I'm playing 5NL ($0.02/$0.05) and the rake feels incredibly high. I feel like I'm playing well, but my bankroll is barely moving. Is it realistic to try and build a bankroll just from playing these stakes, or is the main goal just to learn and get out as fast as possible? What's a "good" win rate to aim for here?
Yeah, I don't think it's possible to make any
real money at the lowest limits. For me, the whole point of grinding micro stakes was just to build a bankroll to move up to NL10 and beyond. But after years of playing, I never quite got good enough to make that jump, which is the main reason I quit taking it seriously.
But that doesn't mean you should give up on the game, no way! I think it's better to look at micro stakes as just the first rung on a long ladder. Sure, the winrate can seem crazy high sometimes, but even if you grind for hours and hours, it's just not worth your time—even with a positive
expected value. What is worth it is building a decent bankroll so you can finally play NL10 and higher. The real endgame is getting to NL100, where the profits actually become viable for an average reg.
Depending on where you live, you can even make some decent cash at NL25, but that really depends, ya know?
For me, NL2 and NL5 are like elementary school for poker—it's where you just learn to read, write, and do basic math. NL10 and NL25 are like high school; the gameplay gets more complex, the opponents are sharper, and there aren't as many fish just swimming around. NL50 is your undergrad degree. After you finish that, you can move to NL100, which is kinda like a Master's degree. NL200 would be your PhD. And anything above that, like NL500 and NL1000? That's the post-doc life.
They're all just phases, each with a different difficulty level, and each one demands that you learn new technical skills about the game, your opponents, and, most importantly, yourself.
