Update:
17 tables of NL400 full-ring currently running with 8 or 9 players.
5 others of 5-7 players that are likely to die soon.

I don't feel like showing ALL the math about how much one can make at NL100 or NL200 with a low win-rate and with the points. But, again, the math isn't hard.
I'm making more money now than I can at the higher stakes.
Not being a very good player while also happening to be good at multi-tabling are the reasons why.

Multi-tabling and playing well/dynamically are two different skills. I'm sure there's people who can beat the higher stakes games who would be losing players 24-tabling, simply because they would time out too much.

I really don't understand why anyone would try to tell anyone else what they should be doing. People are different. What's best for one might suck for another.

I frequently see less than 10 2/4 tables running. I also frequently see less than 5 3/6 tables running.

Sure there are 20+ tables from 2/4 - 25/50 running but somehow I doubt that the next step after 1/2 is jumping to 5/10, 10/20, and 25/50.

MB, I actually enjoy reading all your posts on this particular subject because I currently am in the same position as you.
Pretty crappy at the Pokers but getting a nice hourly factoring in everything else.

I am hoping that I can get to the point that I can get the majority of my debt paid off and try to make a run for Elite next year and use poker as my Full Time job and what not.


--grouch

^^^ That's what is a big problem with people in general. I'm generalizing here but for alot of people they subconciously think that just because they think/do something everyone else does. Some people don't grasp the concept (or simply never even think about) that not everyone is the same. Diversity is what makes us "unique" in a sense. It's not that one way is better or worse, just different.

I feel like Kermit the frog should be saying "It's not easy being green" somewhere in here.

To each is own.

I agree with Microbob and for the record I also suck at poker.

I meant 2/4+

I used to think the same way as you Bob, but I feel completely different now. Of course I've only been playing a year now so I'm kinda novice but I completely can see where you are coming from and how you might feel better, more comfortable, and safer in your current situation.

Some of us want to play the highest, make the most, beat the best, and some are simply happy making a good living. I don't see any problem in being either way, I don't see why people would tell you what you are best at.

I personally find myself in an opposite/similar situation. While I'm currently quite mediocre at the pokers, I strongly believe that I have the talent and motivation to work on my game enough to beat the higher limits. I'm not going to succeed at this my massively multi-tabling, however. I'm going to do it by 2 or 3 tabling most of the time, sometimes 1 or 4 tabling.

The notion of making a guaranteed 100K by grinding out a huge number of hands actually sounds rather alluring to me, though. I don't have that much time left to make up my mind, though, as I only have like 31K VPP so far.

I think there are people that would like to continually stay at low stakes are fine.

That being said, someone who can kill 100nl or 200nl is kidding themselves saying they shouldn't move up. You can fill lower games in when not enough games run. I mean I understand if you think you lack the mental capacity, but saying you are just "not good at poker" is slightly LOL. I mean what is one born with that makes them "good" at poker? Reading? Isn't "reading" a person generally just a matter of learning patterns of good and bad players as well as applying the Bayesian Thereom to put a "read" on a person?

Like I said, I agree if MBob doesn't want to move up,etc that is fine. But saying you have the mental capacity for complex topics and situations but just aren't good enough to play higher stakes is really LOL to me like I said. Putting in the time and studying will get you there if you want to get there, it is just a matter of if you WANT to get there.

In all seriousness, learning via "volume method" is how I learned this game more than anything. I started '07 knowing nothing, played 1mill+ hands in 07, and would like to think I know slightly more than nothing now

ya, i read it in his blog im sure....
instead of the martin for 5 mil fpp, he got 100,000 which he put towards his house.

so all in all a 5 mill fpp thing like that for elites would be sickkkk

If I was killing those games then I would have the confidence and the bankroll to consider moving up.
FWIW - your recent downswong when you moved up is something that really caught my attention. If you aren't ready for those stakes or just get some bad-beats the money adds up fast and I don't think I'm a wuss for saying that I would really prefer not to lost $17k or whatever it is you downswonged.

I am not killing the NL100 and NL200 games so that makes it even more irresponsible of me to try to step up now. And it doesn't have to do with number of tables really. I'm just not that good. But at least I can grind out enough to make it pretty worthwhile.
I'm not saying it's not something I wouldn't consider moving up again in the future though. But I would like to beat my current stakes first.

And again, I'm actually ENJOYING what I'm doing whereas I did not enjoy it as much when I was trying to move up gradually. So I don't even know why I would want to change that.

Giantbuddha's posts are good btw.

Also - One of the posts here had it occur to me that telling me that I essentially "shouldn't" do it as I do is like telling someone to stop playing limit because they will like NL better once they get used to it...or telling a successful mostly-tourney player that he should switch to the cash-games. It will be an adjustment at first, but he'll enjoy it more.
Ummm, if he would enjoy it more then maybe he would have switched already. He stays with tourneys because he's comfortable there or because he does better there or simply because he enjoys it more.

If one way worked for you then great. But not everybody is you.
Maybe the tourney player doesn't want to play cash-games.
And maybe the 20-24 tabling guy like me currently isn't interested in playing fewer tables and trying to move up.

And the money is decent with minimal swongs.
I don't want to make a freaking million dollars a year. If I was motivated to do that then I would be doing everything I could to try to move up.
Less than $1-million is fine by me.

I guess they gave him the 'concierge' purchase for the same 2c rate because of the lengthy delivery time.

However, this still seems potentially inconsistent with their general policy.
For example, if I actually KNEW that I could get 2 cents per FPP if I turned in 5 million at once then I might consider doing that. Probably not, but it would be nice to know.
And I'm not talking about whatever car they have in the store now and trying to turn that around and selling it. I'm talking single purchase of 5 million FPP's for $100k....IF i actually wanted to do that.

Otherwise, it's foolish to save up 5 million FPP's for a 1.612c concierge-rate purchase. Because just taking out the points at 1.5c Supernova-bonus rate and then putting that money in a 5% ING account or whatever can end up doing better for you in the long-run...rather than having all those points...which essentially is the same as money...sitting there in your account and not earning any interest at all.

Just like interest in an ING account...I think FPP's should have a better rate than 1.612c if you leave them in there long enough to earn 5 freaking million of them.
So I'm happy that Bigjoe got that rate for the other purchase when the car was going to take too long. But I think that Stars should consider making that a general policy.

I looked that up too when he mentioned it.
For a guy who seemed like he didn't want his Stars name to become public he sure didn't go to great lengths to keep it from being kind of obvious.

Whatever. I think people should get to keep their names private if they want to. But JDalla doesn't seem to bothered now that he's officially been 'outed'.

MICRO-BOB: YOU SUCK AT POKER




but seriously. youre the smartest bad poker player ive ever heard of. you know your limits, and you know how to make money. wtf. thats awesome, that you can click-ee click-ee click-ee your way to 100 grand via elite. people dont get it, but you know how to work the system. keep it up dawg



























i suck at poker too, so no hard feelings i hope?

Hey,

It wasn't me just moving up I've been there for a bit now Fortunately that is probably a losing players(mine) graph, so you wouldn't ever have to worry about a swing like that .

All I was doing was pointing out the facts about the game and skill level, not your current situation. I wouldn't ever tell you when you need to move up, lol, that is obv. a personal thing.

hey prod youre like a poker prodigy right

No, Gay Rights Movement Prodigy.

A lot of people get it mixed up though.

pics of gf or every statement you say is useless

My main concern was always that people would know me, and I wouldn't know that they know me.

For example, when I play in a higher game than usual, I'm familier with many of the good players. Not only do I know what they're capable of, I know how they (might) view me, and can try to use that knowledge to exploit them.

So if a good random lurker / anonymous poster plays against me, he knows I'm looking at him as 'just some guy' etc.

So really it's not a huge deal, I purposefully made it easy for anyone who cared to figure it out. (in the sunday million thread I posted non converted hand histories... clearly that thread doesn't cross paths with this one much.)

moving up is very stressful. I did it today. I was down 6k in the first few hours. My opponents were all maniacs and mostly terrible. I lost a 34BB pot to a gutter. Including that hand, I made 3 set over sets where I had the higher set. I lost all 3 pots. After playing thousands of hands at my regular stake, you have no idea how tilting it is to move up and play like 200 hands and have all that **** happen. That's whats kept me from moving up all these years, I've had the bankroll for ages. And I haven't deposited (besides bonuses) in about 4 years. I'm sure if I played the 'move up when possible' style, this would not be the case.

I would really like to put in a vote for 5 million fpp = $100K.
PokerStars has obv. stated that the better rate is because of the marketing that the cars brings. But Taking down a big payout like this must give Stars better marketing then a lot of anonmous player taking down 1500$ bonuses the entire year.

So even if 2c/fpp rate might be to high I think that give a rate between 2c/fpp and the curreny 1.61c/fpp(?) maybe up to at least 1.8/1.85c/fpp is reasonable for Stars as a marketing promotion idea.

Would love to hear from Scotty in this matter

/Sirocko

pattay - Knowing my limits and knowing how to work the system are two good ways of putting it. You are the awesome. Mostly for being able to recognize how much I am the awesome!!
$100k+ in reward stuff PLUS hopefully a minimal win-rate. Even just another $25k or $50k on top of that at the tables wouldn't be a bad year at all.


prodigy - No hard feelings. Still just addressing the issue in general...not really you specifically.
Just that IF I actually was thinking of trying to move up your swong was something that kind of caught my attention.


jdalla - You prety much hit on some of my ideas as to why I prefer to stay anonymous. I recognize some of the 2+2'ers from this thread at the tables. But they don't KNOW that I recognize them from here. Although some of them I've played with enough where they don't even need to put my Stars name with my 2+2 name because after awhile I don't think it really matters as much.
But conversely, when I had names on sites that people on here did know were Microbob's then I would be up against all these different players who knew more about me just from knowing me here and they would say "bye Microbob, nice playing with you" and I had no idea who they were. I don't know if that gave them any kind of extra advantage or not but it's a war of information and them knowing more about me than I did about them sure wasn't going to help me...and it MIGHT have somehow helped them.

please do this. if we cash it in for 100k though, i hope that they don't put in a ridiculous number of vpps extra to clear the "bonus"

66k vpps. still catching up. almost 40k this month though.

sirocko - I probably won't be putting down any $100k down-payments anytime soon so it doesn't bother me. But if they are going to do something like that for one player then I think it's fair to make it consistent PLUS I just think it's something they should be doing anyway.

All - I've been thinking about this concierge vs. points-for-cash thing a little bit more. Basically, I just don't have enough purchases to justify saving up ALL my points for concierge things.
I'll be doing more of it of course. But I still don't think the points-for-cash is all that bad. And compared with letting your points do nothing and accumulate I think it's the better way to go. Partly because making up stuff to buy like Amazon or Best Buy gift-cards that you'll use eventually but don't currently have anything in mind is kind of annoying. I could go 2 years before I feel like there's something I really need to purchase.

Concierge is about a 7% better rate than points-for-cash. But instead of TRYING to find stuff or gift-cards to buy at the better rate you COULD just take the cash pretty much right away (slight gap-time to clear the bonus but whatever) and then put it in an ING account or something that is earning about 5% right-away.
This is close enough to the savings you get from concierge that I believe you really aren't screwing yourself that badly by doing points-for-cash.

7% discount for concierge vs. 5% interest on your cash right-away in ING account.
2% difference isn't enough to bother me. So letting your points sit there for a year or more...or buying gift-cards that you aren't even using right-away...essentially ends up costing yourself enough interest that it's not a big deal either way.

Concierge is an alright deal if you are purchasing large items.
And it's okay if the gift-card thing works well for you too.
But it's almost a battle TRYING to find enough crap and cards to buy with all your points and I don't think it's a good idea to let your points accumulate that long UNLESS you know you will be getting a better rate at the end of the tunnel.

Some of the thoughts on this occured to me as I going through the hassle of trying to find the damn gift-card/information booth at the mall that had been recently moved just so I could buy a gift-card to go and buy a new set of pots and pans with. Eventually after enough walking I thought, "Lets just go buy the pots and pans. I don't even know if we'll easily be able to use the rest of the gift-card in the near future and I'm tired of looking all over the place to buy a $500 card or whatever just so that we can save a whopping $14 on our news pots and pans."

And then there was the rather quizzical look of the cashier at the grocery-store when I bought a $500 gift-card there. She had to ask for approval because it seemed so strange. Then I pulled out 5 bills and bought the card and then turned it right around and paid for $80 worth of groceries with it.
Kind of funny because I confused her so much. But it's just something that felt so silly to do just to get $500 worth of groceries for only $465 essentially or something like that.

We had an issue with BigJoe trying to purchase an Aston Martin. This went on for a few months. It was decided to approve house purchase because of the issues with Aston.

Scotty