Bankroll
This is the option I suggest you take, especially if you started with a smaller bankroll. Building your bankroll will give you more confidence in your play, you know that you can push all in with that AA, and it’s not going to break the bank if you lose. Also, eventually, you will have enough to move up to the next limit. To move up, you want at least twenty buy-ins for the next level. If you are new to playing poker online, I suggest 30 just to be on the safe side. Some level changes are easier than others. If you started at the $5 buy-in tables, the $10 buy in tables won’t have a big diff in skill. However, if you are playing the $25 buy-in tables, the $50 buy-in tables are harder, with more sharks and less fish.

Whichever you decide to do don’t rush ever rush in to moving up in limits. The last thing you want is to have a good run, move up, and have a bad run. Remember, there are a lot of swings in poker. Also - as important as it is to recognise when to move up, it’s equally important to know when to move down. If your bankroll drops down to a level leaving you only 10 buy-ins, it would be a lot safer to drop down to a level that afforded you 20 buy-ins.