How fast do people even move up limits? If you're winning 5 BB / hr, it takes 20 hours to make one BI. You need 30 buy-ins per level, it's going to take 600 hours of play to move up one level. I guess if you're not using any poker winnings for living, you move up every half year?

Most pro players play the level that is most profitable on a risk/reward basis for their skill level and not based on the size of their bankroll. I am certainly in that group and have the bankroll to play much higher. I'm playing at a level where I know I have a strong edge. Almost every successful long term pro gambler is way over bankrolled for the levels they normally play. The others usually go busto... that is, they move up until they find a level that can, and will, wipe them out.

Second, there are not that many levels of live games. As soon as you are half decent you play 2/5, and 5/10 after that is the biggest game you find widely spread on a daily basis unless you are in a major poker location.

Also, if 30 buyins is your criteria, you don't have to wait until you have it all at once. You just have to wait until such time that you have the full bankroll for your main level and one or two buyins for the next higher level. Then you take a shot when the game looks soft. If you fail to make a good run, you again wait until you have grinded out another couple of buyins for the bigger level while playing your normal stakes. Then you do it again. There is no difference, mathematically, between having one bank of 30 buyins and taking 15 shots with 2 buyins each. The taking a shot way is better because it allows you to slowly become accustomed to the way the higher limit plays and lets you know if you are ready... plus, there is always some chance that you run hot when you take a shot and never look back. This works as long as you are not the stubborn type who will go on to lose your entire bankroll at the new level when you are taking a shot, refusing to go back to your grinding level.

Lol think you could make 100-150 an hour at my local casino if you played just weekends. The players are awful.

Wow nice bump. It would be good to have some of the original posters ITT update their thoughts about the games today. Have they changed at all from a few years ago?

In the northeast at least, I think the games overall are slightly tighter than 2 years ago.

I cannot believe there is this many replies here. If hero is a winner overall in the live 5-10 game then his winrate will be between 1bb/hr upwards of 15 or so, depending on the game and a million other variables. And since these variables change from one 4 month period to the next, it may be X for months then as the game shifts go to Y. Attempting to give arbitrary values like "around 7-10bb/hour" is about as valid as predicting how well hero will do on his college boards.

What is "possible" to win is another story, but most never come close to that figure so that discussion goes sour as well.

Most can expect less than zero.

i guess possible is whats on the table, so if the buyin is capped to 100BB and there are 8 other players, you can win the maximum of 800BB a hand, that makes a stagering 120.000 $ / h at 2/5. oc nobody comes close

Possible? If a winner at all, then between 0 and maybe 20bb/hr in the fishiest of home games. For anyone on a forum to suggest where another players number would lie is pointless.

Let's say you get 30 hands/hour and you play 100 hours a month. That's 3000 hands in a month. There's absolutely NO WAY that a really good player could go on a 3000 hand downswing... that's just unheard of.

I think it's pretty hard to come out with something that is accurate in terms of expected win rates in live poker, especially when people are trying to frame it in an online winrate sense. There are just too many variables. I don't think it's that constructive to say "this is my winrate" and it may or may not apply to you.

A big factor for high bb/100 rates is the fact that live games play bigger than their comparable stakes online. For example, a typical open in an online game is 3 to 4bb and usually there might be 0 to 3 callers - SPRs are generally low post-flop in most non-3-bet situations. However, in live games, the typical raise is 4 to 6bb with at least 2 callers in most situations. SPRs are much lower/people stack off with less/generally more deeper play in live - meaning seemingly inflated win rates (obv. more variance as well).

A 10ptbb/100 rate (assuming 3 hours) is alright and can be seen as a solid player's expected win rate, but I think the very good Laggy, good game selecting grinders have a much better win rate than that.

cl0r0x70 had some solid, realistic contributions to this thread. From some of his other threads forward in time from this, it's great to see how he moved on up in stakes.