With this large bi structure I think its probably reasonable to suggest a top player can sustain 40/hr if and only if players are buying in full frequently and regularly

wow..

so basically if ur really good, u can make a living at the lowest limit of live poker lol

Your 1/2 has an abnormally large cap.

If the rake is reasonable, players are bad, you are good, and the stack sizes large enough often enough I don't see why you couldn't.

At that point, depending on the avg opening size your almost playing 2/5 with smaller blinds if that makes any sense.

I play in Khangura's games. The rake is reasonable ($5 + $2 is the highest in the city), the players are bad and stack sizes are somewhat higher on average than a $200 cap 1/2 game. Players buying in for $500 is the exception, the average buyin I'd say would be $250 - $300. There will typically be one table in the room that has an average stack of ~$500 at any given time, however.

Khangura, $22 is a very healthy winrate. I believe $30/hr to be a functional maximum in our games for a very good player, $35/hr for an elite player who should be playing higher since he's crushing it. Anything between $20-$30/hr over 1000 hours is very solid.

I know this is the NLHE forum, but how does live PLO compare to live NLHE in terms of BRM? Would 15 buyins be enough to try 1/2 PLO? I am a winner at 25PLO and 50PLO online but I have never played live PLO. Are the live games as swingy as online where stack offs are regularly 60/40's or are they going to be stacking off with a 7 hi flush? I've heard some of these games are ridiculously soft... I guess I'll have to wait and see.

For PLO, you'll typically want about double the corresponding NLH bankroll to play if you aren't adding to your roll. For 1/2 PLO, you'd be looking at around $8k to play it comfortably and even that is probably not enough. That said, there's nothing saying you can't take a shot with 15 buyins.

Expect a lot of multiway pots and a **** ton of variance. While guys will be stacking off with non-nut draws, the sheer amount of cards you need to dodge on any given hand will mean big swings. It should be quite profitable given break-even or better luck.

1000 hours seems to be the bare minimum for wr. At 300 hours I had a 50%increase in my wr in 1 session.

Oh variance.

Live low stakes PLO is nuts. Especially if you're playing with primarily NLHE players that love to gambool.

The $1/2 PLO I've played in plays more like $2/5 NLHE depthwise, with bigger swings. So I'd think you really need to go 2x or 4x your $1/2 NLHE BR requirement. But that's if you're playing full time at that stake.

Many times the game is so juicy you should sit and take a shot anyway. Players are really, really bad at PLO. They draw to non-nut hands, shovel money in with undersets and small straights getting SMASHED by a reasonable hand. Lots of multi-way preflop hands for $10-50/each with stack sizes in the $200-300 range. If you can fold marginal hands OOP and get a little lucky to hold up when you put the money in, you can make a lot in those games.

1/2 PLO is typically 1/2 5 bring in PLO... it is a sneaky big game, especially if:
- straddles are allowed, BTN straddle especially
- how are the blinds added for a "pot" open.
- what is the buy in cap

Yea, the one I play in you *can* limp for $2. But you can always make it $10 preflop, even from first position or as the straddle. Max buy in $500 (although not many do that at the start of the game).

I love seeing "pot face". When someone says "POT", then gets told that it's $275 instead of the $100ish they expected. It's fun watching them gulp and turn green a bit.

You're running like god. Based on your 1/2 winrate, you're more likely looking at something like $20-$30 an hour. I play in the same game as you and I do think $60-$70/hour is attainable, playing only at the prime times and playing very deep. However, there probably aren't 5 players in the room that have sustained that winrate over a large sample.

Fwiw, my stats at MDL 2/5:



Was on a massive heater for a while, now on a dumb breakeven stretch so idk. Probably still on the hot side overall.

how is $70/hr attainable playing full time with a 500 max buy-in?

How good are you?

Well first of all, I said playing only at prime times. That's not a full time schedule. Secondly, the games at mdl often play very deep over the weekend.

Not sure how to answer your question except to say that it is most certainly possible if you are very skilled and the games are very soft. Also, I think too much emphasis is put on the buyin cap. The best 2/5 games i've ever played have been $500 cap. If players are giving away money stack depths will become quite deep regardless.

+1

To add:

Alot of times when games have a 100bb cap you can get deep with a guy who has absolutely no idea what to do and plays 400bb the same as 100bb

The point of deep buy ins vs winrates is not how deep stacks can get - it is the fact the hero can't buy in to cover the fish... if you are a rule follower that is.

Typical stack depth of the table has a big effect even if you cant buy in to cover. At a huge room like mdl, you can easily find very deep games to sit in. Gotta build a stack first to take advantage but it still adds to the overall potential winrate.

I would still contend that more fish sit under the cap then above it.

I mean yeah, we've all seen the guy; he's drunk and has vomit on his shirt and spewing it up 500bb deep and sun running.

But for every one of those guys is 10 fish who are sitting there with 50-80bb.

As an anecdote, one of the prime tells of a fish before he even plays a hand is how much he buys in for and IME and I'm sure others will agree it is rarely 100bb or the cap

You can choose to sit at the table with the spewer sitting on 500bb.

Game selection can easily double a winrate. I don't even mean going around a huge 40 table room trying to find the biggest whale. Even just picking the best of four tables. Or two. Or playing a lower stake when the only tables are your usual stakes are terrible.

I think 70/hr at a 500 cap 2/5 is doable if there are regularly 3+ tables going.

I agree with everything here.

I was mainly trying to refute the notion that a 500 cap game is impossible to pull 70/hr

the general belief is that 70/hr is possible playing mostly prime hours (friday, weekends, graveyard), a large player pool, and whales on a regular basis.

even if a 2/5 player had all these advatanges, what percentage of them will actual come close to it over a sample size of 1,000 hours? the small percentage of the players that do are surely running way above ev.

I know for a fact that winrates higher than $70/hr are attainable regardless of whether one is playing prime hours or not.

Sure, it's not common though. Higher than 70 starts to get pretty rare actually. I have averaged 40 over 1k hours at 1/2 so I hope when I move to 2/5 full time I can do 70+. Truth is I would be happy with half of that. I just need to plug other life leaks so I can save what I make because I'm not even rolled for 1/2 now due to pit games and life expenses.

If you're making 40/hour at 1/2 (without redonkulous insane variance to the extent it might as well be 2/5), I might stick to 1/2 unless 2/5 is not a significantly tougher game -- at least until you have a really deep roll. Your bankroll exposure is much less at 1/2.