My initial goal was to make $4k per month. I accomplished that the last 2 months which is encouraging, but haven’t set anything new. Im still a little nervous about a big downswing, but my style of play generally curbs variance. (At the cost of more profits, I assure you.) Now that I have more confidence that I can’t bust my bankroll in a few sessions I’m going to try and open up my game a little and be more aggressive.

It’s currently my only income, but it’s starting to cause some life goal issues. (Fun fact: banks don’t really care what your credit score is, or your savings, or that you have no debt, if you don’t have any provable income.) Wife and I want to get a duplex/fixer upper/rental property so I might have to get a temp job to get a loan.

I’m also not real sure what the tricks are for long term poker players, but I’ve got a list of CPAs to get some info.

Right on Marsh.
Obviously feel free to experiment if you want, but remember it’s not always worth trying to fix something that isn’t broken. I had a really solid start to my hours goal and then I stalled out a little bit when I started trying to ramp up my aggression in some spots where I wouldn’t of before. It lead to a reasonably long breakeven stretch and now I’m getting back to the basics and it’s already feeling better again.
Keep us posted and good luck on the banking front.

Hello.

I’m a semi-grinder at our local card club here in MN. In Minnesota, no limit isn’t legal, so the game I play is spread limit hold em. Blinds are 1/2, can bet/raise at any point to a maximum of $100 on all streets.

Games are super juicy. Lots of casual players with a wide range in ages. Games are super beatable IMO. I’ve never kept track of my wins or losses, but downloaded the poker income app and have tracked my last 10 sessions. Here’s what it looks like:







From reading various threads from google searches, I’ve read that 10 Big Bets per hour is a good win rate. Is this accurate? I intend to keep tracking my results and can update this thread, but was just wondering what a good win rate is. I’m a winning player overall, but never took tracking my results seriously. I’m wondering if the stats shown in the first screenshot would be considered good; from what I’ve gathered online, it seems that my results seem higher than normal. I’m guessing it’s just because of my limited sample size of my last 10 sessions.

Any feedback would be greatly appreciated!

With such a small sample size you can't get an accurate win rate. Once you log at least 1k hours that's when you will get a better view of your win rate. The more hours you log, the closer you get to your win rate.

For 1/2 anything around $25/hr is a solid win rate. 30+ is when you into the crusher category

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Im at about $15/hr longish term at 1/2. I have been on plenty of heaters like that, but they never last. 1K downswings are commonplace.

5-10 BB an hour is solidly profitable

How much is the rake and jackpot drop in this game?

Max rake is $5 or $6 (believe pot has to get to $100 for that to happen, although I don’t know for sure). Jackpot is $1 per hand, I believe.

I think the rake is 10% up to $4 and jackpot drop is $2 for all hands that go to the flop

Do you play on Global? Think I remember seeing your sn on there.

That's actually not too bad. Kinda sucks that the $2 jackpot drop comes out automatically on the flop, but in the grand scheme of things this is a pretty solid game rake wise.

I play in a similar game, 10% up to $5 plus $2 for promo drop. The promo drop comes $1 at $10 and the second $1 at $20, no flop no drop. $7 max drop isn't anything to celebrate about, but the game is still ridiculously soft and we've all read about others that pay way more rake than this.

A few pages back I posted some personal giraffes, all over 1000 hour sample sizes, ranging from 4bb/hr to 12bb/hr and everything in-between all within the same 1/3 NL game.

Gyou'lllikelyneverhavean"accurate"ideaofanything,b utgoodluck!G

My 2 cents. The reason this thread exists is that it's virtually impossible to get everyone to report accurate win rates to know what's good or bad or normal. There are outliers on both sides and exaggerated results and small samples that can all confuse things. That being said I think it's widely accepted that most poker players are overall losing. So breaking even is already good. Beating the game at 10 BB per hour is even more exclusive and doing very well in my opinion.

Your results are very good but as you've mentioned your sample size is trivial. I'd be cautiously optimistic based on your statements that you feel you've been beating the game for a while and just started to officially measure. When you get to 500 hours or so you'll have a better feel for how close these are to a true win rate. There's a 90% confidence equation you can use in this thread if you're curious but no one will ever know there true win rate. By the time you get 1k or 2k hours of live play in (what many consider a significant live sample) your poker game has evolved and your environment has evolved since the start of the sample rendering your results forever inaccurate. Looking at the magnitude and the trend over time can be helpful to evaluate what is and is not working though. Good luck!

My 2019 has not started off well:

Hours: 84
P/L: ($645)
Hourly ($7.70)

Specific Game results:
1/2 NL: ($442) over 31 hours
2/5 NL: ($1878) over 34 hours
1/3 PLO: +$1,585 over 19 hours

I know a very small sample size so far, but I feel like I am really struggling compared to last year. Nothing has come easy and all and I feel like it has been one step forward, two steps back (indeed, I have only logged 14 winning sessions out of 27).

I have a huge problem with "breakeven tilt", especially when I see what I consider "bad" players winning big. I have taken a a few weeks off here and re-read Zen and the Art of Poker as well as the Tao of Poker.

Will head back to the tables next weekend to keep plugging. Hope to turn things around.

GL to all.

Shorn

@shorn7 - Posts like this always scare me. I know from your HHs and posts that you're a strong NL player. I cant speak for PLO as I still haven't played it much. It makes me feel like I'm running several standard deviations above EV and will face some harsh truths in the near future.

Being envious of the fish who cant lose despite bad play is human. I tend to like when they get chips though because they are easier to gather from fish than from sharks. As long as you are still making good decisions and not trying too hard to get into pots with them it should only be an annoyance. Is this tilt changing your in game decision making? If so, try to focus on that. If not, I hope you start to run better. Nice volume by the way, I'm also at 90 hours for the year. Good luck!

@ shorn

My guess is most of poker is just losing as little as possible when things are sucking (especially relative to what our opponents would be losing in the same spot) while waiting for the good times.

Yesterday during the middle of my 11.25 hour session I went on a 4.5 hour streak where I didn't win a single hand (possibly a personal record, I'm not sure) including getting stacked with KK vs 54 HU (having gotten in 25% of stacks preflop against the guy who literally couldn't miss who shipped an easy peasy $1500 session win cuz poker is obviously so easy). I'm assuming most people would have monkey tilted the session away in my spot, but I just stuck with it and booked a small 64bb loss for the day and will move on and wait for my good times.

Also important to evaluate the games you are playing in. Are they good games? No harm in moving down if you don't feel they are and are struggling.

And of course lol at all our sample sizes (I'm at 114.5 hours for the year, crushing you guys, lol). It's *so* meaningless (but of course I realize the difficulty of convincing our brain of that, especially during the down times).

Ghavetrustinyourmethod,imoG

Yeah, I’m in a hole for 2019 from about 65 hours.

I had 3 -1500 or more 2/5/10 sessions in Jan and Feb and that’s been a challenge to dig out of.

Think I’m still down about 500 overall too.

Thanks. I think I am coming to the realization that I ran well over expectation last year and this is those damn chickens coming home to roost.

As to the bolded, yes I think it is. I go into each session with the firm intention of being patient and looking for good spots. But 4-5 hours of folding in, I generally make a stupid play out of boredom which invariably turns out poorly (go figure!) and then I am in "dig out" mode which is never good.

All of this is correctable by me of course, I just have not found the even kilter this year to do it and am struggling to get there. To be honest, I have had 2 awful 2/5 sessions (-$3800 total over say 8 hours) that are the biggest part of it, but no excuses at all. Another error I think was that I set a monetary goal for the year which maybe put more pressure on me to push spots that I might not have pushed without it.

Anyway, I just need to clean up my game and keep putting in hours and hopefully it will turn around. I just hope your 90 hours so far have been way better than mine!

Well done GG. There is no Q in my mind that I would have monkey tilted a ton in your spot. And yes, I really need to work on limiting losing sessions like you did above as things can compound quickly if you let it get away from you. I just haven't had that mental strength this year that I have had in the past. Games have been fine to be honest....just bad play by me mostly.

I will trust the method and thanks for the reminders!

Shorn

What do you BI with shorn?

One huge advantage I've found to sitting on a topped up 66bb BI versus a 100bb BI is that it is *so* trivially easy to play (tight is right, tigher is righter, etc.) and you just get in so few tough situations. So like after I'm stacked in the KK vs 54 case for my 66bbs, whatever, who cares, I pull out another 66bbs and I'm back in my wheelhouse where it's still pretty easy peasy poker.

If you're struggling, don't underestimate the difficulty of playing deep versus the easyiess of playing short especially in your current mindset. You can always BI deeper once you're comfortably back on your mental horse.

Gattheveryleastsometingtoconsider,imoG

I feel like my last 150 hours or so have been really similar to your Shorn. Just seems like every time I’m in a perfect spot in the biggest pot of the session the absolute nut worst river card hits. It’s really just bound to happen. Think of how lucky we are to be able to still play this game and run a bit better than breakeven, even when running below expectation. Most players need to run above expectation to break even.
This might not be much consolation if this is your job, but it’s what I’ve been trying to tell myself while waiting out the pits of gross rivers.

And I know that GG means well by his advice, but I wouldn’t recommend short buying to compensate. You’d really feel sick to start running well and only doubling up to what you would regularly buy in for. I get the idea of simplifying things to reduce frustration, but I think you’ll be better off just working on your entitlement tilt issue.
You’re a solid player. I’ve read some of your strat posts/thoughts. Just fight through the boredom and wait for the light at the end of the tunnel.

This x10. Skill advantages are compounded exponentially the deeper you are. All buying in short does is make the game preflop and decrease any Edge you have by being a better player.

However if you don't have a skill advantage, buying a short is a great idea as it minimizes the edge that a better player will have over you.


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For poker mindset, my opinion is that Tommy Angelo's Painless Poker and The Elements of Poker are must reads.

Year to date stats are meaningless, especially for those of us not playing 40+ hours per week.

Here are my YTD stats (153 hours 17/19 winning sessios), which aren't any more meaningful than yours, except maybe I should play more 1/2.







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If he's playing well and has an advantage deep, then by all means play deep. I'll let shorn decide if he's playing well. Even a self-imposed penalty of playing an orbit / hour at a shorter BI before topping off to deeper when convinced he has things under control mentally isn't a horrible idea.

GcluelessplayingwellnoobG