so 60 hrs per month for 3 months was soul crushing?

serious question.

If that is the case,poker is not for you let us put it that way.

While winning at 24bb/hr

So, in *real* life, I became a born-again Christian a few years ago, and that conversion has made the experience of gambling...different. As in, I legitimately felt like a terrible person for taking money from other people, it filled me with great shame (I've kept my poker-playing a secret from my kids and my parents for precisely that reason, because I know what I'm doing is immoral.)

(Please don't think I'm judging anyone here. I obviously don't think I'm "better" than any of you--I'm a gambler too! But that guilt is a major factor in why it's become so hard to continue. Every morning I walked into a poker room I was cognizant of the fact that I was letting down my family, my God, myself, etc. Hard to get too excited over binking my gutshots in such an environment.)

Real?

Being a poker player isn't for everyone, and the game definitely isn't worth whatever you'll be able to get out of it if it's causing you a crisis of faith.

Good catch, I missed the math on this originally. I can only assume he recently went to the day-to-day grind? Cuz otherwise that works out to be a 3 hour work day if you assume 20 work days per month over 3 months. So I can only assume something like a month full time grind of 6 hours per day on top of a casual first 2 months of 30 hours each (or something like that)?

Still, assuming the whole thing isn't a joke (I'm having a little trouble taking the last post at face value, but maybe I'm too jaded?), I think OP is kinda lucky learning early on the day-to-day poker grind isn't for him so he can concentrate on getting a real (and likely much more lucrative in every sense) job, so gogogo and good luck to him, imo. I've seen lots of people give this poker thing a go at my local 1/3 NL game over the last decade+, and the sooner they learn it isn't the way the better off they'll be, imo.

GaddingupnumbersishardG

Derail deleted. Take it to RGT.

300 hours is nothing. I have a 12bb/hour winrate over 1600 hours with multiple 250+ hour breakeven stretches. You're probably running hot

Speaking of 300 hours I am pretty close to that in my 4 month return to poker. Im just under 15bb/hr in that stretch. This month I didn't have a chance to play a whole lot but made +$2013 in 25 hours. I am switching to part time for work and becoming a laughable semi pro at 1 buck 3 buck! Wish me luck!

My inability to recognize humor on line reaches autistic proportions.. please tell me that was a joke.

Hi folks,

I started to pay 1/2/3 live game with $6 flop rake in a local casino recently as a rec player on weekends.

Am I lucky or I'm beating the game so far? What's a reasonable good result should I expect as a good rec.

Thanks

Way way too soon to tell if your going to beat these games. 18 hours of play is virtually 2 full time sessions. The sample size is just too small. If you average only 18 hrs every 3 months it will take years to know if your a regular winner. I think you need to be around 300 hours to get a basic idea if your able to beat the game. By 500 hours you should have a pretty good idea of expected long term results.

Why would it be a joke?

I was crushing pre covid @ 1800 hours at 11bb/hr and I am doing better now. Going part time and playing more poker seems like a very logical next move if I want to do this professionally.

What’s a flop rake?

Is the $6 rake being taken out of every pot on the flop —- so, it’s a flat drop, essentially?

Or is the rake a fixed percentage, like 10% of the size of the pot, up to a maximum amount.

If your Casino uses a flat drop model of $6 every flop, at 1/2/3 the game is almost surely unbeatable.

Otherwise, you have a shot to beat it, but there’s no way to know if you’re a winning player after 18 hours. You need to put in 1000 hours, I’d say, to get a meaningful approximation of your win-rate.

Most live games that are dealer dealt will have on average 30 hands a hour. Seeing that 18 hours would equate to around 540 hands I would say that sample is way too small. If you are 3-4 tabling zoom games online you will hit that mark in a hour.

My advise would be to enjoy the game, play alot more and review your stats after you hit around 700 hours.

tl;dr You don't.


Even as a dedicated recreational player (10-20 hours a week) pretty much the only sane way to know for live is to review hands and see if you played them well, and even that is difficult because what basic theory suggests might be very different from what you should do vs. the old guy who has only limped for the past two hours or the drunk young kid playing every hand.
This will also screw up any long term analysis because even in a small room almost every session will have a significantly different mix of players in different positions, esp. depending on the time and day, so it's not like you are really playing the "same" game every time.
Then there will be problems like how you play on a Friday night after an annoying/tiring week at work, vs. turning up on a Saturday after being on vacation (you'll probably never get a good sample of either, and it'll be significantly different). Or what happens for the rest of the night after you drive an hour to play and the first hand you lose 100bb with AA vs. J6o.
You can also easily find results for significantly winning online players who had huge downswings over 20k hands, which would be about 18 months at 10 hours a week.

Worth mentioning again that basically all of the people who I'd consider semi-pros (30+ hours a week) at low stakes, table select aggressively, and aren't necessarily that great from a pure theory POV (being as kind as possible here).

About the best you can do is review every 100 or 200 hours and get hints at how well you are playing.


You probably also want to factor in how much it costs to get to the casino etc., and on the other side how much you are getting in comps.

Generic advice I see from higher stakes players is that you are crushing at +10bb an hour after a 2k hour sample.


Probably worth watching this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOdJk7x9zHw

18 hours could be a single session on a heater, you need a lot more hours to determine this but you're on the right track.

6$ flop rake? So 6$ post flop no matter what the size of the pot?

Unfortunately it's a 6 flat drop. The game with a staggered up to 6 take is 2/3/5, which I'm not sure if I'm ready to pay that level.

Correct, pretty insane rake amount but I don't have a choice. The next game with a reasonable rake (staggered up to 6) is 2/3/5.
I want to move up to play that game since the rake is much better but the minimum buy-in is 800 and I'm not sure I have enough bankroll to play that game.

6 flat drop at 1/3 is insane. You have to be extremely tight preflop since seeing any flop will cost you 2bbs, your opens have to be at least 5bb+ limpers , buyins have to be deep (600$ avg) to be worth it.

Ive never been to San Jose but seems like a rich city so it might be beatable but you’d have to be in the top 1% pct long term.

Great advise.
For me the cost to the casino is basically 0. Just a quick 15-min drive from my apartment.
Due to work and family commitment, I can only go to the casino probably 2 to 3 times a month realistically.
I can't agree more with "esp. depending on the time and day, so it's not like you are really playing the "same" game every time."

I'll share the table dynamic a bit here.
It's a 1/2/3 game, so button has 1 straddle, SB is 2 and BB is 3. Max buy-in is 300.
An open is about 10 to 15 in general and it's common to see 2 to 3 limpers call the 10 to 15 open.
About 60% time or more 3+ people will see the flop.

the way you make money is by skill differential. The greater the skill difference between you and your opponents the greater your win rate will be. If every one is about the same skill level you will all lose slowly due to rake.

What exactly do you do better than your opponents? Any strong winner can write an extensive list of exactly what they do better than their opponents, what their opponents mistakes are, how they take advantage of those mistakes, etc, etc. They will have a gameplan for most situations.

Can you define where your edge comes from specifically?

how do your opponents fcuk up where u dont?

How exactly are you "winning $" when u r at the table

Statistically no way to tell in this sample size. Qualitatively you should have an idea that you can at least play recreationally and about break even if you see massive mistakes the general player pool is making that you are not making.

As a footnote, the statistical measurement seems kind of silly sometimes because in order to get to a result takes so long the player pool could have completely changed in actuality or in quality of play. If you tracked 10,000 hours over the last 10 years, the general quality of 1/2 players now if probably not as horribad as it was during the first 5 years.