Poker Stakes Definition
The term poker staking means that a poker investor (“the backer”) puts up money on behalf of a poker player (“the horse”) in exchange for a cut of the profits. The backer typically assumes all the risk – any money the horse loses is on the backer, but if the horse wins, the profits are shared according to the terms of the poker. Mainly a term used in the internet poker world that refers to micro limits or micro stakes games. It simply means very small stakes, which range from 2nl to 25nl. One of the big advantages of playing online is the variety of stakes a player with a smaller bankroll can play without risking too much. Definition of stake written for English Language Learners from the Merriam-Webster Learner's Dictionary with audio pronunciations, usage examples, and count/noncount noun labels. A poker game with high stakes. The stakes are too high/low/big. So she decided it was time to pull up stakes.
Every cash game poker player strives to move up from micro-stakes to small stakes beyond. I have been playing for over 12 years and can shed some on the various stake levels as well as what it takes to beat them.
What is considered small, mid, and high stakes poker?
There are actually five different stake levels in online cash game poker:
- Micro-stakes – 2NL, 5NL, 10NL, 25NL
- Small-Stakes – 50NL, 100NL
- Mid-Stakes – 200NL, 400NL, 600NL
- High-Stakes – 1000NL, 2000NL, 5000NL, 10000NL
- Nosebleeds – 20000NL and up
Now that you know what the stakes are, let’s discuss each level in turn and find out what it takes to move up.
The Key Differences Between Cash Game Poker Stakes
The nature of each cash game stake will vary from poker room to poker room. However, in my experience, there are some fundamental commonalities of what can be expected at each level as you move up through the stakes.
1. Micro-Stakes Cash Game Poker
Micro-stakes poker ranges from lowly $0.01/$0.02 up to $0.10/$.25. This is usually either a place for recreational players to splash around or a proving ground for ambitious players who want to move up as soon as possible.
The games are typically characterized by looseness pre-flop with lots of limping and passive post-flop play. It is not unusual for there to be multiple players still in the pot when the river is reached.
Tips on Beating the Micros
It does not take a ton of skill to win at the micro-stakes. In fact, the winners are usually just the ones who are making the least mistakes. Here are a few tips:
- Play a lot of hands in position and very few out of position in order to capitalize on the fit-or-fold nature of many micro-stakes players. Acting last also gives you the ability to realize equity with a lot of your marginal hands
- Include holdings that can make the nuts or dominate your opponent when you build your pre-flop hand ranges. Making flush over flush or out-kicking your opponents is where a lot of the big pots are won at the micros.
- Throw out the call button and instead focus more on value betting and bet-folding your medium strength hands. Continuing with marginal top pairs by check-calling is a recipe for disaster against loose-passive opponents.
How much can a good micro-stakes player expect to win per month?
How much can be made at the micros is really irrelevant. You should not be looking to play at penny stakes more than just a few weeks or months while you learn the game.
Even so, there are quite a lot of players who are full-time regs at either 10NL or 25NL. Even with mass-tabling and uber rewards, it’s hard to make more than $8 an hour doing this.
My advice is that if you don’t have aspirations to be a poker “star” and are okay just making a few hundred every month playing poker, then work hard on your game and learn to beat at least 50NL.
50NL players are not that much tougher to beat than 25NL regs, so you owe it to yourself to study hard enough to at least break into the lowest level of small stakes.
2. Small-Stakes Cash Game Poker
Small stakes games include just two stakes, $0.25/$0.50 and $0.50/$1.00. This is where you first start seeing a large number of full-time or part-time pros eeking out a marginal living in poker. It’s not uncommon to find players who have been 50NL or 100NL players for several years.
The quality of small-stakes games can vary widely from poker site to poker site. For example, on America’s Cardroom small stakes are very difficult to beat except for even the most dedicated players. The level of play that was once only common at 200NL or 400NL is now seen on numerous tables daily on ACR.
On the other hand, softer sites like Ignition poker have soft enough small stakes games that even newer players have a chance of winning. I would say that 100NL on Ignition is comparable to 25NL on ACR. There are more rewards on the latter, which does narrow the gap a bit. Even so, it’s always much better to play the higher stake then rely on being a “
Tips on Beating Small Stakes
To beat small stakes, you need to have more than just a basic “tight is right” strategy. You have to also have at least a rudimentary understanding of some advanced topics that include:
- Equity and SPR and how those concepts are implemented in order to maximize profit versus a wide variety of opponents.
- Game selection and profiling opponents.
- The ability to use a HUD effectively, if applicable, in order to glean the information necessary to interpret the tendencies of opponents.
Beyond these factors, you will need to be able to think on level two and have an elementary understanding of
How much can a good small-stakes player expect to win per month?
High volume small-stakes player with a reasonably high win-rate of 4bb/100 or high can expect to make anywhere from $15 to $25 an hour. It would not be unheard of to make between $2,500 and $5,000 a month, once rewards are figured in. Even part-time winners at 50NL can expect to make around $1,000 per month.
There actually are well-documented cases of 100NL professionals making over $10,000 a month after
3. Mid-Stakes Cash Game Poker
Mid-Stakes includes $1/$2, $2/$4, and $3/$6 blinds. Online, these are the stakes where most of the best players on the site congregate. In fact, the only time most really good player will play higher than mid-stakes, is when there is a known bad player on the table.
For laymen, it’s impossible to tell the difference when watching a small-stake or mid-stake game side-by-side. For long-time poker professionals, the difference is usually profound.
The most striking difference that you start seeing at mid-stakes lies in the more nuanced bet sizings. People are a lot more of aware of potentially getting exploited, so they try to optimize their bet size accordingly.
For example, it’s not uncommon to still see 3x raises with a steal on the button at 100NL and below. You will almost never see this from a reg at 200NL or higher. They know they can accomplish the same thing by raising to 2.5x or even a min-raise, so why waste the extra money when they fold to a 3-bet?
Tips on Beating the Mid-Stakes
If you want to join the top 2% of poker players and learn to win at mid-stakes be ready to dedicate your life to poker, at least partially, for some time
In fact, it actually seems like a pointless exercise for me to give a list of tips in beating this level. This is because it’s like trying to explain the universe in one sentence and with 4 examples.
Nevertheless, here are just a few things you must master before even attempting to beat 200NL or higher (on most poker sites):
- Level 3 thinking is the minimum thinking level necessary to compete,
- How to build hand ranges in your head during play and evolve them to fit the changing dynamic as the session progresses.
- Being aware of how opponents might be adjusting their strategy based on you.
- A moderate understanding of balancing and how to avoid being exploited over time if you have out of line frequencies
The point of this article isn’t try and give you a guidebook to winning at poker. I understand that many people reading this won’t have a clue what I am talking about. That’s okay, but you need to be aware of just how big of a chasm there is between the poker mind maturity of a winner at micro-stakes and mid-stakes. A good analogy is for an average chess player to try playing a grandmaster.
How much can a good mid-stakes player expect to win per month?
For most online poker sites, mid-stakes is where you start to see highly skilled players emerging who can make a decent living playing professionally. For example, my win-rate at 200NL was around 8bbs/100 which gave me an approximate hourly rate just under 40/hr while 4-tabling.
4. High Stakes Cash Game Poker
Save for a few wealthy “whales”, most players will never experience what it’s like to play for average pots that exceed in excess $1,000 on a regular basis. Enter the high-stakes cash game poker professional.
High stakes poker games online include $5/$10, $10/$20, $25/$50, and $50/$100. While there are quite a few regs that play these stakes, a good number of them also still play mid-stakes as well. It’s not uncommon to see a skilled reg playing 400NL, 600NL, 1000NL, and 2000NL in the same session.
Basically, what typical high stakes players do is game select heavily and work hard to ensure that they have an edge in every game they play. In fact, often the skill difference between mid-stakes and high-stakes players mainly lies in their ability to manage their bankrolls and careers a bit better.
Tips on Beating High Stakes
To win long term at high stakes takes a dedication to the game and an ongoing commitment to keeping up to date with the latest strategy. Career management must be strong.
I am not going to give you a list of tips on beating high stakes. It’s actually pretty ridiculous to do so since only 1 in 100,000 players will likely even ever play a session of 1000NL or higher. Personally, I have never played a hand higher than 600NL and am not even qualified anyway.
What I will say, is that once you are beating mid-stakes you will already understand what it takes to at least some degree. Whether you decide to take a shot at high stakes will depend mostly on financial security in taking a shot.
How much can a good high stakes player expect to win per month?
For the few that do make it as a successful high stakes poker player, the amount of money you can win is pretty limitless. Even for part time guys that beat high stakes, 100,000 a year likely feels like the floor for them. Think about it, 100,000 is only 100 buy-ins of $5/$10.
5. The “Nosebleeds”
Stakes with a buy-in of $20,000 or higher are known as the nosebleeds. One of the most popular stakes for nosebleed players is $200/$400.
Let’s get one thing out of the way. Variance is insane at these stakes. Almost no one is actually correctly bankrolled to play the nosebleeds. Conservatively, you really need at least 50 buy-ins to be a regular at any stake. Even for the “smallest” nosebleed stakes, this is $1,000,000.
If you start talking about $500/$1000 stakes, $5,000,000 feels like a small bankroll when you consider $1,000,000 swings seem to happen almost daily for these players.
Beating the Nosebleeds
The nosebleeds are an interesting phenomenon that reached their height right before the fall of Full Tilt Poker. The volume of hands played at those ridiculously high stakes has never been matched since.
The truth is, it takes a special type of person to play at this level. You have to be a billionaire, a big risk taker, or have a huge ego to even think about taking on the nosebleeds.
Even so, the level of play at the highest levels is actually probably not as good as it is at even mid-stakes. The reason is that most strong poker players will not risk their hard-earned money without having a gigantic edge in the game. That’s why you’ll often seen players enjoying a higher win-rate at 2000NL or above than they have at 1000NL.
How much can a good nosebleeds player expect to win per month?
Since very very few many people solely play the nosebleeds, it’s more of an opportunistic or ego exercise for the majority of the player pool at any given time. Therefore, it’s not even worth commenting beyond just saying that fortunes are won and lost weekly and even daily in these games
Besides, it’s really hard to be a regular in those nosebleeds and get enough volume in. Like high stakes, the nosebleeds are more about taking shots for the vast majority of the players.
What Minimum Bankroll Is Needed to Play Each Stake Based on a 100 Big Blind Buy-In?
Assuming that each stake is your regular game and you are not taking shots, you typically want at least 50 buy-ins at a stake. Based on that, here are the bankroll requirements of each stake:
The Stake Levels in Live Poker
This article has mostly been about online poker. So, let’s briefly discuss the stakes in live games. Below is a list of the live equivalents in skill level.
Here are the live equivalents to online stakes:
- Micro-Stakes – No such thing since the lowest stake you typically find is 200NL.
- Small Stakes – 200NL, 500NL
- Mid-Stakes – 1000NL, 2000NL, 5000NL
- High Stakes – 10000NL and up
- Nosebleeds – This is more of an online term. A 10k buy-in or higher is called high stakes. 100,000 buy-in is generally the biggest “regular” game you see. This is the common buy-in we saw in the show “High Stakes Poker”, with $200/$400 blinds.
Keep in mind that you can only 1-table in live poker. This means everyone is presumably able to play their A Game. Also, live recreational players tend to be much worse live. This means 200NL
Final Thoughts
Now you know the differences between all of the stakes, both live and online. You also have some idea of what it takes to become a winner at every level.
If you are interested in taking a step toward building a poker game with a strong foundation, you might be interested in my full poker tutorial.
Thanks for reading!
Related Questions
Who are the most famous high stakes poker players? There are too many to name them all but the most famous high-stakes players of all time include Daniel Negreanu, Phil Ivey, Victor Blum (Isuldur1), Doyle Brunson, Johnny Chan, Phil Galfond, John Juanda, Tom Dwan (Durrr), Doug Polk, and Ben Sulsky (sauce123).
Who is the best online poker player? Based on long-term monetary results the best online player of all time is Phil Ivey. Doug Polk is well-regarded as the best current online poker player.
What are the poker buy-in levels? There are three categories of buy-in levels in poker. Anything above 150 big blinds is generally considered deep-stacked. Anything below 40 big blinds is considered short-stacked. Everything in between is known to be a mid-stack.
People often ask me what is VPIP in poker. Well here is a simple answer:VPIP is a technical term that we use in modern poker tracking programs such as Pokertracker and Hold'em Manager. It stands for Voluntarily Put $ in Pot. More specifically it means what percentage of hands a poker player plays.
VPIP is probably the most useful stat that I use at the poker tables. In this article I am going to describe how I use the numbers and make decisions with it at the poker tables.
What is VPIP in Poker? - It Tells You About Player Type
Understanding the type of player that you are up against is one of the most important things in poker. This can often dramatically affect my decision making at the tables.
For instance, if I am up against a very tight regular opponent I might be cautious about getting AK all in preflop even in a 6max game.
However, if I am up against a loose aggressive recreational opponent, then this is a slam dunk all in for me with a fist pump included. This is because I very likely have the best hand.
Once you start to get used to using a poker tracking program like Pokertracker 4 for instance, you can setup your HUD (heads up display) and start showing this stat for your opponents at the tables.
By the way, for a full breakdown on this I would recommend checking out my how to setup your HUD article. You can also download my own HUD setup for free and start using it yourself right away.
VPIP Numbers and Player Type
So let's talk about some concrete numbers now. So when the stats for my opponents start showing up on my screen I will roughly apply player types like this:
- 0-10: very tight
- 11-20: tight
- 21-30: loose
- 31-40: very loose
- 40+: recreational player (fish)
I want to note one important caveat here. It is crucial that you have a sample size of at least 10 hands before drawing any conclusions about the player type.
The reason why is because even an extremely tight player could happen to just pick up a few good hands in a row. Or vice versa, a really loose player could be card dead.
So always make sure that you have a bare minimum of 10 hands on your opponent before making any judgments about them with regards to VPIP.
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Poker Strategy with VPIP
So now that I know what type of player I am up against this will influence my decisions at the poker table in a number of ways.
1. The Hands That I Play
So first off, the hands that I choose to play preflop will be affected by my opponent's VPIP.
Say it is folded to me on the button for instance. If I see that the two remaining players in the blinds are both 10% or less VPIP, then I will probably try and steal the blinds with any two cards.
Why? Because these players are both extremely tight and I expect to take it down a lot.
However, if I notice that both players are say 35% VPIP (and especially if they are aggressive as well), then I will probably be much more selective with the hands that I play. The reason being that I know I will not take down the blinds uncontested anywhere near as much.
2. Postflop Play
My postflop play will also be heavily affected by my opponent's VPIP. If I am against one of the tighter opponents I will often give them more credit after the flop.
Poker Stakes Crossword
So for instance, if I have 8♦7♦ on a board of:
2♥2♣7♥4♦3♦
I might choose to just check back the turn for instance for a little bit of pot control and deception (and then bet the river). The reason being that I don't expect them to have too many worse hands in their range that will call me on all 3 streets.
Versus a loose opponent though I might choose to just bet all 3 streets because they are much more likely to have a worse made hand or a draw on this board.
Also, it should be noted that loose players are much more likely to be fish or bad poker players. And bad poker players love to call more than anything in the world. Tighter players on the other hand are more likely to make a tough fold.
VPIP Hand Ranges
In terms of actual hands played we can also create a rough breakdown of that depending on the numbers.
- 0-10: Any pair, any premium and most broadways
- 11-20: Any pair, any premium, any broadway, most suited aces and most suited connectors
- 21-30: Any pair, any premium, any broadway, any ace, most kings, any suited connector, any suited one gapper
- 31-40: Any pair, any premium, any broadway, any ace, any king, any connector, any one gapper, any suited two gapper
- 40+: Almost any two cards depending on how high the VPIP is
This is just a very rough guide but hopefully it gives you a better idea of how to put a player on a range of hands according to their VPIP.
Basically, the higher it is, the more hands you need to start adding to their range. Once you get to the very loose players and the recreational opponents (e.g. 30%+ VPIP) it honestly becomes a little bit pointless to even bother constructing a range of hands for them.
The reason why is that they are playing so many hands that it becomes almost impossible to narrow it down properly, at least in the early stages of the hand.
Based on the decisions that they have made throughout the course of the hand though, we can often narrow down their range by the later streets.
For much more on advanced hand reading I recommend checking out The Upswing Poker Lab.
Final Thoughts
VPIP is a very valuable tool that you should be using at the online poker tables. It tells you so much about a player. More than any other stat in fact.
This is because the biggest difference between the various opponents that you will face at the poker tables is how tight or loose they are. The VPIP stat gives you that exact information.
This is especially important in the fast paced multi-tabling world of online poker where it can be difficult to keep track of everybody. Having the numbers right there on your screen makes it much easier to identify the player type.
So make sure that VPIP is a stat in your arsenal at the online poker tables and you will be able to make better informed decisions. And therefore you will ultimately profit and win more!
Lastly, if you want to learn how to start consistently making $1000+ per month in low stakes games, make sure you grab a copy of my free poker cheat sheet.
How do you use VPIP at the poker tables? Let me know in the comments below.