Winrates, bankrolls, and finances

GG They always take up to $2 per hand so we are definitely paying for this but yes I'd also like to overshare in the payout.

Yes I realized this was probably the best way to do it so I asked some dealers how often this was getting hit in the 4-hour window and they seemed to say 5 - 10 times and they usually have ~5 tables going. So that means if I sat at a table for 4 hours, I might expect to hit it maybe 1 out of every 6 - 7ish times I sit down for 4 hours. So easy math might guess once every 25 hours, so $20/hour above non-promo times.

Ironically, I hit it twice yesterday with quad 7s and a low straight flush.

✅Bankroll rebuilt
✅Online confirmed beatable for a fat rate
✅Red line higher than blue line
✅Return to live games imminent

See ya soon

If you assume you win 2 hands per hour, that means over 25 hours you'll be paying $100 to the drop. Using your assumption of hitting a high hand every 25 hours (a huge assumption, imo), that means your profit is $16 per hour.

However, I have no clue how often you should be able to hit Aces Full+, and once every 25 hours seems on the high side to me. I mean, in the ~1000 hours I've played during my promotion, I've hit quads+ 5 times (twice getting paid out, three times not getting paid out due to the hand already hitting that day), which means I'm making quads+ once every 200 hours (admittedly lol sample size, and also I'm tight AF and I have a particular method that may just not be suited to making high hands so there's that). Although I have no idea how often I'm hitting Aces Full but I can't imagine it is too often.

Certain people will hit Aces Full+ far more often than others due to playing style, so it is probably quite difficult to figure out. You could track how often Aces Full+ hit at your table and compare that to what is being taken in the drop and divide by number of players to estimate your share, but even that will be dependent on lol short term sample size (such as someone hitting quads+ twice in one session, lol) as well as player styles.

GcluelesspromonoobG

2025 results

Also I'm offering coaching now if anyone is interested (you can see my lifetime results in the link):

https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/290/c...

Winrates for 2025:

cumulative

+$16,321 in 554.85 hrs for $29.4 per hour and 10.38 bb/hr

1/3 +$18,725 in 483.85 hrs for $38.7 per hour and 12.9 bb/hr

3/5 $-2404 in 71 hours for -$33.9 per hour and -6.8 bb/hr

Took some shots at 3/5 and definitely had some tilt and play bad in addition to some run bad. Definitely was a noticeably harder game but I believe given how much I'm crushing 1/3 for I should at least be able to be a small winner at 3/5. Hope to continue to shot take 3/5 maybe with implementing a stop loss to avoid tilt and poor mental game while losing.

If that win rate is sustained at 1/3 then you should be able to beat 3/5 for at least the same $$ clip IMO unless there is some giant disparity between the games

There are definitely some adjustments to moving up in stakes but it seems from your hours that you’re not a pro player and so don’t necessarily need a tight surety of income? In which case my pov would be to continue to add more hours to 3/5 when the game looks good

Anyone wanna comment on this one:

What are breakdowns of 1-3 win rates live?
Like example: 10bb/hr- crusher, 5bb- good player. Like what is maximum you can make per hour playing 1-3 over larger sample in a game that isn’t crazy- let’s say a 400-500 max buy in not in Texas or some super laggy rec location.

Also what kind of bankroll would be nice to have where you don’t have to worry about going busto if you aren’t a horrible player? I’m guessing 10-15 buyins.

The one thing i would say is that in todays NL climate,its quite easy to overestimate how much you can make over a large samplesize like 2000-3000 hours.

Yes,its possible to make the now infamous 10BB or 12BB pr hour for that matter probably-but,there is not many players good enough and consistently winning these amounts over a bigger sample.We are talking crushers with great basic skills,that doesent tilt and is able to execute winning exploitative strat session after session week after week.

People forget to think about that the game often gets worse with time as whales or spots go broke and/or give up poker or certain days of the week the table is reg filled,or that the rake gets higher. Just a couple of examples that makes me believe its wise to be careful when guesstimating winrates.

Now,bankroll size always depends. Mostly if you are a fulltime player relying mostly on poker as income-or if you have a job for steady income playing mostly weekends sessions. For a fulltime player in a $500 max 1/3 game i dont think 10 buyins is close to enough to feel comfortable during a nasty downswing that can suck the soul out of you (yes they do happen if you play enough hours). Lets say 30 buyins or $15 000,thats around the ballpark i would go on.

If you have a job obviously you can do with alot less,as you can replenish your pokerroll from work paychecks.

FWIW literally every 1-2/1-3 player (and if you are nice/etc. a lot of people are happy to show you that they are winning $35/hr+) I've seen results for that is over 10bb/hr ... when I watch their play it's got a decent amount of random drunk stupidbanana hands that 3bet ATo vs. AKo and get it in preflop but they hit a T.

I'm not saying you can't win over 10bb/hr and be good, just that most who do over a decent sample move up and never look back regardless of skill ... also that if you see someone with $1k+ at a 1-2 game then IMNSHO either they punted a huge amount and got there, or their opponent punted a huge amount. So the more often you see someone with $1k+ at 1-2 the more likely it's because they are bad (shots fired, etc).

At least where I play 2-5 is probably a bit different, and you can maybe study and exploit to win more than that ... because it's less random and a lot more HU pots (but, again, you could just be a fish on a heater).

Pros. I've respected have said that if you play 1-2 "as a job", you want to have $10k ... and at this point I'd personally pretty much shrug at anyone saying they've felt like they lost almost every hand for 200 hours at 1-2.

tl;dr gobbledygeek is as close to the god of live low stakes as you'll find, so don't assume you'll do better and just look at his results.

It really depends on the buy in max and the rake

My room the 1/3 is 2/3-500 with 10% up to $20.

Really difficult to compare that to a 1/3 300 or a 1/3-500 with say rake max of $8 or $10

And re bankroll it depends of course on if it’s your source of income and you’re taking winnings out each week to pay bills or if you’ve got a job

Goal would be to build a roll/ try to get 1/3 roll up to 2-3 or 2-5 roll so I could player higher games comfortably. Not paying bills.

My local spot/ the 1-3 game is 500 max. Hmm it’s boring- kinda omc heavy which hurts + the raise is $9 max which seems hefty.

I've played over 10k hrs of live NL poker now. Probably 85% 1/2 and 1/3 and 15% 2/5+. So mostly low stakes, relatively highly raked games. I've won at a rate similar to gobbledygeek. Most years it usually represents about 50% of my income. But these 10k hrs have included three downswings/breakeven stretches of 700+hrs. They are BRUTAL if poker is a part of your income. So much so that you realize the long run in live poker is A LOT longer than people realize. Like other posters have mentioned, you can talk about win rate if you want but when you've made $0/hr for 8 months you aren't thinking about win rates you are thinking "what if this never ends? I need to do something else with my time." Lose with 90% equity a couple times per session for a whole summer and nothing will make sense anymore. I'm just not sure how many people play enough to reach the true long run. And by that point are you playing in the same type of games to make a valid assessment? Also bankroll is too subjective of a question and has to do with your risk tolerance/net worth/other income etc.

Exactly[emoji457]

I meant the rake is up to $9 A hand which seems ludicrous but prolly very standard

Regarding this- this is a great post. I just wanna play poker any try to build a roll through cash. I played mtts and the variance is just too wild + I’ve run well in spots which I can tell will not keep happening. I’ve won like 3 tournies in past 5 years with some final tables. Maybe like 200-300 tournies so I assume I’m running way above standard EV. I think I’m a sicko live player bc I studied a lot but I also play low stakes (400-1ks) so that isn’t really saying much.

I just want to start with a bankroll where the risk of ruin is fairly low unless I run really bad. My guess is maybe like 20 buy ins at 1-3: aka If I lost that- prolly not worth playing cash. Also want to have an amount where I’m ok if I lose 2 buyins and don’t go oh my bankroll is close to 0 which puts pressure on me.

I still don’t know if cash is for me. I like to play spicy and find cash totally different then mtts. I tend to 3bet way too light at times and I’m starting to realize people will call much lighter than in tournies when stacks are shallow- think 30-60bb poker. Have also found people tend to fold a lot less in cash bc they can rebuy. I’ll be honest my cash game is rough- I feel if I nitted it up and 3bet a more proper strong range: I would do much better aka lower variance. I kinda like battling and never worried to cbet and bet a turn super light which I find can be bad in cash if don’t too frequently

FWIW, if you look at the lol poll results above you'll notice I fall squarely in the 5 - 7.5 bb/hr winrate, but apparently 59.4% of respondents do much better than that. Obviously the only reason all those much better yearly winrate graphs aren't posted is because people don't like to brag on the internet. *rolls eyes*

Having said that, I'll steal a quote from the much maligned old poster MikeStarr, who once said of possible winrates, "I know what mine is, but I also know I'm not nearly the best player in the room", which I think is pretty astute. I know what I'm good at, but I also know what I'm not good at, so I always try to play within myself... which may be capping my winrate decently lower than what is possible, even in my game conditions. But as a purely recreational player who likes a low stress low variance life style, I'm totally cool with that.

GcluelessNLnoobG

A couple of days ago I logged my 1000th session of live 1/3 NL. Only took me 16 years!

Congrats?

Condolences?

Lol @ me?

Glol@me,ldoG

Definite congrats! So few players profitably last that long/well done.

I like this a lot, a reflection of my thoughts well stated. I honestly don’t see any players like you, playing short and topping up when necessary. They either reload or leave when they lose it all.

It’s hard for me to tell the winners in the room. I know the good players - but I don’t know how they play late at night, if they play too many hours, if they play tired, if they tilt, if they’ve already got so much money the stakes are meaningless, etc

My 10am-6pm once a week is just a snapshot of the big picture. Some of the flamboyant, sneaking chips into their stack above the limit (no one says anything) so it always looks like they’re playing a big stack and winning - are likely not winning at all.

Honestly, I can’t worry about all that. I just focus on what I see when I play these people. It’s easy to id many losers, they quit coming back, but some folks never leave the casino and it’s hard to imagine they’re winning.

The guy that says he won so much playing baccarat that he doesn’t care about losing buyins, needs to be in my game.

There are a few quiet, under the radar players that I would guess are winning. What I know for sure is that some players are on the roller coaster - when they hit all the hands they play a big stack sits in front of them, but they keep playing those hands until it all disappears.

It’s sad to me, because there are some really nice people I see sit down with a short stack, lose & leave day after day. They’re not terrible players, but haven’t quite figured out the discipline necessary. I don’t know if they ever will.

All that said, I respect everyone’s game. I’m not entitled to win, and (unlike the forum) I don’t consider someone stupid for making a bad play - everyone makes mistakes. It’s a weird game where bad play gets good results at times. A bad play winning big is confusing

I only get mad at myself for bad play, I can’t get mad about someone getting lucky, yet that’s when a lot of folks get most angry. I mean yea, when I lose my stack with kings vs aces on the first hand, I’m talking to myself on the ride home - no one is immune to emotions, but I will not be rude to anyone.

As you told me, we’re all at various stages of our poker journey.

Constantly evaluating everything & everyone always ready to change my mind with more info. Kinda like a cat sitting perfectly still for as long as takes, before pouncing when the prey shows itself.

Is 508 hours enough to get an idea of win rate?

Maybe,but not alone as a standoff parameter.What is even more important is how clearly you can spot your own edges,like what kind of mistakes is your opponents making that you are not?Where is the winrate coming from?Players beating games for a solid winrate over time is often able to answer these kind of questions with great detail.

500 hours on its own is not enough to paint the whole picture,but combined with other knowledge like experience,rec or parttime pro/fulltime player++.

If i should judge a players skills strictly on winrate in x amount of hours i would want at least a 1000 hours,would even prefer 1500 hours.

I'm coming up on 7000 hours in my 1/3 NL game. If I cherry picked my best 1000+ hours (1016 hours IIRC) and my worst 1000+ hours (1307 hours IIRC), the difference in winrate between them is about 3x.

So my guess is that a 500 hour stretch will probably help suggest whether you are a winner versus loser versus breakevenish in your game, but probably not too much more in terms of confidence with that winrate.

GturnsoutthelongtermisalongtimeG

My longest session winning streak at 1/3 NL just came to an end last night. Here are some stats comparing it and my previous record (which I set during the glory years 13 years ago and didn't think I'd ever approach again).

2026: 20 in a row, winning $5034 over 99 hours (16.95 bb/hr). Full disclosure, I left session#10 with one more orbit left in my planned session UTG and up $2, lol @ me, ldo.

2013: 15 in a row, winning $5676 over 138.5 hours (13.67 bb/hr).

Lol, biggest takeaway being my poker sessions are ~half the duration of what they used to be?

G1013sessionsintomy1/3NLpokerjourneyG

I have measured my progress as a winning player not just by recording the win rate but also writing down hand histories and reviewing how many hands in the sample I played correctly. Am I taking standard lines? How many times do I deviate per session ?

Win rate has mostly to do with rake and table selection. Do you have to be better than only half the people at the table? Do you have to be better than everyone?