I'm throwing this around because I feel like you just can't seem to make regular and constant money playing poker nowadays. The only place where I usually get 2-3 BI is at my local casino.

I'm an online player, I mainly play 1/2NL and a few MTT's. I used to play everything, when I started out, I would play 200$ HU SNG against the best. I would hope in 2/4 though games and surprinsgly, I wasn't doing bad at all.

Then, I retired a part of my roll and played live. I was down about 30 BI under a month. I was constantly losing regular flips and more, for example; I had KK in 1/2 with 800$, it went raise, 3-bet, 4-bet & call preflop against an absolute sicko, he had about 1000$. Flop came 8-9-2 rainbow. There was 250$ in the pot. I jammed and got called by 8-10. He turned a 8.

After that horrible month, I took a break. I started playing again 2 weeks ago because i'm in school and i'm trying to make extra dollas lol. So far, my cash games is going very poorly, i'm down about 7 BI in .25/.50 but luckily, I managed to finish 11th in a 30k MTT and 7th in a 6k MTT. I'm basically even after 2 weeks.

The question is; Can players be profitable at all? Does winning players sustain themselves with rakeback?

I understand the variance, don't get me wrong. I just don't get the fact that I just can't seem to outflop anyone. I see players limping aces and getting one street of value and it makes my eyes bleed. When I defend on the BB with Q7s for example, flop would come AQ7, I would then c/r, bet and evaluate the river but no, I would get it in on the turn because the guy have queens...ofc. Next hand, I would get KK and a safe flop to bet, then, I would get raised and rekt by a set.....ofc. Then, I would raise AJs on the BTN, BB would flat, flop would come 238, I would bet, he would call, turn would come an A, I would bet, he would min-raise me(tf), river would come an A and he would be 3/4 and....... I would call and get rekt by a boat.

The worst is that whenever I started playing poker, I was fearless, I would literally take so much -EV spot, I could c/r overbet the river with absolutely nothing. I would literally 4-bet bluff 7-6s or 5-bet shove A-5s. I would float with nothing just to bomb it on the turn.....

Ahhhhhhhhh I love poker! Maybe i'm just on an endless downswings lol, have a nice day everyone :-)

***sorry for the poor english***

Your English is fine.

Yes, players can be profitable. In my opinion based on readings here on 2+2, a minority of players are making profit regularly.

Making a statement like "I understand variance but....." discounts the word "understand". Also,,, you may not be a winning player.

I'm a winning player online (45BI) and I'm probably a slight losing player live (5-10BI).

Well, you got a point, i'm aware of the variances but i'm having a hard time accepting it rather.

You're leaving off the important part of a winrate, which is how much you've played. Being up 45 BI is meaningless on its own. Being a winning player comes down to how frequently you make +EV decisions. Over time repeatedly making small correct choices ads up to profitability.

Think of it as something simple like flipping a coin. A fair coin has 50/50 odds, but if you could somehow work on a skill that tilted the odds even a little bit to be 51/49 in your favor you'll win in the long run.

Maybe I can help with this.

Knowing what he had, do you want him to call your shove here...or not?

To respond to otatop, I played 31k hands. I might have to do the math to see what's my winrate.

King, obviously, I want calls like that everyday, it's just harsh when you're up 4BI and lose 6h worth of time like that. Don't get the wrong idea too lol, I handle coolers very good, it's more when I drive home and I recap my day and i'm like; really? I even offered him to run it twice.... lmao

Like, I know I win about 70% or so in this spot I believe so i'm fine with the play.

Finally, what do you mean by you can help with this?


**I'm up 8BI today, yayyyyy**

Also, I have my own theory in which spotting tendencies and then, countering them is a way to be a winning player. I had this good winning reg at my table who would keep 3-betting me and it was really annoying lol, I then, decided to implement 4-bet bluff like I talked about previously, especially with hands like Axs who would potentially block his Ax combos. I don,t study enough to get into number details to know if it is -/+ev.. which I should probably do but that's always how I worked. IMO, I always try to avoid awkward situations and put though decisions on villain.

I like doing unorthodox things like min-raising the turn OOP.

there is nothing wrong with simply avoiding playing against good players who are getting aggressive against you until you have the goods

Poker is only truly profitable if you hit the lottery ie winning a large mtts, otherwise its at least 12 hours daily grinding.

You know that feeling when you play online

If the 31k hands were all cash, that means you've won 4500 big blinds in 31000 hands, which works out to roughly 14 bb/100. You're most likely running hot to win at that rate.

Wow, 14bb/100 is very good indeed but it includes like 2-3k hands played in 2/4 if it changes anything.

Wait we are not supposed to 5bet A-5s and 4bet 76s? Mind! Blown