Hi there, I just signed up at 2 plus 2 and i haven`t posted any threads and i have read only a few. I live in Melbourne Australia, I have been playing poker since July of 2016, I have been playing mainly online and a few times live. I work full time but poker is my true passion and i want to become a live professional because I haven`t had success online. I have read that the best players make up to 10BB per hour at 1/2 and 1/3. The rake at Crown Casino is very high, you have to pay $5 just to sit down and play, the rake is 10% and it`s capped at $15 for 1/3 and 2/5 and $20 for 1/2. The buy ins for the 1/3 game are $100-300(The game I am planning to play and I have 50 buy ins from my liferoll), also it is a turbo with 30 seconds to act and if you want extra 30 seconds you have to pay $1. I played yesterday for 6 hours and the most players are loose and passive, the game that i played didn`t have much action and most of the players limp preflop and only raise with premium hands, there were only 5-6 people who gut busted in the whole 6 hour session. I made a few mistakes and ended up losing $155. The poker room doesn`t have any promotions besides if you flop a royal flush you get around $30K.

Is a win rate of 7BB per hour possible for the 1/3 game and is it even worth playing this game with rake this high?

Not much


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I don't think it would be possible for an expert player to have more than a marginal win rate in a game like that, if it's even possible to beat it. The rake alone is astronomical. The time charges on top of that is just insulting.

Where I am, the rake is 10% and capped at $3, plus $2 for the player-supported jackpot.

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You think this is true but the reality isn't as rosy as you might think. Your best bet since the rake is absurdly high is to just work on your game at the micros online and try getting to something like 50NL where you'll probably be able to make more money than you would playing 1/3 live.

Focus on establishing that you're a winning player before worrying about beating live rake.

I play 1-2 and 2-5 with 10%/15cap rake and my guesstimation in those games is that 7BB/100 is somewhere around 6-10 dollars per hour. I'm not sure what the average living expenses in Melbourne are, but i'm guessing $10/hr is not gonna cut it.

OP said 7BB per hour, not per 100 hands. Even that winrate is only ~$3 an hour more than the minimum wage in Melbourne though so not really great.

If you go to live low stakes NL forum there is a very long winrates bankroll and finances thread. There have been multiple posters in the thread who have played in this exact game...you should prolly take a look at that thread

I am not usually a cash game player, but isn't 20+ BB/100 a bit unrealistic for any player, and all but impossible for newish player?

Live winrates can be ridiculously high but yeah, 12-15 bb/100 is probably a more achievable goal.

Online absolutely. Live games are just taking candy from a bunch of babies and if you do any kind of game selection you can get up to 40BB/100 at the smaller stakes. Actually below 20BB/100 you probably shouldn't even be playing the game below 2/5, if you're playing 25 hands per hour at 1/3 and you make 10BB/100 then that's $7,50/hour with variance that drives you mad. 20BB/100 would be $15/hour which is getting to the point where it is worth it.

Why would you have a goal of making $9-$11/hour?

I think its normal, 8-10$/hour.. in a 1/2 game..
you just start a new job and you don't expect to get payed high salary.. so for first year you're going to play more than usual, maybe 8-10 hours a day and maybe 25days a month.. sometimes you take a shot in bigger games and eventually you'll become better and start to play 2/5 games.. and your winrate will be better after you get better.. this is how it works no?
Just my opinion.. good luck..


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Anything is good if you're just trying to see if you're a winner or not, I didn't mean it was a goal to quit your job after achieving or anything.

If you play absurdly tight and the game is good you could still probably make like $20 an hour or so. When the rake is like this you need to turn most marginal spots into folds pre and also maybe look to take pots down preflop with slightly bigger sizings.

Sure it's important to establish you're a winner but with a winrate of 10BB/100 it can take a very long time in live poker. Also OP wants to play for an income and then $10/h just isn't going to cut it.

In live poker we do not speak in bb/100

We speak in bb/hr. I happen to have extensive experience in both. The bb/hr that can be won in live is truly obscene in comparison to what is achievable in on line games. The llnsnl winrates thread discusses this in great depth

I know many people who win in excess of 10bb/hr in live games. This does not mean that it is an easy thing to do by any stretch of the imagination. These guys are full time pros who have worked very very hard to get where they are - and their leaks are minimal for the stake/game they play.

I dont know if that is doable at the crown casino with its obscene rake

There`s no point in thinking about playing or playing a game that is not beatable in first place.

I know that poker is not a steady income but I was wondering if $20 per hour is achievable but with the crazy rake I don`t think that it is.

I normally play in London and I played at Crown 4/5 times this week at $2/5 only. $2/5 is a joke soft if you're somewhat decent imo. Regs are pretty terrible. I'd just play $2/5 if I were you, just be a ****ing nit and stack the fish. $1/3 is too low and you're paying the same amount of rake as $2/5 but 40% more money when you stack someone in a 200bb pot.

If this is how you do math, I dunno if you can beat 2/5 live...

$20/hr is attainable at 1/3 in general but I'm not sure with Aus rake tbh. If you can't beat 25nl online, don't quit your fulltime job and become a live 1/3 pro. Please. It's really not worth it to be a live pro until minimum 2/5, and some people will say 5/5 or 5/10.

If you just can't beat online lowstakes, you need to honestly evaluate if poker is a viable career choice for you.

this is probably beating a dead horse..

and as others have stated, you're not good enough of a player to go live pro until you beat online..

i live in texas where there are no casinos so there are underground places here with similarly high rakes. i know an aquaintance who thinks he's good enough to go pro. quit his day job and decided to play full time. after a few months, he's broke. he moved to another state because his previous job won't take him back.

if it still hasn't sinked in your head, you're not good enough to go full time pro and the place you live sucks anyway for a full time pro.

this is what you should do.. beat online then relocate

I`ve been thinking about playing 2/5 but i am not properly rolled up for that game, how many buy ins do you reckon i need for that game?

Live games are much softer than online, my plan was to work and play at the same time and if i was able to beat the game over a couple of hundred hours i would`ve quit my job and play full time.

where should you relocate to?

don't play at crown, the rake is ****ing terrible, and the shotclock is 10 seconds, not 30. Pursue poker elsewhere in the world, with their rake I was making more money than I could playing 1/3 bartending making near minimum wage without any variance. (And getting drunk/eating for free every day)

unfortunately online poker is also a no-go in Aus now yeah? Maybe take trips somewhere to play poker and see how you like it, perhaps London? Too much money made in melbourne just doing stupid jobs tbh.

I play in a similar game in Adelaide (no timecharge but 2/2, 10% rake, capped at $15, or 2/5 5% capped at $20). The games are definitely easily beatable but I couldn't begin to guess at achievable winrates (don't have nearly enough time under my belt to be able to tell). Aiming to become a live low stakes pro is a super duper bad idea, take it from someone who was a pro (online) for like 6 years. Work on finding a career you like instead and play in the evenings to supplement income.