Moving to FL?

^The first time in history someone has ever put 2-4 limit, really good and fun, in the same sentence.

this isnt true ime. in 15 years ive had 2 near breakeven years. you just cant imagine how long and how bad you can run until it happens to you. legends who played pro for decades bobby hoff, danny robison and others have all told me about "lost" years. If you are playing in really juicy big games on your own roll when they pop up, running bad in just a few dozen sessions can kill your whole year, other years you make mountains. those of us who've stuck around and play on our own dime have seen both sides of that dime.

youre doing it wrong if you play in these games but dont have a big enough roll to survive if everything goes to shyt or if you dont have the discipline to step down.

even at huge world class winrates like 20bb/100 in live poker some small % will break even for 35,000 hands which is a full year of live poker.

I remember those days when even places like the Mirage had 2/5 games running on a regular basis and it was full of tourists. Those were the days. Will it ever come back and what will it take to get more people back into poker? I wish there was a way to take all these dumb slot players and get them into poker.

Also - is everyone saying that a 20k roll is not enough to move to Vegas to play 1/3 and 2/5 if I live very frugally? I don't want to do this forever, but also want to pick up a part time job and have other income. Playing poker everyday is insane. It is hard to constantly play your A game and stay passionate about what you are doing. Having that balance and another stream of income just makes sense. I don't know how the hell Brad Booth claimed to have played poker everyday for like ten straight years or whatever. It just makes me head want to explode. I go to bed at night and all I see is cards, flops, chips...ugh! But when I have that balance and other things going on, I play waaaay better.

BTW - I've never had a breakeven or even loosing year playing poker in 10 years (although some have been pretty close.) But then again that is 80% playing 1/2NL and maybe it is different at higher levels or at high variance games like PLO.

technically i haven't either but Im considering "pretty close" the same thing. years where the bankroll goes down to cover expenses, not necessarily losing years but "lost" years.

yeah well look how that ended up

Of everyone I know that plays primarily 5/10 and 10/25 (ish) games, none have had anywhere near breakeven years. If you are playing those games and take occasional shots in much bigger games (and conversely, more variance), then yea, you could be break even. If you are playing in steady 5/10-10/25 games that are rarely >300bb effective stack size, then you are not very good if you are losing.

+1

lol this is probably true. I played a couple times in the Jacksonville, FL area last year and was astounded at how horrible the 2/5 players were.

a player with a 15.00 BB/100 winrate and a 100.00 BB/100 standard deviation (i think this describes a good midstakes player) has around a 1% yearly chance of a 2000bb downswing or 30,000 hand BE stretch. If he plays deep at times or short at times (which he will) this goes way up. Now add playing bigger when game gets bumped up and having a short roll at times due to real world emergencies and you can see how bad stuff happens to good people, youll meet one someday if you hang around long enough.

there but for the grace of the poker gods go i....

I get what you are saying, but I, nor none of my friends who play 5/10-10/25 games (and stick to those, and play within our rolls) have ever not had strong winning years. My point is that if you play a consistent, lower variance game like 150-200 bb 5/10 and 10/25 NLHE tends to be, you would need to run absurdly bad to not win for a whole year. Obviously actual volume is a factor too, as your "one year" is not "one year" to everyone in terms of sample size. But yea, I would quit if I personally had a year that bad, barring shot taking gone wrong.

I could not agree more.

this is compounded by not having a fairly tight stop loss on a daily basis in terms of Buy Ins.

..so yea

RobFarha recently posted his live 2/5 results over his last 500 hours or so, and his hourly is around $130 IIRC. Now Rob is a verified SuperCrusher, but still; the games have to be good in order to sustain numbers like that. Also before people jump in w l the old "lol sample size" he's been doing it for a few years now, and has similar results in live 5/10 as well as consistently beating MSNL online.

Back in 2004 I could gather up a few friends on a Monday and fly standby on Friday from Michigan to Vegas for $120. Those days are long gone. Flights are ridiculous and now it's just cheaper to just play in the state or take the occasional trip to Ohio or Indiana.

That last sentence went in deep

I guess you could say games are declining based on the fact casinos dont have the comps and promotions they offered even a few months ago, many rooms closed or under went remodeling, many rooms arent attractive at all and if you didnt ask you wouldnt even know they offered poker, there are plenty of pros and wannabes that make the game unpleasent for recs, so you see some of the bigger fish around spending their money on other things than poker, often at a 1-2 table youll see 1 dum guy sit down and it becomes a mad scramble to get his money where basically the whole table is playing against one person and without the hand of Zues they have no chance not even short term, so how could this possibly be fun for this player

With all the major rooms having their 2/5 max buy-in at 1k aside from bellagio, it would be nice if the other rooms would increase the max of their 1/2/3 games.to like $600. Wynn has that but leave the 100bb capped games as the niche to smaller less traveled rooms on the strip IMO

Lowering the cap on the 2/5 games at the W and V might help.

Pardon Wynn is 1.5k but it would be nice to have a deeper 1/2 or 1/3 available. Current 2/5 buy-ins fit all the niches. Mins could stay the same but 1/2 & 1/3 could be exponentially better if the cap were raised. Vegas is not the place where people buy-in for the Min. And don't reload till they get felted or close to it as per the case with many regional rooms and the lower stakes.

The 1/3 games at Binions and Golden Nugget have no buyin cap.

I played the GN the other night for the first time in years and holy hell, it's like playing back in 2004. Uncapped, with seriously bad players. Pretty juicy. I will be going back.

Was in Vegas in November and August. I couldn't believe how bad the games were and how few tables were running during the day. Winstar in Oklahoma runs more tables than most Vegas rooms. During the week it was late afternoon before Venetian could even get a 2/5 game going and then I had to witness a wannabe pro try and angle shoot a few times. 5/10 was pretty much non existent except for one table at Bellagio, Aria, and Wynn. It picked up on the weekend, but nothing like it was 3-4 years ago. Poker won't even be on the agenda on my next Vegas trip, it will be strictly partying. If I want to play live I'll play 2/5 at the local Indian casino or drive to Winstar for bigger games on the weekend.

Was referring to strip properties only.

OK, but it's not really that far away.