Dude, not only are you bad at record keeping; you're bad at math.

500 hours divided by 8 hours/session = 62.5 sessions

60% of these were winning sessions = 37.5 winning sessions
40% of these were losing sessions = 25 losing sessions

average win was 21BB x 37.5 winning sessions = 787.5BB won
average loss was 12.5BB x 25 losing sessions = 312.5BB lost

787.5BB – 312.5BB = 475BB won

475BB divided by 500 hours = 0.95BB/hour

That's your win rate!

A win rate is not an average of what you win per winning session (21BB divided by 8 hours = 2.6BB/hour); it's an average of what you win after combining all your wins, all your losses, and all your breakeven sessions.

I've been a regular in the $6/$12 game at the Oaks for many years. I could argue with much of what you say about that game and how to beat it, but there's no point. You're full of ****. You don't keep accurate records, your recollections of your results from 2010 are most likely inflated, and even at that, your win rate was <1BB/hour.

Who knows? Maybe if you kept better records, you'd find that you were barely breakeven.

Who's Jon?

1,000 hours is a lot of time for variance and tilt to kick in. I would gladly bet against that proposition—though it would be nearly impossible to verify another player's results over 6 months or a year or more. And I don't trust gamblers to report their results truthfully.

It's not the maths that I failed at here, just memory. And as you astutely pointed out here, there's really no value trying to substantiate even any statement about my wr in an internet forum, as it's quite easy to fabricate.

Take a look at the posts I've made over the years. It's hard to fabricate those. Those are all the key hands I felt were interesting spots, and they include reads/pot size/strategy, etc. It doesn't need to persuade you that it would make me an X BB/hr winner, only that the 6/12 is full of a lot of idiots (that's usually reflected in the reads, where I note hands played dumbly by opponents)

Also, if you've been a regular, we've probably played together before.

JonLocke, someone who used to post here a lot. He's a high stakes mix game pro who might make such a prop bet. He's very good at LHE. I would put Captain R in the group that, if motivated to play down 6/12 his WR would be high enough I wouldn't bet against him winning a lot.

As Captain R said,
There aren't any high stakes quality pros in 6/12 because they can make much more money /hr playing higher.

Captain R, everything you said is totally reasonable. It just seems like one of the benefits of a real ladder is showing up in the room and seeing a bunch of losers from your normal stakes playing the next game up. You play 10/20. The 20/40 game has 3 or 4 losers you've played before. You shot take in a comfortable game. Get lucky and now you're a 20 reg. Going from 6/12 to 40/80? That seems nigh impossible and you lose any home field advantage. It is kind of like 2/5 spread limit players here in CO wanting to take shots at the 30/60 game -- the stakes and players are so different, it is hard for them.

And I was only being partially facetious.

I'll explain (warning: almost certainly gonna be tldr).

Trying to guess how much you'd win at 15/30-20/40-30/60-40/80 is even more ridiculous than trying to verify what you won at 6/12. Live sample sizes are so small that even if someone played exactly the same in exactly the same game, full time for 10 years, mathematically yhey would have trouble nailing down their true winrate by +/- 25%. So live winrates kind of boil down to a qualitative feeling that you benchmark against something else.

Qualitatively, I think 2012 30/60 had the same feel as 2010 6/12. My skills increased and the proportional rake went down, villains got better and the game structure got narrower. Basically, if you feel comfortable at 6/12, I think you can feel as comfortable at 30/60.

If I had to try to pin a quantitative number on it, I'd try to peg it to an online WR, for which I have a much larger sample. It'd be the same feel that I got from the pre-BF PS 10c/20c games, which I beat for about 2.5 BB/100 (eqivalent of 1 BB/hr) over a depressingly large sample. But not the 2c/4c games, which were just total clowns (like half the people not even trying), which I beat for 6 BB/100 (equiv 2 BB/hr). And not the higher limits, which were definitely tougher, like week to week I'd wonder if I were actually beating the game, and I definitely saw my winrate slide down, from 1.8 BB/100 at 25c/50c to 1.2 BB/100 at 2/4.

Each move up gives you a boost in winrate. It's sub-linear to the stakes, so if you're bankroll-limited, there's a legitimate case for saying that your CE for a lower stake is greater than your CE for a higher stake. But at high WR, a recreational player really has no excuse for being bankroll limited - as someone pointed out, if you really expect to win $50k in 1,000 hours, you should probably play 6/12 every night for a month and win a 30/60 bankroll.

There are two main reasons why I think staying at 6/12 is overrated, and money is actually neither of them.

1. It's way more fulfilling to beat better players. Even my 6-year-old son understands this, there's only so many times he can lend me Fletchling and Litleo and thrash me with Mega Kangaskan before it's mind numbingly boring.

2. It allows you to play whatever you want. I can sit down in a tough 20 game (like when a bunch of 2p2ers got together) and be OK; if I get invited to the Judges' Game in Rounders, I'd be OK; if my friends want to get drunk and donk around at 6/12, I'm OK. It's not unlike being rich IRL - rich people don't have to buy a fancy car, but they can if they want, and that freedom alone (to be able to choose) is valuable.

To be frank, I don't usually focus on the money because I assume that you're doing OK. The US economy is in one of its longest bull runs, SFBA economy is doing even better, and if you're not in the financial position you want to be in, it's really bad news when the **** hits the fan. There's not a huge amount of life difference between making $10/hr at yiur hobby or $40/hr at your hobby. And if you just want a little dark money for hookers and blow, that's cool. But there is, or at least was, an opportunity to do something cool, to move up and say you've played with some of the best, to be able to take a 10 year break from poker and come back and still be comfortable and have fun. If you're getting all you want from poker, best of luck to you. If you ever wonder if there's more, sneak through any doors that are open even just a crack, before they close all the way.

To be clear, I'm on the side of the fence of maximizing $ earned, but like AlanBostick, I'm also trying tbh with my ability. I was under the impression that becoming a crusher in 30/60 might only net me .5BB/hr, in which case I saw no difference with just winning at 6/12 with lower $ swings + br requirements. I used to 6 table on stars in 25c/50c and did well over some reasonable sample size, but struggled at 1/2 and higher. Could easily be the case that I have many leaks.

Also, as others habe mentioned, jumping from 6/12 to 40/80 seems a little far fetched.

Sure, maybe. People peak out at different winrates. But are you willing to not try because you heard that?

What do swings and bankroll mean to you? (Honest question.)

You don't even play very much. If once every few months you went and donked off $1,000 (a -2 SD session of breakeven 30/60), how badly would that hurt you?

Swings and bankroll are for people who play frequently and need the money. If you play infrequently, you should takr full advantage of your advantages, like essentially being able to memorize every hand that you played, and going home and solving them before your next session.

If it is, then I guess the only thing I would add is that the next time in life an opportunity like the one you had in 2012-2015 comes up, you shouldn't be so hesitant.

Windows of opportunity close, and I'm pretty happy/grateful that I got a chance to do most od what I wanted to in poker before mine did.

If you're a recreational player, you enjoy playing 6/12, and you make some money while having a good time, that's winning. It is really hard externally to tell someone they "should" have done something different in an absolute sense. If Moo's goal (or anyone's) is to make the most money possible playing poker, then sure, maybe the advice of moving up as quickly as possible is the nuts. For most people, playing more poker isn't the path to riches.

If you take me or you, I'm pretty sure that no realistic scenario of making more $ comes from poker. If I hustle harder to find more contracting work, that's worth more than poker. Find bigger gigs. Bring in more subcontractors. Those are where more money comes from. Poker is and always was for fun. I assume for most non-pros who played mid-stakes, this was nearly always the same. A side hustle contracting job probably pays more than cards.

I just always remember Abdul talking about how anyone who could make a decent living poker could probably make more doing something else. Thus, poker is a choice based on enjoyment. Given that most poker players want to pretend they maximize every part of their lives, this self-deception is necessary. Sure, some very few people have poker as both something they want to do and the best path to monies. Most of the rest of us, not so much.

Excellent post Doug

It is hard in general, but easier in this specific case because Moo has put in 1,000+ hours of 6/12, and at a time when I was very familiar with the games - and we've had this debate about whether moving up was the right step since he had put in ~400 hours. I even remember his winrate for the first 400 being considerably higher than 2.5 - and we had many discussions about whether that was sustainable.

I'm not saying he should or should not have done something besides play poker. I'm saying that with the time he spent playing poker, he should have played different games.

Please kill me if 6/12 is beatable for more than 15/30 and higher.