Simple question. Is the average 2/4 or 3/6 LHE game at your average card room/casino even beatable, or is the rake too high? I've had some good sessions in the past, but I don't play live often and I don't know what kind of win rate is sustainable.

Very very beatable. Watch 5 minutes of preflop is enough for me to realize how bad these players are. There are still slot machines. just today I checked from the BB with K7 suited and stacked someone who made a set even though the flush was on the turn and I ended up 3-betting him on the turn. Gee, its a limped pot with a flush on the board what do you think I have? I was only concerned about ace high flush which is possible, but considering how loose some of these players were raising, seems unlikely.

Try to do that online: fuhgetaboudit.

No, it is not beatable.
The first limit game that is beatable is 8-16 omaha hi lo.
The first hold em limit game that is beatable is 10-20, 15-30 or 20-40 depending on the lineup.

Op is about LIMIT HE. Your stacking comment implies you were playing NLHE. Thus your experience is not applicable.

To OP. I never played 2-4LHE and it has been a long time since I have seen 3-6 played here. But the smallest LHE here is 4-8 with 1&2 blinds. Even with 10% rake to 5$ plu $2 to BBJP, the game is beatable. But it is not beatable to make a reasonable living. You van beat the rake just don't count on living off it. I don't play in that game but I do know some folks who are positive ev over time doing so.

This question comes up in SSLHE and while it has an answer, the first thing to always make sure is that you could beat 2/4 LHE with $0 rake before you start asking if you could beat it with $7 rake.

As for the direct answer to the question, several people in SSLHE have beat 2/4 and 3/6 LHE for significant samples. But most people who can do it have also moved up pretty quick.

O8 is very beatable at 4/8, maybe even 3/6 (though I've never played/seen one). A competent player just has such an edge over a table full of people who aren't well-versed in hand selection at O8.

I don't think 3/6 LHE is beatable, maybe for $1 an hour. I'm sure $4/8 is beatable for a paltry sum, and $5/$10 you could probably make it worth your while against a bad table.

Depends on rake and game quality, but most likely, no, not beatable. I've heard of some places that have ran these games with $2 rake, and those were probably beatable. Most are probably 10%, $5+1 and I don't think that's beatable today. Maybe in 2004, but not today.

Someone playing these games should also ask why they are playing poker. Is it to have fun? Win lots of money? Just not lose money? If it's to have fun, then you can treat it like slot machines: paying for entertainment. If you want to win a lot of money, it's not going to happen. Even the people that think it's beatable admit that it would be for less than minimum wage. If you just don't want to lose money, then I would go back to the rake and game quality.

If you can afford it, I would recommend moving up to minimize the impact of the rake. The opponents really aren't any tougher, in fact they may be easier to beat. The problem with this is there are a ton of card rooms that spread 2/4 and/or 3/6 LHE, but nothing bigger.

Okay, maybe I should just play higher next time I'm at a casino then. I wouldn't say I'm a great player, but I used to basically print money in the 4.4/180 man NLHE SNGs on Stars pre-BF and had run $200 into like $2-3k with some final tables in bigger fields and a 4 figure WCOOP cash. This my OPR and Sharkscope from back in the day. I probably have the fundamentals and game knowledge needed to beat bad players at something like 5/10, but I've always been a massive bankroll nit and was also broke af from like 2006-2015, so I never felt comfortable taking shots.

Yes especially if you chase after promos but an elite lhe player would definitely beat the rake either way.

What exactly do you think your NLHE SNG or MTT (!) online experience has to do with OP asking about a 2/4 limit cash game? In all honesty, that's exactly as relevant as your hot dog eating skills.

I've never played 2/4 LHE, but everytime a knowledgeable player talks about it, I get the feeling it's at least not beatable for a significant amount of money. I don't think it really matters if the best you can do is $1/hour or -$1/hour. Unless we are talking about bragging rights. But other than that, leaving the casino with $10 more or less than you came in with, isn't that different. So best case scenario is basically getting free entertainment.

You quoted the OP.

@OP: 6/12 might be beatable if it has reasonable action. At my local card room, 8/16 is the lowest game worth playing.

In Vegas it's beatable because you get comped for time played. If you can play enough hours to increase your player's card status, that's further benefit. Nobody is getting rich from it but it's possible to be money ahead even at 2/4. You might have to get stingy wrt tips on small pots. You can beat the rake of 10% by winning just slightly more than your share of pots at a 9 handed table. I don't count the jackpot drop since that money is returned to the players over the long haul.

Lol, stupid me. But the point stays the same, there's absolutely no comparison between online NLHE MTTs and live LHE. Besides the rules, those are two totally different games. A PLO cash game might be closer to LHE cash games than a MTT.

Beatable, but usually not beatable for much more than minimum wage. I used to be able to beat live 3/6 for $6-8 per hour. I've moved beyond those games, but I still sit in them sometimes while waiting for a bigger game and chat with players I used to play against every weekend. I can't beat it for as much anymore because the player pool is smaller and tighter, but I shouldn't expect to lose money in the long run playing a few hours here and there in that game, so it is certainly a better use of my time than blackjack from an EV perspective.

My theory is that the game is beatable when there is significant betting above the cap for a max rake. If you are playing somewhere where they take 10% up to $5, then the rake is maxed out when the pot reaches $41 (depending on how they rake it). I think a 3/6 game with a $5 rake should definitely be beatable if the average pot is over $100. I don't know how far the break-even line is below that. Think about what sort of game conditions are required to get an average pot of over $100 and you'll know what games to look for, but you generally want games where hands are usually multiway on the river even if there are bets going in on the flop and turn.

If beatable means a profit of $0.01/hr or greater then yes it is. I played about 150 hours of 4/8 a few years ago and made about $5 an hour. Small sample size and all that but generally the players are so bad that if you just only play good cards and ABC poker you can eek out a profit. But to see how oppressive the rake is, just watch other people's stacks over a long session. Rake eats up about 1 player's stack per hour in a typical low limit game.

for omaha8 i played 100+ hours of 4/8 HK where i was by far the best player in the game during a promo... I made abtou 2$ an hour in the game 1$ an h our comps and about 6$ an hour from promo. (the rake was 3+2) I play as high as 10/20 sh flo8 online and 1/2plo8 online. and am a winning platyer over probably 1M hands. low stakes omaha not really beatable, IMO....

Each dollar in rake takes about $3/hr off your winrate. (Hands per hour divided by number of players, to be precise.)

If you think a 3/6 game is beatable for +1 BB/hr at $4/hand rake, then the same game is beatable for +0.5 BB/hr at $5/hand rake and breakeven at $6/hand rake.

Rakes have gone up since those people did that, no?

Maybe. I neither know what rakes used to be nor what rakes are now, but that's why I outlined how to compare winrates across different rakes. Gobbledygeek's "a hot dog an hour" winrate at 2/4 probably falls under the $3/hr threshold, I can't remember how muc a hot dog cost. My 3/6 winrate was significantly above that threshold but nearly half the sample was 2002-2009 when play was very different.

You can even extend the analysis to comparison across stakes. If you believe that a 6/12 LHE can be beaten for +1 BB/hr with a $6 rake, you can calculate a pre-rake winrate of +2.5 BB/hr. At a 3/6 game where people make the exact same mistakes (that is, they play as good as the 6/12 pool), you'd make the same +2.5 BB/hr but lose -3 BB/hr to rake, for a net winrate of -0.5 BB/hr. If the 3/6 players play a little worse (which they do), 3/6 is marginally beatable. In general, it's unreasonable to believe both that level X is totally beatable and level X/2 is totally unbeatable. If X is solidly beatable, X/2 is probably slightly beatable.

I disagree. I play mostly $6/$12 O8 and $6/$12 LHE, and I have been beating those games for a dozen years or more. My win rate is usually slightly less than 1BB/hour, but I haven't had a losing year since I started studying those games seriously.

If I'm waiting for a $6/$12 seat and the board offers me a seat in a $3/$6 game, I usually decline (unless I'm really bored). I don't think $3/$6 LHE (or $3/$6 Stud, for that matter) is beatable in the long run—and every prop I've ever asked agrees with me (they are sometimes forced to play in those games).

I used to be on the fence about $4/$8 O8. I felt my win rate in it was only about $1/hour, so if I had a choice between playing that game for an hour while waiting for a seat in a bigger game or reading a magazine, I might as well just read a magazine. But when I looked more closely at my records, I discovered that my win rate at those stakes was more like $5 or $6/hour over several hundred hours.

This should be obvious, but what's more important than the stakes is the average pot size—or rather, the drop as a percentage of the average pot size, but I'm assuming a standard drop of $5–$7/hand (in California, where I play).

If you can find a $4/$8 game where the players are all gambling it up and the average pot size is $100–$120, your expected win rate should be higher than in a tight, passive $6/$12 or $8/$16 game where the average pot size is only $80–$90. And what makes most $3/$6 games unbeatable is an average pot size of <$60—though this won't hold true for all lineups at all hours the game is played.

Just because a game is beatable doesn't mean someone can beat it.

Many of the props who prop smaller games bluntly aren't world class players. Some who prop higher have a tough time adjusting down when they do play the smaller games.