when i was good at LHE i never considered pf hands in a vacuum. everything i did was contingent on what i did previously and what i was going to do later. for example i would make pf raises that are -EV in a vacuum if i knew that a particular set of circumstances was likely, or wanted to establish or change an image. i might also make a point of folding a strong hand pf if i wanted to establish a nit image. in a 10/20 game with regs, i think thats important for beating it.

now that im stuck playing online or 4/8, stuff like that doesnt seem to matter anymore. the trouble with online is that subtle strat things like that dont count for anything, esp on anon sites like bovada.

i've been posting here since 2005 (had a diff name before this one). i wouldnt be a winning player w/o this forum. sometimes i do adopt kit cloudkicker's emo persona, lol.

For one, you just have to adjust your expectations. Your EV in the 4/8 game with a $7 rake is pretty low and a good session will net nowhere near what you hauled in back east. 30/60 is a bit steep for those of us on grad student income. So this is a good opportunity to get into the (quasi)no-limit game or accept 4/8 as a purely recreational/social activity.

Disagree with this as a generality, though surely it depends. 1/2nl games that have low variance also have a lot of sub-$40 pots (raise pre, c-bet flop, take it down) which is where the rake causes maximum damage.

You should read the threads where people claim to win 5 BB/hr at 6/12.

I totally agree that if you can win 5 BB/hr at 6/12, winning 1 BB/hr at 30/60 is inferior.

Harrington on Cash Games is fine, but IMR 1/2 is not hard. Most people are shortstacked, so they're pot committed when they call your preflop raise. Just stack those people repeatedly and don't tangle with the 1 other non-idiot at your table unless you've got a set.

Confirm that Jon was correct when he told me not to be scared of the 20 players.

I have some recollection of the new bear on the block named KitCloudkicker beginning to post here. I don't recall the details, just that he was bright and brash. What name did you post under before?

I can't say for certain that 4/8 is beatable, especially with the effect of the rake. I'd say at best you're looking at maybe $8/hr, probably more likely something like $4/hr and that's if you almost never tilt and play optimally all of the time.

I think it's important to note that beating a game like 4/8 live is completely different than a mid-stakes or higher stakes limit games. In the mid-2000's I played a lot of limit hold'em online and a some live. I used to play in a 6/12 game that was about as soft as any 3/6 game you could hope to find today. In my experience, 4/8 games now aren't even that good and the effect of the rake is worse. However, the principles espoused in Small Stakes Hold'em are still very useful, though I would recommend adjusting a little for game conditions.

In my limited experience since I've started getting back into poker seriously (I lived for4 years in a state where poker was virtually non-existent). You won't find an SSHE style game above 4/8 anymore. However, using the style that the book teaches should be at worst break even over a long term at that level, despite the effect of the rake. The key is that you have to be able to take advantage of the highly exploitable tendencies of the people you're playing with.

I have a 75 hour sample over the past couple of months where I'm up about 1 BB/hr playing 4/8 (lol, sample size) and the swings are kinda ridiculous. However, I can say this much about the game. I have yet to meet a single player that I think is playing a winning style in that game. There are several regulars, some of whom play kinda ok, but even the tighter players usually play their cards pretty much face up, and that makes it easy to play them (call when you have odds, fold when you don't and only call the river when you have a reasonable enough chance of winning). There are almost always a couple of donators at the table, and if there aren't just wait until a couple of people leave and likely at least one of them will be replaced with a complete fish.

My point in all of this is that 4/8 is likely only beatable as a hobby, however if that's what you play best and it IS simply a hobby, I see no reason not to play and just try to have a good time. However, you have to keep in mind how the game is played and how you win in it. I saw something earlier in the thread about raising A3s after three limpers. This is a massive leak. I saw a thread tonight where someone raised UTG+1 in a 4/8 game with 88, this is another massive leak. Seriously, check out the starting hand chart from SSHE and start there. 4/8 is still soft enough that that chart in and of itself will give you a great starting point.

And btw, the advice that says just switch to NL is great, IF you're capable of making the switch. But, that's a big IF. Playing short stack NL live requires a tremendous amount of discipline and if you're not capable of that much discipline and patience you're probably better off just trying to break even at 4/8. Sure, if you're playing strictly for money, that NL game is way better, but you still have to have the discipline and patience to play it right or it won't matter.

All told, downswings are real and they will happen. If you're only playing intermittently a downswing certainly can last for years. But, I think it's important to sit back and try to objectively evaluate your play after every session. Think about hands, what did I do well and what did I do poorly? If you can objectively feel like you played well and still lost, so be it, but odds are you'll find a few spots you think you could improve on.

Random point. If you play 10 hours a week you will never have enough data to know if you win because the game will change before you can make meaningful assumptions about your data.

Dude, get out of grad school ASAP and move somewhere that has decent poker.

It's hard to play every once and a while and expect to play as well as you did when you played every weekend (I speak from experience on this one and it sucks.)

And grad school is just about the most -EV thing ever. Do what you need to do to finish.

In a field where you are either a PhD or a lab tech, you have to choose if you want to always be 2nd class or not. In a field like mine, you probably never recover lost income and I'd agree.

As someone who doesn't want to live on either coast, moving to a good poker environment seems very limiting. If Kit had a full paying day job, the 30 game here would be possible. Being a broke grad student makes mid stakes poker out of reach, just like it would real estate investing. Moving to find beatable small stakes poker seems a huge mistake, unless other life plans put you there.

Obviously everything "depends". The framework of my argument is basically this: Your edge at NL over bad players is much larger than your edge over bad players at 10-20. This is because bad players REALLY pay for their mistakes at NL. Larger edge = lower variance. And keep in mind, my claim here is an "everything else being equal" claim, but that's not actually the case. Generally speaking, you'll find more bad players at 1-2nl than you will at 10-20!

Worthy of note: Based on my personal experience--which is admittingly unreliable due to sample size issues (Played like only 600 hours of nl last year)--my session win percentage at NL is just sick awesome compared to limit. And keep in mind, I personally don't give two ****s about a "session win percentage" stat, all I care about is my hourly/earn. I NEVER play a session to "get even". I have no problem leaving when I'm down. I only leave a table for personal reasons or if most of my edge has disappeared. I attribute a lot of the above simply due to the fact that the edges of a good player are much larger at NL than limit--and I've been doing really well at limit over the last 6 months since I started playing again.

Again, this is mostly intuitive guessing, so I could easily be wrong, but I really DO suspect that one can make an hourly earn at 1-2nl that's roughly equivalent to 10-20 limit, with a much lower variance, and if I had to make another sketchy guess, I'd say a good player can probably make more at 1-2nl than 10-20 limit. BTW, my claim is assuming we table select 1-2nl well, i.e. we always make sure there's a healthy amount of money on the table.

Fine. And the framework of my counterpoint is that the rake & toke can take a much larger % of your average pot at 1/2 than it does at 10/20.
If you can find 1/2 games with loose players in big pots, then yes slam dunk.

I wouldn't make it just about the income. The independence you're granted as a (PhD) scientist is a significant intangible bonus ovrr the corresponding BS/MS positions.

Right, this is why it's critical that we make sure there's lots of money on the 1-2 table. I.E. a lot of 100BB+ stacks or a few really deep stack fish.

And based on my experience, "1/2 games with loose players in big pots" is the norm not the exception, although I only play at night.

oh, ok, but i get to game select for blind people at 10-20.

I understand that in the sciences, it is everything in some fields. I was referring to my field, where having a PhD makes people suspect that you are both unwilling and unable to do real work. The really good engineers who are PhDs tend never to mention that they are, at least in the high tech places I've worked. Someone else may tell you, but the good ones never mention it. The bad ones always mention it, and then will quickly show up with a computer model that cannot be correlated to anything physical.

Your experince is echoed by longtime poster gobbledygeek. Here is his 1000h milestone post playing 2/4 LHE. Cliffs: he made no money. Here is his milestone post playing 1/3NL. Cliffs: he made almost $30/hour, which would be more than respectable (or unattainable) in most modern 10/20 LHE games. Note in the NL thread that he's paying $5+$1, or seriously bad rake. He's almost nearly $30/hour in a game that horrible raked over 1000 hours. When we think near 1BB/hr in LHE, we're hoping for $4 rake.

Man of Means and Munga30, this is a LHE player who switched. You have to think that at the beginning, he probably had a lot of unlearning to do. I don't think it is even close to debatable, and gobbledygeek's journey has a lot to do with it. If you have the means to play 1/2 or 1/3 NL over some 5/T or 6/12 LHE game, I don't think the decision is close. If it is 2/4 to 4/8 LHE with high rake, it isn't even a decision. Possible to win vs. not possible.

Someone might hit up surfdoc to reply here, but I don't think it is remotely close until you can get up into the mid-stakes. Until you're in a 20/40 or 30/60 LHE game, the smaller NL games are just more profitable.

I'm not at all debating the large edges available in nl. I take issue with the fantasy (ime) of playing "healthy amount of money on the table" 1/2. Im probably colored by my experiences in florida, where i havent had better options in limit games. weekend day games were regularly shortstacked but by purposeless terrible players who lost fast and were quickly replaced. foxwoods and vegas may regularly have the games Ilp and gusedtoplaylimitg are looking for, but i havent found them since im playing limit. standard disclaimer for sample size, im terrible at nl, yada yada etc.

I'm trying to put in 100 hours at the local 6/12 game ($4 rake plus I usually tip $1 per winning hand). Hoping to see a profit of 100 bets or $1200. I can't say I'm a great player but I think I generally avoid terrible mistakes and try to reflect on how I could play hands differently to steal a pot here and there.

23 hours in since Jan 1 (I work full time) and I'm up around 37 bets so far. But I've had one session where I lost $300 and two where I've won $350, so the swings have been pretty big.

We talked about this on the phone, but this definitely matches up with my personal observations as well. I've made a lot of money in 1/2 or 1/3 NL games just screwing around. I've had a decent number of >$1000 wins at those stakes, not having sat down to play serious sessions that many times. I think my biggest loss ever at 1/2 NL was about $500 (yes I've run hot).

I also was making a lot of money playing games as small as .25/.50 NL online without a huge NL background ("a lot" of money for that was ~10 tabling 6m games with no table selection for around $35-50/hr). This is with relatively small variance/bankroll needs compared to making an equivalent amount playing LHE. 10 tabling that at 5BB/100 means that I'd be making a buy in so quickly that when I did get stacked, it was no big deal at all. And at that level of play, you'd rarely have to stack off (players weren't super aggro so pots remained small unless you wanted them to be bigger).

I play LHE basically out of a love for the game. If I couldn't afford to play up to the $50/100 range, I would straight up not play it. The swings are brutal, the edges are low (relative to what you make), and the future is somewhat bleak. In some places, depending on skill set/mentality, it's still a great and profitable game. I plan on playing a decent amount of the 30/60 with 1/2 kill in CO since I'm now not far from there, and there are no good NL alternatives (wouldn't call 2/5/100 as good).

If/when I can play online again, I'm going straight for NL/PLO. Live, I'm sure I'll always have a soft spot for limit, just because players play faster and there's less stupid antics. From a straight up money perspective, I don't think that's the best choice.

I live in Vegas, where all fantasies are real.

Have read gg's epic thread and agree there is more money to be made in 1/2 vs. microstakes (2/4 - 5/10) live. I also play a lot of 1/2NL and just haven't found that kind of action much in cardrooms I visit. You'll see this sentiment of amazement echoed in gg's thread...and notice that he keeps the location of the juicy game a secret.

Either way, it's definitely worth having the NL skills in your arsenal; "it doubles your chance of finding action."

If you're playing spread limit, I've played against plenty of $500+ stacks here. I've seen 1k to 2k stacks in the Golden Nugget uncapped 1/2nl and played well over 1k effective in their plo8 (was definitely the fish). I played with surfdoc when he was playing deeper than 1k effective with the drunken lagfish at GN. Gameoverjc was in that game, too. Deep games happen.

Don't have enough experience to know how critical it is. No nl game I sit in is bad, by definition.

This thread seems to have derailed.