"....have no real desire to just move up to the highest stakes to crush and crush....."
"....no massive desire to ....... play the highest stakes...."
I think here is where people's perception is often misguided. I've had this discussion before with people who are very smart but have it in there heads that the main objective people have to play high stakes is for ego, this is the case in a decent amount of people but also massively not the case in others.
For me personally, my main objective to playing high stakes poker is because it's there you can make the most money. I've played some $3/$6 games online that are actually very tough, I have never played in a $10/$20 game like that. I've played £1/£2 at DTD with Alex/Mitch/Stato/Linton/T-High/Nick Hicks sharing a 9handed table with me, I've played $50/$100 in Vegas where I've been 6handed with only 1 other pro player.
Obviously there are some very tough high stakes games as well, you wont see me going anywhere near 10-20 to 50-100 on pokerstars for example...but people should be more flexible and open minded, you'll be shocked how many clever people I respect have said to me "well I don't need to go near high stakes games I don't have the ego"
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