For a while during my previous session, I was sitting at a table with 3 other very solid players (all undoubtedly winners), something I almost never do. But I was also sitting with 3 incredibly terrible players (all of whom I had actually never played with before but it was clear they had no clue what they were doing). I had actually had no idea how to evaluate the goodness/badness of the table overall.

Put my name in for a table change, didn't put up a stink when the floor filled my chair at the other table with a new player, and eventually just called it a night when one of the marks left and the other ones stack dwindled to super short.

GcluelessingeneralG

Supp booyysss

Mealey meal what’s popping bro how’s that thing going?


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da ting go

I agree with you in regards to table selection. I also tend to go to the table with the least pros/grinders. One mistake I think a lot of pros make is they go to the game that is playing the biggest or the one that has the biggest whale rather than the table that is the softest. Often times all the pros will transfer to one table leaving other less exciting tables to be more profitable.

That being said playing with 3 other pros can still be very profitable for the simple fact that there are still 5 rec players at the table and these players tend to be terrible (regardless of whether they are spewing) and most of the hands you play will be against these rec players rather than the pros anyways.

FWIW, I've played with tables that have had 8 pros or even 9 pros at them. I tend to avoid these sort of games but even a game with 9 pros can be profitable because pros don't play their A game 100% of the time and playing in such a game becomes a war of attrition that normally results in some of the pros making mistakes (Also, all pros aren't equal).

Always playing Defence gg. Live a little

That is most likely a very good table. Games with multiple pros can be quite profitable IF you have terrible spewtards at the game. The worst players often lose at 100BB an hour or more. If you have three of these guys they are basically donating 300BB/hr to the remaining six players. There are rake considerations but if 200BB/hr is chopped up amongst the remaining six players you get 33 BB/hr.

Of course they may not be quite that bad and the other pros may get a bigger share than you but a few whales can feed a whole table of sharks.

I evaluate games by estimating the winrates of various players on average.

For example...we have a game where the other players are

one crusher wins 12BB/HR
two pros win 8BB/HR
one nit wins 5BB/HR
three regfish losing 10BB/HR
one donk losing 50BB/HR

So on net the players are donating (10*3 + 50 - 5 - 2*8 - 12) = 55BB/HR to the house and other players. If we are the first or second best player this is a decent game. Notice what a huge effect the one donk has.

But here's another game where no one is particularly good but we would have trouble making much money

four nits win 5BB/HR
two super nits break even
two regfish lose 10BB/HR

At a table like this I am definitely the best player but the others are donating and taking pots at rates that cancel each other. This game is not beatable. The money is not being lost fast enough. Yeah I can probably win a little but I have to pay rake averaging several blinds an hour.

This is admittedly an overly simplistic table analysis as these winrates are not how the player performs at that specific table. Nits for instance are able to win because spewtards donate to them when they hit sets. At this second table it is likely every other player is actually losing, but they are mostly losing to the house in this dynamic so I still prefer the first table.

Yeah I would generally rather be at a table with nobody light 3 betting me or bluffing me where I can run over the modestly losing players than be at a table with one whale and a bunch of pros. But occasionally the one whale is so bad it's worth it. I've seen drunk maniacs losing at a rate of 300+BB/HR over long periods. These tables are just massively profitable when they exist. But most whales aren't losing anywhere close to that fast so I agree the pros might overestimate the benefit of transferring to the whales table.

Sure it can be. Depends on the exact dynamic. But sometimes you have an overly aggressive pro regwarring with you and I try to avoid that at all costs. Especially if the other recs are just modestly losing. Just because players are recreational doesn't mean they're terrible. I mean yeah they likely aren't *good* but where I play anyway they are usually skilled enough to be break even or better at 1/2 so in 2/5 games they are just slightly losing.

If the other pros aren't the aggro regwarring crusher type then sharing a table with them is more profitable.

This is true...in these types of games some pros will run bad and get very tilted which can make these games profitable if you're more tilt immune than the others. And if you're more fundamentally skilled of course. But I don't like assuming I'm better than other pros. It's a dangerous mindset and even when true can get us in trouble regwarring with slightly worse players when we should mostly be focusing on crushing the fish.

There are a few pros in my room that when tilted basically become whales because they bring with them 1000BB or more, always buy in max, and are capable of spewing off stacks when running really bad. Recs tilt too but they don't bring 1000BB and rebuy max indefinitely, if they rebuy at all. I think in tough games tilted pros are actually the main source of profit.

This looks like a dream table to me. I get to play tons of hands with the 2 fish while the other players are waiting for the nuts. 6 of the players are of no concern whatsoever, and 2 might as well not even be there. If I can get those 2 on my left then I have the button 3 times an orbit. I only need position on one or 2 of the regfish which it's likely I'll be able to get if I don't already have it.

This pretty much describes my daytime tables. Ive often said it was very tough to win much money here, but I made some big adjustments going more and more into LAG mode and my last 500+hrs Im at 15.3BB/hr

(Not all the hours were at tables like this but the majority were)

Hey Mike how many sets have you flopped in the last 750 hours??? Of those what % were won?

All

Most

1) 160
2) Not sure but most obviously



PS....Bitcoin?

Give er time Mikeyy, give er time...

Are you starting to get paid more due to image or has your profit increase been due to even more stealing?

I've played in these types of games and it seems the profitable bluffs are from raising over limps and taking it down or getting it heads up and c-betting. Basically hammering them over the head with small ball. Are stacks deep enough where you are running big bluffs where you are risking your stack and bullying the nits with "scary" sized big bets?

That's hard for me to say because I have plenty of people who think I'm a nit and plenty who think Im a maniac. I get called a nit often enough that it boggles my mind. The other day I sat down and a guy said "whats the under/over on how many hands this guy will play in the next hour?"

He whispered the number to his neighbor who was a friend of mine and the number was 4. Clearly the guy thinks I'm a nit. I played 12 hands that hour.

Your second paragraph does describe me a lot of the time. I do steal a lot of limp and blind money, and when called try to use my post flop edge to out play them. I dont make too many large bluffs though. Stacks normally arent deep where I play. Especially during the day time.

I think we all over estimate our villains winrates tho. We agree that ~10% of players win overall but we play at games where ~50% of players (when we include ourselves) are winners?

The bad players loose their money quicker and are replaced by other bad players. The good players play longer because they aren't limited by running out of cash to play. So, it could still be 10% of all total players making up 50% of a given table.

Still 50% of the players at a typical low stakes table aren't winners. Nits are at best break even players and most of them are losers unless they play in super soft games with no pros and nobody with a clue.

If you're a disciplined player you will invariably be called a nit from time to time regardless of your VPIP/PFR because the slow pace of live play means even disciplined LAGs can go card dead for hours (even if their standard for opening is loose) and recs do not see enough hands to really know how you play.

I get called a nit pretty frequently and my SD is 145BB/100. Since variance is SD^2 this is over twice the variance of the oft quoted 100BB/100 and about six times your previously quoted SD of 60BB/100 IIRC.

That said from reading your HHs, your low SD, and previous discussion on the meaning of terms like TAG ABC nit etc., I think you probably are on the nitty side of TAG. But maybe compared to your daytime crowd you are a maniac, IDK. Such labels are interpreted relative to the population of your specific games.

2019 results:

1/2:
1002 hrs
profit: $41292
$/hr: 41.21

5/5:
148.5 hrs
profit: $3135
$/hr: $21.11

Not sure if this image will work, but here's the all time 2200 hr 1/2 graph from the past 2.5 yrs:
[IMG][/IMG]

Nice results for next year, mang! How's life in the future?

Incredible results - well done

Seems like you need to move down to where they’ll respect your raises

Impressive … well played!

^^^^

Wow, looks like you're at about ~15 bb/hr over 2200 hours?!?!

Gveryimpressive,imoG

i talked a lot about having brutal downswings this year. i dont play much poker anymore, and my logs aren't as accurate a they used to be.

i won ~10bb/hr at $2/5 for ~700 hours late 2017/early 2018.

2nd half of 2018 closes at 220 hours @ ~3 bb/hr


last night, i was stuck -$1900 at 2/5/10. mostly getting rivered vs bad players. i grind all day to get back to -$500. I open AA. get 3 callers. AQ2. bet bet bet/call off jam vs 22 on AQ252 runout for ~$3k pot.

most of my downswing ive wondered if i just suck at poker. still not sure. but variance is so brutal.