Winrates, bankrolls, and finances

But why are online and offline win rates so different? Is it because in live games you tend to play with deeper stacks?

NL2 games are much softer than 5/5 Live, but achieving a win rate of 40bb/100 is not possible at NL2, whereas it is achievable in 5/5 live cash games.

40BB/100 is too high, but I do think exorbitantly high winrates are possible at microstakes for the very best players. User DooDooPoker goes on at length in his PB&G thread about how 20+ BB/100 winrates are possible at microstakes. He is doing a bankroll challenge right now and has a high winrate at 5NL. Outside of a bankroll challenge, there isn't much reason for someone who is truly crushing to play microstakes.

Stack depth is a factor that limits winrates but rake is also a big difference.

At my home casino, $2/$5 is raked at 10% up to $6, which is 1.2bb.

On Ignition (the site I've put in the most volume on), 5NL is raked 5% up to $0.50, which is 10bb at 5NL. The cap also goes up if the pot is multiway.

That is a massive difference.

To give an example, I have a 16k hand sample from Ignition 5NL last year where I won $78, good for 10bb/100. Over those 16k hands, I paid $134 in rake. That's about 16bb/100 in rake.

The fact that so much of my live win-rate can be chalked up to simple variance and small sample size—is both terrifying and humbling.

How do you all factor bomb pot winrates into your overall winrate?

Miniscule sample size I'm sure, but am up ~900bb over 426 double-board bomb pot hands (55% PLO/35% Crazy Pineapple/10% PLO8/NLHE) over 210 hours on the year.
All have taken place in home games that are match-the-stack with average stack being 200-300bb.

(I wasn't tracking them last year, but did get crushed at least 3x running second-nut/second-nut into nut/nut for 200bb+ each time in PLO bomb pots)

I can't imagine how massive the variance is in double-board bomb pots in general nor do I have any idea of what a reasonable long-term winrate would be.

Because live players are just exponentially worse than online. It's ridiculous. Here's 3 hands from just last night at 2/5

$600 eff

Hero raises KQ utg, 3 calls

Board KJ823 ds

I triple barrel and all 3 players call the river. Why? First guy hemmed and hawed and said out loud that he's sure im bluffing which pissed off the other players because they clearly have showdown value and dont know how to react to him calling. Because of his speech it starts a leveling war chain reaction where they each call thinking the other guy is calling down lighter than usual.

1st guy had 77, 2nd guy showed a single King, 3rd guy showed a single 8. They were giving the 1st guy a bunch of **** for commenting on the hand with other players left to act.

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$400 eff

Hero raies Q9s OTB
Old lady calls SB with Q6o. Board QQ4J8r. She x/c flop, donk turn, donk river and calls jam.

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$800 eff

BTN raises
Hero 3bets red JJ in BB
BTN calls

Flop 764 ddh
Hero checks
BTN checks

Turn 7642 ddhh
Hero bets 1/3
BTN snap raises 3x. This line is FOS, hero calls

River 7642Q no flush
Hero checks to induce
BTN bets something weird like 350
Hero snaps

Button shows 78dd and acts shocked that he's beat.

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Honestly there were like 5 other hands too but im too tired to type them out. The last time I saw play like this was when I introduced my girlfriend to Playmoney games. Not even NL5 players on Global are this bad.

First 200 hours

Winning 7bb/hr (mostly 1/3, some 1/2)
I tend to play ~4hr sessions at prime times (mostly Thurs-Sat nights) so these results are under pretty optimal conditions

I use conservative bankroll management, so I've been buying in for 100bb and playing a low-variance style which has worked (over a lol sample size). Still have a lot of work to do especially on my mental game, and on deepstacked play

Congrats on your results. Sometimes, conservative bankroll management and playing only the primetime hours is the best way to go.

What's the biggest downswing you've had both in terms of dollars and hours?

I had this hilarious one at $1-$2 which was the starkest possible example of how LLSNL players who are incapable of any type of thinking beyond “how strong is my hand?”:

Limped pot 5 ways, I overlimp Button. AhAdTh. Xx and EP Limper (Villain) bets $10. Only I call. Turn 8x. Villain bets $20, I raise to $65 and he tanks and calls.

River Tx and he bets the $100 max. I fold and he shows T7.

If you asked Villain “why did you bet the River?” his completely honest answer would be “because my hand improved to a full house.” There’s no thought whatsoever into “what hands does my opponent have?” or anything like that. He’s making a bet that can’t under any circumstances ever make him any money because “I used to have only two-pair but now I improved to a full-house.”

And players like this are the NORM at LLSNL.

what's been your winrate in these games?

Currently sitting at 6101 hours @ $21.08/hr in 1/3 NL.

Pretty sure I've only had 3 downswings of $2000+:

1a) -$2866 over 76 hours (3 wins + 7 losses), 200 hours of digging in/out

1b) -$2866 over 79 hours (3 wins + 7 losses), 194 hours of digging in/out

3) -$2309 over 70 hours (1 win + 6 losses), 148 hours of digging in/out

Also had a 168 hour ~breakeven streak (where I was never stuck more than $749 overall).

Why do you ask; are you in one?

GcluelessdownswingnoobG

I’m even over my last 150 hours.

I’ve decided that determining a win-rate in LLSNL is impossible and that I should quit the game forever yet again.

If you define a downswing as the time period between all-time highs, I had a downswing of 258 hours last year. At peak I was down 1050 BB.

I'm a poker baby compared to a lot of the folks on this board, but my understanding is that this is relatively standard variance. Especially given the fact that my edge isn't as high as it could be.

Is your purpose for playing LLSNL to be able to confidently determine your winrate?

GnothingwrongwithLLSNLbeingafunsidegigwhereyouknowinglyembracethefactthatnoteverythingwillbeconfidentlyknown,imoG

That's good to hear. I've played poker for either part or all of my income for 6 of the last 25 years. I had never experienced a downswing more than 1,200 BBs or 200 hours. I'm currently approaching 300 hours. Peak downswing around 1,700 BBs. Taking a real mental toll. If the games weren't so good, I'd question my play more. I've run bad before, but never THIS bad.

Sorry to hear that. One thing about good games is that they are also often high variance games, which can result in big swings in either directions.

If you play around on primedope.com you can see that downswings of over 1000bb that last over 5000 hands (~167 hours) are expected to happen often enough.

Here is what the projection is for someone with my live poker winrate (6 bb/hr or 18 bb/100) and my online poker standard deviation (I actually don't know what my live poker standard deviation is or how to figure that out.)

So, if I read this correctly, you assume roughly 3 hours per 100 hands ... and the math says you have a 2.69% of going on a 600 hour (20,000 / 100 * 3) downswing and 0.9% chance of going on a 900 hour downswing?

Last 6 months has been the worst (so far 😉, for me (actually almost to the day since I posted results in this thread 😀 ... but I also know I played at least a few hands worse than normal in april/may. So that doesn't help.

I think the numbers on that chart are a little high. I would welcome anyone to correct me but I am using the standard deviation that PokerTracker4 spits out for my online 6max microstakes sample, where my win rate is significantly lower than at live poker. I believe my standard deviation will be significantly lower in the daytime 9max Mohegan Sun games I normally play in because the games are soft (softer than 10NL and 25NL on Ignition) and more passive. My online stats are also slightly looser and more aggressive than is optimal, which creates a higher standard deviation (tbf I probably also play this way at 1/2 live). I think 9max standard deviation is automatically lower than 6max too, but don’t quote me on that.

If I’m not mistaken:

Lower standard deviation = lower variance = smaller swings in overall results

I also have a small hand sample for live poker (estimated 20k) and I imagine that if I had a larger one, the variance calculator would have more confidence in my results.

Edit: yeah the site says average standard deviation is 60-80 for full ring, quite a bit lower than what I inputted

https://www.primedope.com/poker-variance...

I have played since last 8/28 as my sole source of income. I went on a downswing of $25k earlier this year that lasted 49 sessions, 350 hours, 77 calendar days. The blinds were varied, I mainly bought for 2.5k and played a lot of 5/10/25, a lot of 50 straddle and some bigger games. $100 per head standup game also.

The games were often very good, but very swingy, and often several pros playing. Yeah, the mental toll sucks. I blogged about it here some and talked to some people IRL and that helped me through it.

Andy Stacks has a really good video about going through downswings that helped me deal with it:

https://youtu.be/n_BGa03LnUU?si=GEzUS4_3...

Anyways I feel your pain man.

How you doing this year so far? Do you still have the same passion for the game since first going pro?

I am up 40k over 720 hours for the year, 101k in 1,150 hour since I started at the end of last August. My best guess would have been that I would have made more by now if you asked me on January 1st, but downswings happen.

I still have an obsession with poker that would be a crippling addiction if I wasn't making money from it. But if I am being a bit more positive, yes I have the same passion.

I am more laid back at this point now. I am playing a bit less hours now, game selecting more, okay with saying no to games that are too big because of straddles, standup game, etc. I have a healthy bankroll. I am okay with not making 200k in a year when I can still make over 100k and work way less hours than my previous job while doing what I love. And I know there is a good chance I will have a sun run 200k+ year at some point. I don't need to try to force it and I am not a failure if I don't hit it.

It helps that I am a home owner in a low cost of living city.

For those with apps that track this, what's your standard deviation in bb/hr? I've made a lot of changes to my game and how I'm finding my bluffs and, while the winrate has improved quite a bit, the standard deviation seems pretty high (131bb/hr over the past 200hr). Obv just could be noise from a small sample size but I'm curious what others are working with.

For online players my understanding is that the apps. track std. deviation by looking at data per. hand. That's impossible live.

Also think it's going to be way more random live, and you'll basically die before you get a useful sample size against almost any of the people you are playing with for almost all stats.
I still track win/losses, but I don't trust it too much and think it's much more important to know why I did things.

Saying all that, gg is still the goat.

Ah that's too bad