hi guys, I have been beating 2/4 in New Zealand for 30+/hr, where the rake was 10% capped at $15. This is pretty high however we don't tip here.

recently I've moved to the Gold Coast where the rake is criminal at Jupiter's casino. 10% capped at $20 for 2/3. this is close to 7 big blinds!!

do you guys think this is beatable? apparently the game is very fishy as the increased rake has made most regs go play at Brisbane instead.

I think you could give it a short-term shot and see if it's really that fishy (aka run good from the start), but that rake seems too high for a home casino.

Assume a standard heads up pot where you open for 15, and get bets of 20 and 50 in, you're gonna pay the $2 small blind and your called open in rake ($17). Just feels like too much.

I've always thought the 'LAG vs TAG, who has greater variance?' discussion was this simple. LAG's play more hands per hour so they have a greater hourly variance. Just like anybody's 10 hour variance is greater than their hourly variance. But we want to play more hands in a shorter time frame so that we can reach the long term sooner and not have to worry so much about swings

What is your sample of 2/4 @ $40+ph ?? Are there not bigger games at GC? If not find the home games because that is rake rape.

Hi guys,

I play 1/2 $300 cap NL at Maryland Live in my spare time, about 3-5 times a week. I have been tracking my results to the minute from January 1st of this year.

My stats are:

Total Profit: $10,754 (109 sessions)
Wage/hour: $11.83
Total Pokertime: 909 hours
Rake: $5 max + $1 for bad beat (and I tip $1 every winning pot over $15)
Style: I play TAG. I have recently made the switch to bet/bet/bet line with all my value hands unless I have a serious excuse to slowplay. I probably am a little loose pre with calling with speculative hands where I shouldn't be, but I am definitely one of the tightest at my table in this regard at all times (not completing from the small blind with anything, folding KJ UTG, folding suited connectors unless I have 20 times the raise size in our effective stacks, etc)

My questions are:

--> At what point (how many hours/sessions) can I be comfortable with being a good enough sample size for my winrate? Is 909 hours too small with too much variance for my $11.83/hr winrate to be a solid number?

--> How many hours should I be at to think I have a solid idea of what my winrate per hour is? If 909 is enough, should I think I have a major leak in my game because I'm not making 10bbs/hr? Sidenote: I was making around $15-18/hr before I had a massive downswing in May.

--> If/when I move up to $2/5 and assume I have the same edge over the field at 1/2 that I do at 2/5 (which I think I will), what could I extrapolate/guess my winrate would be there if I'm currently making $11.83/hr at 1/2? I rarely bluff or squeeze, which I know if I did more often in the right spots I'd increase my winrate, but should I investigate my current game more before implementing these things into my sessions?

~1000 hours is good to know you won't drop below the $11.83. More is definitely possible. The playing should be the easy part. After you regularly are putting in enough time off the table, most people's hands should be face up to you at 1/2. The rake for these stakes makes it difficult to do more than 10BB/hour though.

2/5 is better for the smaller rake (relatively), the higher $/hour, and there are smaller stakes to drop to if you aren't feeling confident. You need to be way more rolled though. Not just the dollar amount, the buy-ins. I never even used a 1/2 roll, I went with $800 ($300 cap) and never lost it all in one night.

Thanks. Do you think $12,000 is ok to start playing 2/5? I have a business taking in about $2k a month after all expenses are paid to help my roll if needed. If I do move up to 2/5 should I always be buying in for the maximum $500 or should I be doing a little over the minimum ($200) at $350? I know the correct thing is to wait for 30 buy-ins, but does my job situation make this more flexible?

Since you have a non-poker job, I think 12k is plenty to start 2/5. I'm not saying this from experience, but prevailing wisdom would say this I think. Just keep in mind you don't have to force yourself to be a "2/5 player." You are a poker player. You can always move to lower stakes if the game is filled with grinders, if the lower stake game is very juicy, if you are playing your B game, or any other reason really.

Also buy in full. Personally I would buy in for the max allowed at the table (unless it's uncapped, in which case buy in enough to cover the fish). Deeper stacks cushion variance.

Hey mate, I've played there a bit. It was the softest 2:5 game I've played. That rake is crazy though.

Other problem there is how few tables run and the wait lists can be huge.

From what I understand you should split time between GC and Bris depending on the day

I'd always play the most profitable game you're comfortable playing. I've seen more money on 1/3 tables than 2/5 tables in the same room. Some guys just can't play under 2/5 for ego but there's more $ to make at the 1/3. That doesn't mean a 5/T game with guys you've seen play poorly at 2/5 is a good idea. The potential of losing $1K+ in 1 hand will probably take you off you're A-game.

My first 100 hours of tracked 1/2 play are in the books. I started playing semi-seriously again in April. I basically took June/July off due to some work travel and home projects, but now I'm back baby.

Hours: 101.75
Sessions: 46
Winnings: $3051.00
Hourly: $29.99/hr.
Winning Sessions: 34
Losing Sessions: 12
Biggest Win: $404
Biggest Loss: -$303

It feels good. I definitely started on a massive heater which helped my wife get comfortable with the idea of me playing 6-10 hours per week. Since then my winrate has settled around $30/hr. and I hope it can stay there. I feel like I play in some pretty soft games. Almost all of this volume is on work nights (Sun-Thurs.) I feel like these games are just as profitable if not more so than the weekends. People still drink, and even though I'm 30 and sometimes the youngest at the table by 15 years, they aren't just a bunch of tight old men. Lots of straddling, limping, calling down light, playing any Ax, etc. The few times I've ventured out on the weekends each table is sprinkled with a couple 20 something TAG grinders, who aside from rare occasions, I never seen during the week.

Hard to say how I've ran overall in that 100 hours, but I can't say it's been bad. In this whole time I have never been felted. Any time I put my stack in against a bigger stack I won. I probably just jinxed it by writing it down. I'm debating starting a PG&C thread. I want to but I'm not sure if I'll be able to update it properly. Anyways, I know 100 hours is a lol small sample size, and it took me 5 months to get there, so I could be in for some losing years, but being able to say I'm up $3k feels pretty good.

I feel like my game has evolved a lot from grinding a small winrate in online, to starting off too loose in full ring live 1/2, to now constantly adjusting trying to develop a plan to target every weakness of every player at the table.

For what it's worth rake is $5+$1.

Congrats, well done. I started hot when I started tracking my results at the start of this year too. Then I hit an ugly sick downswing in May which dipped my hourly rate under $15/hr and dinked my confidence. Just be prepared for it, it'll happen but you just need to grind through it.

You mentioned winning all your all-ins. I vividly remember one session where I was literally playing against the worst players on earth. They were calling my $100 3bets when I had QQ+, and stacked me 3 times for $300 in the span of TWO rotations. Q9 > KK on a Q74 board all-in on the flop, J6o > AA on a J57 flop all in on the flop, and then 9Ts > QQ all-in on a AQ4 flop and he hit his flush. It was one of the most frustrating things ever and I felt powerless.

That's really consistent with no wins bigger than $404. The last time I was at $30/hour at 1/2, I had had 3 $1K+ days. Hats off.

My average session length is only 2 hours so thats probably a big factor. If I re-tally it as 8 hour sessions im sure theres a lot more swinginess in there.

I definitely remember having 5-10 bi downswings online so I wont be too shocked. The only reason I dont want to say ive run good is the few times ive been at thise dream tables with multiple whales ive barely been able to tread water. Im probably down overall at great tables.

I think I've identified a leak, any advice?

I have ft m-f job, so I usually play from 5pm to 9-11 on weekdays. I very rarely play on Wednesdays due to a weekly commitment. So that means Thursday, Friday and Saturday are the days I'm most likely coming back to the game after a 48+ hour break. And if I'm playing Monday, I probably played all weekend too. Same thing with Tuesday.

Koss - nice start, congrats!

Homer - unless you've put in some *serious* hours on each of your days, my guess is that your day stat differences is nothing more than statistical noise.

i've been 100% breakeven since i stopped playing.

Better than 80%+ of the player pool...

Looks to me like brain fatigue sets in after 40 hours of stimulus (work + pokers) in a week...

I'll just say I'm an IT employee and work from home a decent amt so it's pretty low stress most of the time but yeah sleep/rest is a very good answer. I also feel like I lose the "beat" when I'm not playing consecutive days if that makes sense, even though I read stuff on here and stove stuff during off days.

I thought of recording my sessions along with some variables once to see the ideal times I should play (time of day, hours since I woke up, day of the week, tables I was playing at once, stakes, etc). This was back in the online heyday circa 2008/9. And I stopped recording all of that after about 2 days because even if I had kept doing it, even now, 6 years later, I still wouldn't have a big enough sample size to say any results are significant.

Yea, your sample sizes for day-of-the-week results are always going to be on the "lol-small" size ... but I'm not convinced that there isn't still value there.

Depending on where you're playing your local rooms may have significantly different player compositions from day to day. Generally I'd lump Sun-Thurs together and Fri/Sat separately (basically days when people work in the morning vs not), but depending on your player pool you might be able to make finer distinctions.

I know a couple of specific whales that can't play during the week because of work. And I know some rooms that get crazy busy on Wednesdays when the low buy in tournament runs.

It's nearly impossible to just look at a winrate number and say "I shouldn't play on Monday". But I feel like it can at least prompt us to dig deeper into what else might be influencing our game.

I have a theory about Thrsday nights, no idea if it's valid.

A lot of guys with families can't play poker all night on a Friday or Saturday because of the children or his wife wanting to do stuff. But Thursday night, the children are sleeping for school and it's these guys one time a week that they can play all night and then sleepwalk through work on Friday. And these guys aren't rich but these same facets of their lives don't allow for a whole lot of study time.