What kind of an hourly rate can I expect to maintain while playing the 2/5NL game in Las Vegas? I hear people saying that expert players can grind out $25 an hour playing 1/3 so can we expect to make $40 an hour, granted we are a great player in this game?

What about a game like 15/30 LHE? Can we expect to make $40 an hour playing 15/30 or are we stuck to $30/hour?

Thank you very much.

I've learned over the years that this type of question has a pretty big flaw: The sort of player who can beat a 2/5 or 15/30 game for the maximum can often win more playing a higher game. The people who log enough hours at a game to have results to this question are rarely the very best at that level.

15/30 specifically is only spread in Vegas at Bellagio, and the player pool is not very large. A stab at a winrate depends heavily on time of day, weekday vs weekend, the number of tourists vs local grinders, whether the locals are actual winners, etc. The lack of game selection means we can't think "I can find a $40/hr limit game somewhere in Vegas." Some days certainly, others not.

$20-25 / hour is a realistic 2/5NL win rate in most 2/5NL games throughout the country. However, with that said some players can certainly beat the game for $30-40/hour, but, those players are very solid players. Expert players could probably beat some 2/5NL games for around $50/hour, yet, those players usually move up.

I would guess that most live 2/5NL "grinders" are making around $25/hour.

lol i play 2/5 alot, logged like 250 hours or so and i win at maybe $18-$20 an hour, but i mean im not in touristy vegas, im in nitty nitfest.

I could imagine if i had a sick life and could play against idiots i could win .. $30...40? who knows.

where do you play real nitty 2/5 games?

I know the OP was mostly about 2/5 nl, but what VBCurtis says here is VERY accurate. The difference between the 15/30 Bellagio game at noon on a Wednesday and 11pm on a Friday makes you feel like you're in a different casino altogether.

This question stemmed from me wanting to eventually go pro at this limit AND reading the thread where people were arguing if it was possible to beat 10/20NL for $200 an hour, which is 10 big blinds per hour. Now obviously rake doesn't punish you as much so we'll say that rake punishes away 3 big blinds at the 2/5 level, so you're still left with 7 big blinds per hour which is $35 an hour. Now, we also have to factor in that 10/20 NL players will be much better than 2/5NL players meaning your edge won't be as huge, right?

So am I right in thinking that $35 an hour is possible?

Also...

About a game like 15/30 or 20/40 in Vegas, I am talking about a pro grinder makign a living. They don't always playi during peak hours but they do try to when they can. I've heard the norm is 1BB/hour in live mid stakes games, is this information still "current"

Thanks in advance to everyone who responds, and thanks to everyone that has already responded.

I think you can do better than 1bb/hour live, but I don't know how much better. I'm a mediocre player at best (10/20 limit live) and I get around 1.5bb/hour. I'm sure there are a lot of better players that make more, I just couldn't say how much more.

Once you reach the higher limit games I would say even a very good player would have a hard time winning more than 1BB an hour. There just won't be enough gap in your skill and the other players to make much more than this over the long run.

At no limit 2/5 you will make more money per hour than you would at a 15/30 limit game or at least as much. Taking for granted you can play both with same skill level.

Over last 2 months I've averaged $53/hr on 2/5 & 3/5 over 100 hours of play.. and thats including running bad(yes I have run bad, so many coolers in all-in's, suckouts, etc) and a real bad session yesterday bringing the average down from over $70/hr. The style I play probably doesnt appear to the casual eye to be one that is "expert" but it works, that is to say I'm neither TAG nor LAG and employ different styles vs different players in different positions stacksizes etc at the same table.. however this is not a strategy thread so I wont go into it.

So yes you can crush the game at this level for far more than $25-30/hr. Granted though I also play 5/10 sometimes and 10/20 occasionally if they're run but still, 3/5 is 3/5 and I buy in just like everyone else that doesnt play higher. I also find that a really good table on 3/5 is probably more profitable than a 5/10 table full of regulars that know the fundamentals and each other. These regs if you stack them once they stop playing you and dont rebuy either.

Oh and forget limit if you are aiming for a good $$$/hr... the players are nitty as hell and you make far far less. If you get a huge donk you cant just put his whole stack to the test like you can in NLHE.

i think $35/hr is possible to sustain at 2/5, i sustained about that for 3 months of play, but that is not a huge sample size either. a lot of the 2/5 games suck during the day though and the V is really just a bunch of tight ass grinders most of the time except late nights when the clubs get out. in non-wsop times, the B has a good 2/5 and the mirage does as well when they get one going on the weekends since there are rarely any grinders at that level at the mirage. if you can really stick it out you would be to 5/10 in no time, but poker does get old fast sometimes.

15/30 at the bellagio has a 2/3 blind structure which i dont think is as good for the tighter players, and this game can really blow during the day, but on fridays and saturdays $40/hr+ is probably possible. I only have about 20 hours in that game and have run extremely hot, made about 2300, so thats like 100+/hr but totally no sustainable. if you make it past 15/30 LHE, youre probably better off than switching to the B's 30/60 O/8 or 20/40 stud games, since those tend to be looser, rather than doing 30/60 LHE.

What kind of game should I expect on weekday nights? I will be in town the first week in August.

god 100 hours is not enough at all to determine a win rate... like not even close to close

but ya if the games are real fishy and deep stacked 35 is certaintly doable if you play good LAG

2/5 can be beat for a pretty large win rate. I would say if you are an above average player 30-50 dollars an hour sounds about right. I knwo thats a big gap, but it all depends on your skills and how good you are.

You can achieve up to $65/hr before rake if you play at world-class level. I believe this is max that can be acieved. Keep in mind the $65 number never happens in practice becaause no world-class player plays 2/5 or if they do they dont take it seriously.

The average expert beating 2/5 though will only beat it for like $35/hr before rake. Most winners at 2/5have much smaller winrates, south of $20/hr.

Rake is usually $6-10/hr if you play in the right places (Borgata 2/5 is $5/half hour and MGM 2/5 is like 3%-ish up to $150 capped at $4 = $3/half hour for a TAG), so just subtract that from the winrate.

I tell anyone crushing 2/5 for anymore than $20/hr to move up to 5/10 though because there isnt a big skill level jump and you just make twice as much money and the rake isnt as big of factor.

If your in LA or Nor Cal, then moving up to 5/10 is very important because the rake is so high.

I totally disagree with the conservative estimates of achieveable hourly rates. I wont argue if you say 100hrs is not enough but I know for sure that I actually made some mistakes and actually ran really bad. My winning without SD in 3/5 is ridiculously high because if you know the right guys to bluff and how to set them up and who to float etc then its like printing money. I mean you can even run bad and get coolered and still win session after session.

This aint a strategy forum so I wont delve into it but its not that hard to beat.. but I think if you play ABC poker then its hard to get above $30-35/hr. If you are a good LAG online and know how to translate that game live-style then you can win more.

I just recently found a site called Pokercharts.com where you plug all your info in and they do all the calculations for you. Prior to this I only kept records of how much I won, and not how many hours I played. A few months ago I moved down here to play for a living fulltime, so here are my numbers since I got pokercahrts(its a small sample I know)....
(directly from the pokercharts screen over 156 hours)

Earning 9770, win rate 62.63/hr , bb/hr 12.3 , ROI - 47.66%, Avg return 315.16

Keep in mind all these numbers are after the rake because when i come home and plug in my numbers the rake has been taken out already

Machmood, where do you play ?

Only borgata

Aren't all the #'s going to be after rake regardless. Considering you took the money home after they raked the pots you won?

should be around 40 an hour, quit poker if not

It really depends more on your competition than your own skills. I'm not saying it doesn't depend on your skills, I'm saying over a certain threshold of competency/goodness, your opponents start mattering a whole lot more. It's not like a "good" player can make $20 and a "great" player can make $50.

Now the skill level in Vegas tends to be underrated by ballers and players who happened to sit with a few donkeys on their last visit. The fact is, there are plenty of decent to good players in 2/5 games (after all, forum readers play there). Lots of locals, and lots of educated travelers. Your earn rate depends a lot on how many crappy tourists are at your table at any given time. Sometimes it will be 3 or 4, sometimes everyone will be chopping up one guy's money, and sometimes you'll be wasting your time rotating money around the table. Usually there will be 1 or 2 bad players, and 1 or 2 weakish players who are trying but just don't know enough. Occasionally you'll hit the jackpot and a complete whale or drunk fool will show up. That's usually when you lose your stack and get smacked by the variance club :-)

I can make $40/hr in local donk games at 2/5 ($20 in local donk 1/2 games), and probably $20-25 in Vegas 2/5.

Your 15/30 question is more interesting. I don't know because I'm making about $60/hr at that, but I can't say I've played long enough to get a real good reading. I think your $30 or $40 question there is too subtle to answer. Boy, there are some soft 15/30 games sometimes at Bellagio and 10/20 at Mirage sometimes. I have to believe that I can make close to 2 BB/hr in those games, but they are not like that all the time. Sometimes at the Bellagio I'd estimate I'm playing at more like .5 BB/hr when the games toughen up a little (like when the weakies leave the table for an extended period.) I've noticed that shorthanded when there are only 5 decent players left, no one wants to play. That's one way you know they're decent :-) I'm not a great shorthanded player so I'm probably making $0/hr when it gets down to 5 or fewer decent players.

Sorry, you can't make that conclusion after 100 hours. You really should know that.

FYP

If you made $35/hr for 100 hours, then you most definitely did not "run really bad". Running really bad for 100 hours means losing money (for a good player).