Hello. Looking for some (semi)experts to give me some insight and answer my questions!
Talking about 1/2$ NLHE
Table: (Min: 25BB, Max: 100BB) (9 players)
Transportation fee: 0$ (Public)
Time: Unlimited (For my strategy lets just assume I do not value time)
Buy-in used: 50-65$ (not decided)


tldr; strictly only visit casinos @ 2:30-7AM, buy in with 60$, only play TOP 5/6 and either SHOVE/FOLD, never calling
(AA, KK, QQ, JJ, AK)
exception: (see below for AQ, AJ TT, 99)


My strategy is to buy in with a shortstack of 60$ and punish -EV decisions from tired (or terrible/drunk) players. I only visit the Casinos from ~3-7Am. At this time, at my specific location (party city) most people are making terrible decisions and I am almost certain to get called when I shove with my top-5? against hands such as; Kt, AJ, QJ etc.. (I've been called several times by big stacks with hands like 95, wish I was joking too).

For AQ and TT: I will only shove if it the situation warrants me to do so (limpers, fishBB etc..). The same goes for weaker hands (AJ, 99.. etc) but shoving with these weaker hands is a rare occurrence and very situational.

PUSH/FOLD with TOP 5(6-7?) cannot really be explained by logic.. other than the crucial variable in my strategy; I only visit the casino between 3am-7am .

I believe (correct me please!) this strategy.. mathematically (after rake) is at best... a break even strategy however due to my extra effort (or insomnia) to only play at certain times against troubled minds, it seems to be working out for me.

I am a winning player since buying in 40 times! (Sorry I have not been counting but I can assure you that at a bare minimum I have made at least 15% profit)

Questions (IN THE LONG RUN):
1. Is this strategy profitable (think near infinite buy ins)?

2. If so,
What would you predict as my consistent hourly win rate? (I was thinking 3BB/Hour)

3. How much should I buy in with? (50-70$)

Some perks:
-No stress
-No brain power required
-No tilt factor (decisions are basically predetermined)
-Free time to study/learn (student) on mobile device when bored
-Smirking when labelled as a fish when I arrive at the table with 60$
-Smile sincerely at players who beat my KK with Qt (my favorite perk)


Thanks for your time any comment/input is greatly appreciated!

EDIT: Since my question cannot be answered with math/stats/logic, I decided it was a theoretical question and so I posted it in the Poker Theory section

People will start to pick up on it and it wont work as well as you have it described.

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Why not learn to play and maximize the profit playing with full stack?

Shortstacking can be very profitable. Back in the day people made a lot of money with it, when you were able to sit in with 10bb-20bb in online poker. What are you going to do, If you double up? Leave or not? Or change table and buy minimum again? I assume shortstacking is only profitable to certain BB depths.(If you are playing basic push-fold game, I mean)

The players at 1/2 are hard to read when you haven't played with them before. My problem with buying in full is that I overestimate situations and I assume players are rational and that they play their hands properly. This stings me when my aces Aces lose against a moron with a hand like 89 that flopped a full house after calling a 17$ raise. This is very frustrating and stressful which I do understand is a part of poker. I don't have a bankroll to move up in stakes so that just isn't an option and I don't think I can profit against the more advanced players anyway, at least for now.


I am still studying the game on the side though

The casinos I play at are busy and I recognize the regulars because they are there every single day but for some reason they just haven't noticed what I am doing (I play 2-3 a week). The regulars frequently call my shoves when their hands are weaker than top 5(6). Rotating casinos and staying quiet helps I guess

Yes I do leave when I double up. Sometimes I will wait an hour at the casino to re-buy in or even possibly consider going home/changing casino with my 50$ profit (Casino is not too far).

I just think this strategy is extremely underrated. It takes no effort and no skill to play and if done in the right setting (2AM+) it can be really effective.

I see players losing hundreds of dollars in a session while I am capable of making it to the next day with several double ups. It is also a good strategy to play if you are drinking, tired or multi-tasking because you already have your decisions made for you before the flop.

Imagine playing this strategy drunk, you are guaranteed to get a caller every time you get dealt those top 5 hands you play because they will all assume you are playing like a drunk.

I will try this tomorrow, hopefully I have the discipline to stick to the plan while I am drinking (not too drunk ofc)!

Can you clarify this for me?

Just buy in the minimum, get a courtesy double up, and play good poker afterwards. Should be worth showing up to play against drunks.

Interesting, can you please elaborate on how you've arrived to this "eccentric" strategy and how long have you been successfully applying it?

Also, which city?

Update: forgot to mention another perk. When you shove preflop with top 5 and get several callers, aggressive morons will push everyone out of the pot with scrap. This turns my KK into an extremely valuable hand that will pay off most of the time despite getting 4 callers preflop. Happened twice yesterday where I won with QQ and even AK in a 4+way pot. Both times someone shoved 100+ on the flop with low pocket pairs to scare everyone off which resulted in massive value for me. Something to consider.

It was accidently discovered when I first started playing poker for fun at casinos 4 years ago with friends.

I would use this strategy to maximize time on the table so I can hang out with friends without risking money/making decisions. I made a killing considering I had no poker skills. In fact I made more money than a particular friend who knew how to play.

Things started going downhill for me when I started to think I was good (the notorious poker curse). I started playing online and live too often and buying in full stacks. I lost a couple thousand but eventually I won a small badbeat jackpot of 6k + 1k earnings that night and I made back my money ans more. Suprisingly I did not gamble it all away but I did lose ~1000. With the rest I rented an appartment for a year.

Fast forward a year or two of playing poker maybe once or twice a month I have decided that this eccentric strategy is not only playable but profitable. However it is very time consuming relative to money made so I came up with a way to make it actually work; visit casinos late night/early morning. Its been less than a year Ive apllied it

People laugh at me, they look down on me as if I were beneath them. They look at my stack and literally laugh in my face after calling my push. If they paid attention to what I was actually doing this probably wouldnt be profitable

Suppose you're only playing those top 5 hands. You get them only 3% of the time. If you fold when you don't get these 5 hands, you're losing 1/6 BBs per hand at a full ring table. To even break even, you need to win an average of 5.4BBs per hand that you get these cards after rake, which is an absurd rate 25BBs deep.

This should not be a long-term profitable strategy, even if you play more than top 3% of hands and your opponents don't figure out what you're doing. And you should factor in the value of time into your calculations if you have to wait an hour every time you double up.

Thank you for the response and especially for giving me a detailed estimate of 5.4bbs/hr to break even with this strategy, I greatly appreciate it!

(while being very generous on the following estimates)
I would estimate on average I am a 60/40 favorite to win my shoves when I get one caller.

Assuming I win 6 out of 10 hands played and lose the other 4;
(6x50) - (4x50) 300-200=100$

If my opponents fold I steal about 3-12$ minimum of dead money (I will assume that this number stops at 12 to make simplify my mathematics analysis)

So with hands stealing dead money, producing a 0% chance of loss, occurring maybe 1 out of 10 shoves? (again just my rough estimate)?

so.. every 10 hands I play I will profit about 100 + 3-12$.. ---> 103$-112$
to make things simple, 108$ / 10 hands?

~108 divided by 10 = 10.8.. divided by 2 (big blind)
= 5.4bb/hand when up against a single opponent, after rake maybe it reduces to 4.7bb-5bb/hr?

Now what if we factor in the times big stacks intimidate each other when in a multi-way pot with me (50-150$ dead money is a possibility here in best case scenarios)

The times I steal 15+$ of preflop bets and the times I play hands like Aj 99 etc in perfect positions to steal dead money?

6bbs+ per hand seems possible, does it not?

Imagine this (seemingly) frequently occurring preflop action
UTG raises 9 --> followed by 3 callers --> I shove AA for 55$ --> Get one call
this situation gives me ~25$ of risk-free value, does it not?


Please consider that my opponents (3-7am) are sometimes calling with.. anything.. my estimated (average!!) 60/40 odds are probably something more like 65/35 or even slightly better.

I am just starting to study math (Basic algebra levell) so I would love to see where my calculations went wrong, or maybe a corrected version of my poor attempt at a mathematical analysis, any help is greatly appreciated, thanks again statoverflow!

The problem here is the assumption that you'll get a caller 90% of the time. If your opponents fold, then you make 1.5BBs. Maybe I don't play in your games, but that seems crazy high, particularly if these players have played with you before and watched you fold six orbits in a row if you're running cold.

Ok but you estimate your winrate as 3bb/hr or $6/hr ? And you only play "top 5" hands and then you just shove preflop . So you're playing about 1 out of 25 hands with no thought required and folding the rest so like 1 hand / hr ? . This is super boring for most people and you may as well get a job that pays more than $6/hr and be bored doing that instead
People go to play poker either to make decect money or be entertained by playing and you're doing neither really
If it works at 5/10 then you're on to a winner lol