Getting caught up last 2 pages:
GG is a huge nit (:P) but I essentially agree, and don't see how you cannot. Yeah I am making more money right now than I was 3 years ago in EV because I improved much more vs competition, but this growth is not sustainable. I think the diminishing returns have already starting to hit really hard wrt my growth. I doubt I'd increase my winrate much more over the next year, even if I get into really advanced stuff.
That said, toughness will hit equilibrium unless outside forces change significantly (casinos, regulation, change of games/rules/rake that make winning impossible). The tougher poker is to win a lot of money at, the fewer regs there will be, the fewer people who try to win will play poker. That will still hurt the economy a lot, but I think it'll still be beatable. Will it be beatable for me? Prooobably, but I don't think it's unlikely that my winrate in 5-10 years will be a quarter of mine currently or less. Will it be beatable (better than minimum wage job) for most people on this board? I'm going to go with, probably not for most.
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and the ceiling in terms of what is possible is likely much higher than we'd like to admit to ourselves.
Yeah. People think GTO is "can't be beaten but probably can't beat good regs by much" show so much ridiculous hubris. I remember like 5 years ago so many of the LHE regs on this forum think 100% cbet strategy is LDO the best, and even if the OPTIMAL strategy is slightly less it's close enough and doesn't matter. If you think you can do well compared to GTO, while still being able to exploit fish, I'm up for a hefty prop bet if you like. No doubt you can exploit fish better, but to think that you'll "do okay" vs GTO is laughable. Good luck dealing with 1/4 pot and 8x pot bets all the time.
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"Let say its someone just like trickett, polk, mercier or one of those big names"
Yeah 2 of those 3 are probably very mediocre if not straight up bad at NLHE. Just say OTB
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What would you think their winrate would be over 2000 hours? Because 10bb seems to be the top echelon its seems but some people mention it could be 15bb for the top of top world class players in 2/5.
10bbs is no way the ceiling. I'm sure some of the best NL regs in my casino already acheive higher than that, and those are some of the tougher games already, + they are good (very good) but not world class good.
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Well, since basically no one is doing that (right?), then isn't this point moot?
No, it's not hard to acheive per se, it's just that anyone that can win at that winrate at low stakes usually can make more at higher stakes. If higher games dry up, or games get tougher, then that winrate at lower stakes will apply (to some degree, because of ourse if that happens then those games will probably get tougher too). Like I said I know of 5+ people with 20-25bb at 1/2 over large samples (at 200-250bb cap buyin).
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I actually think the big hotshots like the guys you mention maybe would have trouble of having the patience,discipline and consistency to blast off the winrates over a 2000 hour sample at 2/5 or even 5/10.
Ryan spews too, lol, but like, yeah, they're not playing their best, but if they were to, and we're saying theoretically if they had to play properly to make money, at least some of them will come through. Polk and Ryan probably make most of their money through crypto anyway and don't care about winning at poker that much.
But spewy youtube personalities aside, ike, you think these guys who got to the highest stakes did so without discipline and patience? Maybe 5 years ago that's true, but nowadays, not everyone can be Isildur. Most good players these days are work ethic nits. Most regs on this forum doesn't even do basic EV calcs for preflop spots, I find it shocking that there can be accusations of discipline and work ethic slung towards them from this corner.
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But, for the fun of guesstimating, I think Ivy can beat an average 5/T game for like $145/hr.
I'd say more for sure. I'd guess I know 20+ players in my pool who can make that much in an american 5/10. From all I've heard, Ivey actually is as good as they say at poker, and this is coming from people who love to tear celebs down.
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re: a lot of this depth talk
While I think it's true deeper games allow for big winrates at times, it's not always the case that it has a big impact. Lots of players tighten up significantly when deep, and I think there can be significant value being in a shorter game where people get it in carelessly. People keep saying I played in deeper 1/2 games so my winrates don't count, so I'm almost tempted to add an extra filter for non deep 1/2 games just to prove it wrong, because even when I sit deep, most people sitting in those games are shallow, and most people I stack are shallow, so idk why people think the winrate would necessarily plunge with a lower buyin (though it'd of course be somewhat lower).
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Not sure if you're joking or not at this point but ya. Not far fetched at all to suggest we can learn from a.i...hence piosolver etc (popular game theory software that people currently use to get better all the time).
I think some of the randomisation and memorisation is so complex it's basically impossible to get a high degree of accuracy. In PLO I can't imagine it being possible (though I think a very good human can probably get well close enough to the point that he'll be unbeatable by any other human).
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There is less difference between 1/2 and 10/25 than you’d think
Agreed.
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Ive never played 10/25 but there is no way this can be true. 10/25 is generally filled with world class players
My local 10/25 probably is one of the tougher regular fields in the world, but yeah, funny thing is, the regs in my casino who play 10/25 also play 1/3 when there aren't games, so...
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I'd definitely love to xbook a very winning 1/2 reg in a random 10/25 game
That's kind of a straw argument. Saying there's less difference than people think doesn't mean the difference there is isn't very significant (when the blinds are 12.5x the size, every small change in EV is huge).
fwiw I think I "play" in some of the toughest 5/10 10/25 NL games in the world. (I say "play" because I'm a 4 card reg now and avoid them where possible hyuk hyuk hyuk)
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Working with solvers is good in general to help your understanding of theory but applying what you learn to LLSNL games is largely not going to be useful.
I think it's IMMENSELY useful, but most people I know who've used them misapply them outrageously and it actually hurt their development, that's all.
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And the reason for the higher stakes winners that are looser?
They're broke.
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If these 2/5 crushers are crushing their games, then by definition they are not way too loose. They are playing the proper way to crush their games.
Suure, but a lot of these regs might not know how to adjust to needing to being tighter. This applies to some of the 2010-2012 regs who did very well in a meta of hyper aggression and then when the times changed they didn't adapy fast enough and got destroyed. A genuinely good reg who did adjust... well he'd just become a higher stake reg then, welcome to the club I guess? I assume Sabr is suggesting the reason the 2/5 regs that cannot move up cannot move up because they found a formula that beat 2/5 but couldn't adjust to a strategy that beat the higher stakes well enough to move up.
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I 3b squeezed 20bbs and got called in 5 spots the other night, we are all +200bb deep, flop JT3r, donk and 2 callers. That situation isn’t going to show up in an online grinders database of 3 million hands, and it is much more complex than people realize.
idk, seems pretty straight forward, can you explain? From balanced standpoint, you just think about your range same way as you do usual. Do you sqz TT JJ? How much AQ do you sqz? If you have TT JJ JT often enough, then it seems like a spot you bet 1/4 spot most of range then check majority of turns, and bomb some small %, or bet small again on rainbow 2-6 turn. If you have no TT JJ in range you might check 100% of range on flop. Explo would follow the same explo proccess, without much change, is our hand winning enough of the time when we bet and get called, which sizing gets most value, does checking induce more value now or on later streets, and how does it compare to the value of protection, etc etc.
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I don't know if never losing more then 3 buy ins is that much of a brag. If you're playing THAT low of variance style then you're clearly not booking any massive wins either.
Yeah, big leak to be focusing on results, and in particular, such blatant acceptance of risk aversion.
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You really have to play a mostly sold ABC have to win 2/5 n below.
Disagreed. It's in the lower games where you can deviate from "ABC". If you do it at high stakes you will get punished, in lower stakes games you will not. If you pick the worst spot possible to "deviate" then you're just doing it wrong, not because you can't do it at lower stakes.
If higher stakes are nothing but nitfests, why don't $2/5 crushers move up and make everyone fold with all their skills?
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Sounds easy according to you.
Because, *sob*, tight is right after all.
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Im just comparing your description of 2/5 games in which you say even the best players are way too loose
The good higher stakes players are TIGHT, not NITTY, they are playing a correct tight range, not because they are scared money or because they can't adjust.
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To answer your question, it is more profitable to play in a game where my 20bb 3bet goes 5 ways with 2k effective stacks than it is to try and pound nits at a 9 handed table that are sitting on slightly larger stacks. I have no idea why no one else realizes this.
I've definitely played lower stakes games instead of the higher one that is tougher, and I didn't sit the 10/20/40 at commerce every time it ran, and played the 5/10 1500 cap instead some of the times (fwiw I didn't have a huge USD roll either so that's also part of the reason). I'm sure SABR does this, any good reg does this, not sure what's really in contention here. That said, there's a huge upside (that comes with variance) in those bigger games because if you get the spot or semi-spot in a big pot where they hugely misplay, you can make a LOT of EV, or you can sit there for hours to wait for the game to become good when you outlast other regs who leave and then a mediocre rec joins, and maybe some regs get tilted. I think the EV of a higher stakes games depend on a lot more variables than just what's obvious on the surface, and regs who are used to battling can see potential EV where others see nits/tight regs.
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This is -EV for life, even if +EV for poker.
Yeah agreed. Don't throw away your life.
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In most relationships, you make implicit or explicit compromises about how you spend your time. You're going to have work time, shared time and "me" time. Your SO is likely to give you much more leeway for work time than "me" time, and it likely that their going to put poker in the "me" time bucket, not the work time bucket. That can be addressed, but it's difficult. I've made good money playing poker, but in the context of my relationship it's still clearly "me" time, which means I have to fit it in among work, family etc.
THIS, but also I think it's too much a given that "work" time necessarily gets presedence over family time. I try not to suck the life out of this forum with my preaching crap, but men in relationships and families really need to take a hard look at the family dynamics and their place in it and how their decision affects the home. A lot of men get to pursue hobbies or financial pursuits (of which poker can be either) at the sacrifice of their family cohesion, at their own discretion (or if not then they complain about their partner nagging them, as if they have no right to), and especially when the rest of the family cannot make those same decisions, it puts a huge and often unfair strain in the domestic space. It's frankly selfish, and of course this is not just for regs, in fact it's mostly true for fish who "escape" home life to gamble at lose money to regs like me, but I think it definitely includes regs and winning players too. Poker is a very stressful hobby/job, and it's not isolated. It's not like you going out to play poker either winning and having fun, or losing and being unhappy, isn't going to affect your family when you turn around and go home. I'm not talking about the extreme of people getting angry at beating up their wives and sh t when they go home, but even on a much much smaller scale, just their mood or enthusiasm for example, it's something that can have profound effect on family relations, and this is speaking from personal experience, coming from someone who have very close relationship with people in my home, and don't really spend that many hours away from home to begin with.
Not trying to discourage you from getting into poker, but don't think about sacrificing your family time like it's some kind of logistical puzzle of optimising money making and +Life EV interactions (mainly for yourself). Think of them in human terms. It's possible to play poker in a way that doesn't affect those factors negatively, in fact it can be possitive (everyone can be made happier if everyone has their own time to do their own things).
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1. Separate your poker bankroll from other monies. 2. Share some of your winnings with wife and family eg, jewellery for the wife, upgraded TV for all, theme park trips for the kids etc.
If everybody is getting something out of your hobby, you could turn resentment (or future resentment) into encouragement.
I really don't think it works like that. To a degree yeah, of course you can bribe your family with money, but it's about way more than that, unless you have a dysfuntional relationship to begin with, and they're happy to see less of you and would rather have gifts.
Gifts themselves are not the problem, they can be nice, but it doesn't solve the problem that is being brought up here.