It feels like in my pool people overfold to 4bets so light 4bets just print that sweet sweet rake free money.

it's probably just variance

Yeah, until you get called and don't know what to do postflop and bleed all of the gained EV into your opponent + some extra

How hard is it to make 5bb/100 at 50NL? I think that's what it would take to make online poker worth it for me given my circumstances. I don't really know how to figure this out other than just asking, sorry if the question is a bother. I'm a winning player at HUSNGs, so I get poker, if that helps.

depends on how good at poker you currently are and where you're playing

It's a really hard question to answer because everyone playing higher thinks it's really easy, and everyone playing lower thinks it's super hard

Is it a realistic thing to expect? (5bb/100 at 50NL)

I haven't really played poker in awhile but I was beating the lower stakes heads up sit n goes for maybe years. Just for me to come back 5bb/100 at 50NL is probably the minimum I would want to be earning. My circumstances are kind of unique so if I can't earn this then it might just not be worth it to play at all. I think I could beat 10NL just sitting down (I don't really know about the higher stakes) do you think this would translate into 5bb/100 at 50NL on most sites? I would be playing on PokerStars Ontario. Sorry if the questions aren't answerable. Just wondering (you don't have to answer my questions, sorry for bombarding you btw).

not bombarding at all

Pokerstars Ontario is supposed to be pretty soft now because it's fenced in. 5bb/100 at 50nl is a very very possible on a soft site like that, but I would say it's more of an achievable goal than an expectation. There's going to be a learning curve coming from HU SNGs a couple years ago to beating cash games.

There's three questions I have for you:

1) Why would it "not be worth it?" Are you considering this being a serious source of income for you, or just a semi-serious hobby? Basically I'm not sure why you don't just deposit at 10nl right now and see how you're doing there: that'll give you way more info than anything else. If you can beat 10nl for a decent winrate, it's pretty likely you can beat 50nl as well.

2) When you were playing HU SNGs, why did you stick to lower stakes sit n gos? What prevented you from going to mid-stakes?

3) Do you have any graphs/results or anything from before? You're asking for a very specific benchmark but are giving us very little to work with in terms of what your poker skill level was when you were active. It would be kind of like someone asking "Do you think it's possible for me to hit 1500 on chess dot com blitz? I used to be pretty good at classical." Like for someone who was 1900 in FIDE that should be trivially easy, but is pretty hard (though still achievable!) if that just means you used to beat all of your friends in high school.

Don't really want to get into it but basically if I'm not making enough money it's not worth the time put into it, so yeah I guess I'm looking to make it a serious source of income. I think the main issue was I didn't have the bankroll to move up stakes and I wasn't taking the game serious so I wouldn't put a lot of volume in. Can't really do the 10NL thing as it's not enough money to make the time put in worth it.

Basically I'm just trying to figure out if it's worth taking a shot at 50NL trying to win 5bb/100. If I have no expectation of reaching that winrate or close to it, then yeah, not worth it. Thanks for answering my questions.

I have like 7.7k in winnings on sharkscope for mainly HUSNGs and a 7.1% Av ROI over 23.8k games (zayd88 PokerStars). I was playing mainly micro stakes but also mid-stakes early on. I guess I did actually put a lot of volume in, but the stakes were so low going back to mid stakes just wasn't possible.

Currently playing these games.
I am also curious why you feel the cutoff of 5bb/100 is the cutoff for you of it being worth it or not?
I am playing without a HUD and confident that I am beating the game at a decent clip.
Can report back once I get a tracker if you like. Will probably be playing more 100nl+ soon, but I’m sure I’ll mix in 50nl for another few months at least.

Honestly, if you’re half decent you should beat these games for sure but don’t be so confident in these games remaining the same for years on end imo.

I'm not saying you have to put in a ton of time to make it 99% certain you're beating 10nl for some exact winrate, but playing for a little bit can be a decent indicator of how the games are and how you fit into the ecosystem. Have you ever played online cash before?

EDIT: just saw your edit. Based on the results/sample that definitely makes me more confident that you could do it

I don't really have a lot of experience in cash games. I just get the basic hand ranges and how to judge hands.

It's basically just a matter of it being worth the time spent. 5bb/100 would make it worth it so I guess that's my benchmark. Sure, post the numbers once you get them if you get a tracker.

All you can really do is start playing those games and see how you do. Other people can show you their graphs and it really means nothing. You need to play in the games and see where you stand. If you're winning, keep playing them. If you're losing and are in bankroll issues, drop down. But by playing you'll get the data you need in order to evaluate your play to learn what you need to improve upon. You have to start somewhere, if you have the bankroll, start at 50NL and see how it goes.

Ya, agree with all that Noobie just posted.
Highly unlikely that you’ll get smoked off the bat unless you run really awful imo.

5bb/100 over how long?

Winning 5bb over a LARGE sample is HARD. It's not the cakewalk that people think it is. Might need to know a bit more than just the basic hand ranges.

Friend of mine plays the ontario games, you'll be fine and 5bb+ definitely sustainable. No one knows if you have the skillset to do it, but I'm confident in saying it's both possible/reasonable for the regs in those games to win at high clips.

I tried searching but haven't been able to turn up anything useful so I would appreciate some assistance.

Looking for any threads or posts on making useful notes on opponents and tagging/colour coding. My notes are currently an explanation of notable plays/tendencies but I am sure there is a better approach or system to make it useful. Anything on tagging in particular would be helpful.

Do you think winning 3bb/100 at 100NL would be much easier or more realistic to achieve than winning 5bb/100 at 50NL?

On Stars.on I don’t think the skill difference between 50nl and 100nl is very big. It’s really only mostly the same regs and different fish/whales.
The only difficulty you might start running into as a pro trying to make a living, is getting enough volume at 100nl+ unless you have no issues playing any time of day.
Getting 5-6 tables of 100nl can be a pita is what I’m saying.

Just downloaded PT4 and somehow it imported my last 12k hands played. Winning at 6.2bb/100 with no HUD and certainly not doing anything very special imo.

Cool, thanks for sharing that.

3bb will be a more frustrating type of grind. Both winrates are definitely achievable and realistic for players that put in volume and put in the hours to study and improve. I just think hopping in the games with 0 experience grinding online cash games for financial purposes is in for a rude awakening if they think they can just print 5bb/100 month after month with no sweat. Doing it for 20k hands or whatever well sure anyone can do that. If you have the time and commitment to try I would just try it but you'll need at least 100k hands to have any kind of realistic idea on what is achievable. That said, the 50nl games in a ring fenced pool should be juicy af so the odds are in your favor.

It's pretty unlikely that it's very different from a skill perspective. Usually the added difficulty from moving up from one limit to another is offset by the decrease in rake.

ON might be the only games softer than iggy

I feel shame at only 6.2bb over 12k now.

Probably comparable, wouldn’t be surprised if true. Likely very similar in many ways other than anon/non-anon (which actually probably helps regs more so would guess that’s true for now).

Played mostly 50z international stars before and the difference is definitely substantial.

12k is a really tiny sample. I'm winning at 10bb/100 at 100nl over 100k hands (also a small sample when evaluating precise winrate) and I've had 12k stretches where I win for 20bb/100, and 12k stretches where I lost money

I know 12k is a small sample. I never said it wasn’t. It’s enough to have a decent understanding of your edge in a game though.
I played over 300k hands last year.
I had like a 30k breakeven stretch with blueline that was pretty wild.
I think 5+bb is very doable in these games if you are even just somewhat solid theoretically.