I agree with alot of this

Bumpity

Very good analysis - I feel I can confirm the speculation and the fact that you can play profitably seeing 30%+ of flops. Another thing to remember is most these games are capped buy-ins, so once you build a stack of 3+ buy ins, you can run over the table.

It is 100% about OBSERVATION.
1) You observing each opponent, picking out call stations, picking out nits -
AND
2) HOW THEY OBSERVE YOU! - Most live players make adjustments to this very loose aggressive style, but they make the wrong adjustments. For instance, they observe your huge value bet with just top pair top kicker, but fail to realize you bet that against CALL STATION X - not against NIT Y. They fail to realize your play changes based on position, and they all lay down very passively for you... then you play in position, get by cheap when you need to, and bloat pots when favorable.

I can also verify this style gets crushed online - I never adjusted to online play style, gave up on it well before black friday, and stuck with live where my success was.

Plus - engage and make conversation at the table. Dole out bad advice that sounds reasonable. Drink while at the table, talk about sports, do everything that doesn't make you seem like a head phone wearing prick whose online funds are frozen and has a "formula" for play.

I'm calling a bit of BS on this thread, nobody is routinely building 10xbuy in stacks.

I am not claiming that - just confirming looser can be profitable live. Have left with 10x stack before, but that is not routine by any means. That is maybe 1 out of 10 or 20 times after 8+ hour sessions for me.

I build a 6x bi stack about every third session, game/run dependent. This is one of the two best threads on llsnl strat in all 2+2.

Really helped me reconsider where/how to win back in the day when I was a bad nit (winning small, though, lol) and first read it.

no I think the advice is good, especially about limping speculative hands up front but I am just very ambivalent about the claims of continuous massive wins

If I could play a soft game that ran continuously (ie follow wsop 2/5 nl, or whenever I can play 2/5 at big east coast card rooms). - think regularly winning 200+big blinds per session is possible.

I agree that consistent 800big blind victories seems unreasonable w sessions of up to 12ish hrs in the usual capped games.

LOL I know how someone makes 40bb/hr+.

I've never won more than 500 BBs in a single session (average session length 6.5 hours) in my first ~770 hours at 1/3 NL (in fact, I've only had 3 sessions where I've won more than 400 BBs, and two of those were just barely over 400 BBs), and yet I still sport an okish (?) 7.5 BB/hr winrate. Course, I'm playing in a game where most stacks are between 50 BBs - 200 BBs and rarely get in true deepstack situations, so perhaps that's one of the differences. I guess my conservative / low variance (?) style could also be another difference. But based purely on my lol small sample size results, I find claims of 600 - 1000 BBs wins every 3rd / 10th session fairly suspicious, unless the game is totally different from the one I play in.

GcluelessNLnoobG

I agree. I've seen a number of posts on 2p2 lately acting as if this is the norm as long as you sit there and TAG it up, but this is just silly. People are not going to have $1500, $2000 in front of them with any regularity at all playing 1/2.

This thread features good advice, but it's also starting to feature a ton of what we see that sucks about the "Official Bankrolls, Winrates, and Finances" thread, where virtually everyone claims to be a massive win rate perfect player. We know that this isn't the case.

6x BI stack about every third session? o.o' Like if you play 2/5 you'd rise from your seat with 3.5k once every 3 days.

Oh, I get it! You literally own the game + is the dealer also

Sorry for the suspiciousness

Session is pretty loosely defined here... Sometimes I will play a 12 hour session - still counts it as a session though. I absolutely do not win 40 bb /hour either. Anytime it has been a 500bb+ win, I have stayed around when table is great and session has been going great so far. So what would have been a 6 hour +250bb session often turns into a 12 hour +600bb session.

I think it really matters if your game has a capped buy in - which actually (maybe counter-intuitively) helps a 5x buy in stack clean house as long as you can stomach some high variance spots.

Listen, I have had -400 bb nights too. I more so than ever believe in staying when winning, get out when losing.

Oh - one more thing. If you play at Foxwoods - the $1/$2 NL game is a MAX $100 buy-in (not $200). (At least it used to be - I now moved and thus moved casinos). So a little fuzzy statistic - 10x buy-in cash out at Foxwoods is only +450bb.

Pretty sure this is no longer the case (50BB max)

Good thread. I've been looking for more B&M strategy, since the game is vastly different.

Ok - the skeptics can rejoice - my only 10x buy-in wins were at $100 max $1/$2 at Foxwoods (so really just +500bb wins), doubt it is ever happening again for +1000bb.

Dude. Building is not winning. I often play a high var style and game select for 200bb or games playing big. If I'm in for 150-300 bb, a 600bb stack means I've won 300-450bb... Also, winning 350 every third day doesn't mean -'m posting a longterm w/r of 40bb an hour (I wish); I can get buried 200bb w high freq as well.

I really appreciate much of the information provided in this thread.

Much of what the OP posted ressonated with me. Many of OP's reads and game analysis was very accurate.

Most of my experience with 2/5 is in vegas where i was a reg at the game for some time. Vegs 2/5 are recreational players or fairly inexperienced 1/2 players taking shots. Their are about 150-200 regs who cycle in and out of the game and tend to be older and very TAG nits.

players at this level seem to be very conservative with their bet sizing and typically do not adjust their game ever.

my success has always come from establishing a very aggro image and putting players to the test quite often.

i am young so i tend to get the occational player playing back at me and puts me in tricky spots.

70% of my 2/5 wins are 150BB+/session. 4-6 hour sessions.

I attribute my success to stealing many flops which i induce with 3-5x pre flob raises + cbet % of 75-90.

I to overbet in this game alot. Weaker opponent will over value their hands and certain tight players will make relatively big folds to connecting and suited boards. This is a very situational and opponent specific move. This has cost me in the past when i get picked off, I became more selective as i recognized the situations better.

Now i play 5/10 regularly and still find overbets to be effective. I do not contintuation bet as frequently.... usually its position, hand, and opponent specific. I maintain a very aggressive style which under the correct circumstances becomes very profitable. I also tend to play OOP more at the 5/10 game as it tends to show a bit more strength to the typical 3b/4b spots. I find myself stealing much more pots OOP than in position in that game.

I think youre discounting that abas original thread started in 2006. At that time I think it was very possible. It becomes increasingly difficult to have those huge wins now. But in 2006 I had many of these huge wins. I am hardly beating the games now.

Oh, this way, now all makes sense

way off base max is 300 so 150bb 30 bb min

Perhaps some of the stiffening in competition is that this thread has been read 70,000+ times?

Let me welcome you to live poker. I am certain you don't remember Foxwoods old poker room and the $1/$2 game being $100 cap buy in.... maybe you were colluding online with your dorm buddies at the time.. don't know, but read the post and quote it fairly.

East coast + WSOP and WPT coverage = the poker boom... led to the easiest game to beat in the history of mankind - the Foxwoods $1/$2 NLHE. I actually made the switch from $20/$40 limit to the $1/$2 NL at this time because the small game was irresistable. It was an all-in **** measuring contest between every 21 year old with a red sox hat in the New England area. Saturdays the wait list would be 4~5 hours. Then once seated, with $100 buy in, most people got one orbit in before finding themselves all in... Sometimes they would survive, sometimes it was next up on the list. If they survived, it was only a matter of time before another all-in. No one walked with one double up.. after all - who was leaving after waiting on the list for hours? The only real trick to winning was to come with enough buy-ins that you could last and build a huge stack...

But that is ok monkeymaps... I hear they invented brick and mortar rooms after online legislation... right?