Whats a good roll to have if you have a full time job and dont live off your poker roll? Im beating 2-5 for $30 per hour over 300 hours. Looking to take a shot, wondering if now ismthe time. Thanks.

10 BIs should be good for a shot since you have a replenish-able roll that is separate from your life roll.

However, I will warn you that 300 hours isn't really enough time to be able to have truly experienced the swings of live poker. I would suggest you log enough hours to go through at least one horrendous downswing at your current level before moving up. Otherwise, you might get overly discouraged later on when you finally do experience it.

Thank you for this. Can i ask, i went through a 4 buy in downswing that took me 6 weeks to make up, as i ran bad, is that horrendous? Probably not i guess. Whats horrendous?

20 over 8 months is horrendous.

I guess that's a very subjective question. A "horrendous" downswing, IMO, is one the makes you doubt your ability to play poker profitably and makes you consider quitting altogether. It might also make you re-evaluate the meaning of life, your belief in God/Gods/deities, etc. =P

"You will run worse than you ever thought possible. Then you will run even worse than that." - Someone intelligent (I forgot who said that)

I butchered that quote but you get the gist of it.

For me, it was about 10 BI in 50 hours with near perfect play (criticize me for this statement if you want, but I neurotically review every major hand I play in with outside help. I swear, I made 1 mistake in this entire time frame). That's getting stacked every 5 hours while never winning a session, for 10 straight sessions.

If you are less composed than me, it might be less. If you are more composed than me, it might be more.

If you actually believe you only made 1 mistake in that timeframe you need to get people that are a little harsher in reviewing your hands or move up.

Sounds about right, thanks. Hope it happens to me in the next life.

Played the 5-5 at the Bike yesterday for a few hours. Only had 1 game going. During my time there the break down was like this.

2-3 Loose fishy players.

1 Prop. She was just tight and played ABC.

1 Solid nit who moved down from the 5-10 game.

1 Old Super nit nursing a $300 stack. Seemed content to just play 1 hand an hour and take down a $30 pot.

I guess if you want to call the Solid Nit and the Prop, pros I guess technically they are. But not in the sense that they make the game tough. There was no one that would ever put you in a difficult spot or anything. So you can take pretty exploitable lines to maximize value in spots you wouldn't be able to get away with in tougher 5-10 and 10-20 games.

No one would make a move on you without a hand. Even if they know for sure you are FOS. They just let you have it.

yeah, definitely very few 'solid pros' in the 5-5 game. But it does make it a tougher game. Not only do you have a few 5-10 not-horrible players slumming, but the normal 5-5 players are tightening up.

They still have the same BRs they had before, but they don't want to buy in for 300 when a bunch of other people have 1K. So it seems like they're buying in for 500 now and playing tighter than they used to.

The Bike was trying to bridge the 5-5 and 5-10 games so the 5-10 guys don't have to chip all the way down to 500 if/when the 5-10 game breaks, but I think they're just going to hasten the 5-10 players' exit to Commerce, which was already happening.

Late Saturday a bad lag reg sat down and bought in for 300. He didn't know it had gone to a 1K max. He played aggro and chipped up to about 1300, which would have been good under the old structure. But that night everyone already had 1K, and when he finally started running bad, his opponents had enough chips to stack him. He died quickly

While we're on the subject. Which one of you ****ers was giving out free ****ing advice at the tables? At another table a guy had built up a bunch of chips, maybe 3-4K or so. He racks up to leave, then taps another guy on the leg and says, "come on, I'll tell you what your tell is" and they walk out to the hallway. WTF? The game is only going to get worse, the player pool is shrinking, and you're severely educating a fish?

Edit: Not sure the other guy was even a fish.

Had my worst session ever at live poker the other day. I was all in 7 times and went 1 for 7. I did an EV calc and I actually ran about $2500 below EV for those all ins, which hurts pretty bad. Ended up down several buyins in a session I should have made a nice profit on

2/5

225 hours
+$6253
$27.8/hour

Bankroll is down to like $7k but that's plenty for 2/5 IMO.

Hoping I can get a lot of hours played in May b/c this month I've been crazy busy

See above: 4 BI downswing (in pure EV) in about 6 hours hehe

Thank you for the fear.

I dunno guys.

I would say my estimation of a solid pro is someone that is taking a lot of money off the table and going to give me a lot of trouble when stacks get deep and they have position or the initiative.

Usually they play a tighter range postflop and don't make as many moves postflop with air, thin value, or semi-bluffs but they are not someone I want at the table. On the upside they're not crushing the game but poker is their income and they are making way less postflop mistakes than other players at the table.

This is what i'm doing. I am hoping in the next months my reads on barrel tendencies, raising ranges, and showdown/calling frequencies of regulars will reveal themselves and boost my winrate above $40/hr

i wouldn't worry about your hourly. i have no idea what my hourly is except that it is positive. in fact i've only calculated it once since i started playing live again back in october and that was just for a little mental masturbation b/c i ran hot in march.

the goal is not to have a good hourly rather having a good hourly is a by product of beating the game and running good. but since it takes a couple of months to approach even a somewhat meaningful sample size live, there are other, far more useful ways to measure your progress. you mention things like barrel tendencies, raising ranges, showdown/calling frequencies. just keep working these and other aspects of your game.

the thing is big pots have a huge impact on your results over your first few hundred hours. don't let that variance affect how you access your games.

DaBowskii what do you look like? Do you play at the Bike exclusively? If you see me there, I'm easy to spot. I'm the Asian guy.

My current hourly at 5-5 is ~$255.......over 13hrs

I'm young & asian 22 but probably look barely legal... People must mistake us haha...

I am known for wearing ******ed hats and I often wear a backpack.

Yeah I am focused on hourly more than usual because 5-5 is such a damn grind. Unless i'm stacking chips it's like really dull 8 hours sessions with a handful on interesting spots.

Big pots are my favorite because I feel that the majority of the competition plays terribly in them except for their occasional random 3 street airbluff or thin value bet that is probably due to me leveling myself. I am highly decision oriented not result oriented when I'm rolled correctly.

I'm using the hourly rate more as a motivation to be more aware and think about implementing alternative lines where it makes sense.

I'm teeter-tottering on the idea of moving up in stakes, but always tend to be conservative. My thought has always been that if I cannot max-buy into a game and feel comfortable bluffing the entire buy-in if the situation calls for it, then I shouldn't be sitting. Note: I rarely ever make huge bluffs, but I feel I should be comfortable doing so in order to be sitting at that table.

1/2

247 hours
+$8384
$33.94/hr

That's funny because I've been wearing a backpack lately too haha. But I don't wear hats anymore.

Do yourself a favor. You really need to to move up to the $5 bb games.

take 1.5k and take a shot. by in for 60-80bb and just play tight solid poker while you get used to the new game and regs. maybe play a couple of 1/2 sessions before with the intention of just playing straightforward. cbet a little less, open a little tighter, pass up on small edges, etc to get a feel for how you're going play 2/5.

obv this is not how you intend to play when you move up however it can kinda work as a defense mechanism from leveling yourself at a higher limit which is pretty common when moving up. the games will be a little more aggressive but that does not mean everyone's trying to make a move on you.

really good advice for shot taking.

btw, the transition from 1/2 to 2/5 is not that big. as in, players don't start bluffing that much more, they don't suddenly become more "competent" and capable of "advanced plays". its going to generally be the same game just with more money and slightly better regs.

It really does help to play a little tighter and passing up on small edges/ high variance "plays" when just moving up. I remember the time I first sat in a 10/20 game.... I quickly realized that there were guys there with more money than me... ALOT MORE. Guys who weren't scared and couldn't be pushed around as easily. So I just played a tight TAG game, got an image of a tight player, and used that to make some steals, floats, bluff-raises later on. It may not be very exciting, but when you're moving up that kind of style is a "safe bet" and gives you time to adjust to the stakes, the higher amounts of money, and the player tendencies.

Buy-in less initially ~ like the min. As you gain reads on the table 30-40 minutes in decide whether buying in more will increase your edge. there are many times I wish I did this before buying in 200BBs and it would have saved me hundreds of BBs

^^^

ZOMG, that should be OBV OBV OBV!

buying in for 200bb when shot-taking is an easy way of making a bigger game seem even scarier that it is. Also mistakes become much more expensive when deep. Buy-in for 70BB and its hard to make huge mistakes.