So we have 1 vote for $50-$70 and 1 vote for $100. Anyone else?

I'd vote 30-50 based on the choices, but I'd pick 20-40 if that was available.Online players are a lot better, but win rates are also higher 6 max than 9 max and rake+tips is a low lower online . 100 hands takes about 3 hours live and nobody is destroying online games for 3 dollars a hand in 5/10 nlor close to it.I have trouble believing a good player can do that at a ****ty 9 max game live.

i've seen 15kish stacks a few times.less than 10 for sure. maybe even less than 5.Never did it myself.

i had one night where i got up to 10k back down to about 2k, back up to 8-9 and left with 4 or 5. but that game was utterly insane with 3 guys stuck b/w 5-10k.there was also one crazy canadian guy who saw close to 100% of the flops for any amount of money and when he wanted to raise always tried to make it "100 on top" didnt matter if the bet was 50 or 2000. good times. in the ****ty games today people's stacks barely move save for the every 3 hours cooler hand or set vs oesf all in.

I did drop 9k once in one of the greatest games I ever played in at 5/10nl at bellagio. Some horror show bought in for 800, got all in on a jack high flop with kj vs kk. thought he lost , but he made some one card flush and he then just obliterated the hole table and when i left (due to having literally 0 dollars left on me) he had almost 20k.

Btw i think all of the really big stacks I've seen except 1 were at least 3-4 years ago which makes sense bc there was a lot more crazy play back then.

Another issue that needs addressed is that 5/10 is a transition level, an important transition level!

Some 5/10 games are capped, some are not. All games under 5/10 are capped, and all games above 5/10 are un-capped.

Its common and typical to see a wide range of players in a 5/10 game. Some of these player are well-seasoned high-stakes players who are grossly over-rolled for this level but choose to sit in these small games sometimes for a variety of different reasons.
On the other end of the scale, you have very talented & very un-talented fishy low stakes players, coming up from capped games trying to move up.

This makes for an interesting line up. Of course during the series my generalities are off, but other times of year I think my observations are correct.

Often times the skill and talent level in these everyday 5/10 games are comparably. However experience level and bankroll influences have major factor's in the overall jive of the game and clearly seperates long term winners, losers, and break-even players.

In the game described I'd vote C; 30-50 $/hr...are we really debating that crappy games produce lower winrates?

I think what the argument is about is whether the best few regs in the room can beat the 5/10 for $100/hr over a large sample. It should be obvious that is possible even without huge amounts of game selection because practically no one is playing exclusively in a 5/10 game that is as bad as the poll is describing for 100% of their play hours. If a game is really that bad then playing 2/5 is a much better option.

Your pro advice is that you can make 10 buyins? That means you can also lose 9. Doesn't sound like pro advice at all. $50/hour would be ambitious in many of the dead 5-10 games.

Though we all agree those players are the bane of poker players everywhere they aren't the main reason games are getting worse. They just increase the pace in which they do.

Games are getting worse regardless. Industries based on others stupidity generally don't last long. No one made billions off the magnetic healing bracelet. Players generally gradually achieve a basic level of competence comparable to when we started playing in our first week.

Which site dough? and in what year?

My guess is that the good regs capable of beating 5/10nl for over $100/hr over the long term would be extremely unlikely to log a whole 2000 hours of exclusive 5/10nl in a given year, at least in a city where bigger games also run regularly. Especially unlikely is doing this year after year for 2000/hours a year and never playing bigger.

It sounds like we have similar histories. I have logged 3300 Bellagio 5/10 hours in the last 3.5 years (about 2/3 of my total hours). My last 1500 hours are better than yours, but my last 500 have been breakeven (with a 16k downswing), bringing my average down to 54/hour.

It does seem like there has been a pretty big change for the worse in the last six months or so. It has always been the case that sometimes the game gets reg infested/nitty/etc, but usually there are also periods where the games are insanely good, built around 1-2 absolute whale tourists. The last time I felt I was in a game I couldn't quit was in early January.

The bottom line is that if you're a mid-level 5/10 grinder (like me) who was worth $50-70 per hour in the average Bellagio 5/10 game over the past few years, I think life is going to start getting pretty rough. The games are not going to get easier...If you were worth 50/hr in the average game over that span, you probably really are only worth 15-20 per hour in these games where there are no true fish. Someone is probably worth 50+ in that lineup, but it isn't you (or me). When the game is 7 guys trying to play for a living and 2 rec players who aren't that bad, you're not going to post great numbers as the 3rd-5th best player in the game. 2+ of the guys trying to play for a living might be breakeven or worse in a lineup like that, though the insanely low rake does help. It really does boil down to getting better or find something else to do with your life. "Get better" sounds great, but it isn't possible for everyone. Certainly I know I have a ton of leaks, but if they were easy to patch I'd have done so by now.

In the short term you're probably going to have to "pick your paycut." You can move down to 2/5 or keep playing 5/10 and probably continue to struggle. Don't expect to make 50+ per hour at 2/5, but you might make the same or more than you will in a ****box 5/10 with a ton less variance. You can still play 5/10 when the game is good. I'd be looking for both exit strategies and aggressively work on your game in the meantime. I fear the party is coming to an end. The true crushers are going to thrive for a while longer, but the marginal pros are going to continue getting weeded out for the foreseeable future imo.

FWIW, as others have said, this could also be attributed to variance. If your hourly standard deviation is around 700 like mine is, that would mean your 95% confidence interval over a 1600 hour span would be right around +/- 35 of your true winrate. Which would mean you would have about a 2.5% chance of making 15/hr or less over that sample size. Probably your poor result is some combination of runbad and games getting worse. The optimistic view is that it was all runbad and/or the games are going to improve, but the flip side of that coin is that you might have been on a heater when you were making 50+ over a 3k hour sample. Stay realistic, don't be ashamed to move down, and seek non-poker opportunities. GL.

Oh I agree with you but poker players can't control external factors like the economy or players being less bad than years ago. They can control how they act at the table and how fun they make the games so why speed up the process by being miserable and boring to be around?

On top of that if people like you , you'll sometimes get invited to great home games that are often rake free. And, especially at higher levels, players who can afford to dump thousands at a time in poker and have their own businesses tend to be pretty interesting people.Talking to them and being friendly won't kill you.

As for the bolded- generally you're right, but poker rooms are in casinos and casinos have long thrived off of people's stupidity.

yea that was kind of my point. finding 2000 good hours at 5/10 nl (especially if you don't travel for it) is a lot harder than finding 1000.

Yes I agree. That's why I only play once a week at my local casino now. As a self defined casual player the headphone wearing grinders ruin the atmosphere.
Have the courtesy to wear an earbud on one ear in case someone wants to talk to you.

Our big game is different in that everyone knows each other and is socialable. If someone puts their money in mistakenly for a call when its been raised we always let them take it back contrary to house rules.

I would say impossible outside of home games in the long run. There are thousands of formerly large stakes players that would be itching to descend on such a game.

BTW, is anyone willing to share live PLO win rates? I play primarily NL and it's hard to get much of a plo sample size so I'm constantly trying to decide which to play.

Sadly.. yes.

Thank you

Headshot. What's happened to this game will eventually happen to $2/$5 as well and $1/$3 will serve as the analogue of micros online. The one and only "fun" level will be the lowest level possible.

As someone said, industries based on people's stupidity don't last. There's lots of garbage here but once in a blue moon someone will say something very true and deep like this. And it's not the same as casinos. People who gamble in the pit know they're dogs. They gamble to experience that dopamine rush of gambling and casinos provide and will continue to provide that service.

With poker, it's different. There's been a shift in people playing poker. The majority of people (let's say above $1/$3) now play to WIN - not to gamble or have fun or even socialize! Once they start playing to win you can only capitalize on their stupidity but with education their stupidity is decreasing every year and so are our winrates.

Majorlazer and jblinder speak the truth.

Just got back from a 4-day stint at the Bellagio and put in a bunch of hours at 2/5 and 5/10.

The 5/10 games were very good. Every night there were 4-5 games going and a list 7-8 deep with spots at every table. I can say that the east coast 5/10 games are 20/30% tougher if you had to quantify it. You don't get half as many loose gambler types as you do at Bellagio. In just about every game there were 1-2, basically novice hold em players, sitting on 1k. I noted a handful a very good players, but not enough to make your life difficult. It was pretty easy to see that most of the grinders were fixated on the weaker players as opposed to other tight grinders or experienced players.

OP, did you ever break down your stats day by day. I wouldn't be surprised if your weekend rate was were you made most of your money. Its not plausible to play 20-30 hours over the weekends and only be a marginal winner.

Honestly, the 2/5 games were supremely good. The east coast 2/5 and Bellagio 2/5 are not comparable. The loose money flooded to the 2/5 games over the weekend and the solid/good players were almost non-existent. All the grinders played very passively and routinely doubled up and left. I can see an experienced player making $40-$50/hr there with not much variance.

Even hanging w/ the gf playing 1/3 was notably profitable. She being an intermediate player crushed the game the good fundamentals and aggressiveness. For me and any other experienced player the game was a playground, I can say with confidence that $20/hr there is certainly realistic.

Overall the room was very beatable and any experienced/quality player can make some serious money playing in the best 2/5 and 5/10 games at Bellagio, especially when they get there 10/20 game going.

Good luck OP, hope you run better and crunch your stats to figure out whens the best time to play.

OP/majorlaz3r's whole purpose of making this thread is not to try and get better by taking people's suggestions of moving down, improving his game, or seeking out other cardrooms. His whole purpose is to peddle his $14/hour winrate at 5/10 and look for people to say "Yes you're doing OK, even the biggest winners can't make more than $50, don't worry you're a good player and you're doing nothing wrong at all making $14/hour.." If you try to tell him how to improve or maybe he should drop down he's going to be real offended and troll his thread to attack you.

Isn't it funny that OP in this entire thread has not ASKED ANYONE about what they do to achieve a higher winrate?

OK then OP you surely know a lot more at conquering Bellagio 5/10 than any of us because your $14/hour is filled with fantastic play and just plain runbad. You also should never go to another casino. Don't need to work on your game or drop down either. I'm sorry I truly don't know what I'm talking about, and many of us who have a lot more experience playing different and higher stakes are just on incredible heaters but we really actually suck.

OP you rock man.. thank you for your incredible insight into crushing Bellagio 5/10 where $14/hour is the ceiling and anyone that makes north of $50/hour is just luckboxin' or makin' **** up, even if I have seen a friend's recording of 300 sessions at Bellagio where his winrate is $100, and he didn't make it up. He then moved to 10/20 and won then stopped playing at Bellagio. But he made everything up according to you

663366 obv OP's goal was to convince the masses of grinders that poker is now unbeatable (especially at 5/10 bellagio b/c $14/hr is crushing) so please go away and dont try to take away my minimum wage poker-job

There are a lot of words in this thread.

OP, move to Fl (Id choose Tampa). Become a waiter. Play poker on the side. Hourly will be $40-$60 at 2/5 if you have any clue. You will clear 6 figures with this method and you will be happy.

You're welcome.

Avaritia's spoiler is 100% correct.

/thread

I think the problem is that the small winners in the playerpool just pick their hottest month and use the hourly from that. Every other month is just running bad ldo

Yup they selectively track their winnings. Get crushed one night oops forgot to record it.

Break even for 200 hours- no need to track that.

Run hotter than the sun for 6 months "oh look I make 118 dollars an hour playing poker"