Moving On Down

Have decided to stick exclusively to NL50 for an as-yet-undetermined length of time. I have been moving back and forth between 100 and 50 based on my bankroll, and I'm tired of wasting mental energy worrying about getting bumped down or whatever.

I really should have stayed exclusively at 50 as I learn to mass-table effectively (still dropping EV to technical difficulties and occasional brain cramps, both of which will always be factors when playing 24 tables but are becoming less and less major each day as I improve at this approach). But I was stubborn and kept following my bankroll guidelines. As I've had pretty good success at 50 so far, and not so much at 100, the pattern was fairly predictable. The fact that I've run way, way better (luck-wise) at 50 made me wanted to not give up 100 (hate to give in to variance). But at the same time, it's indisputable that the level of play at 100 is significantly higher. So even though I can obviously have great up or down swings at either level, my EV in 50 is surely higher (notwithstanding the higher rake impact). For these and other reasons, it just seems to make sense to play exclusively there for a bit.

The biggest drawback, in the short term, is the VPP's accrue a lot slower. Maybe 60% of the rate they accrue at 100. Which makes the SNE goal a lot more difficult. I think at the lower level it would take around 50 hours a week. Pretty doable (and worth it, imo) if I wasn't playing in the band and/or awaiting my child's imminent arrival. Might be doable still, but probably becomes a long shot (at NL100 I wouldn't say it's a slam dunk, but I would say if I it remains a goal for the entire year it's much more likely I would hit it than not). But ultimately, of course, this is all about making a living. Posting a winning record in the games and getting to, say, 800K vpp's is gonna be more profitable than losing in the games but making Elite.

It would be frustrating to get that close and not make it. But the one thing I definitely do not want to do is play in games where I'm -EV just to accrue VPP's. I'm willing to put in the work to get to SNE, but I'm not willing to throw money at it. I do expect to be able to beat 100 sooner than later, as I iron out the kinks in my mass table game and hopefully just continue to get better at poker. Which would make SNE once again feel quite within reach. We'll see how it develops, but for now it feels good to just focus on NL50.