Hey FoldnDark,
thanks v. much for the words of encouragement--v. cool to have my first post on 2+2 responded to.
i was going over some of my old notebooks last night after i saw your post and i have to agree with your analysis--at least tentatively.
in '06 i made just over $16/hr for 790 hurs (just under 13 dimes on the year); and, for the most part, i wouldn't qualify the games i played in as super-soft. i mean, let's face it, if you feel like ANY $1/$2 game is super-tough, then you really can't be playing all that well; but, i think we all know there are some games that are truly weak. lots of aggressive raising and betting by players who know how to apply pressure in position does not for a soft game make!
on the other hand, throughout the late winter and spring of 08, i played regularly @ mountaineer in chester, wv, and found the games that i was in to be very easily beatable--some of the best i've ever seen, really.
i had a good thing going there. i'd arrive at the cardroom by 10am after having gotten my son to school and made the drive from pittsburgh. when i first sat down i almost always took a seat in the last game left over from the night before. i'd be fresh as a daisy and i'm looking around at at least 3-4 players who were stuck and exhausted from 15 hours of continuous play.
by noon the room would fill up with mostly older players--lots of retirees who'd cut their teeth long ago probably playing limit stud. these players, i found, made ideal opponents for me. there was almost no pre-flop raising to speak of in these games and the players seemed to be of the 'no way some kid is going to EVER bluff me out of a pot while i have top pair' variety. (even though, at a young looking 33, i didn't feel like i was the kid they seemed to think i was
)
this is a heavenly combination. see all the $2 flops you can with playable tickets and then just value-bet like it's going out of style whenever you make a big hand--implied odds heaven. it felt like the only way to lose in some of these games was to go completely sideways and start spewing or take some truly awful bad beats (or both). i averaged $24/hr during this period (only about a 300 hr. sample) and certainly didn't feel like i ran exceptionally well. i realize the sample is v. small, but some of these games were SUPER soft.
a lot of what's difficult about the game simply goes out the window when your opponents are so very weak and passive. position is less a factor than in other games when no one's taking command of pots while they have a positional advantage. limping up front with two 5's generally just set a chain of limpers in motion behind me, creating a volume pot and the ideal situation for my hand since there was usually someone happy to pay off when i flopped a set. since virtually all the players were buying in for 150bb, the stacks were just deep enough to make set mining highly profitable.
another key to my success in these games was keeping my sits short. i started at 10 am and set my phone to vibrate at 2pm. if i felt the game was really good and playing another hour made sense, i'd take a short walk and re-set my alarm to ring at 3:15. @ 3:15, i simply quit. period. i NEVER played past 3:15. not once. and most days i simply racked up my win at 2 and called it a day--especially if i had managed to do better than doubling my 200 buy-in. this method prevented me from ever playing tired. most days i booked wins, but quitting loser was simply something i had to do (i had to be back in the city by 5:30 at the latest).
once there's a room 15 mins. from my house, using this short-sit method will be a far more viable way of managing my money and my travel costs will be reduced from highly significant to next to nil.
god, i can't wait; i just hope i can scrape together enough of a bankroll to come out of the gate without too much pressure to have to win on me...i'm even considering a couple folks i know as potential partial backers...
in the final analysis here, the toughness of the games you're in has a TON to do with the answer to the OP. some games with high rakes and competent players may be barely beatable at all, while in the very best games no one can convince me that $20 isn't sustainable...
can anyone direct me to other threads dealing specifically with brick&mortar grinding at the low limits?
pax vobiscum!