Quote Originally Posted by michael1123
Quote Originally Posted by Checkways
I don't understand why you can't be a grinder and still shoot for the big games? Sure it takes the grinder longer to get there, but they will eventually do it if they're good. Many of the pro players you see on TV are grinders. Actually, almost all of them are. It took some of them at least a decade to get to the big games but they did.

You can't tell me that Chip Reese, Harmon, Greenstein, etc aren't grinders. They play a $4k/8k game where their edge is small if not non exsistent. I'm sure that they average way less BBs per hour than we do. If they weren't grinders, you wouldn't see them every freakin' day at the Bellagio giving $1 tips to the dealers after pulling in a $100,000 pot.
That's really not accurate. Greenstein talks about in his book about how he'd regularly buy into any good game, as long as he had the money to do so, irregardless of BR management rules. As long as the game was soft and playing would be plus EV for him, he'd play in a game, even if he could only afford one buyin.

To me, a "grinder" is someone that regularly plays one level and grinds out a regular income, typically just enough to live off of. They don't have aspirations of moving up to higher limits, they're just content to grind out what they make, without taking any risks. This wouldn't describe anyone that's made it big in the world of poker, at least in terms of how they were before they really made it.

If this does accurately describe anyone in the big game, that's only because there is no other games at that buyin, and no higher stake games out there. They've already came as far as they can, for the time being. If better and higher stake games were available though, you can bet that they'd be looking to play in them.

The more I think about it, the more wrong I think you are. The fact that they're at the highest possible stakes that you can play at shows how damn motivated they were to constantly succeed at higher and higher stakes, and that they were never content to grind it out at one level for the rest of their lives. Of course they avoided going broke by limiting the chances they took, but they never just settled for making $10 an hour ... or $100 an hour ... or even $1000 an hour ... They were constantly looking to build their BR up enough to move up to higher and higher limits.
Oh I understand now. I thought a grinder was someone that just played a lot and didn't go crazy with their bankroll. If a grinder is described as someone with no ambition to go higher than that is different.

HOWEVER, if the purpose of playing poker is to make a comfortable living doing what you love, then a grinder making $100k a year is extremely successful in life, because they don't care about becoming "great". I guess some of them would rather do more important things like raise a family and save for the future. It's just a difference of philosophy I guess.