No one said it was out of the question. What was said was that it is unreasonable that hundreds of people post about playing 1/2, often at the same casino and even the same table as others posting, and $24 seems to be close to the MINIMUM that anyone ever claims to win.

...Yet everyone still says games are so tough and getting tougher.

Fair enough. I just see lots of posters poo poo that WR and it's not crazy at all for good players and good game selection , etc

FWIW my hourly is just a shade under $20. There. I'll help push down the average!

The people that say those remarks are trying to justify thier small winrate.

not me - the games are still good

i am not sure why i still follow this thread but for some reason i find it interesting but when it comes to win-rates - who cares!

really every day at the poker table you have a new "win-rate" you change, games change, dealing speed changes, rake changes, buy in structures change.......

i know what my WRs have been over the last 6 years in many different games but that doesn't tell me too much about tomorrows win-rate or any other readers win rate

knowing your win-rate can be useful for doing some BR calculations but beyond that it really isn't that useful

all i know for sure is if you have a win rate that is positive you are way ahead of the crowd

Noone has a small winrate on this forum though.

1/2 minimum is 20$/hr, 2/5 minimum is 40$/hr. No one wins any less and definitely no one is a losing player.

Don't think I've seen anyone post anything smaller.

My question is why on earth would someone remain at 1/2 if they beat it for that much?

10bb/hr is absolutely crushing IMO.

That would be a sensical question. If you are crushing the game at 10bb+ for $20/hr, even just kicking less butt at 5bb/hr in 2/5 would give you $25/hr.

Anyone that is kicking butt at 10bb/hr can surely beat 2/5 for at least 4bb/hr.

I've found one of your posts I 100% agree with! Same with people talking about 6 month break even stretches etc.

Lol the min is not 20/40/he. People will not post thier real winrate here, only a certain amount of people will tell the truth you have to take it with a grain of salt. Winrates are smaller than in years past but that'd I'd because the economy is crap not because games are getting tough. I'd say the average is more like 14/ 35/he

Excuse my writing errors im on a touch screen phone and it's crap.

I think often the people that do stay at lower stakes have lower risk thresholds or play poker for reasons other than pure $$.

I've stayed at lowest stakes longer than I should have because I've wanted to get to a decent number of hours before moving up to be sure the edge I thought I had was real. I only play about 250 hours a year so it's been time consuming.

I also set myself the goal at the beginning of the year of grinding to a 20 buy in 5/5 stack out of poker profit before moving up so that I could fully detach myself from the $ value of the money outside of poker. Despite having no money problems at all, the thought of risking money that I've earned which could pay off mortgages, buy stuff for my kids doesn't sit right with me.

I've got to 7.2k this year from 200 hours and have decided that the time is right to take a few shots because I don't want to wait any longer.

I have two friends who win at about the same rate as me who stay at 1/2 and 3/3 just because they think their edge is so big there that, given they play mainly for enjoyment, they'd rather play the lower stakes and spend their winnings or use it to take big tournament shots than move up. They also think that the atmosphere and conversation at the lowest stakes poker tables is better and more enjoyable than at 5/5

Lol at all the "why wouldn't people with great WRs at 1/2 move up to 2/5?"

There are many reasons possible. In my case there is no local 2/5 game that goes off with any sort of regularity. For some maybe they are constantly raiding their BR so having a stake to play 2/5 just isn't possible. Some prob don't want the perceived jump in the level of competition. Finally some just dont want to for whatever reason.

Many on these forums seem to think people move in a linear fashion up and down the scale in terms of game size. People jump around all the time. Take shots, go busto, quit playing for awhile, etc

There is no manual that says a player who beats one level MUST move up to the next level. Some people are just happy winning at a certain level and see no reason to move up. I'm not sure why we think that's a bad thing.

PolProf, obviously if the games aren't available, you can't play them, but if 1/2 is as juicy as they are in these rooms, hard to believe that there isn't a player pool for 2/5.

The obvious reason why one is expected to move up to 2/5 is simple. To actually net 10bb/hr, one would have to literally beat the game for 13bb/hr, 2.5bb rake + .5bb tip.

That's literally equivalent to beating 2/5 at 5bb/hr. It just doesn't make much logical sense to avoid 2/5 when it is really around the same skill level.

AP, agreed in any big market.

I would think the win rate for 2/5 for a decent player in Vegas, FL, AC, CT, Cali > their 1/2 win rate.

I'd love to play where you play. Our rake in Australia is generally a minimum of 10bb/hr at 1/2 and 3/3. We pay a $5 hourly table charge and then 10% rake up to $10 per hand. The casino estimates $250-300 per hour per table and we play 10 handed

Standard in US.

In your situation, it would make even more sense to play bigger.

I'm currently in a situation where I live w/my parents as a former internet mtt pro. I have pretty much one place to play nl cash. That poker room only runs 1/2nl with the occasional 2/5nl game a couple of days a month at best. We have really good dealers and auto shufflers so we get to see a very solid amount of hands/hr. It was a really good situation for 1/2nl until a few weeks ago when we got the bad beat jackpot. A majority of my stats were with buyins maxed at 300 where the rake was 10% max at $4. Now $1 gets taken if a flop is seen for the bbj. So far bbj hasn't brought in an influx of new fish so it sucks.

As of now I'm at 331.75 hrs w/a winrate of $24.57/hr. At my card room there's essentially one really good player who probably wins about as much as I do if not more, maybe 3 or 4 decent winning players who have big leaks, another 4 or 5 break even players, and then the rest are fish.

As of right now I'm grinding up to an acceptable amount so that I can move to las vegas where I can grind at higher limits.

Gotta agree with this.

So here's some numbers:

2316.8 hour sample, mostly $1/2 or $1/3, < 10 hrs $25, and a few small ball donkaments. $4.91/hr, Std Dev = $63.33

That's from July 2008 when I started playing live until now.
Includes a lot of initial learning process, and a nasty $6k downswing this year, but shouldn't be all that un-normal for a rec player with mostly weekend hours.
Before the big downswing I was at about $8/hr over just under 2000 hrs.
If I cherrypicked out a couple of 300 hour stretches I'm sure I could get $25-30/hr in one of them.

When I look room by room, there are places where I have 50-200 hours at $20/hr, or -$5/hr, or $0.23/hr. Which just re-enforces what we already know about game selection being important. I can SEE my Vegas trips on the graph as blips of higher winrates.

By no means will I claim to be crushing $1/2, I had some serious flaws in my game when I started, and I still have leaks/lost value that I'm working to get rid of. But I have a really hard time believing a $24+/hr winrate at $1/2 over a large sample, not in a generic casino outside Vegas or AC anyway. Watching some of the other regs where I play, particularly the good ones, leads me to believe that $15/hr is completely possible, and $20 would be on the high side of sustainable.

Then again, maybe my perception of this is horribly skewed by being stuck in Michigan where everyone's broke.

It's not. While a winrate that high is certainly theoretically possible.

People inflate everything on this board and it's gross.

I've played a lot on the east coast in ac and CT and just spent a long stint in Vegas.

Have seen only a handful of players I would believe have a 10bb winrate.

So many people tilt, make dumb hero calls, flat 3bets oop and c/f...

It's possible. Just no way people aren't selectively accounting their journals.

My .02

You're only tipping $1 an hour at 1/2? Seems very low. I literally only tip now $1 on pots over $20 and I'm at around $3/hr in tips or 1.5bb/hr.

I was in the middle of grinding and sort of mixed rake + tip into WR.

Anyhow, rake and tip account for roughly 3bb per hand won in 1/2, and I am not quite sure how many hands a player beating the game at 10bb+ win per hour. Assuming 2 per hour, that's 6bb taken out. So the win rate would be something around 16bb/hr before all of the deductions.

On the other hand, 2/5 player winning 2 hands per hour will only lose roughly 2.5bb.

So if you make the comparison, you really do have to absolutely destroy 1/2 to make comparable money in terms of dollar value in 2/5.

Why wouldn't tolls (on a toll road) be a deductible business expense for a professional who has to drive to a casino? Assuming there are records proving the tolls (receipts, FasTrak log, etc.), they would be deductible for a professional gambler.

Auto expenses are allowed, too, though there are very specific rules about how they are to be taken. A written (ink) mileage log is a must. You can deduct either actual expenses or take the standard mileage deduction...if you're a professional. Only your business portion of your auto expenses are deductible, of course.

Parking and tolls are separate expenses deductible no matter if you take the standard auto deduction or actual expenses.

-- Russ Fox

From 2010-2011 I think I beat poker for $1.70 an hr. You expect me to post this, or to focus more on studying and posting hh?

I think I quoted the wrong post, but you guys get it lol.