Originally Posted by mookboi
You know, to be honest, I get asked this question a lot. I've been getting the same question since I started playing playing for a living on Stars & posting here regularly like a year ago (been playin' for a living for 2 years almost now), and I still get the same question from people. What I've noticed is that usually the people who ask that question:
1) Don't play poker for a living.
2) Play stakes that are lower than the stake they suggest I move up to.
So I guess I'll explain here so I can just link to this post from now on whenever someone asks me:
I think there are two types of winning poker players that seem to post on these forums. Type A are the poker players that abide strictly by the 20BI rule, as if it was law, just wanna move up and up and up until they are the next Aba20, and are crushing the high stakes games. Type B are the poker players that pretty much hate poker but it makes them money they couldn't otherwise make, so they stick to it. I believe like 90% of poker players can be classified into one of these two types.
I think most of uNL, a large portion of SSNL, and a bunch of others are primarily Type A. They are the players that you see move up and down in limits, the ones that post in BBV and the results threads about how they ran their bankroll up to 50K, and crushed 5/10 for a month or two, but went on an unbelievable 30BI+ downswing, and are now at 200NL, trying to grind it back up. Numerous posters in this thread, for example Slush420 (sp?) can be attributed to this category. He's trying to grind it out so he's rolled for 50NL again.
Type B, ironically enough, seem to be the players that play a ****ton more of poker, and really dislike it. I've seen numerous posts from NVG to BBV, from good players, who talk about how they dislike poker. These are the guys like "nation" who make posts in BBV stating they will play 50K hands/week for the rest of the year, and are taking bets against it. While I do not fully hate poker, I don't like it. I don't enjoy it, I don't really like playing homegames, I'm not crazy about reviewing my hands, working on my game, discussing strategies, and do most of these just to maintain my game up to a certain level. For me, poker is about at the same level as driving. I love driving some days, and go out on random drives for hours some nights, but 95%+ of the time, it's just something I do to get where I need to go in life. I play 40 hours per week, as if it was a real job, and then I'm done.
It's really funny to me that people tell me I can make more money playing higher stakes, as if it's a brand new idea to me. I've logged probably 200K+ hands at 100NL in the past year, and granted that that is probably 1/6th of what I've logged at 50NL, it is still a substantial sample size imo. I don't play 100NL, because my rate at 100NL per hour, is less than my rate at 50NL. Since I'd classify myself into the "Type B", winning money per hour is all that really matters to me. I'm sure I could 2 table 100NL, have sick 33/30/5 LAG stats, think about every decision, and beat the game at 5PTBB+. However, that'd be ******ed, since I'd still be making like $10/hr. I don't like talking about my winrate, but as posted in the March results thread, I averaged $40+/hr over about 170 hours played in March. I'm happy with my income level. Most of my friends work full time, and make half of that, with college degrees, and before I discovered poker, I was making like $7/hr, working 50 hrs/week, just so I could make ends meet.
Trust me, out of anyone I know, I think I do more rate math (calculating PTBB/100, FPP value, etc.) than anyone. Here's an example I did last month:
I was averaging like 4 PTBB/100, playing 9 tables (let's assume 80 hands/table/hr). In addition to this, we are making 200ish (generous estimate, actually a bit less) VPPs per hour = 3.5*200 FPPs per hour, valuing them at the modest .015$ bonus value per FPP.
So, let's project:
4*7.2 + (200*3.5*.015) = $39.30 per hour. Now let's consider, since this is a full time job, I'm allowing myself 2 weeks off this year, so 50 weeks * 40 hours= 2K hours. Nice and easy.
39.30*2K = 78600. But wait, Stars has milestone bonuses. If we are making 200 VPPs per hour, so we should hit 400K VPPs this year. So, 4+3+2K = 9K extra! 9K/2000 hours, we are adding an additional 4.5$/hr to our rate.
So we are now at 87600$/year!
Now let's say we don't play 9 tables, and play 17 tables, obviously playing tighter game, aiming for 2PTBB/100. We are now at 300ish (modest estimate) VPPs per hour, due to playing tighter game, etc. it's not almost double as it should be.
2*13.6 + (300*3.5*.015) = $42.95/hour. But wait. We are now at 300 VPPs/hour, which means we are hitting the 600K milestone on Stars. 6+5+4+3+2 = 20K. 20K/2000 = An extra $10/hour.
So 52.95*2000 = $105900/year. That's over 18K$/year difference.
Trust me, I've worked out all the rates, varience, fpps, hours, tables, limits, etc. numerous times. I adjust them every month depending on how I run, and work out new ones to see whether I can play more profitably somewhere else/higher/lower, etc. I have zero ambitions to become one of the Type A players. In fact, lowering varience is more important than having a slightly higher rate with a lot more varience. Because I really structure financial stuff in my life, from bills, rent, investments, whatever, based on a more or less steady income. I'm here to maximize my $/hr, not to hit 1000NL ASAP. If I could make more money playing 25NL, I would. If I could also break even, but make more in FPP value playing higher, I would too.
If I had to name one person from these forums that has really inspired me, it's been Leatherass. His work ethic and goals in life seem to be similar to mine, and granted he moved up limits a lot faster than I did, I rarely have a month where I made less than I did the previous one per hour. I treat poker as a job. I know it's not permanent, and make strides to make myself less dependent on it constantly. I'm not, and have no ambition to be the generic bum poker player who gets by on playing 3 hours per day with no future plans.
I'm sure if I followed the 20BI rule, I would have bounced up and down in stakes numerous times by now, but had nothing to show for it. Since 20BIs for any serious player is a bit over a week of play really. I do take shots at 100NL, all the time. My $/hr average is lower than it is at 50NL. Until it's higher, I'm playing 50.
So in conclusion, I really appreciate people telling me I should move up, to make more money, but trust me, I've thought about this at least 10 times as much as you have. What I really fail to understand is why it seems logical to tell a poker player "Dude, you should move up??" whereas it doesn't seem logical to say that to any other profession. Can you see yourself going up to a lawyer/marketing guy/insurance salesman/cop, and go "Dude, you've been doing this for a year and you make an X/year, how come you don't look for another job where you can possibly make X+5/year?"
