Plotting Your Poker Career
Over the course of my poker career, I’ve played the highest stakes online in multiple game types.
From an early career of haphazardly hopping through the game types on a whim to a more methodical last several years of intentionally sticking with my strengths and running businesses, I’ve learned a few lessons that I wish I had considered all those years ago.
Today, I want to talk to you about how to choose what types of games to study and play.
From Low Stakes SNGs to High Stakes PLO
I started my poker career by playing online Sit-n-Go’s (poorly).
I don’t even recall how I decided to start with them, but whatever the reason, that’s where I found myself.
I learned the game, studied, and moved up through the ranks. After a couple of years, I’d gone from a $100 deposit to a $100,000 bankroll.
Then, a friend told me that there was more money to be made playing cash games.
“Okay,” I said, and left the $200 SNGs to hop into the $1k NL ($5/$10) cash game streets.
As it turned out, he was right, and it ended up being a great move for me – not only because I could earn more there, but because in the coming years, available online NL cash game stakes would increase while SNG stakes wouldn’t for some time. I had unwittingly moved out of a game with a lower ceiling and into a game with a higher one.
I rose through the ranks and ended up at the highest stakes NL cash games online: $60,000 NL ($300/$600). Soon after, the NL games at those stakes started to dry up while PLO cash games were running constantly.
“I’d better learn PLO,” I decided.
So, I did.
Somehow, I got lucky again, as PLO was a game that suited my skillset very well, and I found myself enjoying it immensely.
Years passed. Things went well.
Then, a new game was getting a lot of online action at nosebleed stakes: Limit 2-7 Triple Draw.
Once again, I thought, “I’d better learn this!”
Drawing to a Close
The switch to Triple Draw wasn’t as auspicious as my previous transitions.
I lost over $1 million within the first 6 months of playing. This game was so different from the others that I felt like I had started learning poker from scratch.
Fortunately, I managed to get good at the game, and I turned things around.
Then, on April 15th, 2011 – known as poker’s Black Friday – the US DOJ shut down online poker sites and declared it illegal for them to offer poker to US players.
I was playing three tables of $1,500/$3,000 2-7 Triple Draw on Full Tilt Poker at the time I heard the news. We were all discussing in chat what was going on, and if the results of our play even mattered. I wondered if the $450k I had spread across the tables was even worth anything.
My life changed drastically. I left New York City, where I was living, and moved to the opposite coast, up to Vancouver, Canada.
Full Tilt Poker remained shut down, while Pokerstars stayed open to non-US players.
Pokerstars didn’t have the same nosebleed 2-7 games, so I stepped back into the ($25/$50 — $200/$400) PLO streets.
For the past decade, I’ve been primarily a PLO player.
The Game That Fits You
When you’re choosing a game type to specialize in, there are a number of factors to weigh. There’s no simple formula that will spit out an answer, but I hope this will get you thinking along the right lines.
What game types do you enjoy? Which ones do you dislike?
This is a critical, if obvious, first step.
Along the same lines, what game types play to your mental and emotional, or even physical, strengths?
Do you get too worn out by back-to-back 12-hour tournament days?
Do you tilt easily when on a downswing? PLO might not be for you.
Does bluffing make you anxious? Heads Up NL might be a problem!
Lastly, what games fit your lifestyle?
If you have a family and you want to be on a normal schedule, that limits your options.
If a lower-stress, lower-risk, and lower-return job works best for you, make sure you’re picking a game with a ton of low-stakes availability so that you can put in good volume at stakes you can comfortably beat.
The Availability of an Edge
Of the game types you’d consider playing, which of them has the most game availability at the stakes you want to play?
What about at the stakes below and above those?
If you go on a downswing, you need a game to step down into and rebuild.
If things go well for you, you might want bigger games to comfortably step up into. This goes both for the one stake above yours, but also the ones further up. How high* is the ceiling for you in this area of expertise?
What about achievable edges?
Some games are simply more beatable than others.
You might have availability of NL games at the stakes you play, but maybe they’re extremely tough where you are. Maybe PLO cash or MTTs are a much more beatable option for you.
In many cases, No Limit and Pot Limit games have much higher potential win rates than limit games, even when taking into account the requisite bankroll for each and the adjustment in stakes that allows for.
Which is, of course, another topic: Variance. NLHE is not the same as PLO. Your bankroll, assuming responsible bankroll management, might allow you to play $500NL but only $200PLO.
*As a nosebleed player, I didn’t get to consider this. I was playing the biggest games available, and for many of them, there weren’t consistent games at the levels beneath them. Not much I could do, but this is a first-world problem if I’ve ever seen one.
Optionality and Transferability
While the above are things that many players likely consider, this is an area that is often overlooked.
One of my biggest regrets was spending time and energy working on games with low transferability. When I learned Limit 2-7 Triple Draw, and that game option essentially went away for me, from a learning perspective, I’d wasted those years. I returned to PLO with essentially no added skills acquired from my limit poker exploits.
Furthermore, while PLO and NLHE are more similar – and skills absolutely transfer over between the two games – I also put myself on a bit of an island with PLO.
Not only could I not easily step back into reasonable stakes NL cash games, but almost all tournaments are NL Hold’em.
One of the highest value skillsets to have as a poker player these past several years (and today) is the ability to beat high-roller MTTs. There didn’t used to be many tournaments with buy-ins over $10k, but today you routinely see $25k-$100k tournaments, and more than occasionally, buy-ins of $250k-$1m.
Had I been playing high-stakes NL cash games, I still would’ve needed to do a lot of studying to play these tournaments well, but I would’ve been much closer than I am today.
Similarly, a High-Roller NL Tournament specialist is already a long way towards being a great NL cash game player.
With NLHE being the most played variant of poker by far, all forms of NL present players with good optionality should their game of choice die down, or should another great opportunity arise.
Extra-Curricular Optionality
Other opportunities can present themselves to poker players: Coaching, sponsorships, TV cash game invites.
Again, using myself as an example, I’ve hurt my ability to coach a larger demographic of players at a very high level.
Now, fortunately, I’m good enough at poker to teach 95% of people who want to learn NLHE, but I can’t teach experts there like I can in PLO.
I’ve even pigeonholed myself in further by specializing in Heads Up PLO as of late.
Now, am I mad at myself for it? No.
I love playing heads-up, and setting up scheduled heads-up matches is more conducive to my lifestyle: I have a family, need to work regular hours, and I live in the US. Therefore, I don’t have access to most of the good online 6-max cash games.
Do I wish I was an NLHE player who could win in these amazing high-rollers and be the best player in TV cash games?
Yeah, I do – but it’s just not my time for that now.
Resources
The last thing to consider is what resources you have available to learn a game type.
What software tools, training videos, and books will help you reach the level that you want?
More importantly, because it’s more of a potential unique edge for you, what games do your friends play?
Learning poker with friends is one of the best and most fun ways to improve your game, so choosing a path that doesn’t allow you to study with your network will be much harder.
Next Steps
Things have panned out just fine for me, but as I look back on my career, I wish I’d have been more conscious and deliberate about choosing my path. I wish I’d have kept my options open.
As I said, there’s no quick formula to plug all of the factors I laid out above into. I recommend taking out a pen and paper and considering the questions I’ve laid out in this post.
You should also check back with your goals and priorities to see how congruent they are with some of the game choices you’re considering.
You can pick your games mindfully. Don’t let your games pick you.
