2018 has been very good so far, had one losing session right at the beginning (-$10) and then 11 wins in a row. 29 hours to go to my first 1000 hours recorded, excited to share the graph when I hit it

stakes are 50/50 between 2/5 and 2/5/10

Nice heater! That's a great 50hrs. Looking forward to your first 1000 graph.

Where do you play if you don't mind me asking?

I don't mind, cause it's pretty easy to tell by creeping on my post history.

I play at Sugar House

Every now and then I pop into this thread for the LOLs... I usually find myself agreeing with MikeStarr. It's easier to get 10bb/hr in 1/2 or 1/3 than 2/5, IMO.

I was in a 9-handed 2/5 this week, in Maryland no less, with six pros, a winning reg, and the world's biggest nit. The spot, if you can call him that - he'd win in other lineups - had <100bb. That sort of lineup is more and more common these days. The winning regs at 1/2 and 1/3 are still pretty easy to play against. I put together a pretty fun strategy during my 300 hour month last year.

Anyway, I have 950 hours of 1/2 and 1/3 in my records at 13.01 bb/hr. I played about 270 hours of it last year (mostly 1/3) during my 300 hour month. Otherwise, it's just while waiting for a game.

That 270 hours involved no game selection and no seat selection - in fact, negative seat selection at times. I always tried to get into the roomiest seats on the corner of the table (3 or 8 I think it was) to have more room, so that I'd be more comfortable for the long sessions. When I'm waiting for a seat in a bigger game I virtually never table/seat select, either, and I am often distracted while playing.

About 470 hours were in a 1/2 300 max with 4+1 rake. About 290 hours were in 1/3 300 max with 6+2 rake. The rest is scattered around. It's in 20+ rooms in eight different states. So, for a ~1,000 hour sample, it's a pretty good one with some pretty varied conditions and some tough rake structures.

And, let me give another +1 to those saying that virtually nobody who crushes 1/2 or 1/3 will ever stay around for 4,000 hours. Why would we? One of us is supposed to sacrifice $50-70/hr for like 3,000 hours to make a point? No thanks.

Where I live, even the "good" players suck. The problem is that nothing over 2-5 ever runs. I have a real job making good money; it's hard to get motivated for a lower hourly than my real job. I'd rather just go to Vegas every few months and view it as recreation.

Question of shot taking.

A little back ground on me.

Currently, I'm playing anywhere from 20-30 hours/week. Over the last 6-7 weeks I've played 135 hours of 2/3 and making 42/hour. I know I'm running a over EV, but over the course of 600+ hours playing at 2/3 I'm making around 28/hour.

I am also in the middle of a loooong job search. Getting the job is my main priority, and poker most likely will never become my #1 income option. With that being said, when I get my job, I can easily play 2/5 w/o risking going broke because I can supplement my poker br from the job. But, that's not the case rn.

I've managed to run my poker br up to 4k over the last 6-7 weeks. My initial goal was to run my br upto 6k, and take 1 buy-in shots at 2/5.


Given that my poker br and life roll are the same at this current moment, any suggestions on when to take a shot? Should I try to aim for 7k? Or 6k good nuff?

Honestly man - get your life dialed in before taking any shots. Getting/changing jobs is super high in the life stress index meter. Do not add to this with shot taking right now. Enjoy life on ez street play kick ass poker at the 2/3 level. Nail down a job - get yourself situated then take some shots.

How much would it suck to get nuked while shot taking get your roll low, get stressed, then somehow screw up an interview that you should nail?

All very good points.

squid bringing the truth bombs as always

I counted hands during my last 4 sessions

1) 198 hands in 4hrs 23mins....45/hr
2) 126 hands in 3 hrs 1 min...42/hr
3) 164 hands in 4 hrs....41/hr
4) 153 hands in 4 hrs 15 mins...36/hr

First 3 sessions were daytime and the games are pretty nitty with small pots
Last session was Friday night. More degens, more action. More big pots that take longer.

I dont know if my room just has better and more efficient dealers than most or if Im getting more hands/hr because most of you guys work during the day and play in the evening when there are better, looser games with more action where each pot takes longer.

My guess is that more hands per hour is not better because the games are so nitty there is less chance to win large amounts of money.

QFT

Yup, nitty games are uber-boring and the pots are tiny, and there aren't too many raised multi-way pots, and chopping seems like a hobby for lots of these regulars who play in these games. It feels like death.

The best games are the short-handed, overnight, loose/passive fit-or-fold games where people take lots of flops but insta-fold if they don't hit anything. Or they just consistently check/call and only bet or raise when they have something. It's like printing money. But these games are getting rarer and rarer because it's so easy for people to lose money if there is even one dominant player in the game.

Just a general question. For those who are playing full-time and on the east coast, is 60-70k a year feasible playing 2/5 full time? Assuming you can win 6 BB/hr long term it seems doable and I've read posts alluding to this sort of yearly gain for regs. Also for myself I have a bit of a higher win-rate long term although I play part time and it's almost always 1/2, although my records do have some hours of 1/3 and 2/5 but not enough at those stakes for a good sample. (Been trying to log many many hours at 1/2 to iron out most of the kinks before I move up, roll is not an issue.)

People in other areas can also chime in, I just wanted to specify because games and skill levels vary based on geographical location. Thanks for the responses.

Seems like an easy answer to me. If you can win 6BB/hr that's $30/hr. To make $60,000 you need to play 2000 hours which is about the amount of hours a normal person works every year.

So the question is can you beat 2/5 for 6BBs or more? Only you know the answer. Actually you probably dont know the answer, but theres only one way to find out.

the other (bigger) question is whether you have the discipline to play 2k hours a year. from what I've heard from pros directly and anecdotally, it's a tall order.

Definitely tough from several angles. The other thing is that casinos aren't the healthiest environments even if certain sections are non-smoking, the air gets heavy and it seems like the smoke carries and gives me headaches.

Just curious on hearing from people who are living the lifestyle right now.

i would suggest searching for posts from squid face and robfarha, they have tons of insight into the life of a pro poker player.

would have to be pre-shipaments for Rob imo

+1 to this. 2000 hours would be near the upper limit of what a sane person could play in a year. And I would question if the quality of play would stay high enough to justify the volume.

I’m snap taking the under on a random aspiring pro getting in 2k hours in a year.

I think a better goal would be to try to hit 7 or 8 BB an hour and average 30 hours a week rather than trying to average 40 hours a week at 6BB an hour.

In the second situation your variance will be higher and playing 40 hours every week with that much variance will be super stressful.

I can play 160 hours a month but it wears me out physically and mentally. I think my winrate probably suffers when I'm playing that many hours. 120 hours a month is far, far easier and gives you enough time away from the table to study and actually have a life beyond poker.

Cranking out 2000 hours a year it's hard to imagine you would have much of a life unless you need much less sleep than is typical. Personally I want at least 8 hours of sleep and time to eat before heading to the casino. If you're a total machine maybe you could play that many hours but I figure for most people it's not a healthy goal.

Im not saying 2000 a year is a number most pros can hit but its less than most people who work full time put work. I work about 2500 hours per year now and I still have time to hold down a family with 3 kids and put in about 30 hours a month at poker, and I dont work or play much on weekends either. I can see online pros not being able to play 2000 hours because its much more mental draining to play 400+ hand per hour online vs 35ish live, but I couldnt imagine making live play my full time job and not playing 2000 hours.

+1

I work a full time tech job and have averaged over 900 hours per year of live poker for awhile now.

Just can't imagine having any trouble at all hitting 2,000 hours a year if I did not have a full-time job.



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It's not like a normal job. You have to be mentally focused the entire time. More than that if you spend 40 hours at the table you should spend another 20 to 40 hours away from the table studying.

If you're one of the few who can crank out that many hours with no impact on winrate, year after year, without burning out, then more power to you.