I don't play much poker anymore, but I recently caught up with some regulars in my former game and they told me about a former online player who has been absolutely crushing the game for the past few years. I don't have a complete picture, but his style is completely unorthodox, and apparently involves things like:

- Super high VPIP
- Snap-calling river bet in a 4-way pot with K-high with two players left to act
- Seemingly always calling bluffs and never calling value bets

Now I get that live LHE players aren't generally the sharpest knives in the drawer, but this is a 40/80 game with a pretty solid roster of regulars, and this guy is apparently winning all the monies. Some possible explanations:

- Variance, ldo
- Next-level live tells
- Next-level LHE

Which is it, guys?

Lollivepoker confirmation bias

Next-level variance, ldo

Only person who I think has this description is ZZeigler? I mean in term of GTO you can play quite loose in SB and BB. Btn/Co is quite tight than what every reg is playing and Mp/Utg a bit looser than general pop. The assumption is that people should be 3b/cap light in BB due to bet structure of lhe. Also Since everyone is playing passive post flop with med range or go monkey aggro with draws, someone like ZZeigler is going to be able to read the scenario quite well. I think it possible for him to do 2 BB per hour. Although once someone at the table figure out his strategy they can exploit that in theory.

ZZ’s a fish. When I’ve got the nuts, I beat him 2/3 of the time.

Live confirmation bias.

This LA? I don't know what happened to him, but I remember La Peste having absolutely sick bluff catching skills back in the day. His went to showdown was much higher than everyone else and he was crushing.

Without knowing who this is or what 40 game it is its hard to say. But if hes winning all the money, has this guy moved up to 60 - 1/2? 40 is a hard way to survive longterm when his luck comes back to earth.

AFAIK, 40 is the biggest regular LHE game in the area.

Why would someone who could soul read consistently be playing limit where the value of deviating from optimal is a small fraction of a BB when there are tons of NL games where the same read can be worth 10x as much?

Because no limit poker isn't fun?

Dude, that entire game is one giant disaster. Just the fact that player is still playing that game indicates that he sucks at every other form of poker (or at life). People go on hot runs and look unbeatable and ZZ (if you talking about him) with his superagro style can win a bunch of chips really quickly.

And limit is? You have more decisions but almost all of them are really obvious and require no thought. That's part of the appeal. You can be all loosey goosey at the table while eating a sandwhich and it barely impacts your hourly.

I think you just made his point

I doubt most people could tell the difference between a .5bb/hour winner and a .5bb/hour loser in a midstakes limit holdem game. And the majority of people playing midstakes that think they are worth more than .5bb/hour in 2019 are delusional.

People just assume the guy that has turned over the most winning hands for a couple months is the best player. And the guy turning over the winning hands is sure of it.

^-- speaks much truth. especially about the muppet in question. there are somewhere between 0-3 good players in the "biggest" limit holdem game in 2000 miles.

I have no idea about possible win rates I’m just pointing out why even if there was someone who could win 2bb/h at limit because of magical mind reading abilities no one would actually do it.

Majority of people who’ve thought themselves winners have always been delusional I’d say.

Gotta agree with Lenny here that most of us old 40 regs are playing 10/10 NL or PLO for obvious reasons. Most of the aggro 40 regs look like they are up huge but I can remember many times when this particular player has been stuck 6 or 7 racks before winning a single pot.

I have played with him the past couple months, and a few times while waiting for 10/10 and granted it's a small sample size but he is just ISO raising fish limpers without any regard to position playing 45/40/4 and just barreling off with air or making hero calls when it is clear his hand is never good. This superlag style can be exploited by the balanced crusher, but maybe not enough so that 40 is worth playing the full time hours especially on the east coast.

I think this thread just need to be close. The guy is super nice and a great player. unlike me he doesn't brag about his wins. also a lot of big assumption about what bad and good in these games. I would love to be as good as he is live and I would def. quit online if i were making as much as he is in these games.

what up with the survivor biases bull****. Do you walk up to a random people and say you got lucky that you swim better than the millions of sperm behind you?

.5bb/hr is what in terms of bb/100? dont you only see like 30 hands an hour at live? so .5bb/hr would be like 1.5bb/100? I think that should be noticeable. but it would take like a million hands so I actually agree with you.

this is one thing that should be apparent to anyone who has a big database of over a million lhe hands. I won a around there and had 100k hand downers and 500bb downers. so did everyone else whos database I saw or who I talked to. and thats like 10 yrs of tons of live play.

so its really impossible to tell and no way to make a living.

All live poker in a nutshell

Live LHE no way to make a living or live poker in general?

The difference between a .5/hour winner and .5 loser is double that … 3bb/100. That's not a small difference. It takes a long time to know from data but it will probably be clear after a few hours of observation assuming the play you're watching is representative of their overall play style.

You won't see that big of a gap because someones steal range is off by a couple pips or because they puss out and don't bluff the river with the bottom of their range occasionally. It likely means that one of them is routinely make stupid decisions preflop. It's not the only way to bleed money but it's far, far and away the most common.


Also - having a 100k downer as a 1bb/100 winner isn't that uncommon, but having a 100k downer as a 3bb/100 winner should be extraordinarily rare.

Just as an observation, I know there are a handful of super-good LAG's out there, but the vast, vast majority of live limit players grossly overrate their abilities to get away with playing bad hands pre-flop and make the money back post-flop. (The psychological reasons for doing this are obvious: playing tight is at best boring, and at worst frustrating, when all the other players are getting into hands against bad players and you have to sit out.) And even among the super-good LAG's, part of the skill of being a super-good LAG is actually being disciplined about it and realizing when there are times you have to tighten up.

So when you see people repeatedly show up at showdown with hands that are not borderline but are clear pre-flop folds, by far the most likely explanation is that they are a significantly losing player, even if you see them making some good post-flop plays. Since variance is a long-term process, such players can rely on rungood for a long time, but eventually, all those times they play a weak hand against a strong range come back to haunt them.