Post #3: Zoom, Money, and "Infinite Time"
An internal dialogue about choosing which stakes to play.
“Chill out, you’ve got plenty of time. You’re only 20, you have all of the time in the world.” For the past few months, sayings like this have been thrown at me a lot while I’ve been trying to continually play higher stakes in both the live and online poker arenas. Not only is it to challenge myself, but there’s another part of me that wants to “speedrun” through the stakes and get to HSNL as fast as I possibly can. While I can logically understand that this approach to speedrunning is futile and I won’t receive the joy I think I will from achieving this, there’s a small part of me that I hold on to that still does. In the last post I addressed this, and I’m just going to have to eventually reach “burn-out” in order to shed this belief. I never really understood why these statements above ever really mattered much to me, because even though I’ve only been in the poker world for a little over a year, I’ve played well over 1 million hands up to this point. So while I’m very new in overall time, in volume I’m already easily in the top 1% of players, thanks to the wonders of the internet. Through putting in massive amounts of volume, I’ve been able to sort of “grind through” the stakes and get to where I’m at now (comfortably at 200nl and taking shots at 500nl).
However, the more I think about the actions I’ve been taking up to this point, I can easily conclude I’ve been working much, much harder, and not smarter. I never thought of the idea of, “I’m going to play less volume in the same amount of time, and increase my winrate.” I was (and still am to an extent) thinking about, “How much can I play in a short amount of time that will eventually get me to HSNL?” The reason this is important is up until the very recent future, I haven’t been getting any rakeback, so I’m sacrificing winrate for volume, without reaping the rewards of getting a percentage back of the rake I’ve paid for increasing my volume. While I haven’t put in enough of a sample using new strategies and methodologies, we can conclude that regular tables are much softer than zoom, by a large margin. Therefore, I’ve been in a quandary thinking about playing 2 tables of 200z, and 2 tables of 200nl, or just 4 tables of 200nl?
Here’s the steps in my thinking:
At 200nl, I can 4 table max and play about 250 hands/hr, and I have had a win-rate of 3bb/100 up to this point (given strategic updates this is definitely subject to changing for the better, but we’ll use my past sample for argument’s sake). I also get rakeback, but not nearly as much as adding zoom tables into the mix.
Only play 200z where I can 2 table and play 800 hands/hr with a win-rate of 2bb/hr, going through a rough stretch of 70k hands so far, but that’s what happens when your win-rate is lower, variance increases. I’d also be sacrificing the winrate of the 200nl regular tables, which have been very soft, so I don’t want to give that up. I can maintain clarity over all decisions adding the extra 2 tables of 200nl, so that’s not a problem I have.
Play 2 tables of 200z and 2 tables of 200nl at the same time, and play roughly 940 hands/hr. I will be sacrificing winrate from the regular tables played by exchanging them for zoom, but I still have a win-rate regardless. There’s going to obviously be more variance because of zoom, but the rake I will pay will be roughly 3.35x more than simply playing regular tables, and by default I gain a higher percentage of rakeback.
This leads to increased volume in hands and time played + increased variance + rakeback = Profit
So the problem now is that I don’t know my true win-rates at any of the stakes I’m playing anymore, because I haven’t put in a sample yet. The benefit of playing 200nl vs zoom is that the win-rate available is much higher, however with rakeback in this softer environment due to the coronavirus and people staying inside, the zoom pool has been filled with more recreational players than normal, always exceeding the 50+ amount during most hours past 5pm EST. Therefore my win-rate in that pool will be higher by default, and I get to play much more volume than before.
If I didn’t receive rakeback, the no brainer “business” option is to 4 table 200 regular tables and find my win-rate at this stake, while decreasing my overall variance and playing less volume. However, I personally find zoom extremely fun, because I get to play more hands, and I love playing poker in general, so the more hands I get to play, the more fun I get to have by default. I don’t see poker as “businessy” as others do, and I enjoy playing so much, which is why my volume is through the roof when I get to play zoom and regular tables (60k hands/mo, 150hrs+/mo). I used to not get any rakeback, so this was clearly inefficient, but I didn’t mind paying this much in rake because I just wanted to play as many hands as possible.
When it comes down to it, I chose to play poker professionally because I get to have the ability to have as much fun as I can every time I play online or live. I left college because I hated every minute of doing something I did not enjoy, and I knew that if I put in the time into something I loved to do, I would be successful. While every 15bi “downswing,” we have to move down a stake below, I’d gladly do that and make back 20bi at 100nl as fast as I can to be able to play zoom again, because while playing 4 regular tables is generating the most “EV,” I find myself being able to play for slightly less hours on the aggregate, and it additionally doesn’t feel as fun to me than when I’m playing 2 tables of 200z and 2 200nl regular tables. Therefore when I go on these 15bi “swings,” I’m not concerned at all, because I’ll just power through playing lower in order to go back to playing when I have the most fun. At this point, this is the stance I’m taking, until I put in enough of a sample implementing a new strategic method over a large sample of hands in order to find my true winrates. I think this is important, because if my win-rate at 200nl tables is 8bb/100, but my win-rate at 200z is 4bb/100, then with rakeback and volume, I’ll be able to actually generate more EV because of sheer volume and the additional rakeback, while also having as more fun, which leads to an increase in overall volume and false sense of fulfillment (we all have to be a little delusional at the end of the day).
This approach at this point probably isn’t the best way to “make money,” at this point in time, but it’s not about money to me yet. I’m young enough and sustainable enough in the living conditions I have now that I just have to chill out and enjoy the ride. If it ends up that my win-rate isn’t what I think it is at 200z and I have to take a different approach, I’ll cross that bridge when I get there. For now, in the most direct way possible, I just have to put in the hours and play.