Just for the record: you come across as the oposite of what you are preaching, hence the trolling from other posters.

If you truly believe a sample of lol 100 hours or some miniheater is a proof of where you stand as a player, i dont really know where to start. Many posters on this forum have played poker for countless years and thousands of hours, and you come here with the i know it all attitude after a little 100 hour miniheater?

And no: of course not isnt anyone averaging freaking $70 pr hour playing 1/2. Have you smoked your socks or something? Even at 5/10 its hard to average $70 pr hour over a big samplesize.

As others have said, you're on a heater. It isn't about winning a lot of flips with stacks going in. It is the small things like hitting your set on the flop and being the on the right side in draw situations. When you're running well, poker seems easy. The best session I ever played was one where I lost $40.

MikeStarr 2.0 right here

This thread is going places (it starts with a B).

Play deeper, buy in with at least 100BB to increase win rate

Alarm alarm-shots fired officer!

You need to establish your base line; Pump out significant volume (4-6 hundred) hours ; see what your win rate is over that time span; and then look to make improvements; I wouldn't set hourly goals until you have an idea where you are. The numbers never lie!

200 hours * $70/hr = $1400
You're up 7 buyins. That's not a huge amount.

Remember that even on a very soft, passive table, a professional poker player can go on a 5-7 buyin downswing.

You could be the best poker player in the world and you might lose all your profits within a week playing 1/2 NL.

I guess it's cool that we're now allowing newbies to troll the forum OOT style.

a live poker player's "hourly" is fictitious. it's different at every table, and is in flux because people change the way they play.

you can make a better prediction regarding hourly when playing online. there were $1/2 players making $140/hr 10-years ago with rakeback included. 16+ tabling though.

And yet with all of your natural talents you can't find a day job earning at least $40/hr? SAD!

too hunnet times 7t = moar than 1400

werk on yer math mang

also in 4 epic thread

This is all false. I'd put the max win rate playing 1/2 at about $40/hr for a top player, although anyone making that will be playing 2/5 very quickly.

I don't think you can have a super high win rate and play low variance at the same time. Math says it's not possible. What happens when the whole table is playing low variance? Then it would probably be impossible to win 35bb per hour. You would have to table select at 1/2 to find the loosest table and that in itself would effect your hourly as you'd have to spend time looking for that table

haven't played 1/2 in 8 years but I think the highest hourly i ever heard of is 27

I can assure you that after 100 hours you have no idea what a heater is or isnt. People think a heater means they keep winning big pots, keep hitting set over sets, keep hitting a flush when they other guys has a straight....ect.

Heaters can be much more subtle. You could hit TP 8 times out of 10 after raising AK/AQ and not even realize youre on a heater because you may have only won small to medium pots. But you hit TP more than double the amount of times you should have. That's heaterish.

You might get set over setted....but there was 4 to a flush on the board so you didnt lose much when normally you will get stacked.

Until you have 1000s of hours you wont be able to recognize a heater while you're in one.

I wonder if rookie baseball players who go seven for fifteen or whatever in their first week ever ask the vets if they know anybody who hit .700. I mean they're hitting damn near .500, are humble but have been great at everything they've ever done and probably don't feel like they're on a heater. They even laid off a nasty slider once obv results are sustainable imo.

Are you saying online players have a better indication of their true win rate or that playing online will help you establish an idea of your true win rate at a live game?

I believe the former and not the latter. I am a terrible online player yet I have had 9 straight winning years live.
There is just a vast difference in the quality of games online vs. live.



I welcome OP to the forum and have no issues with him thinking he has the game figured out after playing 100 hours while some of us who have been playing for 10,000 hours still don’t. OP decided to look back at two of my hand histories on here and tell me how terrible I am. Well, that’s why I post those hands to hear opinions of what I could have done better. Hopefully he will utilize the forum for what it is - an aid to improve and evaluate your own play.

Dude you're on a heater.

If it was that easy every nit on this forum would be making 15BB per hour playing a nitty two plus two low variance starting hand range. Many agree that 10BB is possible, but there is only one guy on here that thinks $40 an hour is possible. That should tell you something. But of course, you think you are more talented and special than everybody else, and that we all must be calling 3bets from nits, and that's why we don't have a $37 an hour win rate at 1/2.


You're going to have stretches where you get sucked on in every single big pot you play. You will also miss every single flop that you raise pre and you will go 0 for 30 set mining. This type of swing may not even happen in your first 1000 hrs, but when it does your true win rate is going to go DOWN. Oh, and you're going to go on tilt too and spew 50 dollars here and a hundred dollars there. Sorry, but anyone who thinks they won't is FOS and plays OMC style of play for 5 hrs a week.


For your win rate to be +10BB an hour you are going to have to play VERY LAG. That means high variance and getting all of your decisions right, time after time after time, without hardly any spewing. All this while paying high rake and dealing with super slow tables.

If you check the winrates thread, there was a time when you thought $60 an hour was possible at 1/2. Lol.



Then.....the doomswitch kicked in.

Is this for me or Johnny? Pretty sure it wasnt me. Quote please?

Well said, +1 Mike.

For Johnny

Dang-it, I merged this before I realized what a troll-fest it is. Well, now that it's in the right spot, no trolling.

daygrindmike, read this thread, and then calm down. No one is making $70/hr at 1/2.

Everyone else, just tell him to read the thread.

I believe I said my "goal" for the year was to average $50/hr for 1/2 for 2016 or whatever which would have been minimal hours given I was playing nearly entirely 2/5 and some 5/10, not that I thought it could be beaten for $60/hr over a 2000 hour full-time grinder sample.

My lifetime at 1/2 was $37/hr after ~650 hours before I stopped playing 1/2.

Having been through a 1000 hour +EV period (only recognizable in hindsight) followed by a few thousand hour -EV period I still stand by my statements that variance (more so and especially in aggressive and deep stacked games) can kick you around one way or the other for thousands of hours at a time.

Congrats, well played!