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To Play, or Not To Play at Microstakes: Top Regs’ Discussion

To Play, or Not To Play at Microstakes: Top Regs’ Discussion
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Vasilisa Zyryanova Blog Content Editor
  • Fact Checked by: PokerListings
  • Last updated on: November 14, 2025 · 4 minutes to read

In late 2025, two respected poker players engaged in a near-Shakespearean debate about the expediency of playing at micro-stakes.

The poker community can be divided into pro-microstakes, anti-microstakes and middle-grounders. The unofficial leader of the first group became Ben Rolle, while the second group formed around Uri Peleg and the rest fall somewhere in the middle.

So, let’s take a closer look at how they started a debate that no one asked for, why players can’t agree on the issue, and what the most ridiculous aspect of this dispute is.

Who Are Ben Rolle and Uri Peleg?

People didn’t really understand the point of this dispute since both of these players have been playing professionally since the 2000s, coaching players and have had very successful careers.

Uri “Miscusee” Peleg works with Upswing Poker as a coach and creator of cash games courses, has his own project called Guerilla Poker and even runs a YouTube channel with educational content.

Uri Peleg
Uri Peleg

Benjamin “bencb789” Rolle is a CoinPoker ambassador, the founder of one of the most successful training poker websites, RaiseYourEdge, and a well-known streamer and YouTuber who won the WSOP Online 2025 $5K Main Event, earning $3,900,707.

Ben Rolle tips
Ben Rolle

So, when the two started “fighting” over microstakes on X (ex-Twitter), some players were confused as to how they could possibly know or understand anything about micros at this point of their careers. Peleg started his career playing $100 MTTs, while Rolle last appeared at a micro tournament in the early 2010s.

Uri Peleg’s Opinion: Don’t Play Microstakes

Uri was the fire-starter. He published a post on X about an unusual situation that happened to him during his seminar and how he responded to it:

«I gave an unconventional answer in a recent lab webinar:

The question: 

How to best study while playing microstakes. 

My answer: 

Don’t play microstakes.

For poker to be real you need to care about the money. Your time is worth money — you could be working. Put up at least 25$, play less tables, practice focusing on every decision.»

Peleg is certain that micro-stakes skills are useless for other stakes, so playing micros is equal to wasting your time doing nothing.

However, he does think that putting in the volume on micro-stakes can have some value for a player, at least when it comes to accumulating experience. Still, this only works if the player manages to not stuck on micros for emotional reasons:

Uri Peleg

There’s value to it, as long as you don’t get stuck there and feel like you need to prove something. I think the value you’ll find higher will be higher generally. Your brain has an optimal stress level for learning and performance and you don’t want to drop too far below it.

Ben Rolle’s Opinion: Play Any Stakes Fitting Your BRM

Rolle responded to Uri’s tweet with in protest, protecting people’s right to play without any financial pressure:

“At the beginning, even playing for a few dollars can be enough pressure for many people.

Most people don’t fail because they play too low. They fail because they play way too high and ignore BRM.

And most beginners have maybe $100 – $200 to spare. You really want them to ignore BRM and play with 4–8 buy-ins?

Take it slow early on. It’s not about making money. It’s about learning the game, understanding variance, and building confidence. There’s massive value in putting in a ton of volume.

Then you slowly grind your way up.”

Peleg responded by taking an even harder stance if you only have $100-200 to spare you probably shouldn’t be playing poker at all:

Uri Peleg

There is the poor person’s mentality sometimes among young poker pros — you can actually get a job for 10$/hour, save 1k+, buy a course, and play 25nl. Given people who have 100-200 to spare probably live with their parents anyway, I feel like playing 2nl for any significant period of time is just life-wise the wrong move. Not saying you can’t play it for a month. But there is nothing to “prove” — just get some experience and move up asap.

Rolle called out Peleg for being “a bit out of touch with reality” and reminded him that a lot of successful poker professionals started their careers with $50 Poker Bankroll from PokerStrategy. He finished the argument by stating:

Ben Rolle

Up until today so many start with $10, $50 and $100 bankrolls grinding their way up and it’s definitely recommended doing it this way.

And while this signaled the end of this discussion for Rolle, the poker community was only getting started.

The Poker Community’s Response to Both Pros

Other professional and amateur players reacted to these opinions quite variously.

Brendan Dunphy agreed with Uri, tweeting simply:

Brendan Dunphy

People don’t care if the outcome is meaningless.

Irish streamer Sven McDermott pointed that Uri doesn’t account for the emotions of an average player:

“People are really bad with emotional control when it comes to financial loss. You’re going to have people losing money they can’t afford.

Assuming people can put up $25 and stop when they lose it is naive, most young men are really awful with this stuff. You are different.”

Aaron Barone supported both Sven and Uri by responding:

Aaron Barone

Totally understand your point. Re: Uri’s, I think he’s saying micros aren’t too different from the advice of ‘Dont play freerolls.’  There’s the same idea that without you/your opponents playing for ‘real’ money, the lessons learned don’t help much at higher stakes.

Chase Davis shared his experience to explain why micros are still worth playing:

“I used super low stakes even with some wealth to gather a database when I was very very bad at the game. I think 1c/2c but may have been 5c.

I think I played 200k hands of zoom or rush or something at the very lowest stakes.

The process of building and analyzing the db is what made me good at getting better at poker. 

I think it all depends on motivation.”

A lot of people also characterized micro-stakes as the perfect training ground for learning the basics and staying sharp for other games with a low risk for bankroll. Overall, an most common opinion on this topic became: You should play micro-stakes not to make money but to get actual exposure to the game and implement what you study.

Do you agree? Share your opinion in the comments below this article or on social media — and do not forget to tag PokerListings!

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