Garick, i don’t understand why GG is allowed to incessantly post AIDs in this thread and the high stress thread (not to mention the individual strat thread that i don’t read but if i do, look who’s AIDsing), and we can’t talk about tangential live poker topics.

GG needs his own containment thread lol

What's really funny is that I've asked 2 very simple easily answerable questions; 1) post a significant sample size 10+ bb/hr winrate at low stakes raked / small max BI game, and 2) the simple rake question above (which is like, I dunno, 6th grade math?).

And yet no one has answered them (although I'm fully expecting someone to come up with the rake question answer, I haven't totally lost hope with the forum / thread yet).

For a forum thread revolving around stats and proof and math, it's actually quite pathetic.

Gwillnolongerberespondingtothislineofquestioningun tilmyeasyquestionsareansweredG

As mentioned previously ITT, posting a ‘significant sample size 10bb/hr+ winrate at a low stakes capped max buyin game’ is not an ‘easily answerable question’ and denying any advice based on the fact that someone hasn’t posted one is an effective but misguided cop out since, as also mentioned, even if someone were to post one it would likely be shot down because other game conditions are too different to compare. Talk about running in circles...

As far as the rake problem, it’s obvious that any increase in rake will result in some winrate less than x, not sure how that proves anything about achievable winrates except that they might be capped at some (largely speculative) amount. The only proof you have is based on your own experience (big kudos for posting your stats over 4000 hours, no small feat) in a game whose nature may very well have changed over the course of those 4000 hours. I see people in here suggesting that you look at the one variable you have full control over - your own play and exploitative adjustments that may improve your winrate - but I also sense an air of ‘trust me, this game is unbeatable for anything over xbb/hr’. Reminds me of overweight individuals claiming they ‘tried dieting and working out but it doesn’t work for me’ even though their idea of ‘trying’ is light steady-state cardio and subbing Coke with its diet counterpart or ordering small fries instead of large.

I don’t post much but have been lurking this thread for a while and thought I’d drop my 2 cents regarding the latest discussion/derail

How is posting a 4k hand sample for a low stakes small max BI game easy? How many such samples do you think exist at all, let alone 10BB/h+ samples?

As for your question about the rake, I'm not sure what the relevance is, but I'll answer it.

You say most pots will be $50-$80 in this game. Let's say 50% of pots fall in this range and are evenly distributed, with 25% of pots higher and 25% of pots lower. The pot is rounded down for rake purposes.
.5*(1/3*1+1/3*2)+.25*2 = $1/h average rake increase. Let's say we win about our fair share of hands for a rough estimate of 1.5BB/h rake increase per individual for increasing the rake cap from $5/hand to $7/hand.

Anyone friends with friends of Doug Hull from Red Chip Poker? Doesn't he play 1-2 exclusively to develop lessons/strategy for his target audience? I know he claims he made $12k at Mirage over 300 hrs for $40/hr.

If anyone has this "Sasquatch" WR at 1-2 I would put my money on him.

Yea, seeing a 4000 hour sample of 10+bb/hr isn't going to happen. As a rec player that plays pretty consistently around work and life, I can get 500-600 hours a year. My game conditions weren't constant over the 6-8 years it took to collect that much data. I could see a rec getting 1000 hours if they were pretty committed. But part of being a "rec" player is that you're not pushing the bounds of possible winrates. You're playing as a hobby or for fun.

Anyone playing for a living or as a serious income generator is going to get more hours and be able to collect that kind of data in ... 2 years? They're the most likely to achieve a WR like that, but then they're also the most likely to move up before they collect that much.

Based on a ~2k hour stretch I have, and GG's results, and other samples we've seen around 7-8bb/hr for a rec ... I have little doubt that a dedicated player could hit 10bb/hr for a long term WR. But I don't expect to see a sample beyond maybe 1000 hours of it.

Jeezus fukkin Christ GG i wasnt going to poast in this thread and am effectively done with it b/c of your non stop drivel

y no 4k samples at 1/2

here is y

when I switched from full time 21 pro to poker back in 03 or so I started playing on line. I had already bin a pro gambooler for 11 years

the lowest stake I played was 400 nl on line. Thats where I started.

Pros are not going to dick around at peanut stakes period
when I waitlist I never ever play 1/2 - zero interest
the only reason I have played 1/2 was for coaching people.

anyone that beats 1/2 for a decent rate is gunna move up - end of story. Ya ya ya some people dont have better options. Maybe they get bored trading their time for 20$/hour. I dont know and I dont care. I personally fuggin hate live poker. But for me 50+ per hour is worth my time and I trade my time for that.

This is quite sad. I actually feel for you.

I think this is a decent attempt.

But what about when you stack someone (especially a smaller stack)? If we assume we're stacking idiots mostly, and those idiots are loose and playing in a lot of pots, their stack has likely been obliterated by the rake. I think this also needs to be factored in somehow?

Gthanksfogivingitashot,imoG

Hand from today...5 guys limp. I raise $40 from the BB with QJ. They all fold one after the other. Easy $25 profit. Actually $27 since its "drop flop no drop". Lets take a poll to see when GG even thought about doing that...let alone actually pulled the trigger

I've addressed one part of this already (i.e. not everyone has other steaks they can move up to nor want to even if they did).

And what's so difficult about achieving 4000 hours at a level? I have a once-a-week rule with the wife and still get in 500+ hours a year. Seems to me it would be very simple for rec players who love poker as a hobby to get in much more. I talked with a rec the last session out who claims she plays almost every night, and considering she, like a lot of others, seems to be there every single night I play, this doesn't sound too farfetched. 800+ hour years for devoted nothing-else-much-going-on-in-their-lives recs seems very reasonably attainable to me.

GcluelesshoursnoobG

That's a nice story Mike.

Looks like you're playing in a 2/5 NL game? What's the max BI / rake in that game?

GnotremotelyrelevanttotheconditionsI'mdiscussing?G

Max buy in was just raised to $1000. Rake is $5+$2. How does that make a difference in this hand? Actually the deeper people are the more likely they will call $40 which means in your 100BB buy in game you will get called almost never if you do this. Especially with your image. My image is quite different than yours and I still wont get called here more than 10-15% of the time.

Ive done this same thing playing 1/2 which is $300 max (almost nobody buys in for $300. Lots of $60-$175 type stacks) and rake is still $5+$2. 5 people limp...raise to $25 and watch them all fold one after the other.

Again, I mostly want to stay away from strat here, but the game conditions you describe (2/5, 200bb BI, relatively sweet $5+2 rake) is simply not the conditions I'm discussing.

It always seems I'm discussing A when everyone wants to chime in with their examples of B. A and B are not the same, and shouldn't be treated the same with regards to what can be accomplished in them; that's kinda my whole argument. You don't disprove that by showing a whole bunch more B examples.

GcluelessconditionsnoobG

thx man

I am just over it. I remember tellin my wife when black friday happened I thought that I had 2 maybe 3 years of casino dwelling in me. I sacked up and cranked out nearly 7 years. Luckily, I am not a complete assclown and have a nice size nest egg and am taking some serious time off. Its kind of funny - I was on a really sick heater when I stopped playing. What happened was my woman SPC broke her leg kite boarding. And I stopped playing to take care of her. 1 week turned into 6 and I am really having a great time not going to the casino.

Maybe that will recharge me (doubt it). But I have never been a one dimensional dude and have a ton of interests and things I do that inspire me. Its just that after 25+ years gamboolin aint one of em.

Tell me what the difference is. There was nobody at my table at the time with more than 100BB (besides me). 5 people limped and I raised 8BBs. They all folded because they have trash which is why they limped.

That can be done in any game 1/2 game where people will have 40-100BBs. The rake doesn't even matter at all if its no flop no drop. I play in other rooms that do rake preflop and I dont alter my play one iota. If you are thinking about rake and adjusting your raise sizes and things like that to try to manipulate the rake total, you're doing it all wrong. We arent talking about a room that rakes $15 per hand. Your rake isnt much different than most paces in the U.S.

I swear you are the most hard headed person Ive ever talked to. You keep harping about how its impossible to win X amount and people are telling you that you are wrong and some have even told you a few things youre doing wrong. You dont want to change. You just want to show everyone that you are right so that you can justify not changing. Why change your game if its impossible to win more than you already are?

Thats clearly what you think and your win rate slowly and continually drops. The rest of us are facing higher rake, more educated players and all of those same factors, but yet we are winning at the same or higher rates than ever because we are improving and not staying stagnant.

I'd argue that if there isn't a higher stake (you're making my hungry for a chunk of cow with your misspellings BTW) available in your market, you can't really play professionally. You're at maybe $40k/yr before taxes and insurance and whatnot. Not exactly a great career choice. So you either have to get a different job or move to someplace with tastier stakes.


If you're playing once a week and getting 500 hours in, you're putting in 9.6hr sessions. Those are really long sessions for a rec player. (Or anyone.) I expect that someone playing "almost every night" to be more in the 3-4 hour range. Ask the woman you spoke to about it the next time you chat with her. 5 nights a week at 4 hours a session is 1000 hours a year. So 4 years for your sample. That's a long time for many people to dedicate to a hobby.

But again, we're getting into the question of if a "rec" player is putting in the effort to maximize their WR. I think that by definition they're not. Hence the "rec" part. It doesn't sound like you are. I'm not anymore. (Don't have the time with work, and I'm skating 3 times as much as I used to to ward off becoming a fat ass instead of grinding.) But we can still put up 7bb/hr without hassle.

Gg really needs to get banned from this thread this is getting insane.

Assuming rake is a %, I try to avoid taking flops with round amounts like $40.

An average pot of $200 would be great. Certainly, games differ widely.

As to your promo question, this is my assessment.

Yes, the dollar you put in in this situation is more or less a dollar you never really get back, for practical purposes.

In the little side game of promos, you want to put in the minimum number of dollars and take out the max.

Depending on the nature of the promos, you might be doing better in some spots than others. Like, you can make quads with PPs more easily.

If it's a BBJP most of your hands are drawing dead pre and are therefore simply giving up a dollar into the pool when you win.

If it were, say, splash pots, or a freeroll, the promo drop could be acceptable or even +ev, but you'd still have a dollar less in your pocket for every dollar you put into it.

So, I think when there is a promo drop, you have to tighten up a notch pre, especially if you are playing with an eye to winning a small pot.

10 bigs an hour is easier than gg believes but way harder than 99% of the rest of the forum believes.

A bunch of people with meaningless sample sizes arguing semantics is a waste of time.

A meaningful sample size is going to be in the tens of thousands of hours. If you think you know what your actual long term win rate is after 2000 or 4000 hours or whatever small sample size you are referencing then it shows your obliviousness to variance (in my humble opinion of course).

I'd say give it a shot. Probably the biggest factor will be the size and affluence of the area. If a lot of people can comfortably play 2/5 for fun, the games will be fine.

This is the most intelligent post I've read in this thread in the last 4 days....

Because he's not trolling and he's not being disrespectful. He's posting his honest opinion. I disagree with a lot of it, and think he's gotten way too stubborn lately, but that doen't make it trolling.
Several things. One, most rec players aren't here. They aren't interested in the amount of work that discussing strat on 2+2 is, and they probably aren't tracking their results, or at least not 100% honestly. You are frankly an anomaly in being here and engaged in strat, but unwilling to move beyond what you learned several years ago. And, frankly, your opinions have hardened to "you kids get off my lawn" level over the last year or so.

Two, very few recs put in the session lengths you do. My average is under 4 hours, for example.

Three, it doesn't take a crusher anywhere close to 4K hours to build a roll for a higher level, if available. I did it in 400 hours.

Four, lots of recs get bored and move on if they can't move up. (See anomaly comments above). I have less than 50 hours over the last year. Of those, less than 10 are $1/2, and I just played that because I was already there and it was all that was running. And I'm one of the few who still really like poker. $1/2 has no challenge to me anymore though, and the money available playing it is meaningless, so why bother?

Five, No one is going to grind the **** out of 1/2 "to prove you wrong." Why should they bother?

Six, by the time you get 4K hours in a game, both the game and (hopefully) your play have changed so much that the idea of a common "true winrate" throughout is likely meaningless.

This.

Not this. You don't know what your actual WR is, but it doesn't take 10s of thousands of hours to get a 95% confidence rates with reasonable bounds. You won't know your mythical "true winrate,' but you can be 95% confident that it lies between (for example) 8BB/hr and 16BB/hr (which happens to be my most recently figured 95% confidence interval).

And remember that statistically, I'm as likely to be running like crap with an expected WR of 14BBhr+ as I am to be running like god with a true WR below 10BB/hr. I am not a stats expert, but I believe these are bell-curve distributed, with my most-likely WRs clustered near my observed WR.

Of course, outliers exist, but that doesn't make smaller samples statistically meaningless. It is far more likely that GG's reduced WR over the last 1K hours is more due to rake and game condition changes in that time than it is to GG running poorly. Obv, it's not due to his playing style changing.

Garick, think about how often those “big pots” exist. Now think about how often it would take to achieve an actual expected value in those pots.

The edges you are trading in small pots does not come anywhere close to contributing to those large win rates. If you’ve played anything over a few thousand hours of live poker and have the slightest sense of objectivity you should be able to cast your ego aside and say the majority of live poker is entirely influenced by variance.

You’ve got people like IkeCarr that say they win $x/hr and then they post strat that barely passes for break even poker. I guess it’s human nature that everyone thinks they are a crusher when they are really just flopping sets in 3! pots.

If you want to know if someone is a winning player just observe their strat posts. Everything else is noise.

PS: the reason your 95% confidence interval is irrelevant is the same reason variance calculators are - you’re assuming constant conditions and results which only takes two sessions to realize that no two sessions are ever alike.

If you think you have reached the expected value of all the possible permutations of hand results that are possible in a few thousand hour sample size than I don’t know what else to contribute here. Common sense and intuition should indicate you are just scratching the surface.