Playing High Stakes Poker

It’s the summer of 2019; I’m at the Boston Harbor Encore poker room grinding $1/3 with a $300 buy in.

It’s the summer of 2019; I’m at the Boston Harbor Encore poker room grinding $1/3 with a $300 buy in. There’s no more than $4,000 in my bank account and I have a good view of the high limit portion of the poker room where $5/10+ cash tables are held. The players’ stacks have denominations of chips I’m not familiar with.. mostly green and black colored chips, not the usual site of castles of red in $1/3. Curiosity gets the best of me as I ask my table, “What’s the buy in for $5/10?”. Someone responds, “it’s $1,500 max buy in”. And I can’t help but think to myself.. “How incredibly irresponsible for someone to buy-in for this much money at a poker table”.

Fast forward now, June 22, 2023.. my last 2 cash game sessions totaled about 13 hours played and a net result of minus $250,000. Oh how naive I was back then 2019 and if I only knew what I know now. It’s funny how things change and how perspective shifts with time. 4 years ago I embarked on a bankroll challenge to win $10,000 because I never seemed to be able to keep the money I was winning at $1/3.. as much as I was winning at the time, my bank account and net worth stayed the same so I needed some accountability. I was always on the edge of a 5 session losing streak before going busto and losing it all. Now 4 years later, I’m at the same crossroads; just with a few extra zeroes at the end of the numbers.

My experience playing higher stakes games has been a complete whirlwind, something I’ve been reflecting on over the past few days. The swings are unbelievable and constantly being on the edge of winning/losing small homes every single session certainly takes a toll on one’s psyche and mental health. Me, on the other hand, thought I had it all figured out and not let these big swings affect me. Oh how dead wrong am I?

As a high stakes noobie (having only played for about a year), I think these games are preposterous and very silly. We swing hundreds of thousands of dollars.. for what? Whether I win or lose in a poker session at this point doesn’t change my life - I’m going to Chipotle for food either way, maybe if I win then I deserve a treat like adding guac. The money won ends up going into my players’ bank where it sits there, waiting for the day I run bad and start using the excess funds and pull from short term winnings. The money I lose.. well it was never really in my possession anyways sitting in a casino bank. So win or lose, my life stays exactly the same.

This isn’t to say I’m not grateful or blessed for the opportunity to play in these high stakes games.. the upside is incredible - I have the ability to make poker content unlike any other and I can’t thank Ryan Feldman enough for the opportunity to play in life-changing games that’s altered my content. But there is something to be said about the downside.. like going broke if I lost 5-10 sessions in a row which is somewhat of an inevitable possibility for anyone who’s played this game. The risks are real and part of the problem when I don’t sell much action in these games combined with not even being close to properly bankrolled for these games. You just need to have so so so much capital to play in these games sustainably, and unfortunately I have to admit.. I don’t got it like that. For full transparency, I have 100% of my own action in 95% of the streams you’ve seen me play.. only outliers are the million dollar game and one time I sold publicly for a 200/400 game.

The past few years you can safely say I’ve sun ran my entire short poker career. The issue is that it certainly won’t last forever and last weekend was a quick glimpse into what life in a downswing would certainly look like. At this point with my current experience, I understand what it’s like to swing 100-300K in a single session and wit the stakes we’re playing.. it’s all normal and part of the process. Mentally, it’s a potential outcome I can face.. but off the felt, these swings have true real life consequences. Without getting into specifics, I’m swinging an incredibly high percentage off my net worth/life roll in an extremely volatile way.. one that’s unsustainable. I don’t have any answers but just want to offer aa reflection about the current high stakes environment I’m facing. Will I still battle and play these stakes next chance I get to on Hustler Live? Probably. Will anything drastically change from now til next year? Probably not. But I do think it’s at least important to be more conscience of our decisions and be calculated when doing things a magnitude and scale like this. Still learning, questioning, and trying to grow.. here’s to some run good soon, I surely need it lol

Much Love,

Ethan (Rampage)