The game has gotten tougher in recent years and the margins are tighter but live poker is still plenty beatable especially at the lowest levels. A 5/T game filled with pros is like a war of attrition but even that is a war that can be won. The lower the level the easier the games. There are not many people making a living at the 1/2 and 1/3 level of poker and most that are aren't very good.

When you are running bad it can feel like the game is not beatable but it certainly is. I'd recommend continuing to work on your game. Also, there is nothing wrong with taking a break from poker. Hating poker is not uncommon and I think it can be good to take a break to refresh your mindset.

Well I don't claim to be any doctor or psychiatrist, these are just my observations.

That's true, money is made in this game by playing people who are significantly worse than you. Even if they're just a little bit worse, you probably won't win in the long run because of rake.

I've worked out most of the general spots because I'm OCD like that. If you did too then you wouldn't be arguing with me.

Most ranges between regs and pros are incredibly close. Those 80/20 and 70/30 all ins are actually more like 60/40 and 65/35. You simply have to run crazy hot in order to subsist off the big pots alone.

That didn't used to be a problem because a pro could value bet people to death. That's not the case anymore. Nobody but the ONE fish at the table is playing really loose/ call happy. That's not to say regs have learned to win more- they've just learned how to lose less.

That in turn has made pot controlling and going for 1-2 streets of value the standard (which cuts into a pros winrate). You used to be able to offset that by applying max fold equity/ bluffing a bunch... but thanks to every live coach and training site- not only are regs bluff catching more, they're doing it with the right combinations!

The last big edge a pro had was making exploitative folds that regs couldn't make. Again, thanks to every live coach and training site, regs are 1. Making more tight exploitative folds and 2. Bluffing more and with the right combinations.

In other words, you're pegged at making hands, hoping to run hot and being happy with the reduced returns. At lowers stakes very little has changed but there's simply not enough money on the table to make a good living no matter how well and hot you run

I know people are sick to death of me saying play other games but if you want to be a pro and not a weekend warrior, there's really no other choice. The lesser known games you can value bet people, bluff catch in spots nobody is bluff catching, and also bluff with impunity... all the things super rich NL ballers were doing 10 years ago.

of course we are making money off the recreational players, why the hell do you think table breaks once rec leaves

what I gather from what you're saying is every players who are winning a lot of money are just running hot

They are. This is why in the live poker scene, you never see the same faces for more than a couple of years. When the inevitable initial heater wears off, the only people that can withstand the downswings/"regression to the mean" are the recs (people with jobs) and the newest cast of players on heaters.

Heaters can last a long time. Mine lasted a long time. I had inflated an ego/winrate and thought I could go pro. once you play your first few thousand hours and you see what is possible, you realize it's the last thing you should do.

The very rare few who are skilled enough to win enough to support themselves solely off poker (keywords solely off poker) and make it 5-10 year range, all want to get out. Why do you think that is?

Why do you continue talking about online poker in a thread about live poker? It's completely irrelevant. They are totally different games.

I mean, games are no doubt tougher, but difficult games was not in my top 5 reasons of why i quit

1) horrible schedule. Lol at wanting to go pro to be "free". The friday night i took off for my gf's dinner date with friends was the same night an unknown whale dusted off $30k in a 5/10.

2) horrible people. hygiene. personality. intelligence. politeness. Whatever metric you use, you're around awful people. The lowest of the low

3) private games. Really good game with high stakes and recs? Hope you give good blowjobs bc thats what you're gonna need to get in

4) the floor is god. And if you want your prayers answered, you better give alot in the sunday offering

5) variance/slowness. Everyone says that your edge is so huge that variance isnt a factor. Lol. Go get dealt 30 hands per hour and lose a 500bb pot and get back to me. Gonna take a month to get that back bruh.

This ^
1) Happens how often nowadays? Almost never..

5) Games are definitely good, but when the casino is winning 20BB/hr at a standard 2/5 game how many people can really sustain themselves off SOLELY poker....Players are bad but equities don't run far off enough to support that many small winners, let alone big ones.

Variance in live poker is severely underestimated. Good reg I know cleared 100k last year playing 80/20 2/5 and 5/10 and is -8000 this year.

Everyone you see “crushing” is just running insanely hot to the point they think it’s standard to double up twice per session, constantly flop sets in super profitable spots, and the list goes on and on.

Full ring live poker is in fact one big variance fest. You either run good or you don’t.

OP thinks he can win 30/hour at 1/3 (about 33bb/100). Throw in rake, that's 40-50bb/100 you have to win at to sustain that hourly. How many humongous whales would you need to achieve that hourly over the course of many years playing? Your opponents really have to be beyond awful to achieve those win rates.

Best post itt.

People just see the bull**** advertisements by shills about how awesome being a live pro is, it's a serious serious grind and one that most people that even love the game aren't willing to put up with.


Also 30$/hr is actually laughable at 1/3 for op, imo.

Yup yup.

This is what so many people don't realize. Freedom is not, not having a conventional job. You're just trading a job for becoming a slave to a game. Also your bankroll is tied up to your job. The money you have is it free? Can you use that money for anything other than playing poker?

You are a slave to having to play at odd hours, weekends and other holidays because that's when the best games are. You're a slave to maintaining a bankroll so you don't fall off the monthly nut treadmill you're on. Can you just not play and enjoy life for a month or two and have it have no impact on you at all?

Doesn't sound like my idea of freedom to me.

Personally, if my EV was a true $100/hr+ for 40+ hours a week every single week like clockwork then I really wouldn't give a damn about any of the points you made. I don't think anyone else would either.

The problem is games have gotten much tougher and grinders probably can't even average 30-40$ in ev/hr which makes the points you made very important.

the only difference between online and live is that it's easier to win money live, I play both for what it's worth, I just don't play low stakes

Yeah well all of you losers don't have the big edge that guys like OP and me have. Maybe you losers still haven't figured out that you can just fold AQ for a single raise preflop. Duhhhh!!! They call AQ the Doyle Brunson. Why? Because he never plays it. But you losers keep on griping. Me and OP will keep running the streets and mopping the floors with scrubs like you. Crushing live poker and crushing that puss. Right OP? Y'all sound like a bunch of jealous ass haters talking about variance. Guess what? You suck. That's variance. You rolled an average brain and not some Eintstein brain. Variance. Learn how to push a broom ya dummies. Me and OP gonna be flying on jets, eating caviar, and lounging on yachts because of our very serious proven poker skills while y'all wannabes gonna be bagging groceries and taking the bus. Haters!!!!

^ just goes to show how much a bit of positive variance can get to many people's heads. seen too many people like the guy above. like tellypl said, within a couple of years they have disappeared altogether. ask yourself why so many "crushers" just mysteriously vanish after 1 or 2 years of playing. and why so many PGC threads, it's like the OP just fell off a cliff and stopped updating without any indication of what happened.

I think he was trolling

The QQ hand reminded of a live hand played last night, albeit in an 8-max tourney, but still demonstrative of young guns just not getting live poker / live reads whatsoever:

2k blinds, all four players have around 100k (50bb).
Rec MAWG opens to 6k UTG, Hero (also MAWG) raises to 15k with JJ from MP, one of the most solid reg tourney players in our room (also MAWG), eyes my stack, eyes me, thinks for a long time and decides to flat-call his BU. In my head alarm bells are ringing at max volume and I'm already thinking I need to get lucky and flop a set to win this hand. Meanwhile young hotshot in the BB doesn't seem to see or read the strength or either my hand or BU. He ships his 50bb pretty much turning his AK face-up on the table by doing so, UTG snap folds, and I think about it and fold only because I believe BU has me beat and will call, which he promptly does with KK. Needless to say, the kid spiked an Ace and went on the crush the tourney (probably, I went out in 8th place when he was chip-leader, watching him run like god in every spot to that point).

I picture OP and this hot-shot as very similar in appearance, outlook, etc. The hotshot is a dealer in our club, he sees every player and how they play, yet he still doesn't get it. The previous night he lost at least 2 BI playing in a 2/5 game where he was clearly outclassed, but seemingly thought he was the best at the table with his demeanour etc. (paying me off a full buy-in when I flopped a set, thanks). At the time, I was quite sympathetic, thinking this kid just lost a week's wages in a couple of hours taking a shot he probably shouldn't, but after his tourney donk play last night, I lost any sympathy I had, which again is similar to how I feel about OP, since he just doesn't pay attention to all the info he is being gifted in this thread.

The month I decided to quit poker was the single biggest winning month I've ever had. That wasn't a coincidence.

The lack of freedom and the disgusting people took a pretty big toll.

Yeah the majority of people I come across at the table are the nut low. Makes me depressed.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/b...good-in-others

I think it's been a few days since I updated this thread. Nothing huge has happened. I had a few breakeven and slight losing sessions at 1/3 NL, 1/3 PLO and 2/5 NL. I also got my roster for this week and found out that this Saturday is my last day of work. We've just headed into Winter now and the days are getting cold and rainy, so it's nice to know that I won't have to return home from work soaking wet anymore.

I've read every post in this thread, but at the moment, this is the only one I have time to respond to:

1) My schedule was horrible at the pizza shop too. I would work literally every Friday and Saturday night and I'd get out of work around 2am. I had to miss so many parties, events and opportunities to socialise because of my job. This also caused me to have a bad sleeping pattern which made daytime activities hard too, since I was asleep until 4pm each day and wouldn't be able to go out with friends before work. So I'm used to it. This isn't a big deal for me. At least I'm giving up my Friday and Saturday nights to do something worthwhile, rather than just delivering pizza and washing dishes for minimum wage whilst everyone else parties.

2) Same thing with the pizza shop. The customers that I delivered pizza to were often druggies living in housing commission towers. Potheads, crackheads, ice addicts, you name it. There was this big group of Sudanese guys that I'd deliver to around 1am every Friday night who would often try to intimidate the driver and talk sh*t. Some people at the store literally refused to deliver to this address out of fear of their safety, so it was often up to me. So yeah, I'm used to hanging out with degenerates and low quality people too. At least at the poker table, there's this sweet feeling of knowing that those scummy people are your enemies that you're taking money off, rather than the customers whose arses you have to kiss.

3) Okay, this one is a valid point. There's a tonne of home games around Melbourne that tend to be really reg heavy and will invite pretty much anyone that wants to play, but it's quite hard to find the juicy home games. I don't know if the juicy games don't exist or if they're just kept a secret, but in my experience, the casino always tends to have softer players than the home games.

4) I'll acknowledge that it's important to have a good relationship with the floor managers. But the good news is that they tend to be pretty respectful of many of the 2/5+ regs anyway. Most of the arguments I see between players and the floor managers occur at the low stakes games (1/2 and 1/3). I think that the floor managers actually have this sense of admiration and respect for the high stakes pros and will subconsciously treat them better and be more polite to them. For example, I've seen some 2/5 regs angrily demand certain things, like less rake (shorthanded) or a table transfer, and they'll often get what they want. But if a 1/2 reg made the same demands with the same tone of voice and the same choice of language, they'd be given a stern warning and maybe even asked to leave.

5) This is the main difference between live and online: you're trading fewer hands per hour, which means extended upswings and downswings, in return for significantly softer games and much higher win rates. The good news is that online will always be there, and my plan remains the same: I want to get back into the online grind in a few months. I don't plan to grind fully live and nothing else. I'm just taking a temporary break from online poker, not a permanent break.

Isn't online banned in Oz? Sure there might be some dodgy app sites or w/e but basing part of your future income on that is pretty lol imo . And as for "online will always be there", I wouldn't be too sure about that.

Don't take this the wrong way but you sound kinda lazy. Delivering pizza sounds like **** but remember it's a transitional job- it's part time work for college students it's not a career. If anything it should motivate you to work harder in school/ find something you like. It just sounds like a little hardship/bs and you already want to roll over and give up.

You should be playing the home games over the casino. From what I've heard the rake is stupid high in AUS. most home games you can work out a great rb deal with the host.

So we pretty much all agree live poker sucks?