Any medium/high stakes poker players around?

In My Humble Opinion
1

Didn’t know what forum to put this in. It’s a poll of sorts, I guess.
Just curious if anyone here plays poker for medium (say, $15-$30 and above) stakes poker or bigger.

I know there are plenty of low limit players around.

I did, for a while, but found that it stressed me too much to want to do for too long, especially when I had a pretty good income coming in from the upper low limits. I was really stupid about it, though - as I tended to do too much, I played for ego/challenge more than making money, so I played the $30/$60 shorthanded games on pokerstars, which are some of the toughest limit games you’ll find anywhere, at any stakes.

I should’ve taken the ego/challenge aspect out of it, and found a more beatable game. That game there is significantly harder to beat than the 30/60 games in Vegas or Atlantic city, and probably harder than most brick and mortar games of even higher limits. I don’t have experience with it, but I wouldn’t be surprised if, say, the $200-$400 game at the Commerce was easier to beat. I was up 3.3 BB/100 hands over my first 12,000 hands (not a significantly significant number, I know) but down a good bit over the next few thousand, mostly due to burnout and other stuff going on in life. Plus having a -$6000 night, very possible at those limits, is pretty rough.

I also played some $5000 heads up sit and goes at stars, again the challenge/ego thing, and because I didn’t care all that much about money. Was 4 and 6 in them, but should’ve been 6 and 4, as two losses came from 2 outer suckouts in huge hands.

I’m back to playing lowish limits, though, because I’m trying to detach myself from the challenge/ego aspect and just play for the money (something difficult for me - I find I lose interest), just to carve out a decent, regular income without stressing to death.

2

Highest I’ve ever played is $1 NL. I think I’m good enough that I could move up but unfortunately I don’t have the bankroll to withstand the swings. Oddly I was talking with my mother about that earlier today, quietly exploring the possibility of my parents’ staking me. She’s all, we know you have the talent but your father would never go for subsidizing a shot at a gambling career (but all of their money is in the stock market, go figure).

3

Given the stress involved if you’re living game to game is this really a viable long term career? I was reading a fascinating series a few years ( I linked a thread to it but the article may have vanished by now) ago on people that make a living with mid-low stakes poker, and it seemed like a meat grinderish type of life interspersed with moments of joy and disgust.

4

No, to be honest, I’m pretty unhappy with it. When it went from mostly an intellectual challenge to mostly for money I lost a lot of interest. And when it became my primary income it added a lot of stress. Bad combination.

However, it pays a lot better than anything I could otherwise do right now, and I don’t have any interests to work towards any other careers.

5

It might be a good idea to avoid staking to avoid jumping too quickly or distort your perceived skill level. Essentially you should be able to move up in limits by consistently beating the limit you’re at long enough to build up a bankroll.

I started making $25 deposits every week, playing microlimits, and by 6 months I passed the break even/winning player point. The total I invested out of pocket was $550 (online is great that - an equivelant brick and mortar education would’ve been much most costly). From there, over the next year, I was able to end up +$10k, not through getting staked or adding to my bankroll, but by playing a limit until I felt I had sufficient experience, skill, and money to move up. 6-9 months after that point I was +$32k. I won a big tourney and jumped limits from that point - but not hugely. I was playing $10-$20 and moved up to $30-$60 - and $3-$6 nl to $5-$10 nl. in retrospect I should’ve advanced more slowly, but it’s not as if I went from a $3-$6 player toa $30-$60 player.

6

Oh I understand that and I agree, and I do consistently beat the games I play. The problem being that I’ve been out of work for two long stretches since I’ve been playing and have had to use the money I’d otherwise use for a bankroll to, you know, live.

7

I play S&Gs on pokerstars, mostly $20, but sometimes I venture up to $100. Then I lose and go back down to $5.50. I don’t make any money, but I don’t lose much either. I find that while I can play well, I don’t play well all the time, and that is when I get hurt. The biggest challenge in poker IMHO, is not counting outs or calculating the implied odds, it is keeping your emotions in check. I say this as someone who can’t do it (and I am not sure I even aspire to do it). However, it strikes me that playing for reasons of ego will tend to sabotage that goal. You can come back from a streak where your stake has taken a beating, but when your ego takes a beating, so does your judgement. Hell, when your ego gets inflated, your judgement takes an even bigger beating.

Find your self worth elsewhere. Play poker for money. If you can’t beat the big boys, beat the knuckleheads. Their money is just as good.

8

I played $15+1 SNGs on Stars for a couple of years. I ended up with a 16% ROI over 600 tournaments. This is not a spectacular figure, but is pretty fair. It wouldn’t make me anywhere near enough to live off of though. Attempts to move up to higher buy-ins proved unsuccessful and I eventually gave it up.

9

I’ve played lots of mid-limit poker. That was where I earned my bread-and-butter when I was playing full time. All live games, 10-20 to 20-40 ring games and no limit games in which the buy-in was $500.

You can make a good living at these games in the right circumstances. I’ve never played them online, because I generally found it was more profitable to play two 5-10 games than one 10-20, and the 10-20 games were hard enough that I didn’t want to manage playing two at a time. I also worry more about collusion at the higher limits.

Whether you can make a living at it depends entirely on the quality of the players you are up against, assuming you are good enough to understand the basics of play and to not make egregious errors.

At those levels, you have to have a playing bankroll of at least $10,000. If you don’t, don’t think about playing them (this is assuming you have no other income). In fact, to be comfortable you should have two or three times that much. I don’t know how many good players I knew that were constantly broke because they constantly over-bet their bankrolls. They’d do well for a while, move up to bigger limits than their bankroll could afford, and then bust out of the game. Then they’d be off driving cab or working in some crappy job to raise enough stakes to get back in the 3-6 games, and start working their way up. Then they’d do the same thing all over again.

Read up on the Kelly Criterion. It’s mostly known to blackjack players, but the concepts apply to poker as well. They’re just harder to apply. But the key insight is that if you bet more money than you should, you are guaranteed to go bust, even if you have a huge advantage over the field. Never overbet your bankroll.