I recently bought 2.5 million hands of Full Tilt 0.25/0.50 6-max NL from HH***********.

After importing into PT3 I decided to see how many players were winning a decent amount of money at these stakes. I filtered so it only showed players who I had more than 20k hands on, and then I looked at how many of these players were winning. I expected to see lots and lots of players beating the games for around 5 BB/100 over a decent sample size.

What I saw was a bit disconcerting. There is one player in my huge database who is making 8.6 BB/100, one player making 6.8 BB/100, and two players making about 4.5 BB/100. Then there are another 6 players making between 2 and 3 BB/100 (one of these is me). Followed by a group of very marginal winners making between 0 and 2 BB/100 (most of them making less than 1 BB/100).

Everyone else is losing, and many of these losing players have what look like very respectable stats.

Now it seems amazing that only about 4 players are decent winners on the whole of the Full Tilt network at the 0.25/0.50 level (by 'decent winners' I mean making over 4 BB/100). And of course these 4 players could just have been running well over the last 20k+ hands. Maybe nobody is winning 5+ BB/100 in the long term?

The games are very soft and full of poor players, so why are there not plenty of players beating these games for 5+ BB/100 over a significant sample size?

I am guessing it is the effect of the rake, which is proportionally massive compared to the higher stakes. Is it the case that it is simply not realistically possible to achieve 5+ BB/100 long-term at the micros due to the huge drain of the rake?

It has taken me aback a little bit, and made me wonder whether it is even worth playing at these stakes at all. If no-one is able to win much due to the rake, what is the point?

I would be really interested to hear from anyone who has played at these levels for a long period of time and has consistently beaten the games for a decent win rate. Is it really possible?

Very interesting, will post thoughts later. Thank you.

Here's a possibility. you filtered for 20k hands at the same limit. if i were say beating the game for 10bb/100 (and that's pt bb so that's actually 2 bb right? i think). then in 20k hands i would have made roughly 20k/100*10*2 bb = 4000bb or 40 buyins. I would have moved up with those kind of winnings by now. So you might inadvertently be filtering out the winning players with your requirement. What do your stats say when you only look at 10k hands?

A lot and I mean a LOT of players just play a ton of tables and play marginal poker because of it and it makes it hard for them to move up. A person playing 4 tables could easily make enough to move up from $25nl to 50 and very possibly 100 nl if they run well in under 20k hands. Looking back that this is FTP this makes it even more so since ftp has RB, there are even more grinders at this limit then on stars. Most of these grinders suck so just play a few tables and own them.

this.

they've moved up

The best players prob multitable which lowers bb/100 but will increase hourly rate, which is the most important.

Also keep in mind PTBB/100 is different from BB/100. I still dont understand why PTBB/100 is used at NL and BB/100 is used at limit. Would someone exlplain this to me?

AFAIK, PokerTracker was the first commercial poker HH database tool. In their software they label your winrate as BB/100 which is big bets per 100 hands and people just started calling it ptbb/100 out of habit (need some confirmation on this statement). I have been on a crusade (albeit a very apathetic crusade) to try and get people to change how they refer to winrates but some people are downies.

Limit uses PTBB/100. Some people like to say BB/100 but it's not what you are thinking. In limit, the bets are doubled on the turn and river so they are called BIG BETS, hence BB.

PTBB/100 = BB/100 = 2x bb/100.

in FLHE a game with blinds of 5/10 is called 10/20 (10 small bet, 20 big bet), and winrate is measured in Big Bets/Hr or Big Bets/100 instead of big blinds
in NLHE a game with blinds of 5/10 is called 5/10, so a PTBB = 2 NLHE big blinds

if you're beating NLHE for 6 ptbb/100 then you're really beating it for 12 big blinds/100

But PTBB/hr are actually double the actual BB/hr being earned aren't they?

Reasons:

1) Good players that dropped down, or cashed out etc.. usually move up again rather quickly

2) The multi-tabling nits and RB lovers, usually are more concerned with putting hands in and increasing their Hourly rate, not their winrate

3) The games got slightly tougher, NOT saying that a +10bb/100 (5PTBB) isn't attainable or sustainable, but still when u see 3-4 "regs" per table that are not total donators, ur winrate might decrease.

10bb/100 is easy for 4-6 tabling

6bb/100 is easy for 16tabling

"easy" is a little bit subjective don't you think?

Thank you now I understand the ptbb issue.

No

Then you should probably look up the word subjective. Personally, 16 tabling is impossible to me. Therefore achieving a 6bb/100 winrate is also impossible.

First off, let me clear something up: When I referred to BB/100 I was meaning PTBB/100 (i.e. at the 0.25/0.50 level, 1 PTBB = 2 Big Blinds = $1)

And of course, I understand that many players move up in stakes before they have achieved a statistically reliable sample size (maybe 100k hands) to show they are actually good strong winning players at a particular level.

But what about my more general question - Is it actually possible to consistently beat 0.25/0.50NL for 5+ PTBBs/100? I mean over, say, 200k hands rather than just running well for 20k hands.

I am concerned that, due to the huge rake, it is actually impossible to beat the micros by this amount. On PT3 I looked at the amount of rake I have paid in proportion to my winnnings and it is scary. I have played 21.5k hands of 0.25/0.50NL with a mediocre win rate of 2.9 PTBB/100. And I have paid substantially more in rake than I have won (my rake equals 135% the amount of my amount won!). It seems that the rake is just a huge factor in these micro games. It is out of proportion compared to the higher stakes games, and I am wondering whether this means that even though the games are very soft, perhaps they are not beatable for a large win-rate due to this huge and constant drain.

Is there anybody who can reply to this thread and confirm that they have been playing at this level for at least 100k hands (200k would be even better) and have managed to sustain a win rate of 5PTBB/100 or more over this many hands? Because I would appreciate someone re-assuring me that it is possible.

It is all very well saying the following:
But have you played at this level and beaten it consistently for this amount over a sustained period (100k or more hands)?

no one other then HBomb grinds 50nl for more then a few k worth of hands if they r killing it

pretty common knowledge

u r burning money if u dont move up when u can

I do kaz :'(
Well not recently, but I did only a short while back.

not sure if it's beatable because i play 25nl. I know poker is beatable as people have played it for years playing millions of hands with current rake values and still beat it. So yes, i think it's possible, but yes, it's rare. Look how the numbers of players drops in each level and consider that only a chunk of these players made their way there by grinding, others bought it at that level. This tells me that it's hard to make it through the levels and winning players should be rare. So it does not surprise me as you said that many are not big winners. I think many probably just move up on rushes to stakes that rake is a lesser portion of their results.

This may or may not be true.

But it is not the point. I have my own reasons for wanting to know whether the micros are beatable for a decent win rate (in the long run, as opposed to just running well for 20-30k hands).

I have a theory that the out-of-proportion rake makes the micros pretty much unbeatable for a decent win rate, even though the games are so soft. And I would like some input on this issue from those who know better than me.

CurryLover may have a point. Intuitively it seems like there should be more winning players over a sample size of > 20,000 hands, which really isn't that much.

Curry...check your pms

I beat NL50 for a pretty good clip.