Nice. I need longer sessions too. I wake up early and go to bed early so it's a challenge. The afternoon games have been good, but I'm thinking in 2024 I'm gonna try to nap on Saturday afternoons so I can try some longer Saturday night sessions.

Maybe 3 days of 3-4 hour sessions plus a Saturday 8 hour session. Would like to average 15-20 a week. 500 total for the year would also be a good goal for me.

FWIW, 335 hours is 10000 hands. 500 hours is 15000 hands. As samples sizes go, they have very small predictive ability about your true win rate.

Agreed. I just posted my stats because I think it's very interesting that my numbers in Texas are way off the charts as far as my lifetime stats go.

In the past 12 years I have played over 500 hours in only one year. The only losing year I ever had was 2020 and I played less than 50 hours that year. My hourly has been between $8 and $16 from what i can remember. If I had kept up with my stats I'd guess I'm around $10 an hour during that time period in 1/2.

Fairly certain I'm not any good. That being said, I'd be surprised if my hourly ever falls below $30 in Texas (-10 per hr), so actually $20.

My question is, should I even keep stats if I only play in a room less than 10 times in one year?

The 200+ hours I've played this year in Texas generally have the same 20 or so regulars plus visitors. How much more relevant are stats in that situation compared to 10 sessions at winstar against different people?

If I can't easily beat strangers, I'd say I'm not good at poker. But if I can consistently beat up on people I play multiple sessions against, what does that say about my "skill set"? And I use that term very loosely.

You keep records on everything and everywhere. When times comes you slice and dice the data anyway you want.

FWIW, there is a super action reg (not
a recreational) who is probably up a ton of money playing poker in my player pool for the last 15 months. He was even sharing his ridiculous winning stats via his poker tracking app.

Unless he is now making a bunch of money outside poker (crypto or side business...definitely possible), his current playing style/attitude most likely coming from being so confident that it works for him based off his results over the last 15 months.

I would guess that he is down more than 50k this past week over 4 medium length sessions (less than 3p hours). Punt after punt after punt.

There's a pretty good chance that he got overconfident based off his results that he was tracking. And he felt justified in playing his spewy action style because he wasn't getting punished for it before.

There is so much noise and variance in poker. Sometimes when we pay such close attention to the "results," we don't realize that we are being deluded by the noise.

What stakes/buy in? Being down 50k in less than 12 hours is disgusting. The BB/straddle is $50+ and the buy in is $5,000 it makes sense. It could be overconfidence/tilt but if he just has really high variance strategies it could just be really bad variance. Or a combination. 1 week out of 15 months is a pretty small sample clearly.

What were his winnings over how many hours, if you know?

I have been lucky. I think I have had 3 $12k downswings in the last 15 months or so, which is like 6 buy ins for me, and those are the worst I have had. I have 5 days where I lost between $7-8k and 6 days where I won more than $10k. I know I can survive the 20 buy in downswing when it comes, but it's going to be so sick.

Down more than 50k in less than 30 hours.

I won't disclose his winrate data because that was shared privately with me. Only know about the 50k in less than 30 hours because he was talking about how much he was losing openly in front of the table multiple times (basically each session).

Hopefully a ton of money is a lot more than 50k, or did he move up?


FWIW I've seen more than a few "low stakes regs" that seem to play horrifically bad in spots, but show me multiple months where they are winning 30-50bb/hr. Most say they understand it's not sustainable, but I assume they think it'll go "back down" to 10-15bb not -50bb.


One, hopefully, good thing about having had 0bb/hr winrates at 1-2 over ~500 hours is that I question almost everything I do.

Assume 3p == 30 hours?
Seems like a significant mental game leak there too. I can't recommend "Just stop playing for a bit" enough, if you are losing every pot.

From any point on your graph you've never been down more than 6 buyins?

I can kind of understand it from GG, although I'm still always impressed, but that seems a huge outlier for you given how deep you play.


Also IMNSHO it's not a "I had a 20 buyin downswing, but had the bankroll to survive" problem/solution it's a "I had a 15 buyin downswing, and then after a rest I came back and got in 150bb preflop with AA vs. QQ and lost" problem.

No, I haven't. To be fair, a lot of the table isn't playing as deep. Often it's 3 or 4 that play 2,000 deep+. Today was an exception though, I played a private 5/5/10( double straddle to 25 usually on, sometimes the 50 or 100 were on too) game where everyone was deep, by the end of it I had rebought for 5,000. In for 11,700 total and out for 9,165 after being down around 7k at one point. Tripple barrel bluffed off a 3k stack once.

I don't think of myself as a low variance player, but you're right I have been unusually lucky. I am a slightly winning player at 50 NL blitz but can definitely dust off 10 buy ins easy 4 tabling for a few hours. But live variance usually isn't as bad and Texas games are very soft despite a couple of pros being ever present. And at the end of the day, yeah, I have ran well.

You dusting off 10 stacks in a session online def doesn't infer you're a weak or bad player.

The best players online players lose 10 stacks in a session or two fairly regularly. Opponents are far better( some online recs are better than a good portion of live pros) and the online pros are WAY WAY better than the best live regs imo

More hands + tougher opponents increase the variance (stating the obvious here )


Never beat yourself up for running good, take it while you can because the run bad is always right around the corner


I like your posts and I think your hand advice is pretty much always spot on. Imo you're top 3 best hand advice posters in this forum

Happy New Years!

Time for 2023 results post:
FWIW

848 hrs total 144@ 1/2 330@ 1/3 370 @2/5

BB/hr 10.9@ 1/2 8.6@ 1/3 8.3@ 2/5

Profit $26,934 $31.92/hr

Overall personally slightly disappointed, ran below historic numbers but still respectable.

Still struggle with patience/tilt after all these years. Time for 2024 goals!

Can we please remove the ****ing warning that pops up every time you revisit the thread after you haven't done so in a while?

My 2023 stats

64 sessions (all after July 5th, when I quit my full-time job and switched to a part-time job). 48 winning, 16 losing.

289 hours at $1-$2 Hold’em ($2-$100 spread-limit), $13,420 profit.

6 hours at $5-$$5 Omaha Hi ($5-$100 spread-limit), $265 profit.

Variance was very kind to me!

I somehow shipped a top five yearly winrate in 2023 in spite of the rake literally being doubled from the early glory years (noting that I’m likely stuck almost 4 BI’s on this year's new high hand promo alone, and I didn’t include my single $247 bink in my results). Likely simply more an indication of lol @ ~500 hour samples than anything else. Ran like god's older better looking brother this year, somehow booking my 2nd longest session winstreak of all time (12) as well as my second biggest winning session of all time ($1757).





So here’s the good, the bad and the ugly of my live 1/3 NL journey to date in all its gloriousness.

Broken down per year, plus also indicating the maximum 10% rake by end-of-year + BBJ drop + high hand promo drop (and already assuming $1 tip per winning hand).

2010: $26.43 over 125:10 hours ($5 + $1)
2011: $25.88 over 386:10 hours ($5 + $1)
2012: $31.18 over 410:45 hours ($5 + $1)
2013: $35.48 over 568:20 hours ($5 + $1)
2014: $20.62 over 553:50 hours ($5 + $1)
2015: $7.90 over 582:10 hours ($5 + $1)
2016: $19.82 over 540:20 hours ($6 + $1)
2017: $8.78 over 578:05 hours ($7 + $1)
2018: $21.35 over 526:30 hours ($8 + $1)
2019: $22.08 over 582:45 hours ($8 + $1)
2020: -$0.01 over 105:25 hours ($8 + $1) Argggg, FML.
2021: $11.94 over 125:35 hours ($8 + $1)
2022: $21.43 over 415:20 hours ($9 + $1)
2023: $24.23 over 402:15 hours ($9 + $1 + $1)

After some horrendous years going into 2018, I would have snap accepted $15/hr at the beginning of any year since. And in spite of doing quite better than that (other than lol sample size Coronaids years), I think I would still snap accept $15/hr going into 2024. Kinda get the feeling this is the year the wheels might fall off. Been pretty consistent with number of sessions per year, although I’m reigning in my session lengths big time thanks to balancing my life a little better / quitting sessions better, and will likely continue to aim for the same in 2024.

G2024,theyearthewheelsfinallyfalloff?inb4"thewheel sfelloffalongtimeago,buddy"G

well, what can you say
I strongly disagree with almost all your posts, but you just have to acknowledge, your nit-style really works for you. Congrats

If you only view poker as an extra way to generate income then the way you go about playing doesnt matter. Theres plenty of people who get bigger stacks and do more creative plays but at the end of the year GG’s results speak for themselves.

-anotherprofitablememberofthenitclub

Wow, blast-from-the-past poster! Just saw your other post in Vernon's thread, hope you're doing well!

"Works" is a interesting term, imo. I guess we all have to find a method that works for us and our skillz set / personality / etc., and I think I've managed that. But you can also use it in relative terms, and while I know I'm clearly in the upper top % in my player pool, I'm also curious as to how far off I am from the cream of the crop in my player pool (could be miles off, could be close, probably miles off, but I honestly have no idea).

In some ways, I feel like my play is regressing but towards a better bb/hr. Just playing nittier and nittier and tighter and tighter, which I kinda think is correct for shorter stacked / high raked games. In my last session of 2023, I actually setmined with KK to a single preflop raise. For realz. I mean, special circumstances, sure (the OMC's preflop range isn't too far of QQ+ and doesn't contain drawing hands like AK/AQ, and I had a trivial fold when he cbet 7ways on a Q high board, and he did in fact have AA, results oriented that I lost $20 just $200 deep in a KK versus AA spot?). I remember someone stating a huge percentage of our profit (most? all?) is like the 5% premiums and playing the Button; for better or worse, I'm not too far off that strat right now.

Gracingtowards6000hoursonwobblywheelsG

Also note that I, for one, am eagerly awaiting the 15 10+bb/hr giraffes (based on the poll above).

Ggogogo!,imoG

My version of a giraffe. My most recent 20% of my total hours played. Slightly over 12bb/hr total lifetime all at a 8+2 rake garbage casino.

Don't want to reveal too much info. 2023 result.

Nice results PokerNoob!

Looks like a $1bb game... so a juicy home game? Curious if raked?

Gyoursecretissafewithus!G

(Nickelback voice) “Look at this graph.”

Can someone reveal a formula for overall BB/hr winrate when multiple stakes are played?

ex) 144hrs 1/2 @ 10.9BB/hr
330hrs 1/3 @ 8.6BB/hr
370hrs 2/5 @ 8.3BB/hr

What would be overall BB/hr winrate? Thanks mucho!

Weighted average:

Bb/hour*times our player at each stake / total hours played

(144*10.9 + 330*8.6 + 370*8.3)/(144 + 330 + 370)
Whatever that is