High Stakes Players: Hard Work or High IQ?

GIRFIED

GIRFIED

Rock Star
Silver Level
Joined
Dec 16, 2019
Total posts
247
Awards
2
Chips
0
High Stakes Players: Very smart people? Or Very hardworking people?

I am surprised to see the players of High Limits, playing NL5,000, NL10,000, NL20,000 or even higher, something so far from reality for most poker players that it makes me wonder if it is really possible to reach at that level. They are the elite, the best of the best, but what differentiates them from most players?

They are not aliens, nor the poker gods, they are people like you, but they differ mainly by two factors:
  1. - Some reached those levels thanks to their exceptional intelligence, people with a prodigious mind that allowed them to understand the game at an enviable depth, we could say that they were born with that capacity, which they developed to get where they are.
  2. - The others, who are the majority, are people who, not having the intellectual capacity as the first ones, took the road to work very hard; Hours, weeks, months, years of dedication, cultivating his game to reach these levels, is the fruit of all his work.
Now good, the poker is a very abstract game, it is difficult to find a direction to follow, that is, it is a game with so many possible strategies that it is extremely easy to be distracted by paths or ideas that do not take anywhere or at least not they lead to the place we want to go, but we must understand that this is part of the reality of poker.

This allows us to question what path to follow? What should we understand and overcome? Broadly speaking, what a player must understand and overcome to become a HightStakes player are: 1) Structure, 2) Balance and 3) Technical Knowledge.

Structure
HightStakes players structure their game, that is, when they play a situation, they always try to understand how they will play all the hands that make up their rank in that situation and in all the situations they have been able to study.

Obviously poker is an abstract game with many possible situations and even in HightStakes, not there is a player who has all the correct answers to a given situation;

Balance
HightStakes players take care not to leave exposed sides in their game, they try to ensure that each decision they make leads to a balance, that is, an optimal game approach, an understanding of what they are doing with all parts of their range, of such a way so that the rival cannot take advantage of a deficiency in the structure of his own strategy; and

Technical Knowledge
HightStakes players know very well how they have reached each situation, with what rank, what rank the opponent has and in what place their rank is in relation to the rank of the rival.

As we see, wanting to be a high level player is a difficult path, but that only generates me respect for the people who have put so much dedication to becomethe best, this only makes me admire them and inspire me to be a better Player, to exceed my limits.
 

Attachments

  • high_stakes_poker_logo.jpg
    high_stakes_poker_logo.jpg
    33.1 KB · Views: 50
Last edited by a moderator:
puzzlefish

puzzlefish

🙉 🙈 🙊 student of the donk arts
Loyaler
Joined
Feb 18, 2018
Total posts
4,429
Awards
3
CA
Chips
275
High stakes players aren't necessarily winning players. The structure of poker extends to all stake levels and the idea is the same: good players profiting from bad players over the long run.
 
M

mainecun

Rising Star
Bronze Level
Joined
Jul 23, 2018
Total posts
10
Chips
0
Depends. there's multi millionaire CEO's that have money to kill and only learnt the game months ago. those are the kind of people you want sitting next to you.

but there's also hard bankroll builders who might enter stakes that just aren't for them.

high roller tables are in my opinion are easier if you can afford a loss every now and then.
 
hugh blair

hugh blair

Legend
Bronze Level
Joined
Apr 8, 2017
Total posts
11,173
Awards
8
Chips
30
Experience!
There is a lot of poverty and wealth in this world depends on your situation, I personally only truly understood the value of money as a homeless 17 year old,
half starved seeking employment calling from business door to business door until some nice lady threw me a dish cloth and gave me a job straight away in her restaurant man the meal that day can still remember lol.:eating:
Turning the key in the door of my first rented apartment a week or 2 later priceless too.:)
Worked that job hard from opening to closing Monday to Saturday offered to work Sunday too lady said no day off,
Carried that mentality to everything I done in life for decades.
Have to say looking back 2 and a half decades later doing well much better job great salary nice house,car family and having taken few shots playing some of those stakes you mention had to work hard long hours for everything I got.
Think many would be like this really hardworking making the $.
Others may inherit wealth or have that lucky life changing huge tournament win and manage it properly it does depend no 2 people are the same.
Similar to me as that 17 year old youth is wasted on the drunken young and me today 2 completely different outlooks the people playing those limits would be on average much more experienced than your average micro player.:)
 
Last edited:
E

Elian001

Rising Star
Bronze Level
Joined
Mar 20, 2020
Total posts
3
Chips
0
In my opinion is the same like all other rooms.The difference is that in highstakes might be a CEO who wants to pass some hours playing poker which has his salary like 20k.But also can be some guys who really are big players,do not forget Tom Dwan.At his begining he just played online poker until he arrived at 250k cash games or more then that
 
CAC1QU3

CAC1QU3

Rock Star
Silver Level
Joined
Mar 4, 2020
Total posts
115
Chips
0
I think beeing succesful in poker is much more "hard working" then beeing very smart. Of course there are other facts like luck, skill and so on, but to be (very) succesful in Poker isn't automatically a kind of smartness :cool:
 
B

betang

Rock Star
Silver Level
Joined
Jan 12, 2018
Total posts
460
Awards
1
Chips
4
Very expert people. You should kno wpoker really well to play in this way .
 
Vivaly

Vivaly

Rock Star
Silver Level
Joined
Jan 4, 2021
Total posts
257
Awards
10
Chips
0
If these high stakes players are put at the $ 0.01 / $ 0.02 table, all their technical knowledge, structure and balance will collapse. And most likely you will defeat them with YOUR knowledge of micro-stakes and freerolls.
 
Top