How have most of the high stakes regs gotten to where they are? Have they ground out mtt's and slowly worked up a bankroll from the lower stakes, or was their bankroll built by a few very big scores?


How difficult is it to build a roll from the lower stakes in todays climate, considering that average joe seems to be a reasonably okay player?


How often does it happen, that somebody turns a modest bankroll into a large one through mtt's?

Personally, if my little experience with cash is anything to go by, I probably have more chance of running up a roll that way. But I get bored of it pretty quickly, which I can't say for MTT's. I'm also limited for time.

With mtt's, I've found I can be $1000 down then suddenly $1000 up with a big score. Is this the way it is being an mtt reg, massive ups and downs?


Is it still possible to become an mtt pro these days from modest means, or is the climate too tough?

Much appreciation to anyone with the patience to answer these questions, or for redirecting me to a relevant thread.

High stakes=smoke a joint, go to stakehouse

To seriously answer your ?'s

1. Maybe. Lots aren't even winning players, they're just wealthy from other sources and have an ego so they think they're winners.

2. Incredibly difficult, and (honestly) I don't see how anyone can do it without treating their poker career like a pro golfer treats their golf career. In other words, it consumes every fiber of their being. 70+ hr weeks, most of which when there aren't big MTTs going (assuming they aren't living off regular poker proceeds) spent studying and practicing and trying to improve.

You think Tiger doesn't think about scooping a major while he's snorting coke off a hooker's buttcrack?

3. IDK, if by large bankroll you mean "has a lot of $$ on the site at one time" then lots because literally anyone can bink one of these big (seriously, anyone can) (psychologically, that realization was one of the hardest things for me to come to terms with--that hard work sometimes means jack **** in this game). If you mean "is a consistent winner of many millions of hands or thousands of MTTs", probably less than 1% of the population. Which is pretty generous in the world of competitive endeavors: for golf there's a few hundred PGA Tour which means being a pro golfer implies being in the top 99.997th percentile of all golfers; for poker its ~99th percentile.


4-5. Yes, deal with it. End of story. Here's some graphs for your amusement (these are Americas Cardroom, 2nd graph isn't even a reg just a high steaks rec who pops up occasionally; I save them for motivation and sanity checks)

Thanks Eggs, pretty great response. So it turns out that most of us are just dreamers, or gambling addicts? Would we play mtt's if that dream of winning big wasn't there? Idk

The pattern that I experienced and have seen many others follow is this:

Start off playing tournaments, usually online. Get better read books, win multiple buy ins. Go to casino, learn social skills. Go play a big event- multiday 5k+ Buyin and realize most tournaments are more luck feats than great play. Cash provides stable bankroll growth opportunities.

Move to cash, play AA,KK AK like a tournament and get it shoved up your ass. Learn to play more hands, for smaller portions of your stack. Learn preflop pushing is how short stacks play. Develop more turn, river strategies. Trashes your tournament game and patience. Move up and see much better play and idiots who just have money and will meltdown eventually but always suck out on you.

Move to omaha and never want to play cash low limit no limit again. 4 cards, no folding preflop, action galore. No table wars, boozing, money being borrowed on handshakes, etc. Then you learn to fold bottom set or you go broke.

Go back and play the bigger tournaments with guys that play Omaha cash or tournament only and you can see the leaks (and strengths) in their respective games are part of their personality.

Bolded is really really really important to remember.

Also serious LOL at people looking for "action" at a cash table when they can just play MTTs. You have to play hands in MTTs!

w888: If by "dreamers" you mean "30% ROI over 5k+ event sample" then yes. But if by "dreamer" you mean "can bink a (singular) life changing score in an MTT" then no, again I just wanna reiterate so it's clear even though I know you know this:

Literally anyone with a rudimentary understanding of the rules of the game can win one of these thing. But that doesn't make someone a winner, it just means they won something, not they they are +EV which is the real metric of being a winner (even though I'm sure there are ample luckboxes w/o a ****ing clue who think they're god because they ran like god one time).


99% of MTTs are over in prob fewer than 400-500 hands and many are wrapped up much, much quicker than tt. Anything can happen in that short a timeframe--never seen a whale on a 2-session cash game heater?

The guy in that 2nd graph is one of the WORST HS players on ACR. Yet look at that score!

Didn't some degen "professional baccarrat player" (as if that's actually a thing) win the main event a few years ago?

So, no you're not dreaming if you think you can get rich playing MTTs. But you are dreaming if you think you will win consistently, 99% of people share that delusion. And no these two statements are not paradoxical.

There is a lot of skill involved in some tournaments.

But after some point luck grow significantly.

At the time of the WSOP main events where Johnnie Chan made three consecutive heads-up appearances, the field was permeated by all kinds of players (recs, regs and pros) but the technique prevailed because of the structure and number of players.

Huge tournaments with 1k+ players or even 500+ don't make any sense from the high level player perspective. Is just the old "lol donkaments" story and bracelet chase. Or the gambler side of the person talking louder.

Right now most of the best structures are the Highrollers and you can see lot of skill involved in some of these tournaments. But also a lot of action sold between players to reduce variance. You can see amazing plays and beautiful moves but in the end of the day you don't who is really earning the huge prizes.

Meh I find cash so boring. 9 handed nlhe is so tedious bc you have to fold a lot especially without antes in play. I also don’t get what you mean when you say cash hurts tourny game? I feel playing cash is great for early stages mtt game.
I feel great cash players almost always trump great tournament players also deep in mtts kinda.... well atleast when stacks are deep.

I know late in tournies stacks are short but I feel playing a <40bb stack is not too difficult compared to playing deep. Ex: it seems a lot of solid cash game players make deep runs in the wsop main event each year.


And on the note that tournies are a bunch of luck and not as much skill is req’d. While I agree with this, we still wanna study hard and play great. I feel recs don’t realize that while being lucky in 1 mtt is great, they really can punt/ make huge mistakes and kill potentially bigger scores. I think being lucky is great and their is a lot of luck in mtts.... over the long run players that study are going to hit the solid roi #s and find their binks. It’s all about putting in the volume.

And to op: meh I feel it’s hard to get in solid volume now and really move up in stakes. I feel online poker is best way to start at low to mid stakes and grind up. Now it’s impossible with the way online poker is at least in the us. Personally, I really wish we still had online poker like back in the day (07-11 tilt and stars). I was in college in 2011 and found a backer with a great coach and overal stable of players. I started at an abi of $3-5 and moved up to $11-15 in maybe 3-4 months and then Black Friday hits. Nowadays I feel it’s so difficult to get the great volume in as for me... I can only play live and I’m lucky if I can put in 50-70 live mtts in a year with working full time and being limited to playing mtts on weekends and when I use vacation from work.

I honestly can’t explain how much I wish we had tilt and stars like back in the day. 100% I would grind mtts like a maniac on weekends on my own dime(no backer) and try to move up in stakes. It’s kinda sad bc I could easily put in 3-4K mtts a year in online on just weekends and actually play at a decent buyin level with a solid bankroll since I’m not a broke college student anymore. Sigh I miss ftops, scoop, ftp iron man, player points where you can buy cool entertainment items (TVs, computer, etc).

elite players do have some common characteristics. if you want something of a checklist:

• innate math and lateral thinking skills for solving unfamiliar situations
• temperament to avoid tilt / suboptimal play
• ability to learn and plug leaks
• deep knowledge of GTO lines and how to spot and exploit non-GTO tendencies in other players e.g. Fedor Holz
• natural competitive nature e.g. Vanessa Selbst
• bankroll management
• professional attitude, e.g. not working while drunk / exhausted / drug affected
• humility, willingness to be a life long student e.g Erik Seidel
• for live players add health / stamina, personality, live observation skills e.g. Daniel Negraneau

take some encouragement from the fact that there is not, nor will there ever be, a perfect tournament poker player

^^Good list

You can't even really just say "be smart". It's so much more than that. I like parsimonious lists so I'll say It's a combination of:

-Intelligence, sure--but not just pansy liberal artist "I got an A in my Gender & Sexuality Studies Class" I-can-string-together-big-words-thus-I'm-smart kind of way. It's more of a comp sci endeavor.

It's not trite to say poker is a mathematical game, it obviously is, but people misunderstand that, because you are deploying an algorithm when you play poker, you are engaging in computer science, it's way beyond just basic arithmetic which is what most people think of.

It takes an insane amount of abstraction to understand this stuff: going through game trees and classifying the phenomena that pop up


Yup. Even if the internet occasionally makes an otherwise humble person sound otherwise, arrogance is prob the single worst trait you can have. Arrogance begets laziness and complacency.


The rest of the list can be classified as "sports psychology". Bc really who gives a flying **** how smart you are if you can't execute? And that's really what it boils down to anyway--can you execute?

I don't understand why poker players seem to generally lack that competitive edge (meaning they meet the criteria you outlined), I guess it's because anyone with the cash or a backer can enter any tournament which leads to people thinking they can just walk in off the street and expect to win w/o a huge luckbox.

I also don't understand why people haven't adopted more concepts from sports psychology. I mean, poker is "sport", it's not "a sport", but it's extremely competitive "sport". When you play a poker tournament, you are being drafted into the NFL. You are about to pitch for the Yankees. You are about to walk down the fairway at Augusta National. You can't just show up and win--how arrogant!

Like why wouldn't you adopt certain aspects of an athlete's routine into your own (preparation routines, wearing a uniform, etc)?

So for somebody with limited time, rather than half-assedly try to grind out lower stake tournaments to build a roll, it would make sense to play more occasionally at higher stakes, giving it that 100% focus and potential to hit that big score?

Personally, the bulk of my life is taken up with work/family/children/a little fitness activities, and I try to play poker as much as I can in spare time. But it’s become something pretty meaningless - I started playing because of the potential to hit that big score and improve life for my family and I, e.g become mortgage free etc. That was the initial dream, but I became obsessed with poker and forgot the goal. For somebody like me, it seems more logical to stick to playing the Sunday million and maybe satellites for high rollers. Then maybe a few more during scoop and WCOOP etc.

Basically what I’m saying is, without having anywhere near the time to try to grind up a bankroll and put in the required study work, somebody like me should focus on playing the occasional tournament that offers life changing prize potential. That way also, it gives something to look forward to, time for study 📖 in between, and more chance of pure focus and enjoyment which I think go hand in hand.

If you can’t tell, I’m trying to establish how I should fundamentally approach poker as a whole. Thanks for the replies so far.

Youre asking the right questions.

IMHO youd be best served taking that limited spare time and allocation ~80% of it to STUDY AND PRACTICE (working on your game, maybe grinding a few cash or SNG tablea for an hr to reinforce concepts youre working on and try multitablinh progreasively more tables ovee time

Then with that remaining (and this is all assuming you even wanna engage in poker at all) time yoiu can actually COMPETE (sit down and play nice session for higher steaks)

Especially if youre just starting down tbis path, the ratio of prep to competition should be insanely high--just like a pro golfer who practices every day yet only competes fewer than 90 daya a year

and yeah grinding slowly for profit sucks is prob a waste of time except as a didactic exercise so I would def just focus on those really big yet infrequent scores. Realize you have an edge in that since you work and lots of your competition in those events are pros that actually gives you edge bc you get the luxury of having way more time to prepare rather than having to constantly compete

Thanks Eggs. That’s what I wanted to hear, because it echoes my own thoughts and desires to how I would like to approach the game, and also how I think is the best way I approach the game.
I’ve become a little corrupt by the typical bankroll/grinding low stakes approach to poker, rather than taking the approach that personally suits me best.

Thanks again for taking the time to respond

I love reading this forum and learn a lot of valuable information from the posts of some of you guys. So i comment mainly out of a duty to participate for all this free knowledge. I used to be a student of the game but now I'm just an online rec. I dont play live anymore so all my statements are with respect to online. Ive been playing for about 2 years online. First cash, then 6 & 9 man SNGs for the first year. Solid loser.
Switched websites and switched to MTTs only(unless discipline is lacking). Ive been able to maintain a steady winrate at MTTS for a while now so i think i must be at least fairly competent.

I do think the MTT player pool, at least on the current site I use, is pretty soft. I also think that while maybe High roller high stakes you might see a big jump in competition, i play plenty of Mid-High [(55$-220$ buy in) I'm assuming that'd be considered for high stakes?] and a lot of times I'm laughing at myself at how similar these games are to lower stakes. But again its all about knowing your opponents.

I don't read any books all i read is what I read on here. I've tried out some of the advice of others and here is mine-
I think making the bubble is first and foremost the difference between winning and losing. If you can make the money 40%-50% of the time you'd be a guaranteed winner. Currently I make the Bubble about 28% and final table 6%. I'm doing pretty well with these stats, but there is PLENTY of room for improvement. But when I've employed advice from these forums I've come away with a few things that work & don't work for ME. 2 things that do not work well for me is the bully, wide range pre style . Another thing that doesnt work is building my chips close to the bubble with aggressive play I'm prolly not executing properly but I think getting close to the bubble with a decent OR low stack, wait until after it bursts to start making moves. Of course Mincashing is not very fun, The big scores are fun.

So I would guess that someone that puts the time & studying could easily do better. But i do think that playing sucessfully(not saying i do it) at higher stakes is more about improving internally than about an increase in your opponents abilities.

The best poker advice I ever got came from this forum 10+ years ago:

"There are only 2 reasons to play poker - love or money"

I am a long time MTT rec player and my trips to the WSOP are the highlights of my poker year. I have much respect for the professionals who make their living at poker (play for money) but absolutely no fear of any of them. On any given MTT, I can hold my own with any of them. I would not fare so well playing them 10-20 times but in the random world of large field MTTs, that really isn't an issue.

Also, I have never gone deep in an MTT without sucking out somewhere along the way - you cannot be reckless but you MUST play fearless, flawless poker to land the big score.

Always keep in mind why you are playing (for love or money) and you will stay grounded and have the appropriate mindset.

Think you are best off building bankroll through job and taking shots is the best way, or just playing a ton of volume on online events.

Variance is very large. You simply cannot win tournaments without winning a few flips.

Thanks Beachman. As simple as that advice sounds, a lot seems to be implied. I don't enjoy playing poker with the goal of making money, I really don't. Yet far often that not I have approached it with exactly this mindset. In hindsight, my deepest runs have come when I have been consciously playing recreationally and I've been actively enjoying my time at the tables. Unfortunately the deep run creates a sense of 'I can make serious money doing this' and I then play with that in mind, and consequently the standard of my play slips from pretty solid to total fish, followed by feelings of frustration.
You've given me something to think about here.

Jonathon Little plays like 250 Tournaments a year (or used to). He wrote in a cardplayer article that he expects to win 3-4 of those 250. The quality of his year is based on if he won a $300 buy or a $5,000 buy in.