Hi all,

I just found my old Pokerstars account sitting with $18 in it and began playing again, mostly for fun, but also thinking a little serious about maybe I could make some money. To understand my question I probably have to tell about my poker background.

I began playing poker back in the early 2000's (can't remember exactly when) on PokerRoom.com. In the beginning I played freerolls and I think I maybe deposited a small amount. I remember getting up at ungodly hours to play in freeroll. My best early result was getting runner up in a freeroll for an $800 score. I then started playing cash games, first some limit poker and then later NL hold'em. The lowest level back then (at PokerRoom.com) was 25NL, which is crazy to think about today. I played some live poker also, mostly for fun. Mostly low buyin tourneys to begin with but also later in cash games, which were very soft, but wild.
Online I eventually climbed to 100NL, playing on most of the bigger sites (Pokerstars, Full Tilt, PartPoker, PokerRoom which later bacame OnGame) and some smaller sites if the rakeback deals were good.
On the side I played some online tournaments, doing ok. I cashed in the Pokerstars sunday million twice, with the largest being for about $1400. I even bluffed Elky out of a hand once.
As one of my last accomplishments I qualified for the EPT in 2008 winning my $10000 seat through two levels of satelites for an initial investment of €15. I busted out after 2 and half hours.

I gradually lost interest, and stopped playing. I was always winning player at 100NL (confirmed via Pokertracker) and I estimasted I made about $25-30k through my poker career, all while studying and eventually working full time.

So my question is this: Is it even possible to get back to 100NL playing semi-seriously?
The reason I ask is because I feel the games have changed. I play 2NL currently and I'm beating it, but the lowest available level will always have some absolutely atrocious players. I tried to play some 5NL when I hit $60 in my account and, I think there was some pretty tough players there. I ran a little bad followed by bad plays on my part and dropped 6 buyins, so now I'm back to grinding 2NL. I'm not going to reload to play higher level until I feel I have chance at beating it. So for now I'm trying to get my poker skills up to date while building a bankroll and hopefully move up.

So considering my first impression of 5NL (ten years ago a laughable low stake, I would go there to donk of buyins for fun), is it even realistic I could ever get back to playing 100NL profitably?


Has anyone played the last ten years at this stake and is able to tell how much is has changed since then?

You can but it will take a lot of work. You have to dedicate countless hours of study, analysis, sweats, sparring to even be a winning Zoom micro player these days.

It’s perfectly possible to get to 100z for example sure, just be well aware that it’ll take a lot of work as Poker has changed a lot in 10 years.

I was a pro for 2 years 2013-2015 and every time I come back be it as a hobby or to make some money on the side, it is humbling once you realise how much work it requires.

Easiest ‘shortcut’ so to speak would be a coaching for profits deal but I’m not sure if there is a certain amount of hands/ certain limit to qualify for that.

The games have changed a lot. 100NL plays like 5-10 live IMO. You will easily need a bankroll of 6-8k to even consider grinding long term.

I'm not to keen on grinding Zoom, I like the "old" way of playing better. I'm usually playing 4-6 tables of regular tables.

If the rewards program is being so stingy as I hear it is, is there even any point in going for quantity over quality in games?

I'm not going to join a coaching stable for micros. I'm asking about 100NL, because if I could be winning (again) at this stake begins to make sense as a little extra income. I'm an IT professional, so micros are just that, micro. It doesn't make sense to grind for economic reasons. I also don't have time, working full time, having 2 kids, an ex-wife and an SO.


I think I'll just play for fun for now and see where that takes me and if the interest will persist. It's a fun game after all.

why would you think zoom is quantity over quality ?

My coach who crushed NL2000 ~6 years ago says that usual reg from today's NL50 has comparable skills to players from NL600 these days. You can see it by yourself, how you compete on NL5 where playerpool is really weak. I'm serious about poker, I have some theoretical and practical background, and I see how long road it is to reach NL100. Doing both poker and usual work, of course.

It just seems more nitty to me and I like to get the feel for a table that you can't get in zoom. (I'm not using tracker software at the time).


But if you think there's an argument for the opposite, feel free to educate me.

Advantage of Zoom is you can Control the amount of Action you will have. I.e. playing x amount of regular Tables - a Lot of time you folded and Just wait for the next hands. Until you have to Play 4 big hands at once. With Zoom you always have pretty mich Same Action. You never get bored but IT is also never too much to handle.

One Other Thing is playing regular Tables requires Table and Seat selection. A Table with 2-3 good aggressive regs to your left and you are pretty much done. With Zoom it is one pool and every hand is random. You can focus on playing Poker and Not on finding soft Tables. FYI NL 100 Zoom is Everything but nitty.

LOL What live games are you playing at? 100 zoom is basically harder than any live game you can find.

idk much about live games but basically every live hand I've seen posted on this forum, low or midstakes, was at the lvl of 2nl play, mby 5.

OP, if you're coming back after 15y off poker, you're a long way from 100nl. If you don't have love for the game and you're not willing to put in the work to study, my guess is you won't get past 10nl.

I think you're probably right about being a long way from 100NL. The good thing about being stuck in the micros is that I don't have to lie and tell my SO it's play money

I guess we'll just have to see if there will be another poker boom. It sure was different times back then.


I'll think about getting past 10NL as being my challenge though. What would you consider to be making it? Beating it for 10k hands?

I'll guess I'll have to find my old Super System 2 book from the attic and perhaps my Harrington books so I can nit it up in the tournaments.

Winrates are so low these days (and swings therefore so much greater) than 10,000 hands is a basically meaningless test of your skills. There are many "winning" players at every limit that have had breakeven stretches of 50,000 hands or (much) more.

don't think we'l get to see another poker boom, not nlhe anyway
what I think will happen is that ,at some point (years from now), enough regs will walk away, the amount of fish will stay about the same ,thus the game gets easier
tournaments are softer than cash games and if you'l just play recreation-ally, no reason to worry about the swings too much
I hear draw games are pretty soft and profitable, like badugi and many variations. If you wanted to learn a new form of poker, that could be fun.

I don't want to discourage you or anything but just don't expect to climb up the nlhe ranks too quickly and w/o effort put into learning. If you want quick results, try another poker game.

gl to you

I mentioned Zoom first because the assumption is you want to study and learn as quickly as possible. If you can beat Zoom, you’d pretty much be able to beat anything of the stake level anywhere.

Regular tables involve table selection, joining and leaving tables etc. etc. when you can just open 4 tables of Zoom and get some good volume in very quickly.

Usually a sample of 100-200k ideally gives you an idea of your winrate but it won’t be a guarantee that you’re beating the game. 10k hands isn’t enough of a sample to be able to tell how you’re doing at the limit.

I think as you do it as a bit of fun and try to study and get up to say 10z- that’ll be a good goal to aim for.

I used to be a "pro" back in 2006-2010 playing primarily NL200 and NL400 (with a winrate of 2-3 ptbb/100 if I remember correctly). I made a short comeback this fall playing maybe 10K hands of NL10 zoom and lost 6-7 buyins. I would guess that the regs on 10z for sure would have beaten NL100 and probably NL200 as well during the late 00's.

Everything has gotten better since you and I last played, just check the quality of the discussions in this forum, the quality is a lot better in many threads discussing NL10 hands today than they were discussing NL400 hands 10 years ago.

Theory and softwares has also come along way during the last 10 years. A alot less fish in combination with higher rake and worse rakeback is obviously not good either. My guess would be that it's more or less impossible to come back and beat NL100 without putting in some serious time with solvers/training sites which it sounds like you don't have the time for/want to do.