This probably goes for most people, even top winning players. I mean, I don't play the 5/10 at my casino unless I see at least one or two recs sitting. What's the point of playing in a "tough," reg- and pro-infested line-up? IMO none, if your goal is to make $$ and not simply to challenge yourself. Maybe someone can disagree with me and point out incentives to play in these games. I just don't see them.

Sometimes I think the 5/10 regs are just passing money between themselves until a spot sits down.

Yeah it can seem like that. But I don't think it makes sense to have an attitude of "I don't need to know what it takes to play tougher games or higher limits because I'll always win enough here in 2/5."

Like there's no downside to put in the work.

Well that’s where adapting comes in. You will probably be playing the higher game’s a lot different than the lower games. The reason to move up is to make more money obviously right? If you don’t think you have an edge over any of the recs then yeah you probably shouldn’t be playing. Just because it’s harder doesn’t mean it won’t be more profitable. Would you take 45/hr over 40/hr at 2/5? If you have proper brm is the answer should be yes right?

Opportunity cost yo.

lol what are llsnl grinders going to do instead that would be more valuable? I'm willing to be convinced.

Their day job. Drink. Go out with friends.
Play video games. Work out. Not sit around studying for a semi-serious hobbby.

I was kind of speaking to the full time player audience.

But even so studying can be like an hour even every other day or twice a week.
Whatever it doesn't have to be that intensive.

I'm just saying I don't think there's a strong argument to say there's no reason why one wouldn't improve when it doesn't really take that much more time investment long term.

It's just an excuse for laziness imo.

I mean sure. Put in "some" time. It's just a question of when it stop being value add.

Yeah sure. But if you're looking at the 5/10 game and it seems like you can't beat it unless a fish sits, then you probably have a lot of room to improve.

Say you can beat 5/10 with ease, do you stop then?

What about the 20/40 game?

What about the nosebleed high stake game?

Is there ever a time in which you don't have a lot of room to improve?

Using your logic, if you are a full time grinder and if you are not playing the highest stake, you will always have a lot of room to improve and should always be studying instead of enjoying life?

There will always be a bigger game and better players. Sometime you just have to stop and smell the roses.

Plus games at every level are different - one may master the 1/2 game and struggle in 2/5 because the same attributes that lead to winning in 1/2 are losing attributes in 2/5.

And once you move up to 2/5 or 5/10, it can be very difficult to move back down to 1/2.

The commitment factor in areas with smaller player pool is also an issue when deciding whether to "study" to move up. It's hard for some of you to believe or even accept, but "advance" information can also be -EV when applying in a smaller game. Hence the whole saying "move up to where people respect your raises."

Of course it's all personal preference and what your goals are.

But if poker is a serious hobby you enjoy or even your profession, this view that 5/10 is just too hard so it's not worth studying to improve, I don't really buy any explanation other than laziness. Yeah the actual conditions varies game to game and region to region sure.

To a certain extent I see what you are saying about winning strategies at certain levels not matching with others.

But there are many core principles that can be applied at all levels. If one is a well studied player I don't agree that they will automatically be a loser at 1/2 when they are a winner at 10/20 because they don't know how these people play.

Was going to reply with something but then saw this:






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Between certain levels there are big skill jumps, smaller between others. There becomes a point where their truly is a diminishing return (for most of us except the elite of the elite). A lot also depends on your ecosystem. What is the biggest game that runs on a semi regular frequency? How many levels are there below that?

Where I live, 5/10 and 10/25 have a huge talent (maybe work ethic is actually correct) disparity but the difference between 2/5 and 5/10 isn’t as large. It’s more of a confidence and bankroll question and less about skill, whereas at the next jump the game is way more difficult. Sure there are different player pool tendencies that someone needs to adjust to, but the actual difficult imo isn’t much different.

It helps that a big chunk of the best players don’t bother playing lower than 10/25. 25/50 v 10/25 though don’t have a big difference. In fact 25/50 is probably softer because it attracts certain fun players that think 10/25 is too small for them.


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I never said I didn’t think I could beat 5/10 anywhere, I just don’t see the point of getting involved with the decent pros in my regularly running 5/10 (which is a pretty bad game) when I have much softer games on hand. I'd just rather game select and play lower with worse players rather than sit with a bunch of decent regs at the next stake up where my options are limited.

I am pretty sure there are 5/10s elsewhere that are much better than the one my casino (MGMNH) spreads.

We have already discussed ITT before about WR of top players on a table.

By this time we agreed that on a standard 9plrs table, top 3 are usually winner, 4 and 5 are usually breakeven and 6-9 are probably loosing players.

When we are grinding at 2/5 (for example) and are winning players with a good sample we probably are the top 3 player on average.

When we move up to, let’s say, 5/T, we rarelly will be top 3 on average (even more, as described, when the table have 2 CRUSHERS).
So we are probably between the best 3-6 on the table.

If I’m only grinding, I usually don’t stay on a table where I’m not sure being the top 3 and maaaaybe the top 4, because I know it won’t be profitable to keep playing.

BUT, going up on stakes are one of the things that attracts me on Poker.
So with a good strategy there is no problem on being a loser/breakeven player for a while, during the transition.

For example, we could keep grinding our regular stake and make some shots on higher stakes during more favorable days (weekends and degen hour) to minimize our losses and start to gather information about the new pool.
We put a conservative stop loss and play tighter than usual.
And, of course, put some hours of off-table study.

I only think that it’s important to sometimes get out of our confort zone and seek the improvement. Either we are talking about a semi-serious hobby or a profession.

Thanks for the input. It is a tough question to answer so I’ll just keep shot taking and build up a sample. Worst case scenario it’s decent reverse game selection and I’ll learn a thing or two from the better players.

+1 to the poasts about lazyness from Spy. It usually boils down to that, not being willing to put in the work because of x amount of excuses.

Given that this is the bankroll and winrates thread, I am surprised that there has been so little mention of bankroll in the replies to Badreg's question.

Leaving out the question of the adjustments one must make to the style of play at the bigger game (hint: an exploitative style that crushes 1-2 or 2-5 offers an easy target for exploitation in higher-stakes games), a higher-stakes game is going to require a bigger bankroll. A game that offers a smaller winrate in proportion to the blind size is going to require a bigger bankroll in proportion to those blinds. A game with a higher variance in proportion to the blinds is going to require a bigger bankroll in proportion to the blinds.

Skill level and dollars per hour aren't the only factors in the decision to move up. Variance and risk of ruin are also key factors.

One of the things that is going to happen if we move up to Badreg's hypothetical 10-20 game with 2 crushers, 4 regs, and 2 fun players is that because we have to defend against exploitation by the crushers (and to the extent they are capable the regs) we are going to be limited in our ability to exploit the fun players in ways that we wouldn't be in a smaller game. This will cut our winrate. Cutting our winrate raises our bankroll requirement. Raising the required bankroll makes sustainably playing in the big game harder to reach as we try to move up the ladder.

Also, the big games are often bigger than they first seem. It might say "10-20" on the placard beside the dealer, but is the straddle on, and if so is it mandatory? A gambly-good 10-20 game is more often than not going to be effectively a 10-20-40 game, with the swings and corresponding bankroll requirement to go with it.

An aside about "laziness": many people are willing to do the work, and in fact put time into trying to learn more, but aren't clear on precisely what to work on. E.g., watching an expert player's twitch stream might provide a little bit of improvement, but someone who studies by watching the stream isn't going to improve as much as the person who runs situation after situation through Flopzilla.

There are people beating those games. They wouldn't play them if they weren't. All of those people used to play 2/5 at one point or another and don't move down because they make more at 5/T. Also some of them are backed. Maybe some line ups arn't ideal. So if they are playing in a bad line up they are probably stuck.

Good thing about 5/T is the rake. It's cheaper and deeper.

Good points Alan. Very true most people have no idea how much money you really need to play higher stakes on the regular.

I have been playing some 1|2 recently for classified reasons. The second 1k hours is a different venue/time period from the first.



The graph doesn't include $7650 in promotions or $1/h in comps for the second half. My first room's only promotion was a BBJ that I never hit, unfortunately. The room I've been playing in recently offers high hands and rakeback.

Ignoring promotions and comps, my win-rate is about the same in the second 1k as the first, but promos have been worth about an additional $8/h so far. $2/pot getting sucked into the BBJ forever hurts a lot.

Nice work Browni, looks like you’re super consistent in your play. Hardly any significant downswing in there at all (I mean that as a sincere compliment, not a “watch out for the inevitable incoming downswing” way). Curious why you wouldn’t move up to 2/5 though? No worries if you’d rather not explain.

"been playing some 1/2" = I crushed for 2k hours.

yeah man, that's a sick graph

what stakes you normally play? have you been doing table selection beyond limiting it to 1-2?