This makes sense. I have played the 3/5 plenty, and I don't really care for it. I like the deeper stacks in the 5/5, and I'm not even that loose of a player. I just like getting max value when I hit monster hands.

Fourth month back to poker and my first month as a "semi pro" @ 1 buck 3 buck. I made a net profit of +3276 at 94.75 hours for almost 12bb/h. I am currently considering moving to play in a bigger game.

Previous months averaged around 7-8bb/h at around 180 hours total.

What is the highest winrate that you guys think is attainable for a $1/$2 game ($60min-$300max)?

I've heard of people averaging $30/hr but is that sustainable over 1000 hours or so?

Depends on rake, average stack sizes, how clueless your average villain is, and obviously most of all how good you are.

But it wouldn't surprise me at all if there are people that can crush (certain) 1/2 games for 15bb/hour or more. What would surprise me, though, is if those players actually played 1/2 as their main game, instead of bigger games.

Like Homey said, "it depends." FWIW, I am running $30.10 over the last 1002.6 hours of 1|2 NLHE, 50-200 buy-in. $1000 is comps, $5585 promotions, and the rest net table winnings. 1|2 is not my main game so this is over the course of a couple years or more (I don't have dates in my lifetime log and I don't care to check yearly logs)

I am far from the best player in the world. I barely table select at all. I'm the guy who will post a HH and say I've been there two hours, with "no reads" on villains other than tight/loose passive/aggressive. I make mistakes all the time. I am always getting better and don't feel close to any skill ceiling. I don't feel I've been running significantly above EV for those 1000 hours.

We're talking about a game where playing tight, ABC value oriented poker makes you "good." 1|2 is a joke. The very best regs I know hardly bluff at all and are so easy to read that beating them basically boils down to folding when they show aggression and betting when they check. Anyone who mixes up their play is usually a fish, and does it in a horribly unbalanced way with way too many hands and they just lose more.

I firmly believe I could win at a minimum $25/h long term in an average 1|2 game in the US, maybe higher. If you took a high stakes prodigy, had him study and adjust to low stakes live games and get in a decent 150BB cap game and allow him to table select aggressively, I bet he wins at a rate most people don't think is possible.

Uhh comps and HH promos should not be factored into a true hourly imo.

Who cares if you factor them in? As long as you are aware of the break down and the fact that they might change, then it's all good.

I could see an argument against including comps if they can’t be 1:1 converted to cash, but why wouldn’t you include promos? It’s literally part of your hourly if it’s money you earn through the course of playing.

I would argue against including BBJ or other high variance promos because they never converge to EV, but this is not the case for high hand and certain other promotions I’ve earned. I would even count mail offers for meals and rooms and stuff if they were a significant amount. .

I'm at $33.06 covering a sliver under 1000 hours lifetime.

If I dont include the daytime Mon-Fri nitfest in my regular room (where most guys have $60-$100 stacks and most pots are tiny) and only include weekends and evenings Im at $40.56 over 500 hrs.

Its obviously not my main game anymore. I only play it while waiting for a seat in bigger games or while out of town if its the only game available.

This doesnt include comps (I get $2.86 for 1/2 in my room) but does include HH promo money which I think we should include since $2 is taken out of most pots. I think HH promos are slightly -EV overall for the player. Even if we break even on them, we lose money by tipping a decent chunk to the dealer.

Hi guys! After almost a three year hiatus from poker I returned this past March & have put in nearly 550 hours in since then. I posted my graph/stats in this same thread back in 2015 when I was on the cusp of going pro but unfortunately for all the wrong reasons. The only reason that I’m posting this now, is to answer those who have asked what’s it’s like or if it’s possible to beat high rake games, To which the answer is definitely yes. These results are all at 9 handed $2/$3 with a 10% Cap up to $149 & $15 for $150+. Buyin structure is $100-$500 GL!




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Nice work Pipedreamer. Thanks for sharing again.

This question is only loosely related to win rates and may be covered if I search through other threads but I recently had what I think was my first 4 buy in session. In general I don't have enough time to play more than 2 buy ins and if I'm lose 2 buy ins the game is probably not worth continuing to grind at. But this time I was at really good tables where I felt like I had a significant edge. My 4th buy in was the charm but the hole was so deep even after running it up a bit I posted a very modest win. All that to ask, if you think the game is good and your tilt is manageable is there a max number of buy ins you shouldn't exceed? To back this up I'm wondering if winning players can compare differences in their win rates in sessions with 1, 2, 3, or even 4 rebuys. Even if we THINK we can beat a game does the data show after 2 buy ins we should just pack it in for example?

Corn - really depends on the individual. If you are reasonably self aware it can be a high number. I generally do not have a stop loss. I quit when I can tell that it is getting to me. It does not happen often but it happens. I generally dont start getting pissy until after i lose at least 5 bi. However, I have felt myself get heated up after 3. When that happens I dont wait for my blind i rack up and call it a day.

For what its worth I have never said to myself after racking up, "gosh that was a mistake I really should have stayed"

Huge +1. For an experienced player i think its a solid strategy to not have a static stoploss of x amount of buyins, but be self aware enough to be able to quit when you can feel it is getting to you and you arent able to play a solid game anymore. Just get yourself up from the table whenever you reach that state of mind, regardless if its 1 or 5 buyins.

I prefer a 'soft' stop loss myself. On the third or fourth bullet, lock your seat and stand up to take a walk. 5 mins away from the table to clear your head and assess the situation. Take a leak, grab a drink, stretch. Make sure you're still playing and feeling well.

My hard stop loss is when I'm out of cash in my pocket. No casino ATM for me.

If you are self aware you can spot tells on yourself. When I start looking at my cards before action is on me preflop I know I am getting bored and I either go home or refocus. Going outside for a walk does help quite a bit. Bringing your credit card to the casino also gives you incentive to play worse.

Thanks for this. Makes sense. It's really good to have a frame of reference that even pros can be in for "at least 5 buy ins" on occasion. I tend to think that if the third buy in is no good I should pack it in but extended to 4 this time since the game seemed worth it. Since this particular session was 1/2 and I've done 3 buy ins for $600 ish at 2/5 following the same 3 buy in rule that the 4 buy ins of $300 at 1/2 was less about the money and more about the mental aspect and trend line.

Follow up question would be, how often should I expect to need more than 2 buy ins in a single session? Is there a "normal-ish" range here? How often is too often? I started tracking in 2014 and have 582 sessions logged. This was my first 4 buy in session but the stop loss is mostly artificial especially at 1/2.

There are multiple things at a casino that are reasons people play poorly yet I’ve never even heard anyone saying access to $ in a bank account as one.

Everyone tilts. Even if the game is good you could be playing bad and unless you have several mental checks on yourself Id avoid buying in even 3 tbh but everyone is different. In the last half year Ive bought in 4 times once and I can remember every single major hand in that session and I 100% know that I wasn't tilting and just getting unlucky. One of the best players at my game writes down every hand hes in past the flop. Unless you're doing this and going over every hand after the session its easy to play terrible and chalk it up to bad luck and just forget the play you made and why. You often need a clear head to go through everything afterwards.

Its not like you play 10/20 where there is one whale that comes back from the rigs 2 weeks a year and you gotta play every second that you can. There will always be good games at these stakes and IMO strategizing how to bomb through a huge amount of buyins isn't the best way to go about things.

So you're saying twice a year is normal-ish but only if you're really making sure you aren't tilting. I need to further normalize this though. How many sessions do you log in half a year?

It has nothing to do with me and everything to do with you. If you are going to play a high variance style where you are playing a lot of hands really fast I would make sure you can remember everything that you did in that session and why. I brought up the point about the best player in my local game writing his hands down because I can guarantee you he goes over everything he did sometime in the near future and he writes long enough that hes probably also explaining the "meta" situation around the hand and not just the specific HH. You do this so you don't lose control of yourself and start playing badly without realizing it and go back to the hand afterwards with a clear head.

Ive thought about hands the next day and believed there was nothing else I could do and then a week later go over it again and realize there was a better approach. This is why you write things down. Thinking about what your max buy in number should be is the wrong approach. You should be making reads on yourself and having certain mental checks to really tell if you are tilting or not and until you do things like this, setting a random number for how often you should rebuy is not the right way to look at things.

I go on tilt when I think I made a bad play. If someone sucks out on me to a 2 outer it has zero impact on my mental and I usually just laugh it off. Yesterday I was card dead and I play super tight pre so those days are always a challenge. I made a really terrible bluff attempt early on in the session for my entire stack and had to fight tilt for the next hour just to stop myself from bombing off the 2nd buyin. If I didn't know myself and that I am prone to mega tilt after a bad play I would have dumped off more money and left but instead I sat there fuming and eventually got unstuck. I made a really good triple barrel later on with a clear head and was rewarded soon after by getting paid off in another hand - none of which would have happened if I didn't realize how tilted I was.

Finding out what specific things makes you tilt is a much more important question than max rebuys so you can easier gauge yourself if you need to step away or not.

Why do you feel its important to not look at your cards before action is on you? The game is slowed down a significant amount when people do that.

I try to time it where the guy on my right is looking at his cards when I look at mine but sometimes Im a little late. I take less then 3 seconds on 95% of my actions post flop so no one is ever going to accuse me for holding up a game.

The people that slow the game down aren’t doing it right. Does it take more than a second to look at K4o and muck it?

If you cant look at your cards in advance without giving away info, you aren't "doing it right". Nobody is watching you to see your reaction when you look at your cards.

If everyone waits til the action is on them to look at their cards, you're going to lose at least 5 hands per hour. Probably more. The game is already slow enough. Just look at your friggin cards and be ready to go when it comes to you.