Seriously, i'm not trying to be insulting but Rekrul is just plain ignorant. limon is much more in touch with reality than Rekrul or Daut. And although Nick Rivers has some decent points about game selection, there aren't typically games going in Vegas above 10/20 on a consistent, regular basis. (at least not in the casinos).

The problem with most of the responses in these posts is that EGO is such a huge part of most winning poker players attitude. Everyone who has been successful thinks that they are the ***** and they use their tourney or online success to make generalizations about live poker which don't apply.

The question posed wasn't how much can you beat 10/20 for during the WSOP or hot tourney times or even when you're running good for a year. It was how much can realistically be expected to be earned over the course of an entire year (assuming reg 40 hours a week or whatever playing). And since only one year is a crappy sample size to begin with, limon pointed out using 5 years. And I'd imagine almost none of the posters replying to this thread have played 10/20 NL live as a pro for 5 years so they really can't refute limon's original point.

There are prob almost no players who could beat the game for 200+ an hour playing 2000 hours a year for 3-5 years. Viffer maybe, but im sure he would never play that much 10/20 anyways, so its a moot point. Skinny Jimmy may have made $200/hour one year, but that's not his regular win rate.

we arent saying its easy to do, we know its not. i dont think an average 2ptbb winning 1/2nl full ring player on stars would make that much. but this is hsnl on 2p2, we arent talking about those guys.

we are saying that really good online regs can do it no problem. and there are tons of mitigating factors. waitlists, tipping, hotel bills, gas money, etc, etc etc...

obv almost all the live players arent doing it, THEY ARENT AS GOOD AS WE ARE. most of those guys couldnt beat 2/4 online. its not that its "oh 200 an hour at 10/20 live thats a joke", its more that there are plenty of guys who can do it from online, they just choose not to because of all the mitigating factors and cause of the fact that they enjoy playing online more OR theyd be beating the games pretty bad and would move up. it takes a rare kind of person who will grind those 10/20 games for an extended period of time that prefers them more than online and doesnt want to move up AND is very good.

how much is shane making in those games?

ur killin my fantasy bra

i cant beat 2-4 online, no chance in any online gmes any more what waste of life i am!!!!

seriously i tried playing 25-50 to 2-4 online over the last few weeks games are either tough or really tight..

for you? judging by your account name, prob something like -$300/hr

+1

This is a masterpiece. Especially paragraphs 4+5.

Not past results, future results correct. Bet could not be so much that it would be worth a 3/6 online grinder to play, or 100/200 live players (u get the idea) but if u have 5 guys that we could accurately track from feb 1 2009 to feb 1 2010 that would play 35 hrs/wk for 12mos ( i think i said 12 mos? myabe 6?) and all average 300/hr we could certainly put together a bet. Tracking would be a serious obstacle and i cant imagine how itd be done now that i think about it, but something could be done im sure.

before i waste any time, first it was 200 a hour and second what is the most you would bet ?

There's a lot of pure BS in this thread.

If you can make that much per hour playing midstakes NLHE live consistently session after session then you're not just a top pro but you are running like God, downswings don't exist in your vocabulary, and you should already be playing $100/200.

For someone that plays 5 days a week over 12 months, $100/hr is very very very good close to one of the best at 10/20. Anyone else saying otherwise or that you just cant play... doesnt know what they're talking about.

How is it that I keep finding bigger games? How is it I keep seeing a lot of the same grinders in these bigger games? There's a "tourney in town" somewhere most of the time. You would know this if you occasionally played outside of Las Vegas. Most of the time there is a bigger game than 10/20 NLHE being spread somewhere, and that's where the players who are too good to waste their time in 10/20 will be found.

Pretty sure viffer and Skinny Jimmy are better than you or anyone you've mentioned in this thread. You seem to value record-keeping over playing skill for some strange reason. If I were to sit at a 10/20 NL game in Las Vegas, I would be displeased to have Jimmy on my left and I would feel like it was an outright bad beat to have viffer on my left, because WTF is viffer even doing in a 10/20 game in the first place, and why did I have to get seated to his right?

What kind of argument is this? You're comparing working stiffs to poker players, which is invalid on so many levels. First, a poker player actually has to maintain and build a bankroll. He can't go blow $80,000 after a $300,000 year on a Mercedes because he needs that $80,000 in order to keep moving up in stakes, in order to keep making more money. It takes a while to build a bankroll up to the point that you can always be ready to take on the great games when they happen to be spread. Even a 10/20 NL grinder should be substantially over-rolled for the standard 10/20 game, because there's always the possibility some random donk will sit down with $50,000 and play horribly. There's also the possibility that a 50/100 game will get spread and attract players who are unimaginably bad, so the EV-maximizing grinder has to be interested in constantly building his bankroll, to be ready for this situations. A surgeon or lawyer doesn't have this enormous expense looming over his head, and so he can spend his money in a multitude of ways not open to the prudent poker professional. A bankroll is, in fact, the biggest expense that a professional player has; it is money he can't spend, because it determines his ability to make more money in the future.

Also, considering the amount of debt the average so-called wealthy person is in, you're really fooling yourself if you think these people have their houses, cars, country club memberships, yachts, and so on paid for. It's not paid for; it's all in the form of loan, liens, mortgages, credit cards, and even more mortgages. Poker professionals are, by their very nature, outside the mainstream in many ways, one of those ways being the spending habits of the American professional class. It would be more accurate to compare the lifestyles of winning high-stakes veterans with decades, not just years, of experience to their counterparts in the working world with decades of experience. At that point, the poker players no longer have to worry about building their bankrolls (and haven't for a while), because they are over-rolled for virtually any circumstance that is likely to emerge (Andy Beal notwithstanding), and so they have been able to invest their money in other things, such as houses, nice cars, country club memberships, and whatever else.

So... all of the people playing in the bigger games are inevitably and invariably going to go busto? Even the guys who have run up multi-million dollar bankrolls and who consistently beat the likes of 25/50, 50/100, and 100/200 for strong win rates? It may seem unfathomable to some, but there really are people out there who don't play 10/20 anymore because they get enough action at bigger game and do well enough in them that 10/20 is a colossal waste of their time.

Maybe they were visiting their families for the holidays? Beats me. All I know is that, generally speaking, there are games larger than 10/20 available, either in Vegas, LA (be it the Commerce or home games), or in some locale hosting a major tournament. Sometimes those games may take the form of PLO instead of NLHE (or a mix of the two), but for the EV-maximizing professional, this is not a problem.

Another guy who seems to think Las Vegas is the only place where poker is played.

Actually, the question posed was "what's a good win rate playing live 10/20 NL." Check the title of the thread. In my opinion, a "good win rate" is somewhere around $200/hour, counting only those hours spent at the table. Counting all time and expenses related to poker, it's obviously going to be lower, the number I gave being about $150/hour. Anyone who can do substantially better than that is probably better off seeking out bigger games and/or playing online. Someone who has played 10/20 NL live for 5 years is probably good at poker, but not as good as someone who plays 10/20 NL live for a year, crushes it, moves up to predominately 25/50 NL for a year, crushes it, and keeps moving up and crushing year after year and, as such, someone who has actually played 10/20 NL for five years straight probably isn't strong enough to beat the game for the maximum it can be beaten. A five year veteran of a live 10/20 NL game will also see many people come and go. He will see many people run hot and then bust out. He will see people play 10/20 for a few months only to be down at 1/2 within a year. He will see dozens of people fail for every person who successfully makes the transition to higher stakes games. Such a person would, in my opinion, tend to lowball what a good win rate is, because he will be jaded by his own performance and by witnessing so many would-be pros come and go.

Are you suggesting his win rate is, perhaps, even higher? Or are you implying you have inside knowledge that leads you to believe his win rate since moving up to 10/20 is lower? I would be surprised if it were. He may have run hot for a year, but he is also significantly more skilled than most of his competition, even his fellow winning regulars.

You misunderstand me. I'm not at all saying that Vegas is the only place to play. Not by any means. I was simply responding to your needling of Delecto when he said that 10/20 was the highest consistently available game in Vegas and you suggested he was mistaken. I'm simply supporting his position that 10/20 is in fact the highest regular game you can find on a consistent basis in Vegas (in a casino). And if your Vegas experience has been different, then you have been lucky or visiting during peak times.

You have some good points here, and you are right about the original question. But I think its safe to rephrase the original question to "What's a good realistic win rate." After all, the original point of this thread was for the OP to find out what he might be able to expect as a good win rate. I don't think 200/hour over a 3-5 year period is realistic, but obv we're free to disagree.

No, I'm not suggesting its higher. Playing 40 hours a week, a win rate of 200/hour would make $416,000 in a year. I'm saying yes, he MAY have come close to this during his hottest year. Yes, I am implying something, but I won't go into specifics. No doubt Jimmy is a great player and one of the best regulars in the game.

No, read my post, i said $300/hr. Before continuing w this do u concede there arent 5 guys making $300/hr at 10/20 over a large sample.

I agree there are a few making $200/hr.

It's not luck. I happen schedule my Las Vegas live play around events I suspect will draw good high stakes crowds. I have no ambition of playing live poker in Las Vegas 24/7. To me, that seems suboptimal, but it's precisely the kind of attitude that has led people in this thread to think the things they do.

I don't think it's realistic to assume someone who has netted $200/hour or more at 10/20 for about 2 years will still be playing much 10/20 at the 3-5 year mark. That's why I would say the number of people who have done such is very small, not because it's impossible to do.

No, I'm not suggesting its higher. Playing 40 hours a week, a win rate of 200/hour would make $416,000 in a year. I'm saying yes, he MAY have come close to this during his hottest year. Yes, I am implying something, but I won't go into specifics. No doubt Jimmy is a great player and one of the best regulars in the game.[/QUOTE]

I guess time will tell on this one, if he sticks to playing 10/20 for a few more years, that is.

this is no doubt possible. in fact i beleive at least 20% of the time (not during the lapc) the best game for a solid, accomplished, live player is NOT in the 10-20 but actually in the 5-10.

on of my former students who i staked for a while and who has been "indy" for the last year made a surprising amount of money in the commerce and HP 5-10's. 8bb/hr over a ton of hours.

during the lapc the 10-20 is better because all of the tourney and internet only guys show up and get their asses handed to them lamenting that donkeys call their 3 barrel bluffs. lol. well...if you knew he was a donkey than why did you...oh never mind.

cmon man youre better than this

now you've really lost all credibility

I have no idea what you mean. Your comparison between poker players and working professionals was completely crushed by the bankroll factor and this is all you've got?

I told you I don't know why the games were slow at the Commerce in December. They're not slow now though, are they? If there's no 20/40 spread regularly for a portion of one month out of the year but it goes for most of the rest of the year, then what's your point? As a live player, I would be looking to play in Las Vegas between Xmas and NYE anyway, because NYE always attracts a giant hoard of gamblers to LV. If I weren't visiting family, that is. I would probably also favor Las Vegas over Los Angeles in the weeks leading up to Xmas as well, because of the Five Diamond Classic. These things could very well be related to why you didn't observe a 20/40 game going at the Commerce on a regular basis in December.

I think it's odd that you would suggest that I've lost all credibility when, in fact, you went off on an irrelevant tangent about how members of the American working class have expensive cars and country club memberships and stated that people who progress above 10/20 end up on the rail. Yeah, a lot of them do, but some don't. The good players with good BR management skills do not. You know, the people who don't blow 25% of their bankroll on new cars.

If you don't agree with the statements I made in my prior post (or this one), then I challenge you to actually make an argument that refutes my points, rather than make baseless ad hominem attacks at me or my credibility. I don't need to make any personal attacks at you, because I'm pretty sure your character traits have nothing to do with what we're talking about, and, unlike a lot of posters in this thread, I can make a point and defend it without resorting to insults or slander.

dude i was sorta joking...i guess i need to use more emoticons

everyone here knows that 22 year olds who just cleared 300k would never buy a mercedes because of bankroll concerns

Delecto is a MUCH better player than Jimmy, imo.

There are players who can beat 10/20 for $200/hour or more. But these players do not play 10/20, at least not regularly. No one is arguing that CTS or Viffer or durrr could not make more than $200/hour.

But for your every-day solid poker player who wants to make a living playing 10/20 and doesn't necessarily think he's good enough to play higher, $100/hour would be a good winrate to aim for. And truth be told, there are plenty of Vegas professionals who make a lot less than that.

If you rounded up every Vegas professional who plays 10/20 as their main game, I would wager that their combined winrate is less than $100/hour.

playing online where they make 300/hr playing 5/10

who is delecto?

i think id prop bet that jimmy or tom cant average 200 a hour. playing belagio 10-20 for 30 hours a week for 6 months. 2 years ago i think i was gonna bet that a few players couldnt make 100k playing 10-20 live. now the games have gotten tougher.

if you can average 100 a hour playing live at belagio or comerce over a year time i think you doing good. during belagio tourny time where there re 4+ games going then of course expectation is more but right now there might be only one game going at belagio.

side note id be willing to prop bet over a 200 hour period id play 10-20 and reach over certain hourly rate if anyone interested.

Viffer - would you ever make a non-poker related prop bet? (please forgive my ignorance if you do this all the time).

sure i love to gamble, i just had a weight loss bet, i had a bet on if i could swim 1 mile never got that one concluded, i have made many bets that my poker buddy was bigger then theres ( im undefeated ).. what do you have in mind!!!!!

gid i cant wait to get back to west coast

I'm sure you know who I am.

Just to clarify your memory: Last month at the Bellatio 25-50 at something like 7 am you came in to donk it up as I was about to leave. You offered $200for me to stay and play for another hour to keep the game goin, I thought about it for a bit as I was racking my chips and accepted. Half-way into the hour you made a complete ass out of yourself with some totally inapropriate insults that you directed at me (the details are so bad that I will spare the readers here). At this point I got up and threw you back two black chips and left. Mikech was there that night and he can vouche for this.

It's sad really, I always thought you were an alright guy. That night showed me instead that you are just another classless egotistical degenerate.