I Asked 1,124 Poker Players What Their #1 Struggle Is (Here are the Surprising Results)

Last week I asked the roughly 10k readers on my newsletter and the 5k or so more spread out between Facebook, Twitter and Tiltbook two questions:

1. What stakes do you currently play?
2. What is the #1 thing holding you back in poker?

And all I can say is wow. The response that you guys gave me was incredible!

I ended up receiving slightly over 1k emails alone and it was amazing to hear each and every one of your poker stories and your biggest struggles at the poker tables.

I am sorry that I could not provide an in-depth reply to each one of you. I felt bad about that. But since I answer every single email myself there is just no way that was going to be possible.

I got replies from 18 year olds and 81 year olds. I got replies from a single mother in New Jersey, a middle aged accountant in London, a high school teacher with a family in Toronto, a university student in Berlin, a programmer in Moscow and a young poker pro in Las Vegas among the countless others.

I got several replies from non-traditional and non-English speaking poker markets as well such as China, Vietnam and even right here in Thailand. This just goes to show that the game is definitely continuing to grow in Asia.

In short, you guys (and girls) come from all walks of life and play at all stakes and in all types of games. Many of you have good careers already and just play poker as a hobby. Some of you have dreams of going pro one day though too.

Many of you have a lot of the same struggles at the poker tables as well. I got many of the exact same answers again and again.

I put every single reply that I received from all channels into a spreadsheet. This will help me create better more targeted content for you guys in the future.

But I have also decided to publish all of that data below as well. I am doing this because I think it might help you see that there are many other people out there who play at the same stakes as you and share many of your same struggles.

By the way, if you're new to poker and you just want to learn my simple system for exactly what hands to play, grab my free poker cheat sheet.

Memorize the charts. Stop guessing. Start winning.

The Most Popular Stakes That Poker Players Play

Here are the results from question #1: What stakes do you currently play?



And here are the results in a pie chart:



Some parts of these results really didn't surprise me too much.

I have known for a long time for instance that the vast majority of people who play poker online or live do so at the lower stakes. More specifically, NL2, NL5, NL10 and NL25 online and $1/$2 and $2/$5 live.

And it is pretty obvious really. You can just log on to a site like Pokerstars right now (biggest in the world) and see for yourself that the large majority of the active tables are at NL25 and below. It doesn't matter what time of the day you check either.

These are the stakes that I focus on 100% of the time on this website by the way and in all my books and videos as well. And I had people tell me again and again in their replies that they liked this.

I have never understood why so many other poker training sites, authors, coaches, streamers and so on continue to focus on high stakes and teaching you complicated theories that often don't even work in the games that you actually play in.

Talk about not knowing who your audience is!

You can be sure that my focus here on blackrain79.com and in my YouTube videos will always remain on helping you improve in the games that you actually play in.

This is also why I continue to play regularly at these stakes myself.

By the way, if you just want to learn my simple no BS system for exactly what hands to play, when to bet, raise and bluff, I cover this all in my brand new training program, Play Fearless Poker.

Memorize the charts. Stop guessing. Start winning.

My new Play Fearless Poker training program includes 12+ hours of advanced poker lessons, 100+ step by step example hands and "cheat sheets" below every single video.

If you're serious about taking your poker game to the next level, enroll today.

Enroll in Play Fearless Poker

Get $100 OFF Use Code: 100OFF

SNG/MTT/Spins and Live Poker

What did surprise me in these results though was the sheer amount of you guys who play live or play SNGs/MTTs/Spins online. It is over 20% of the people who visit this website.

You guys also confirmed to me in your replies that this number has risen of late especially in countries like Australia where the government recently banned online poker.

Many Aussies told me that they have switched over to playing live because the options that remain to play online are just too limited.

With that said, it should be noted that there are still many Australia friendly poker sites out there. You just have to know what your options are and find the best online poker room for you.

This is something by the way that American poker players know all too well about. Because their own government did something similar back in 2011 on what became known as Black Friday, the darkest day in online poker history.

The other interesting thing is that many of you told me that you prefer Sit and Gos, Tournaments or Spin and Gos over cash games. It was definitely a little bit surprising to see these numbers since I focus on cash games so much.

It also just goes to show how badly lacking the poker training and educational resources are out there for live and non-cash game poker players.

I got your message though.

Live poker strategy and non-cash game poker strategy are two areas that I will be looking to improve upon significantly in my future content.

The Most Common Struggles of Poker Players

Next are the results from question #2: What is the #1 thing holding you back in poker?



And here again are the results in a pie chart (top 12 replies only):



These results were very eye opening to me and gave me some great ideas about what to focus on in future articles and videos.

The two that jump out right away to me are tilt/discipline and lack of time. I got these same two replies again and again.

I don't think it is all that shocking that tilt (or the mental game in general) is the #1 problem that most people struggle with at the poker tables.

I have long believed this to be true and the data now proves it. I think that most people actually play fairly well these days (excluding the fish of course) even at the lower limits.

However, there is still a very wide chasm between those who play relatively "solid" most of the time, and those who go on monkey tilt every time they get a few bad beats!

I am going to continue creating content about the mental game but unfortunately this is one of the most difficult aspects of the game to teach.

I can show you how to play AK out of position when you miss the flop for instance. However, it is much more difficult to teach someone how to react emotionally when they just played a tournament for 6 hours and took a massive bad beat right before the final table.

It sucks and it hurts. There is simply no way to sugarcoat it. And dealing with beats like this is the hardest part of learning how to play consistent winning poker.

And quite frankly a huge part of figuring out how to tilt less and stay more disciplined also just comes with experience. When you have seen the same crazy nonsense that this game can throw at you a thousand times, you eventually start to just become a little bit numb to it.

Everybody is Busy These Days!

And the other one that jumped out of course was the lack of time. Clearly a huge number of you just play this game for fun or a small profit on the side.

You have jobs, families, school and many other commitments. I heard from you again and again that finding the time at the end of the day after work and the wife and kids were attended to was difficult.

So this is something that I am also going to focus more on in my future content as well. More specifically, trying to give you ways to become more effective with the time that you do have available for poker.

Many of you already know my poker story. I turned pro over 10 years ago building up my bankroll on the side for over a year while I had a full time job.

I think the biggest key for me was being laser focused on playing poker and improving my poker game during those few hours that I had available at the end of the day.

You guys gave me many other replies as well though from staying focused at the poker tables, to motivation/work ethic, confidence issues, bad calls, dealing with LAGs, understanding ranges, postflop strategy and more.

I will also try to cover as many of these topics as I can in future blog posts and videos. And if you have any specific suggestions yourself you can always feel free to just tell me. I often write articles simply because somebody emailed me or left a certain blog comment.

Final Thoughts

I want to thank each and every one of you that replied to me for this little informal poker player survey. 

These results are going to be very useful for me in knowing how to help you become a better poker player. I hope that you found these results helpful as well.

What is clear is that most poker players face a lot of the same struggles and many of them also play at the same stakes.

I know from first hand experience that poker can be a very lonely game at times and so there is solace in just knowing that other people out there are going through a lot of the same problems and issues as you at the poker table.

Make sure you let me know in the comments below what you think of these poker player survey results.

Also, to make sure you always receive my latest poker strategy articles and videos as soon as they get released, make sure you are on my free newsletter (includes a free copy of my ebook Massive Profit at the Micros).