Things sort of slowed down at work as of late and I dabbled in poker for recreation more than anything so far, used to be a semi-regular back in 2015-ish playing mostly mid-stakes TAG strategy.

The field has changed, a lot of the formats seem to suck, so I'm sort of getting reacquainted. Started with low investment at NL25 fast fold (mostly GG even without a full HUD has a softer pool than Stars) If you do have recommendations of other rooms with good games, be my guest!

Anywho, the main question is how much on average are we looking at per limit? (6max cash is the preferred format here)

Very small sample size here and I have a **** ton of leaks to fix (floating too many flops, probably calling too many rivers with thin value, etc.) but I gleaned over the last 3600+/- hands and came up with an average of 7+ BB/100 for a total of 68$ won, and 70$ paid in rake, of which I ''supposedly'' make 50% back. Let's suppose that's all true, that would mean total winnings of 103$USD over 3600 hands. For the moment I am just 2-tabling a couple of nights a week for 1-2 hrs sessions, but let's assume I can A) fix the leaks and B) bring this up closer to 10BB/100 (seems realistic at these stakes) and C) ramp up the number of tables without losing too much focus / having the winrate suffer. I know, that's a lot of assumptions! But let's...

So 103$ / 3600 hands = 0.0286$ per hand, which if we ramp up to 500 hands / hr would mean something like 14.30$ / hr at current winrates NL25
I assume a better winrate would mean more winnings but less rakeback because you get out of pots earlier, disciplined folds and all, not sure how that would play out exactly.
Or let's assume that's as good as it's gonna get, is it fair to assume one is better to play the most volume at the limit where they break even at least gain it back in rakeback?
Is that the poker ecology nowadays?
Or is there a sort of cutoff? you just have to find the best middleground with your playstyle / player pool and site-dependant rakeback structure?

Let's forget about rakeback nonsense for a minute, starting from the assumption that there's a limit to the hands / hr you can play (and play well)
I put up 500 but your could be higher if you're a seasoned pro I am sure, but it's a benchmark.

Is my math sound that to make the equivalent of 10BB/100 @ NL25 you'd need to reach 25BB/100 @ NL10 or 5BB/100 @ NL50 or 2.5BB/100 @ NL100, etc.
so as long as you ladder up and your winnings are over those benchmarks in relationship to one another, you're good to go! (provided you're properly bankrolled obvs)

I'm getting long winded here, but I mostly want to know the relationship between limit / volume played / rakeback
and I guess volatility and variance as well, which has to be higher when you reach upper echelons whereas there are still plenty of fish @ low / mid

Graph for whatevs...

Hi,
I don't know the answer, but I have input for one part, rakeback...

Sadly not true. You don't get 50% back at GGPoker- at least not from fish buffet, or platinum whale, etc.

There is a PVI system which discounts the rake you pay and then the rakeback is calculated from that.

100 fish point = $1 rake at GG if your PVI = 1. But winning players can have PVI as low as 0,1-0,3 PVI .

That means you only get 100 fishpoints for every 3$-5$-10$ rake (0.3-0.2-0.1 PVI).
So in reality, the advertised 50% rakeback can be as low as 5-15%.

You can make up for it by grinding leaderboards (need huge daily volume). You also get some extra back from GGcare flipout and daily cash drops, but don't expect too much from those.
And if you are lucky you can hit the bad beat jackpot which is like 40 BI (?) for the stake you play at. If you are present at the table where jackpot happens, you also get some decent money(at 6max), 5 BI-s I think?

So that's their rakeback system. If you grind your ass off for LB-s, maybe you can get 25-30%.

Even at 10-15% real rakeback it is a good chunk of your winnings if you are a small winner, such as 0-3bb/100.

The most fun part of the PVI system is that GG doesn't tell you your PVI. You can have an estimate if you compare rake paid (which you, or a tracker has to measure), and the fish points you gained over that period.

Is this PVI system only at GGPoker or other sites also use it?

I'm only aware of GG. Don't know about others - though I haven't looked into it.

You're up 3 buyins...
That can be gone in a bad 5-10 minutes and then your winrate is zero bb/100

I mean I can have 10k+ hand stretches where my graph is straight up diagonally and then other 10k+ hand stretches where it goes sideways or even down
But to answer your question. Of course if you can make 5bb/100 at 25nl that is better than 10bb/100 at 10nl AND you will get more rakeback.. the downsides are a) you don't ever actually KNOW your winrate, you can only go from results but the more hands you play the better an idea you have but we're talking 6 fig hands to get any kind of ballpark figure and b) the swings will be bigger if you are a +5bb/100 winner at 25nl compared to a +10bb/100 winner at 10nl . So it really comes down to what you are comfortable with

You have to play it out, rather than planning how much you will win... play a limit you are comfortable at and feel you are definitely winning at and then improve your game and move up when you feel it is time

Yep, you'll only really know when you can bank months of grinding at a stake you crush.


Here is a good video by LAG poker on what you can reasonably expect (if you're good):

https://youtu.be/C5C1hK0XnQk?si=5uK88JX2VzK0_mo5


$/hr > WR

Thanks for the input.

I will build up a decent sample size to figure out where I'm at.
Definitely able to beat NL5 & NL10 at a decent clip, NL25 I'll be surprised if I don't at least break even.
Higher limits I'll wait until I can build a decent bankroll.

I'll also try to ramp up the # hands / hour, for the moment 2tabling is quite easy (+/- 500 hands / hr) I make sound decisions and don't leak or spew too much. 3tabling the quality of play starts to go down a bit but perhaps not terribly so, 4tabling I am playing for **** right now.

If I follow LAG's $/hr, making a living anywhere under NL50 would be tough, better consider it a sideline hustle I guess.

Let me put in the volume and report back, should be fun!