Hey, my story might not be quite what you're looking for but I'll throw it out there.

I started off poker by playing SnG's and MTT's, and switched to a mix of cash and SnG's. I was pretty bad at MTT's and I think I was probably a slightly +EV player that never ran good in the small amount of volume that I played in them. I played a ton of SnG's though, because I hated the variance that came with MTT's. I remember one time bubbling the 3r for $250 or something. I don't think I've ever let being 10th out of, like, 3000 people ruin my day, but it killed me back then. I hated feeling that pressure and then letting some coinflip soulcrush me. So I played SnG's for a while, then started considering cash games because I wanted more freedom.

I guess I started at 25NL, and now I can comfortably play in 100NL. The jump from 100NL to 200NL is pretty big and I'm probably a loser/breakeven at those stakes unless I game select really really well (which I hate doing because I'm lazy). You'll see me at 50NL most often, because I feel like my hourly at 100NL probably isn't much better, if not worse, and I try to minimize variance. I also play a ton of PLO and I'm running something like 15 buy-ins under $EV in 50PL, and I don't want to play high-variance games at a higher stake level.

How long do I grind daily and what are my average winnings... well, I don't have a set schedule because I'm a student. On exams weeks I might play <10 hours a week. In the summer, I played between 30 and 45 hours a week and made between $2500 and $4000 a month. I'm pretty sure I made between $23-$33 an hour this summer including rakeback and bonuses. I'll throw in a graph for my latest database (maybe my last 70 hours) at the end.

I play exclusively on pokerstars, just because FTP refused to give me rakeback. They probably eventually offered it but I have a separate e-mail for my poker accounts and I rarely check it.

To answer your question... if Pokerstars gave me 0% rakeback, I would still make >$20/hr playing cash/SnG's. But they do have a VIP program, which gives you points that you can trade for cash. For Platty players like me, that's 20% rakeback, which is huge.

Promised <strike>graph</strike> table:

 

Originally Posted by lockdownpokah

why did u quit .02/.04? you were crushing

lol

I guess I'll just echo leftygrove's post. I started out playing strictly tourney poker and my primary game was midstakes SNGs (the $11-$33 ones on FTP), with the occasional foray into MTTs. I really enjoyed the complexity of tournament poker and the allure of the big score in the midstakes MTTs, which is why I continue to play them still. But after a few months of coming home from work and firing up a session of 9 SNGs and dealing with the insane suckouts and learning more about the real variance that any quality player could expect in playing SNGs, I decided to start playing cash again. IMO, the amount one can win playing low stakes cash games absolutely crushes the amount one can win simply grinding SNGs. I had an 11% ROI overall, and won just under $1600 over 1572 games (includes some $5 and $11 SNGs, but mostly $22 games). Not bad, but definitely not the kind of money that I wanted to be winning for the amount of time that I had been committing to poker. I was basically on the verge of quitting the game completely as a "serious" player and instead use the time I had been playing poker for something else.

Lefty actually really helped me out with some of my questions and gave me some very helpful links dealing with 6-max cash strategy. I bought Hold'em Manager, which is absolutely excellent and essential for any serious cash grinder, and started playing 25nl. I quickly moved up to 50nl, which is the game I currently play. With rakeback, I'm doing about $18/hour. It's about 30-50% better than my hourly was playing $22 SNGs on FTP, and I don't have to deal with the frustration and feeling of lacking of control over my success in SNGs. The cash games are much more fun and complex, rather than just basic math problems of the push/fold SNG strategy.

So I suggest starting out at a lower level, read all the cash strat articles you can, buy Hold'em Manager if you haven't already, and then trying it out. If you semi-decent you should be able to beat 25nl for sure. I'll post my sharkscope graph and HEM numbers for you to get a sense of what to expect.

I was running bad in sngs once, and tilted and played 10/20 lim hu and won like $1000.

Probably like less than 1000 hands. That's my success story.

 

Originally Posted by justclassick

Grinding MTTs for hours and not making final tables are dreadful financially and mentally. Wondering if there are success stories out there with people making the switch mainly to cash games.

Basically, I would like to ask:
- How long has it been?
- What stakes did you start from and what are you playing comfortably in now?
- How long do you grind daily?
- For those who grind on stars that doesn't have <a href='http://rakeback.pocketfives.com' target='blank'>rakeback</A> (if I am correct), how can it be +EV?
- Lastly, if you don't mind, what is your average weekly/monthly winnings?

Hope to hear some good stories.

Well I deposited about $600 a few months back and played mostly MTTs though I didnt really get into much volume and had a tendency to get bored and not feel like commiting 5 hour blocks of time to play MTTS. I was winning a little bit but not a whole lot, barely better than break even really over a smallish smaple size. Switched to Cash, probably played a bit beyond bankroll at first at NL50 with my $600ish roll. Increased my bankroll 5 fold in about 6 weeks, recently in a bit of a downswing so all told I've increased roll about 4x in about the past 8 - 10 weeks.

I just prefer having the option of sitting down and playing for a few hours or even just an hour or two if I want so I doubt that I'll ever get into any high volume MTTs. I also just find cash games to be more interesting to me than MTTs are and I tend to be much more focused when I play Cash.

I wouldnt call myself a success story by any means but I am glad that I switched to cash games when I did since I am probably much better at cash and I just enjoy it more.

 

Originally Posted by pikappraider78

i played mtts for a year and after so many ft bubbles in big spots and never running good in something where first is more then 35k i switched to cash. started with 5-10 nl and was crushign and now i play 25-50 and sometimes take shots at 200-400 when its a soft game. cash is way easier then mtts imo

[ ] accurate

 

Originally Posted by pikappraider78

i played mtts for a year and after so many ft bubbles in big spots and never running good in something where first is more then 35k i switched to cash. started with 5-10 nl and was crushign and now i play 25-50 and sometimes take shots at 200-400 when its a soft game. cash is way easier then mtts imo

I call bs...I see u in mtts all the time :P

i used to grind out sngs for about a year and found it mundane, redundant and fulfilling. i switched to cash and basically just started at .5/.10 and played until i felt i had it was boring and very easily beatable. i was over rolled for anything below nl200 at the time so that may have had something to do with it but i was winning reguardless. grinded through 50nl fairly easily. there's a bit of a difference between nl25 and nl50 where people become semi competent. the jump from nl50 to nl100 is a bit larger. and there is a massive difference between nl100 and nl200. that took me about 100k hands to really grasp 200nl and become a sold winner. i usually play nl100 and nl200 because i tend to game select a lot. i play anywhere between 1 hour to 4 hours a day and usually have a 2 buy in stoploss. dont grind w/o rakeback.