Jonathan Little runs a great site with many resources for fine tuning your game.

Trying to avoid sweeping statements and black and white scenarios because every session is different, but a couple tips I’d have at the 1/2 and 1/3 level is this:

1. PF hand selection and playing position is critical. Just because clueless regs are playing and calling raises with K4s doesn’t mean you should join the party because you think you can “outplay them”
2. Big river bluffs and advanced strategy are just not common at this level. If they’re telling you they have it, they probably do - unless you’ve seen them showdown otherwise.
3. As others have said, Start working on being able to range your opponents during the hand - and reevaluate on each street. The more you do it, the quicker you’ll be able to process the information and own them.

GL

I know this has been mentioned already but I feel I should say it again. If your not winning at 1/3, for the love of God do not try and move up in stakes. If you can't beat the bad players I promise you won't beat good players. Winning poker can be very complicated. SPR, exploitative play, pot control, pot odds, implied pot odds, hand ranges in all positions, playing multiway vs heads up etc. But once you understand this concepts the game will become easier. Read as many books as you can, Post as many hands on here as you can and get all the different perspectives. Lastly I would advise not watching poker on tv to learn much. Those shows are edited for entertainment purposes. You don't see everything that went into leading up to the hand played.

OP, for what its worth, my guess is that the truth is somewhere between this:

and these:

Both of these sides are slightly to the extreme in their direction, imo. As a struggling new player, you'll probably be much closer to the former ~extreme, and as you improve you'll move more towards the latter ~extreme. But in the end, you'll likely end up somewhere in the middle.

/derail

Larry, do you have a giraffe to post in the Winrates thread? Cuz averaging $500 a session would mean you're winning at $50/hr if you average 10 hour sessions, $62.50/hr if you average 8 hour sessions and $83.33/hr if you average 6 hour sessions. So if this is all at 1/2 NL, a mere 25bb - 41.5bb per hour, which I think most would say is completely unattainable at the rake ravaged LLSNL tables (unless perhaps your game is uncapped and plays monstrously big). Could be a small sample size bias here, especially if you're currently on a 16 session heater. Not hatin', just sayin'.

/derail

GgoodlucktoOP!G

And +1 to this. A very good chance you are playing very similar to everyone else at your table, in that you pick up a hand that looks pretty and thus see a flop with it and everyone else for far too much preflop.

GcluelessNLnoobG

I do not keep anything as a graph but the stack of 100s I have as a bankroll and memory for when I played. I dont really care what my winrate is, but yes it is over $50 an hour the past two years, it is about an equal mix of 1/2 and 1/3. Mostly 1/2 this year and 1/3 last year. Which sounds insane, but players have gotten notably worse probably because of rampage, hcl etc. More three betting and willingness to blast off. The amount of players Ive seen stack off multiple times in under an hour is mind boggling. Playing with 50bbs or less and calling 10bb raises with KJo or 109o. I dont table select too much, but like the other day I made $350 in an hour vs truly horrendous players. Did not cooler a single person or really even run hot. All of them lost all their money and suddenly im sitting with the two original OMCs and 5 more OMCs. The next hour and a half I was surrounded by OMCs, it was going to be maybe winning $10 an hour at most with some variance, packed up my chips and went to the beach instead of finding a new table. But I wont sit at a table for long if I dont have an edge on at least 3/4 of it. Which is pretty easy at 1/2 and 1/3.

Part of the reason is that barely any good players play these stakes. Its been hammered down their throats to move up as soon as possible to avoid the rake. Well if the 6th best player at the 2/5 table is better than the second best player at the 1/2 and 1/3 tableÂ…..the rake is not the house. The rake is the other players and variance. And then I think I am better than 95 to 99% of lowest stakes players at ranging my opponents. My bet sizing etc is ok, but not nearly as good as my hand reading skills. Liek if I played with you for two sessions I know that getting involved with you means I would range you close to an OMC. Big bets are usually the nuts or close unless you are low SPR. If I want to play low SPR pots with you I would would have a very tight range. Tighter than you had seen me play vs anyone else at the table. But you would not know I had made that adjustment the first time or two. And then because you are also good at hand reading, mostly we would not be involved in a whole lot of big pots together until one of us changed what we were doing.

/derail @ Larry

If you're not keeping exact stats, I would be more than a little sus of memory / stack-o-bills tracking method, but it sounds like you're doing very well...

And a huge part of winning any given session sometimes isn't even about coolering / running hot but instead not doing the opposite. For example, I booked my 10th biggest loss last session out, mostly due to getting stacked as a 90% fave and 80% fave when the chips went in, plus running my turned fullhouse into a bigger rivered fullhouse (where I somehow managed to not even lose my whole 66bb stack). The point being that if you play long enough not everything will come up roses all the time, even in an awesum environment. i.e. A session every 10 days over the last 2 years @ 8 hours per session is a mere 584 hours; this is an extremely small sample size, and while you can probably have a solid handle on whether you are a winner in the game or not (I have no doubt you are), it is unlikely you'll have any sort of remote idea how you're actually doing (especially if the last 1/4 of those hours you've been on a 16 session winstreak, which is pretty sun-runnerish).

But, not hatin', it seems like you've found a sweet spot, especially in a room where it sounds like there are multiple steaks and the really poor players are playing at the one you've done a good job targetting (a lot of people, such as myself, do not have the benefit of that in a only-one-steaks-offered-99%-of-the-time room).

However, mostly my point relative to the OP is that I think its unfair to paint too rosy a picture of LLSNL. If he's losing at it, he's definitely doing something wrong. But it does take quite a lot of discipline and mental fortitude (let alone some half decent method) to be a long term winner (and a lot of people simply don't have what it takes to do that).

Ggoodlucktousall,imoG

I will contribute to the derail… I think $50 per hour is achievable at 1/2 in the right game conditions and with low rake, but you really need a perfect situation and very high-skill level to achieve that rate. My hourly at 1/2 back when I was tracking (many years ago) was in the mid $30s — this is a rakeless time collection game in a very loose environment in a Texas cardroom. Not an OMC in sight even in the afternoon, no shortstackers…stacks typically ranging from $200-$800. Many players willing to stack off with 1-pair. Reminiscent of the live poker era in the mid aughts.

Years ago, the BEST player (according to consensus of most pros) in my city of 1million+ who is now a 50/100 reg took a prop bet at 1:1 odds with some other high stakes pros as to whether he could make $50 hourly (after time collection is paid) over a small hourly sample at 1/2 … he won handily. So the consensus of the pros in my room was that $50 hourly was the best achievable rate under fairly ideal game conditions.

Definitely some major fallacies in your initial thought process; for starters 2/5 is just 1/3 for players with deeper pockets. If your goal is to move up stakes so the game "plays more straight forward" you're in for a bad time. Right now your losses are from being outdrawn. At 5/T your losses will be from being outplayed.

Anyway I'll assume it's already been mentioned but you need to post specific hands, and I dont mean bad beat garbage like you getting it allin with AA preflop. Post hands that have multiple streets of action besides some crazy suckout.

In the past two years I have played in 15 different rooms in 6 different states. Probably the biggest thing I have going for me that is not sustainable long term is mostly no one knows me when I sit down. Maybe three rooms where I may be recognized. Regs are not able to range me on anything past what they have seen that day, and since I am better at that part of the game then 95% of low stakes players, that is probably where a big part of my win rate comes from. If I had a regular room I agree it would not be sustainable. But moving around different rooms playing sporadically, I have no doubt I can keep up $40-60 an hour. Ive never tried to be a reg and get bored playing the same room over and over.


All the rooms I have recently played at have between 4 and 15 1/2 games running and several 2/5 games going. Bigger the pool and the closer to an airport the better.

I’m averaging a neat 24 BBs an hour (over my last 300 hours of live $1-$2) and I do not think I’m a particularly good player (I doubt I would break even at NL25 online). The average live player at these stakes is *stunningly awful*. They limp-call way too much pre-flop and then play way too tight post-flop. They’re SO EASY to play against.

I don’t mean to be rude, but if after 18 months you still can’t beat them, you must be doing something incredibly wrong.

/derail

Within my overall stats at the same 1/3 NL game, I have a 1013.5 hour sample where the results are 3.22x greater than those over another 1307 hour sample sample. Not hatin', but your guy's samples sizes (for those who are actually diligently/accurately tracking) are far too small to be painting that rosey a picture for OP, imho.

Gthetruthissomewherebetweentherosesandthethorns,im oG

You can sample size whatever you want. Big sample size at the low stakes to get an exact win rate is fine. If you want the overall picture it is really really really rosy and can get an idea rather quickly. The games have not been this good since 2005. Its like saying if you go play slow pitch softball and win your first 20 games 32-5 your sample size is too small. This is not online play. My last 10 sessions I’m somewhere close to $100 an hour. And in every single session Ive started out losing.

Two places I don’t live that have either really rosy or a little less rosy outlooks.

Vegas has by far the best amount of decent players at the low stakes. No chance I could win there close to anywhere else I have played. Lots of Tags who arent necessarily OMCs.
Pittsburgh PA. My god does money fly around there. Maybe I was there on the right days but top pair top kicker is the nuts always at 200bb for just about the entire table. And they don’t like to go home when they lose.

OP, how are you implementing the tactics/strategy you're learning? Are you playing/learning full time? If so, 18 months is quite a lot of time to not see improvement.


I am a recreational player with a career outside of poker. However, I've been dedicating as much time as my life allows into studying/playing. My studying to playing ratio is probably 1:1 right now. In recent times, I wasn't seeing the results I wanted either. So, at the moment, I am adjusting my expectations of myself and my game.


Adjustments:
- Play much shorter sessions with a focus on implementing 1-2 things I am learning
- While on a break, reset my mind, and focus on my session goal(s)
- Stop when my mindset begins to break down
- Journal before and after the session and create a bridge between this and the next I play.


I don't execute it every time. However, my results are different when I execute with a focus on the session goals, journaling, and making sure my mind is locked in. My sessions are about 4-5 hours right now.


Lastly, variance plays a huge part in this game. Learn to recognize when you are the victim of variance and when variance is on your side.

Sent from my Pixel 7a using Tapatalk

I think this is a vastly overlooked part of low stakes. There are 4+ casinos "near" me and at least at the few I've put hundreds of hours in the players are very different.
All of them are playing too wide pre. and almost all aren't 3betting anywhere near enough, but after that it goes completely off the rails. At one AK on K65 is very good vs. raises, at others it's a snap fold.
Also days/times can change the makeup, so 2pm on a Tuesday will be mainly OMC but the same room at 11pm+ on a Friday is younger drunk people gambling.


There is also some truth in the "2-5 is easier" advice, because there's just a lot more chaos at 1-2 and I've spoken to more than a few 2-5 players who say they don't do well at 1-2 (I assume because of it) ... but those are the more breakeven to slightly losing 2-5 players, you don't want to emulate ... and OP is losing so much at 1-2 it would be terrible to move up.

OP another thing you can do to get the I need to play 40% of hands out of your system is go to ACR and deposit 100 dollars. Play nothing but 1c/2c. 2nL. Play two or three tables at once, but only so many as you can see them all at once so you can range your opponents based on what they are playing pre and how often they are betting. You dont need any software, just pay attention. Get used to folding a lot. Stay away from the blitz tables or whatever they call them there. Blitz or zoom or whatever. Players are much better on all those tables at 10nL blitz. Like I could beat 10nL regular no problem, but you need to be pretty technically sound to be able to compete with the bots and regs on those zoom tables. From the sounds of it you are semi crushing those tables at 3bb win per 100 hands. Where regular 10nL much higher winrates are possible. .

Only play 2nL unless you build up to 150 or so. Dont look at it as a competition to build a bankroll. Look at it as a way to gauge your play. There are lots of posts on here if you are truly about getting better about how to beat the micros online that are good. It will help your live game a lot. It will get you used to when you should be three betting, what size, and then when to mix in bluffs. And if you lose a stack or 16 learning its like two straddles in your 1/3 game. Most importantly you will get a feel for boards and how often you are behind. And it wont just be a bunch of concepts your remember and then playing 25 hands an hour. My game improved the most when I lost 100 over a month playing there. I got used to folding. A lot. And picking up betting tells. And you can color code players based on how they play. So if a brown guy was heads up against me and started blasting away I had tagged him as a nit for some reason or other and would overfold. If I tagged someone red then I called a lot lighter. And I think I had light blues as complete maniacs. And then maybe orange for the guys who I thought were solid or regs.

That being said I hate online poker as its unregulated and who knows how many bots and colluders etc are there. But 100 bucks is a small price to pay to win you thousands live. I would not personally put more than 100 on there. Even 50 at 2nL is probably enough to tell you how you are playing. If you can beat 2nL you should be able to be at worst a break even player at 1/2 live

Poker is hard even if you are winning. I see a lot of people chirping, but is often the case, they 've started hot and they haven't experienced a downswing yet. I can't blame them; even if you 've experienced multiple upswings and downswings, it's always tempting to think that you 've solved poker when you are doing well.

To address the OP's concerns, everyone's giving you advice to improve and it's good one, but it's conceivable you are a winner who faced negative variance. It depends on the number of hours you put in. Like, if you are losing after 2000 hours it's less likely you are a winner than if you are losing after 500 hours.

The one thing I would add is that reading your post, one thing I was thinking is that no matter how much you study, studying cannot give you the experience to understand what the population is doing. That only comes with playing a lot of hands and paying attention. Pay attention to what other players are doing when you are not in a hand. Notice their betting patterns. At that level, they are transparent. One bet size means this thing and another size another thing. Notice their tendencies. Do they chase draws? Do they chase draws regardless of price? Do they bluff when they miss? Or Are they fit or fold on the flop?


Do they have wide or tight ranges when they enter the pot? That affects what they do postflop. For example, a passive player who VPIPs around 30% of hands will still be a loser at the game, but his range will be stronger when he starts betting to you compared to a 60% VPIP player.

But again. Poker is hard. There's not one big thing to learn. There a thousands of small things. And it takes time.

LOL. C'mon now.

LLSNL is not hard.....at all. No matter how many downswings you've had. I just finished a 30hr stretch where I flop 9 sets and lost with 8 of them. Ran my KK into AA three times and lost.....rand AA into KK once and lost, and ran a nut flush into a straight flush. And that's just the ones I could remember.

Lost about $5k in 30hrs at a 1/3 deep stack game.


And will still never tell anyone that LLSNL poker is hard. He's not asking why he's having issues at 10/20 live.


Also, downswings at LLSNL are much, much, much shorter than higher games where skill is better. Going on 500 hour downswings really isn't a thing when the skill level is that bad as they make so many mistakes that you either lose the minimum or don't lose in other spots that you should. I have over 22 years at live play and can't recall anyone going on much more than 100hr downswings who didn't have massive leaks.




Let's not romanticize LLSNL poker like it has the variance that more skilled higher limit games have. You're playing LLSNL very, very wrong if you have even remotely close to the amount of variance in poker played "right."

Those are rookie numbers. I lost 2,800 in a 2.5 hours last night at 1/3. Do I think poker is hard? Hell yeah. But I'm a badass and one of the greatest to ever live.

1. Low Limit live poker is probably the easiest level of poker other than play money or micro stake tournaments.

2. Everything is easy once you have figured it out. You cannot compare yourself with 22 years of experience and who knows how many thousands of hours of live play with a guy who is just starting out.

3. Poker is hard, because you never have it figured out, especially if you are trying to move up. There are always things to learn, always times when you think you 're on top of the world only for someone to kick your ass. There is always a level of play you cannot beat.

4. As you improve over time, the field also improves. After 5 years, you may become 100% better in absolute terms, but only 5% better in relative terms because the field improved along with you. Obviously your mileage may vary. Either way, absolute terms of improvement don't count. Poker is a game of relative skill differential.

5. Progress isn't necessarily linear. I can't speak for anyone else, but I know that in my efforts to become better, oftentimes my game took a step backwards as I was trying new things. And the problem is often times you don't know if you are losing because you are running bad or you 're making mistakes.

1. Agree


2. Everything is not easy and no one ever has everything figured out in anything they do.

3. 1/2 and 1/3 are not hard. He is not trying to move up. Hes trying not to blow through 500 every time he steps into a casino.

4. The field does not improve at 1/2 and 1/3. It has gotten worse everywhere ive been but Vegas. Not to say the play is good in Vegas but 20 years ago that was the thing every tourist who saw tv and played twice before did. Its just not much of a thing anymore, and half the people playing there have a clue. Your regular 1/2 game is still bringing Joe from the insurance agency in once a month because why not. And now every degen gangbanger, old man whose grandkids would rather tik tok than visit and 21 year old kid with 200 bucks is walking through the door to see whats up. Rooms are packed again with new players. Some places have huge lists because they either dont have enough dealers or enough tables. I can think of two rooms with too few tables and two with not enough dealers ive played this year.

5. Progresss is definitely not linear. If it was you will have a hard time improving. But you should have a very good idea why you are losing or that is a compounding mistake, the worst kind where you dont learn.

no fish left dummies..too many know it alls,teachers and resources,cheat sheets,etc,etc