Just started playing 2/5 no limit 1-2 times a week this year (was playing 1/2 for about 3-4 years). Normal session is usually 5-6 hours. Bring 2 $400 buy ins each visit.

Would be interested to hear what players think is a realistic goal for profit per session.

I have 11 sessions to date, so wanted to get an idea of where I am at.

What's your winrate and hours for those sessions?

i run for this year over ~170h slightly over +1 buy in (~600) per session (most like 8-11 h, shortest 4, longest 23)

fiorst started lost 2 months then won 6/8 then hit big dec, 3200 profit.

in tht time biggest downswing live was8-10 bis i think. 1/2 100 max.

then broke even for bit then won again at a smaller rate.

this year up 600 live, only been 2 times so far and down 700 online ugh.

im a donkeyfish who plays with worse donkeyfishes so i run good in the location of cardroom aspect.

I would prefer some advice/information ONLY from Los Angeles poker players (grinders). I want to hear from any players who moved from 3-5 NL to 5-10 NL (preferably at Commerce). What was your hourly rate at 3-5? At 5-10? What was the percentage increase? How are the games different? Did you stay at 5-10 or move back down? Why or why not?

Thanks all!

I just recently started keeping track of my poker playing, at first it was just dollars won and lost over a few months with no other data. I was up about 1200 in 5 months playing 1/2 once or twice a week and decided to start taking it seriously/playing more. Ive started keeping close track ($/hr, bankroll, buy-in, ect.) Over the first month taking it serious i played 50 hours for a 1400 profit @ $29/hr. I know that that hourly rate is not sustainable, but is 5BI at $200 max a reasonable goal for me? Any help would be appreciated. My roll is at about $3100. Tips for building roll/strategy at this point in the roll appreciated as well.

29 bucks an hour at 1/2 is high-ish, but its not totally unreasonable depending on the game, how big it plays, how bad the opposition is, etc. Live moreso than online, your expected profit is more a function of the size of effective stacks than it is the size of the blinds. This becomes even more true when there are straddles involved.

The fact that you have only about 12 hours a week leads me to believe that you are likely playing only during peak action times, when the games are the best.

As for bankroll, a lot of this depends on if you plan to move up in stakes, or if the opportunity is even available. Assuming your actual expectation is only a third of your winrate, your roll is more than sufficient to play the game you are playing with virtually no risk of ruin. Ultimately, any bankroll advice beyond that is dependent on your plans and opportunities to play bigger.

I posted my thoughts on win-rates and bankroll earlier - Figured, I should post my results over the past few years to validate my claims. And mainly to provide some general information on what is attainable over a decent sample size.

NOTE All numbers (hours, $, sessions) are rounded. I keep session by session logs, then at the end of every month I round everything to get my monthly results. Then I add everything up again and round once more to get my yearly results.

I'm a recreational player/hobbyist and I play between 20-30 hours weekly,and play pretty much year round. I live in close proximity to a poker room/casino (less then 15min drive).

Over the past few years, I have logged close to 2,000 hours of live poker play. My main game is 2/5NL, sometimes I play 2/5 PLO, and 5/10NL. However, the majority of my play over the past few years has been almost all 2/5NL.

My style of play is very aggressive compared to the other regulars in my games. Honestly, I could probably benefit a lot by playing a more solid, in control game - however, I'm there to gamble

Below are my results.

2011 : 120 hours, 15 sessions - $1000, $10ish/hr - $100ish in Comps, $200 in promotions.

2010 : 1050 hours, 200 sessions - $17000, $15ish/hr - $1,000ish in Comps, $2000 in promotions.

2009 : 900 hours, 150 sessions - $18000, $20ish/hr - $1,000ish in Comps, $5500 in promotions.

NOTE Promotions and comps are separate from profits.

* Casino runs a BBJ which I have never been a part of or gotten a table share.
** Casino runs high hands jackpots which are progressive. I have hit those numerous times.
*** The comps system fluctuates between $0.75/hr - $2/hr for poker players.

Based on my results I probably have massive leaks and flaws in my poker game. However, as I said poker for me is a hobby. I play mainly for the social aspects. It is nice to know it is profitable though, despite my depressing win rates.

Anyways hopes this gives some people some information for themselves. Hope it can be of use.

Hey guys, been struggling recently. I'm at $8.5/hr at 1/2 NL. Started out at 25/hr, been slowly dropping. I have 170 hours.

My biggest problem is this: I just don't get dealt enough preflop hands that are good enough to play! And I'm loose preflop, by this forum's standards. W/ a PF strategy of raising w/ (if first in the pot) 66+, AJs+ in early position, 44+, QJo+ in middle position, and 22+, J10o+, A2o+ in late position, I just go hours and hours without playing a hand and lose a huge chunk of my stack to the blinds.

You're raising JQo in MP and A2o/J10o in late position, and a "huge chunk" of your stack is getting blinded off at $1/2? Does not compute.

Sounds like your pf strategy might be slightly loose. I don't raise JQo except in late or at least from the HJ tbh with you. But I have been called a NIT before. My cutoff point for raising/opening UTG or UTG+1 is prolly AJo, 88+. But I am talking about live play so online it depends on the stakes I suppose and whether you are playing full ring or six max. Are you stealing the blinds on occasion? That seems to be very important in online play.

Edit: You said live 1/2. Hmmmm, you don't have a huge sample size yet so I would be weary of your feelings about this. Playing Broadway hands OOP just kind of sucks and they are garbage hands for the most part so I only like to play them when I am in position really.

+1 to ^^^this. Like that's a definition of a solid player.

Stealing the blinds isn't a concept that is applicable to low-stakes live games (especially $1/2), mostly because it's almost impossible to steal blinds at this level.

Yeah I didn't realize you were talking about live until i reread your post.

Since I only play live, measures like win rates in bb/100 or such don't have much meaning to me. I tend to look at my wins and losses on a per session basis, and as a multiple (or fraction) of a 100bb buy in. I usually play 2/5, and buy in for $500.

I'm wondering what other live players view as their normal range of buy ins either for winning sessions or losing. I know I have a problem in that my losing sessions are almost always larger than my winning sessions. I'm sure it's related to the way I play when up versus down, even though it should be the same; but it's not. Here's a description of typical sessions for me:

I start off playing TAG, so I don't play a lot of hands to start with. Especially if I start out card dead, I have the patience to fold over and over. This then leads to getting no action when I finally start getting some hands to play. So most of the time if I am going to start a session on the up side, it is because I'll catch someone with TPTK and I hit a set, and I'll win 200-400 in that pot. But then that profit starts to get blinded away as I usually miss the flops on the few hands I play. So unless I hit a great run of cards, it's very difficult for me to get up more than 200-400 profit in a session. Therefore, most of my wins tend to be in the 200-400 range with a huge day for me around up 1000 to 1300. So most wins are around half a buy in, with a 2 1/2 buy in max. I will admit that once I get up around 3-400, I tend to tighten up even more, "protecting" my profits; this came about because I used to have a habit of loosening up when ahead, and giving it all back by seeing too many speculative hands.

On the downside, I'd say my usual loss is more like $1000 or two buy ins. Here is how that usually happens: I start out tight as usual, and maybe get down 200 by getting blinded off or missing flops. I'll rebuy to top back off to 500. Then I'll usually take a bad beat that causes me to lose my stack, so I'm suddenly down 500-700. It really is usually a guy calling my all in bet on the turn with just a flush draw and hitting it, or hitting his kicker, whatever. But I generally get my money in good, but take at least one big hit a night on a bad beat.

That's where I get into a bind. I don't tilt in the sense that I get angry or say anything to the guy--that's not my style. But I think to myself that I have to start to loosen up my game if I am ever going to get back anywhere near the $700, as I usually don't win that much in a session on a good day. So I do start to open up and play a lot more hands. Some days I'll hit and get back to even, but others I don't and that's how I end up down 1300 or so. I usually leave by then as I don't like to lose more than that in a session, plus it's usually a long day by then and I'm getting tired.

I know it's hard to suggest what I'm doing wrong with such a brief description of my game, but at least I'd like to hear if others who play live fall into a similar pattern or not. And if you did, what if any changes did you make to fix it. That will help with my perspective or expectations for a session. By the way, a session for me is usually 8 hours, with 6 probably the shortest and 16 being a long day.

If anyone has any comments on my approach given the little I've outlined, those would be welcomed too. I feel like I'm at a point in my game development where I've got to figure out what I'm doing wrong, but I'm not sure what it is. I study the usual books and forums, and believe I know the basics of ABC poker, and I do look back and try and analyze what I could have done better on various hands. But it just seems like there's a broader view as to my approach that I'm not seeing. I understand variance, but I can't blame it all on that, as I should be getting some positive variance also.

Any ideas are welcome. thanks.

Ive been playing online for about 6 years and live 10 hours a week for about 4 years. I recognize your dilema and have been there myself. I know you said "live" but I think the same problems occur online. Here was my solution...First Identify the problem. For me it wasnt the big hands, it was all the little ones. A negative drain on equity. I had to admit that I wasnt just unlucky but my game needed a tune up.

For me the situation came down to more discipline, table observation, and situational play.

The discipline was to play tighter OOP and looser and more aggressive IP. Trully randomizing my EP, MP and LP preflop raises. I also made sure that before every hand I played I used SPR to make sure there was a +EV or at least implied +EV. This was a seemingly simple correction that plugged a few leaks. It was enough to beat most of the 1-2 games at the local casino.

When I moved to 2-5 things became more challenging.

I had become too reliant upon Pokertracker online and my plays werent villain specific enough. Sure I called ligher against a Lagtard, but I didnt make many other gear changes. My goal became to label just a few different "titles" to each villain so that I could identify the plays that worked best against these villains. TAG, LAG, WT, CS were the original classes. Basically most 1-2 and 2-5 players I have met fall into one of these categories pretty well. Most ABC players seem to fall into Weak Tight. I have since added opposite player label to the mix. The heads up book by 2+2 was a big help in giving general stategies to combat these villain types. This helped in playing more +EV hands, mostly in position and improving my image. ie, Floating a WT player knowing the pot can be taken, or value betting miltiple streets against the ABC since a raise is the nuts, playing more cautions against a LAG, etc, etc.

I then tried to make sure that my bets actually were accomplishing something. Something so simple yet so complex. I made a plan, I tried to answer 4 question before each bet.

1) Villains Range????????
2) Can I get a better hand to fold?
3) Can I get a worse hand to call?
4) Can I deny a drawing hand odds?

Simple it seems, but to me still a challenge to do quickly during a game.

There are 2 other areas that I would like to be able to do in a live situation.
1) Improve Hand reading----my ongoing struggle and crusade.
2) Being able to merge a range to determine the best play. Something I can do when breaking down a hand a home, but seems so tough under the stress of a game.

My only other advice is to use the board as much as possible. It seems there are so many players better than me that I can absorb information from. Besides the basic poker book library this reading this board has been the biggest help to my game.

Best of luck

I'm just recently getting into poker and was wondering what a good winrate at 1/2 and 2/5 live NL Is it possible to live off of 1/2 and 2/5 NL live hold 'em?

Bout tree fiddy

Exist might be a better word.

poker is a game

If you're playing exclusively in Vegas in live games where you can put about 40 hours per week and where you can find games 24/7 you can expect to make 10-12 big blinds per hour if you are an excellent player and play where effective stacks are at least 100bb or more. So, yes, making $50-$60/hour it's possible in 2/5 NL with $500 or more effective stacks. But you've got to have three things wired up for you. One, is that you've got to know what you're doing and play very well (how to get paid off on your big hands). Second, you've got to have a bankroll of about 25K or 50 buy-ins at the minimum. Third, you've got to expect the variance at that level to be about $300-$500/hour. If you see that your variance or standard deviation is smaller like $100/hour or bigger like $1000/hour you're doing something wrong and got to fix it ASAP. You either have leaks like bluffing too much and playing extremely LAG or playing too meek.

Che,

40hrs a week... Thats not a lot. If I wasn't studying in uni right now and was really concentrating on poker I have no doubt I could put in at least 80 hrs each week. Though, I guess the late nights would burn you out fast.

I guess I'm just a degen

What are typical hourly win rates for 2-5 nl, 5-10 nl, and 2-5 plo for live play for those of you who do it as a job?

3.50

i think its right about 3.50