That's what I've seen as well.

Friday night I got there at 8 pm. There were long wait lists for all games but no $10/$20 going. They did a roll call for it twice but decided they didn't have enough players to start it, so they opened a third $6/$12 game instead.

It's super beatable, and for much more than other experienced (and more skilled) posters may ever realize. (and i may be the only one to hold the opinion) I've logged 1000+ hrs with records, which roughly equates to 30-40k hands. which is lolsample size i suppose.

Most players, as they get better, move up. I'm prob one of the few that happily stay at 6-12 and think it's beatable for more than the higher limits. The skill set to hone is admittedly different imo; you can squeeze tons and tons of money in lower stakes by figuring out exploitative plays, whereas higher stakes require more gto and fine tuning how to play ranges.

The vast majority of money in small stakes to be made, imo, is a combination of:
* Making exploitative folds.
* Garnering action and maximizing profit.

Tight-aggressive, though profitable, tends to miss out on many other profitable opportunities. IMO, if you fine tune an exploitative LAG-TAG strategy, you can destroy that game.

Even with the (imo unrealistic) 3-5 BB/hr winrates you've posted about in the past, this is false.

What do you think 15/30 and 30/60 are beatable for? At 4BB/hr for 6/12, thats .8BB/hr at 30/60 and 1.5BB/hr at 15/30.

Why do you think its unrealistic for 3-5BB/hr?

I'm not sure there has ever been a game beatable for that much.

The "beginner" tables at Party Poker circa 2003 might fit that description. Low rake and terrible players first learning how to mash buttons.

Yeah, I should have specified live games - the speed of online games makes a high rate per hour much more feasible. I remember cutting my teeth on those games, they were amazing.

3-5 BB/hr

ChocolateMoo, if you have records on those 1000+ hours, you should be able to determine your win rate and variance.

IMHO, the Oaks 6-12 is at least marginally beatable for a decent player, because there are plenty of terrible ones in the game. As it happens, I've gotten my ass kicked the last few times I've played it, so I am concentrating my efforts on the 2-3-5 NL game.

I was asking sincerely.

I agree to some extent that other posters mentioned games 10 years ago are even juicier, but tbh, there are still games like that now. I sat in on a game thurs night where two players to my right had 70vpips. One of them bets flop 100% when checked to (!!!) We're talking T4o on 963 boards multiway as a pf limper and not last to act.

I don't pretend to be the best limit player to any imaginary stretch. But in terms of playing maximally exploitatively against droolers/nits, I'd be willing to say I'm pretty good.

You are likely overestimating your edge on the games. Even back 10 years ago, the best winrates at live low limit games was something like 1.5-2 BB/hr. The games have not gotten better since then, so it's extremely unlikely that a winrate of more than double that is a realistic figure.

So even if you say "I've made $X playing 6/12 over 1000+ hours which equates to 3-5 BB/hr" I still wouldn't actually believe you. Maybe it's actually true that you're absolutely crushing it and are playing several standard deviations above everyone else. I just wouldn't believe you.

With regards to moving up, let's say you've got 4 BB/hr at 6/12. What must your winrate be at 15/30 to make the same amount of money? Your winrate is $48/hr, so 48/30 = 1.6 BB/hr. So even if your winrate drops by more than half moving up to the next level (an unrealistically steep decline, imo), you're still making better money moving up than staying where you're at. And this doesn't even take into account the fact that the rake is proportionally smaller at the higher stakes.

So your basic analysis simply doesn't make a lot of sense in the context of other data that has been reported. So while you could be correct that if you're playing significantly better than anyone else at 6/12 you could theoretically be making more at 6/12 compared to moving up, I find it highly unlikely that this is true.

FWIW if someone said they won $50k in 1000 live 6/12 hours, I would assume it's a lie too.

I think this is all logical and fair. I think we would disagree about the winrate dropping point you make above; if I paraphrase correctly, you're saying:
"If you win ~4BB/hr at 6/12, how could you be winning <2BB/HR at 15/30".

I think that it is possible. Exploitative plays are exploitable themselves. There are fewer opportunities to exploit in higher limit games, as they tend to play tighter and players are better.

Just to be clear, have you won 4BB/hr over 1000+ hours at 6/12, or do you think you can win 4BB/hr over 1000 hours? They are vastly different statements.

I agree with possibility. However, you have failed to make an argument of plausibility. What in particular is causing such a sharp increase in average opponent skill?

If you think that the step up from 6/12 to 15/30 is a huge dropoff. What happens from 15/30 to 30/60 or 50/100? And then up from there? Do you expect the winrate to continue plummeting each time you move up? If not, what is so special about *this* shift that makes one level crushable and the next one merely beatable?

Are you saying that you're playing the higher level without making any adjustments to your new slate of opponents? I suppose that would likely cause your winrate to drop significantly if you're playing some hyper-exploitative game. But that's not because it's impossible to beat the higher game for a higher winrate, it's more than you're just playing sub-optimally.

(And this is a thing that does happen. People do max out on their ability to beat the average opponent, but that's a reflection of the limitations of the individual and not as much a limitation of the stakes. So it might be factually true that you're unable to make the required adjustments to beat the next level a reasonable clip even though you can crush your current level. But that's just a you thing.)

It's a "I think". Admittedly, I've stopped keeping logs, as I play a lot less than I used to.

The most regular sessions I had were back in 2010, which were also my most detailed logs; managed to log 500hrs, average (2.5BB/hr). This was playing a SSHE strategy with nearly 0 bluffing. Think my average win per session was 21BB (I averaged 8 hrs per session); average loss was 12.5BB. Won 60% of sessions, lost 40%. I think there are fewer incompetent players now, but I've also improved on exploiting some non-droolers.

I think with some table selection + shorter sessions, it's quite doable to exceed 3BB/hr. Also, I think you can offset the rake problem by playing a higher variance game and give the illusion of action.

From my experience, it seems to be a combination of things:
* The increase in stakes usually mean there is a higher pool of good players + people are more wary to play loose.
* People at lower stakes tend to not bluff, because most pots are heavily protected. When they do bluff, they tend to have no idea how to do it or at the right frequency.
* I have a pretty good memory built up from logging hours against the same group of people. I've found it more difficult to build up the same data for the higher limits, as I've found fewer hands revealed at showdown.

To be clear, I never made the claim that it's impossible to beat the higher game for a higher $/hr earning compared to the $/hr earning of a lower level. I'm just saying that I think it requires polishing a different part of your game (e.g. GTO, more $ swings from variance, etc.) to be the very best. Playing sub-optimally is a bit of an oversimplification; saying I bet-fold my 1pair value range in 6/12 80% on the river is just simply not the optimal play in 15/30 or 30/60. But it can be optimal in 6/12. Also, for me to play a high variance 6/12 game, I'm quite comfortable swinging -$800 (~65BB) in one session; it's obviously a lot more $$ in 15/30 that holds some emotional burden. Are you suggesting there isn't a decrease in winrate (as measured by BB/hr) moving up stakes?

My claim is that playing hyper-exploitatively in 6/12 can exceed the 2BB/hr wr quoted as a "ceiling". I'll concede that knowing the true amount is all speculation.

So, cliff notes...

You haven't kept accurate records for the last 8 years (possibly not completely accurate even then).

You made 2.5 BB per hour in the year in which you kept the most complete records (there is a link between the two, people tend to keep more accurate records when they're running well).

You think the game is tougher now.

The game has significantly higher rake than it did in 2010 (you didn't mention this, but I know it to be true).

Yet your playing has improved so much that you estimate you make considerably more now than you did then.

Do you see how this doesn't all add up?

*******************

Btw, I have never played a session of poker without noting exactly how long I played and my exact amount won or lost.
It's not that difficult. If you don't do this, you have absolutely no basis even for speculation on how well you're doing or how well it is possible to do in a particular game. Human psychology being what it is, people who keep incomplete records are almost certainly much more likely to keep records of when they are running well vs when they are running poorly.

Out of curiosity, is BBJP or HHJP money counted in the 2.5BB/HR?

Moo, I remember your 2.5BB winning reports. I think there's a pretty big gap between that and 4. Sure, you can pump up WR by game selecting. However, your game is already great to make 2.5 possible, so there's likely a limit.

Guess I'm not really in to beating up Moo on his claims. I think his numbers are high, but poker is all about optimism. If Jon said he'd prop bet a huge $ that he could play 1K hours in that game at 2.5, I'm not snap taking the don't.

This is all true in general, but there's nothing specific to *this* jump (6/12 to 15/30) that makes me believe that that you will run into all of these problems all at once and make things so much more incredibly difficult. Again, we're talking about going from something around 4 BB/hr to less than 2 BB/hr. It seems very artificial to believe that this shift in stakes has all of these factors all at once to cause that huge of a drop.

In my experiences, the differences between levels are generally a bit smoother. The only exception I experienced was the 8/16 at Bellagio, which was a bunch of grinders that were either unwilling or unable to make the jump to 15/30. But I think that was just an artifact of the game availability at the time.

I can agree that 2 BB/hr may not be a ceiling. But there's a chasm between 2 BB/hr and 4 BB/hr. You could be talking an extra 1-2 standard deviations above the best values that have been put forth that have been backed up by documentation.

Quite apart from how beatable the games are, if you are going to move up to a higher limit at the Oaks Club, that limit is 40-80. That game is an entirely different animal. Even the bad players play more tightly and more aggressively than the droolers in the 6-12.

At the same time, while your understanding GTO play will definitely help, those bad players (and some of the good ones) leave their asses hanging out in the open as they play, and there are ways to exploit this (leaving your own ass hanging out in the open).

I'm staying out of the Oaks 40 because I have come to realize that I am not as good a limit player as I used to think I was. I could do the work to do better, but I have my doubts about whether this would be worth the effort, to get good enough to beat one game in one club, when the rest of the world is leaving that game behind. I am devoting my learning and growing mindshare to NLHE (although I can see an argument for putting at least some energy into pot-limit Omaha).

I can see your point of view. Hard for me to make claims without concrete data. I don't disagree with anything you've said, but I'll modify my assertion that I believe you can beat the game for greater than 2BB/hr. Whether that number is 3-4-5 is gross speculation on my part based on over-projection. Fwiw, I don't think my claim is baseless, but I don't have enough proof. OP can just take my assertion with a huge grain of salt.

@Dougl without BBJ, though the new high hand structure may offset rake considerations to some extent.

I've played a hair short of 200 hours at the Oaks over the past two and a half months, and have hit exactly one high hand bonus for $100. That's a 50-cent-per-hour discount on the $24/hr average rake, or .04 BB/hr.

(Along with the bonus one wins an entry into weekly drawings that are worth -- depending on when in the month you win the bonus -- between about $10 and $40 in EV.)

It is possible that a room could have "too high a rake" while giving most of that money back in a way that most regs would get about their fair share. Around here, it is something like quad 8's beaten with both hands playing both cards and no trips on the board (not 100% exact current BBJP), and so it is a huge lottery. If you have an hourly HHJP + a Monte Carlo style "quads or better" reward JP, you play 500 hours and you're getting somewhat of your fair share back from smaller JP bonuses. Suddenly 5+2 rake is closer to effectively just $5 and with a little luck...
Let's say a strong reg can beat 6/12 for $20/hour. That's still not most people. It is probably someone who is starting to have the skills to play higher. That's what always comes to mind when people talk about hourly achievable in smaller games. Not very many people have a real sample size. Those who have the skills will run hot, move up, and then if they run reasonably, stick up a limit or two higher. Having a reasonable sample size at 4/8 or 6/12 is likely pretty rare in rooms that have higher games.

6/12 to 40/80 is a huge leap.

OK, thanks for clarifying.

Even 6/12 to 15/30 is a big change.

IME, having played every live limit between 2/4 and high stakes, roughly the top half of regs at one level are about equal in skill to the bottom half of regs at the next level. This is assuming approximately a doubling in stakes of every limit.

So if you're the best player in your cardroom at one limit, you are roughly mid-pack at the next limit.