the winrate number is statistically irrelevant at this sample size. you know the game is soft and you're probably a winning player in it. that's enough for you to keep playing in it as long as you're rolled. come back to your stats and start looking at your winrate after 500 hours to get an idea of how profitable the game might be. a $20 hourly at 1/2 or 1/3 is generally very good.

Agreed. Small sample so not statistically meaningful

I was more making an evaluation based on my observation of the play. I dont have a larger sample to back it up so its just my somewhat educated opinion of potential win rates at the game.

Ill let you guys know at the end of the year when I should have closer to 500 hours (hopefully)

Well, I guess I should consider myself lucky to have Parx Casino 20 minutes from home. I was lucky enough to get my $3,000.00 roll off of merge...
Parx spreads
$1-$2 $60 min $300 max
$2-$5 $200 min $1,000 max
$5-$10 $500 min $2,000 max

The games are obviously very soft as is often the case with live poker.

What do you guys recommend as far as bankroll requirements for live poker? 10,20,30,50,100 BI's?

Most importantly, what do you think are reasonable, I would even say conservative hourly win rates at each of these stakes?

I have averaged ~22/hr @ 1/2 over a sample of 377hrs based on my poker journal app. I'm guessing this is decent sample size? I figure that to be approx. 10k hands?

I feel like I'm crushing it! At the very least some people who play regularly recognize me and realize I'm hard to get value from.

I've started playing full time at the end of Feb, 1/2. 40-50 hours a week.
March +10k
April -2.5k so far.

So around $27/h CDN, or ~$100/h USD which is on par with my rate at this limit lifetime.
This is my 1st downswing and I've been tilting quite a bit. $30-$35 seems very possible with a controlled LAG style.

?? CDN dollar isn't that strong..

I had beat a 1/2 game for $28/hr over 700 hours and then hit a -30 buy in downswing!!!

Currently taking a 3 week break but I think I can get back there and crush the game again. Variance happens but I dont expect anyone to ever hit a 30 downswing, thats hard to do!

ask KurtSF about this

The bankroll required ultimately depends on how good a player you are.

General advice: 20 buyins for 1/2 ($4k). When you take a shot at 2/5, do it for $500, not $1000 max BI; and do it for a 2 buyin stop loss. So take a shot with a bankroll ~5-6k.

To sit in 2/5 as a regular, again go with ~20 BI ($500, not $1000 max BI) or 10K or so. But once again it really depends on how good/bad a player you are.

Also, to move up to 2/5, you don't have to do it all at once. By that I mean you don't have to one day be exclusively at 1/2 and the next day exclusively at 2/5. You can ease into it as your bankroll grows, playing 90% 1/2 + 10% 2/5, then 75% 1/2 + 25% 2/5, etc.

I play at Bay 101 & Garden City in the $1/$2/$3 NL game in which most people buy in for $100-$500 on average. I was wondering if anyone knew what a "good" player can expect to make at these stakes? Would a long run average of $20/hr seem too high? I know rake's a bitch and that this game is vastly different from the NL FR games online--way way looser, and way more fish. I just have no clue what a good player can expect to average...is it even beatable? Any input would be most appreciated.

Thanks,
JMAA

what's the rake structure in the bay area?

I know 30bi downswings are not "supposed" to happen to winning players. But they do.

The worst part of it is how much it messes with your head. If you weren't leaking bad while losing all those bi, you almost certainly are playing bad after losing them because yoru head is so messed up from that nonsense.

Thats not necessarily true, i have a friend who has been playing 1/2 as a career for about 9 years now, and he is like my brother. I have gone over his sessions with him and have helped him to calculate his yearly income and tax info and so forth and he has made no less than 53,000 each year, thats with deductions for gas, rake and other expenses. So it can be done. Ive seen the numbers that people on these forums discuss often. 3-5BB and so forth. However while the math can be correct here, it also doesnt factor in variables that can constantly change. Like the overall player field, the wealth in the area, the style of play at the table so forth. So while that math is correct for most, there are people who are doing far better than that.


If someone could explain where that number comes from, why 3-5BB/hr usually the standard that everyone says. I would love to have a full in depth explanation of where that range came from, how it was determined and all of the mitigating factors that led to that number being considered the avg winning rate.

Let's not turn this into a winrate thread. We already have one.

I'll simply say there are always exceptions to every rule. In addition, just because someone can have winrate X at 1/2, that doesn't translate to having a 2.5X winrate at 2/5.

Therefore, saying that you know someone who does consistently make $100k/yr at 2/5 doesn't mean that even the faithful 2+2 poster getting coaching can expect to achieve it.

We don't have to get into what the average 2p2er can make at 2/5 or 1/2. The topic came up because BWillie said those who are crushing 2/5 only make 2.5bb/hr, I responded that those are crushing make 8-10bb/hr, and nobody disagreed. Whether 0.5% of live pros are crushing or whether 5% of live pros are crushing wasn't the point - it was an order of magnitude distinction I was trying to make, and I think I was successful in that regard.

Cliffs: Unless someone wants to dispute the fact that the very best players can make 8-10 bb/hr at 2/5 (and nobody has said that yet), I think the winrate discussion is over for purposes of this thread.

Sorry,
I know qs like this are hard to asnwer, but I one of the many online players scouting the live NL scene. I am targeting 2/3NL (300 buying max) game in O11.
What kind of WRs can one expect @ 2/3 live in general? How about 5/5 NL?

I will make one last comment in regards to win rates...

The use of a outliner to sight an example is poor practice. Saying someone can earn 8-10BB/hr and someone can win the lottery are equal in terms of real life planning.

You've got it at 0.5% of live pros, I have it more in the 5-10% range for 2/5 pros (among pros - not just those who play live and read 2p2), but I think we can agree to disagree on that, and/or move that discussion to a different thread.

The only reason I am replying to your post is I don't want anyone reading this thread to think I agree with your statement that making 8bb/hr at 2/5 (and especially 1/2) is akin to winning the lottery, because I strongly disagree with that.

Okay I'm done now If you want to discuss this more in depth, we can do it in the winrates thread.

Nice selective reading there bub. I said they are equal in terms of life planning, which they are.

It wasn't selective reading, I just have absolutely no idea what the difference is between "the odds of making 8-10bb/hr and winning the lottery are comparable" and "making 8-10bb/hr and winning the lottery are equal in terms of real life planning."

Care to explain (perhaps in a less defensive tone) what you meant by "real life planning?"

Sorry if there is a thread answering all of this and if there is please point me in its direction. I was a solid winning midstakes mtt grinder before black friday and now I am possibly thinking of making the switch to live low stakes. Please just give me ball park figures. How much could I make hourly play live $1/2? what are some general transitioning tips and anything else that may help an already solid MTT player transition to live and cash games... Thanks so much for the help...

Im in the same boat.... So far what I have heard is this.

At, 1/2, play ABC poker. Don't try to "level up" on your opponents as most of the time they are thinking to simply for any of it too work.

Keep your bluffs at bay. People will call you down with TPLK.

Value bet thinly. Do NOT play passively.

Just a few things I have learned so far. The fish are MASSIVE at these low limit live games. When you hit a big hand, go to valuetown, and stack the chips.

Have patience! These games run slow as hell and it is easy to get into a "tilt" mindset because of it. Wait for your big hands.

Check the "Brick and Mortar" forum. A few good threads have been made in the last few days that address this question.

A good hourly rate for 1/2 would be anywhere from 20-30$. I had a player at my table a few days ago who bought in with $200, and 4 hours later left with $1500.

Piece of Bwillie's post:

I'm not attacking BWillie for this, because as you can see the way his post is worded, HE didn't say it was possible, it seems he was pointing out that the idea had been touted by others as being possible. Thus, BWillie, don't take offense, this mini 2OutsNoProb rant is not directed at you.

That being said.

Absolute, complete and utter lunacy. I would venture a guess that virtually no one who has ever played the game has made $60,000 cash playing 1/2 NL live in a year. This is insane. Everyone here knows that no one does this. This would be $30 hourly (virutally impossible) for 2000 hours (full time play, very few people actually do this live) Or, it'd be $20 hourly (doable, but by a tiny % of players, regardless of all the lies people spew in the B+M section of this site) for 3000 hours a year (this is 57.7 hours weekly, which is beyond ridiculous and I doubt is done by anyone). Want to meet in the middle? Does $25 hourly @ 2400 hours sound better? Still pretty high on both figures, seems like a tough combo to meet.

Virtually anyone putting in this type of volume or coming near any of these winrates would be off the 1/2 NL tables and have jumped to higher limits, or tournaments, or whatever, anyway. I'd happily be willing to bet that no one here could conclusively prove that they had even one example of someone who cleared $60000 in a calendar year playing 1/2 NL live, this is just comical. I doubt anyone comes even close.

Let's stop dreaming and reinforcing the absurd comments from people with 6 posts who show up here claiming to "crush" live games for absurd winrates

Don't sugarcoat it, we are all aware it's nonsense. Not only is the guy claiming $53,000, he's claiming that there was never variance involved in that this was the LOWEST figure during a period of NINE years.

I suppose if someone had completely stopped caring about having a normal life and had no problem whatsoever with sitting in a card room 70 hours a week, the absolute total won could be pretty high, but it's pretty unlikely we have an example of that happening. In some other thread awhile back in B+M some guy posted detailed stats that stated that he had played 3076 hours in a year (an absolutely astronomical total) at something like $13.60 hourly. This is a pretty good winrate, and a huge number of hours (which caused many people to laugh at the guy for having no life since he was averaging 59 hours a week playing 1/2), and he wasn't even 3/4 of the way to the $60k figure.

Fine by me, paste this over to the Winrate Containment Thread then, I feel it's valid to discuss since it affects the issue at hand and because there's info all over the site stating erroneous amounts that people win hourly/yearly. Not to sound like I'm 5 but the other guy is the one who started it