Hello,

I am a recreational live poker player who tries to win, but the rent check doesn't depend on it. I used to play bigger, but games got too tough for me, so I have been playing a lot of 8-16 lately.

So my current game is 8-16 LHE with a 1/2 kill (kill limits 12-24 and killer has to post 12 blind) if you win 2 pots in a row. It is 9 handed and drop is $5+$1 (jp) which is dropped everytime there is a flop regardless of pot size. If blinds chop or no flop the drop is $1. This game is actually pretty soft with a lot of limping and passive play and the occasional megafish who plays like a 90/5 style.

Anyways, over about 450 hours this year my winrate in this game is around $16/hr or 1BB/hour. There is a $2000 downswing in there, but for the most part I think I have actually ran pretty good. I am not a math guy but I use tracking software that says my standard deviation is around 6 BB/hr ($98/hr), if this is useful information.

I know because this is live this is a pretty tiny sample size. However, I was curious if anyone who has played larger samples in similar sized games thinks this is a sustainable winrate for a good (but not great) player in a soft game, given the high rake, or whether I am probably due for a fall down to earth.

I would appreciate any input on the matter.

Thanks

welcome to the forums!

yes the game is beatable. that rake is in line with most live 8-16 rake, or a bit on the high end. a winrate of 1 bet per hour sounds higher than sustainable to me. i'd think half a bet per hour, or mayyyybe 3/4 of a bet if the kill is on a ton (which i doubt), would be a good long-term winrate for a really good player in this game.

when you mention a "downswing" of only a bit over a hundred bets it makes me think you're probably running quite well and also not super comfortable/experienced with limit holdem variance. related to that, it's also not that you're "due" for a drop - it's not like if you flip a coin and it lands heads 3 times in a row that it's more likely to be tails on the 4th time. because you've likely run above expectation doesn't mean you are about to go on a big losing streak. does that make sense?

by posting hands and concepts you have questions about, you can get feedback from lots of different folks on here, and maybe that way improve your game.

good luck

The last time I calculated all my results at 8/16 in Southern California, played at 5+1 rake, I was at about $14 an hour after 2,700 hours. And I'm probably in the 99th percentile compared to the 8/16 player pool.

Having said that, I don't really consider the game "beatable" because (1) you have to be in the 99th percentile to achieve that sort of result and (2) your expenses (which include the fact that you don't really get free food except at the Hustler) are going to cut into that rate to the point where you should probably play 20/40 if you are that good.

I still play 8/16 for funz sometimes, though.

I know that 20/hr is achievable and perhaps more if the games are consistently good and your one of the top players. 16/hr is doable if your just a solid player. The 8/16 games I've played in were full kill games though. It was also 4 rake 2 jackpot.

I agree that moving up to 20/40 would be wise if your killing the 8/16 and you have the bankroll or can take a shot.

If 6 BB/hr seems dramatically low to me for a standard deviation. I would expect to see an SD of something like twice that amount.

If that number is the real number, and not the result of some coding error, then you have found yourself a really soft game.

Note that you are running something like 3.5 sigmas above breakeven and 8 sigmas above the average player's results (i.e. losing ~1.25 big bets/hour to the rake).

Unfortunately, if your high-rake 8/16 game is in southern California, it probably just got tougher to beat, rakes going up!

Wouldn't trying to calculate your SD based on MLE estimations on your sessions result in a lower than real SD (since it fails to encompass inter-session variance)?

My SD playing 20/40 on the year is 11.18 BB/hr according to this measure. I've always assumed around 12 was probably more correct.

~18 BB/100 sounds about right imo.

12 BB/hr is a pretty normal SD for live games. At 35 hands/hour, that's more like 30-35BB/100 SD.

I too heard that the drop (for hg at least) is going up a buck. That really blows more then most players realize. Booooo

The Foxwoods 20/40 game voted against a BBJ; it's probably one of the few games around where people are really aware of how much comes off the table due to rake. It's tilting when randoms whine about the lack of a BBJ in 20.

a FR LHE game generally has a stdev of around 10-12 BB/100 from my experiences.

6 BB/hr stdev is unpossible. I'm guessing you took your session stdev and divided it by your average session hours. I guess for a closer result, you should divide your session stdev by the square root of your average session hours.

12 BB SD = 144 BB^2 Variance

144*(100/35) = 411.4 BB^2 Variance ~ 20.3 BB SD.


Or in other words, if you flip a fair coin 100 times, you'd get heads 50 times w/ a SD of 5. But if you flip it 400 times, your SD only doubles to 10, not quadruples. Variance grows linearly.

That is extremely high for a full ring limit game.

Why? This has been discussed a ton on this forum, and I think this is pretty much the agreed norm.

Not positive but didn't Jesse say that his SD was 11?

11-12 is probably around right, maybe a bit more if you're in an aggromonkey game

12 is on the high end I think for an 8/16 game but totally reasonable. 12.5 would be high. 10.8 would be low IMO.

I mean that was a million years ago in games that don't exist anymore and I think it was really like 11.5

A BBJ is worth the rake, because it attracts fish.

But the rake increase in California is going to cost 8 players $2.50 an hour or so. That's deadly.

i agree. like the hustler BBJ is actually good I think. They seed it at $40k and I remember running the numbers once and deciding it was actually worth it around 50 or 60 (I could be wrong about that). So your $1 going down the hole really only costs you like 30 cents and it makes the game just WAY better. Honestly by playing jackpot situations better than your opponents (not checking so they won't fold and that crap) you probably more than make up for it.

The commerce 40 jackpot that they seed at like $11k or whatever is a ****ing joke

FW BBJ is Quad 8's or better. The odds of that happening are just way too low, and fish will just play 4/8 anyway if they want to jackpot chase. At least IME.

My calculations are that it is basically about 1 in 40,000 (not calculable exactly because people fold jackpot hands sometimes) to hit an aces full of tens or better jackpot. So Hustler's paying a bit more than the $1 back. Other casinos are being more stingy.

But even a somewhat stingy jackpot may still bring people into the casino to try and hit it.

A fair jackpot should be an progressive dollar for dollar.