20 Feb 2025 Beginner This material is for beginner players discipline exploit fish mindset moving up stakes table selection Today we will talk about 5 traits of players who earn hundreds of thousands and millions of dollars a year in poker. These are truly elite players who came here to earn as much as possible. This article is suitable not only for beginners, to set their minds right as early as possible, but also for players of any level who want to earn money with our complex craft, but whose goal setting has been lost. So, the rest of the text is in the words of Nathan Williams, the author of several bestsellers on low-limit poker, and who plays much higher today. Habit #1. Excellent game selection Guys, I've said this hundreds of times - game selection in cash games is everything. The composition of the tables alone determines whether you will make a profit or not and to what extent. Players who are focused on the fastest growth in limits and increasing their profit per unit of time don't care about competing with other regulars and don't try to prove anything to them. If a table/game doesn't objectively promise any profit, they don't enter it. If a table/game was good and has now deteriorated, they leave it without trying to take back what they lost. Competing with others and playing for the sake of playing is the lot of amateurs: they want to compete and feed their ego. A professional has a top priority, and that is a dollar per hour. I want to explain to you what a bad game is and what its criteria are. For example, you are at a table where many people play (1) tight and (2) aggressively. This happens when nicknames are revealed only after the blinds are posted, etc. The question is simple: what should you do here? 90+% of players would prefer to stay and hope for luck. They want to wait for the cards and cooler an opponent, and only then think about leaving. They seriously intend to fight for a couple of blinds with ± competent opponents who are also studying poker, and not take chunks of stacks from inept fish. A true professional has such a mindset that he does not need these pennies at the cost of huge stress and high variance. They will immediately leave such a table, seeing that it is not worth wasting their time here. They know that there are a lot of other games and tables where you can win a lot at the cost of little effort. Remember that in poker, unlike some roulette, we play against real people, and not a mechanized system. Therefore, we set the EV of the game ourselves, starting with the choice of the circumstances in which we play. A professional is used to putting his ego aside and aiming for profit - and it does not matter from whom it will come. Thus, the goal of every serious player who comes for money should be to find the most profitable games and tables. That is, filled with fish. By the way, fish can be different not only in habits, but also in lose-rate. If this is a tight fish, entering with narrow ranges, or a timid fish-fit-folder, who loses on average only -20 bb/100, then you should not consider him a potential donor. It will be very long and quite tedious. And even if you play him in a direct position (immediately to the left), then his lose rate will grow to values of only -30-50 bb/100, which will barely cover the rake. So a professional looks for the most losing fish, without wasting time and energy on those who pay poorly. Habit #2. They sit immediately to the left of the fish So, we realized that for maximum profit you need to play with fish. If you play online, then your clients are players with a VPIP of 40%, which is visible in the HUD. If you play offline or online without a HUD, then look for those who play a lot of hands, often limp, call with trash, and so on down the list of everything that a typical regular does not do. As for calls - this includes both preflop calls with trash, and postflop calls / calldowns with clearly weak hands, with which a regular would not have reached this stage. At showdown, they will usually have some nonsense, played in a stubborn or creative way. And you will also see a lot of donks on the flop from fish, which can come from anything. Therefore, there are enough signs of fish even without using a HUD - you just need to watch with your eyes. Any experienced regular will agree with the fact that fights with competent opponents do not bring much profit, even if Hero plays head and shoulders above. The advantage in the game and, as a result, the EV of the fight - even with a worse reg - is not high enough to leave a large profit in your pocket after spending on rake. And we are not even talking about the greatly increased variance of the game. All the main money in poker comes from such opponents - fish. Whether you like it or not, the fact is that poker is designed in such a way that EV is determined by the difference in skill between the players. The worse (and more convenient) your opponent, the more profit you will get from him. Everything is like in any other game. When the opponent is so bad that he constantly makes blunders and gross fundamental mistakes, then taking all his money is not particularly difficult, and the profit is incomparably greater than playing with regulars. The more such opponents there are at the table, the better, and if there are 4+ juicy fish at the table, then I will continue the game even if I sleep at it. But there is one «however». Why immediately to the left? Because then Hero gets a direct position on the fish and acts immediately after it. Almost every hand, except when playing on the SB. Position is one of the key components of profit at the table, after choosing its composition. It has been proven a million times that playing in position is many times more profitable than without it. You always see what, how and when the opponent does and get additional information from this that he does not already have about you. This information allows you to make better decisions about the opponent's range: Do you want to value-bet him, Does an attempt at bluffing seem profitable, Or maybe it is better to fold on the spot? If you use a poker tracker, then you can check the win rate breakdown by positions yourself. BU will be the undisputed leader in win rate. CO will be seriously inferior to him, but will be ahead of MP by a significant margin. And in the end it will be EP, because it plays without a position against 3+ players at once. Therefore, position is the key to winrate and, accordingly, high profit. Play it as often as possible and with as large an average pot as possible. And vice versa, when you are out of position, finish the hand as quickly as possible. If a fish is losing a lot, then it is acceptable to play out of position on him, because the factor of his position does not significantly offset his loserate and will not cover his terrible skill. Although it will be a much less profitable situation than if you were sitting immediately to his left. However, if a competent opponent sits in position on me, and especially if it is a loose-aggressive regular (LAG), then I will put my sense of self-importance far away and immediately leave this table. Such a player will turn my game into a nightmare, constantly 3-betting, 4-betting, shoving All-Ins and pressing me postflop, while opening a bunch of hands. Playing out of position against an aggressive regular is not an option, no matter what fish is sitting out of position against Hero. It will cost me a lot of missed opportunities. The most profitable move here would be to leave and find another table. #3. Playing at high stakes This speaks for itself. To make hundreds of thousands of dollars per month or more, you need to play cash games at high limits or expensive tournaments. If you get stuck for years at NL2-5-10-25 or even NL50, then this money goal will be unattainable. You need to play much more than you are used to. I would recommend aiming for A live game at stakes of $10/$20 (buy-in $2,000), Or grinding in online poker starting at the limit of NL500, And if you prefer tournaments, then the minimum entry should be a figure of $100. Fastest grow by stakes through backing / buying shares I am a supporter of the idea that you should not spend a long time at micro and low limits, but strive to grow in limits as quickly as possible. It is clear that it is always easier to talk than to do, to get burned, to fall down and try again, to get hit in the nose again. But I must remind you that the main money is only spinning at high stakes. And for this, it is not necessary to spend 100% of the time grinding at limits. You can get a bankroll through other people's money. For example, sell a share or join a backing, which often also offers training. Backing is when money is invested in a capable player for his bankroll or / and he is trained to play at higher limits for a part of his income. Usually this figure is 50%. Today, most high stakes professionals play for a share, and not for «100% of themselves». So when you watch high stakes streams or see someone win a tournament for +10 million dollars, know that they will give at least half of their winnings to the «investor». But there is a downside: if they go into the minus, which is called a make-up, they will have to give it back. In full or in part - as agreed on the shore. I personally regularly back my students, giving them bankrolls to play at new limits and taking the already indicated 50% of their total profit. This is a mutually beneficial cooperation, where I receive a kind of (semi-)passive income, and the players get used to the new limits and gradually begin to win on them, subsequently moving even higher. I myself often turned to backers to quickly rise to NL100, and then higher. Therefore, The fastest way to start playing much higher limits is to get support: financial and, preferably, training. Don't waste years of your life on micro limits, being satisfied with an income like +$500/month, and even those with rakeback and/or payments from an affiliate. It's not worth it, and you didn't come to poker for this result. In addition, the lower the limit, the higher the rake usually is, and the smaller the share of the blinds won remains on the account. At high limits, the rake load is significantly weaker, which means that the game becomes more profitable also in terms of the share of blinds reaching the account. #4. They don't chase fame Remember: fame, bracelets and social media popularity are all for amateurs. Serious professionals get all this as a side effect. Their goal is money, not bracelets, achievements and prestige in the community. None of this really matters if you want to make really big money in poker. Honestly, I don't even guarantee that rings and bracelets are made of real precious metals, and not limited to gold plated and the like. If you dive deeper into the issue, it turns out that the community has never heard of the richest (read: effective) poker players, because they usually play in private games and do not seek extra attention to their person. And of course, they do not have a goal to be known as strong poker players. Over the years in the poker environment, I have firmly learned that the biggest money is not even at «just» high limits like NL1000-5000, and not even at the World Series of Poker, but in private cash and tournaments with rich businessmen. And this is our last point. #5. They earn a reputation as fish You read that right: they want to be seen as fish. This goes against the grain of the majority of players who want to earn a reputation as an invincible player because they have been crushing opponents for 10+ years and playing perfect GTO. But in fact, to win the maximum amount of money, you should do the exact opposite. We all have an ego, we need confirmation of our own power from others - sometimes from completely anonymous people - and to receive praise for how great we are. For most people, this remains very important. But the main problem is that with someone who has a reputation for being a strong player, few people will want to voluntarily play for big money and expose them to enormous risks. As I have said many times, the biggest sums of money are circulating in private games and tournaments. Who do you think they try not to invite there? The answer is simple: well-known strong players who have earned a reputation as dangerous opponents over a long period of time. What we sometimes see on the screen, how professionals play with Asian billionaires, is a deliberate exception to the rule and entertainment for the public. We only see the tip of the iceberg, while 95+% of private games take place in get-togethers of rich players, to put it simply. They know how to count their money, and no matter how rich they are, they are not eager to play for millions with those players who will surely take them away. They came here to play and have fun among their own people, and not to see another nuts from a tight professional who sits for hours and takes up a seat at the table for nothing. - They need action and emotions! - They want to play with a whale like them, who throws stacks and is always charged with an active game with an abundance of bluffs and showdowns on the fifth pair on a 5-flush board (I'm exaggerating... or maybe not?!). In such places, everyone gathered to have a great time, and later remember the bright, action-packed game, and not what is usually expected from a typical professional. So here is an obvious conclusion: To get into such games and make as much money there as possible, you need to be invited there and so that the inviter is not disappointed with your behavior in the end, inviting you to the game again. That is, in some place you can be who you really are, but in the main environment you should be known as a bad player. In the end, having a reputation as a (semi-)fish turns out to be a more profitable situation than earning a reputation as a cool player in a technical matter. Because if the issue of income directly from the game is more important to you, then you should think about other priorities and agree with yourself.
