How do good players build stacks?

i think extremely few players are winning 10bb / hr despite what people are posting here

one of my closest friends beats 1/3-2/5 for 15bb/hr longterm and hes 65 years old

ymmv

Beating my local 2-3 for 30 an hour is only done by the top pros. They’re mostly all tight aggressive and try to play pots heads up with value or multi way with hands that can make the nuts like pocket pairs and suited aces. They get value from stations and run over the weak tight regs. It’s not rocket science but it does take a good feel and intuition that probably can’t be taught.

Still, even someone without good live reads and general feel should be able to come close to that hourly using basic TAG strategies.

Strong mental game, lot of “regs” will have some semblance of a technical game but after they are stuck a few buy-ins the wheels start to come off. Don’t let getting stacked by the whale or his table talk negatively impact you, can be harder said then done.

Game selection. As you rise to higher stakes you may only have access to a single 25/50 semi-private live table when it runs, but at lower stakes frequently you will have an option for table changing. Not an advocate for constant table-changing to eke out minuscule EV/bumhunt fish but objectively if you have an extremely poor table look to make a table change. If you have access to multiple locations for similar stakes, that is another option as well.

Developing an online poker background allowing you to put in reps at a faster rate than strictly playing live, and improve faster. This also helps with above mentioned game selection once you can reach a decent online win rate, if the live game quality you are playing is not great, you can always take your ball and go home to fire up an online session.

Dedication towards active improvement every single week - includes reviewing your own hands, discussion of hands with professionals off the tables whose game that you respect, and most importantly imo putting in the hours working with a solver.

EXPLOITATIVE PLAY. Having a solid theoretical baseline is great, but when playing live most opponents will not be playing “correctly”. Quietly observe how players are playing, allowing you to make adjustments. Double-barreling reasonable combos vs players who float flop too wide and disrespectfully b/f against c/r vs face-up tight players are simple but excellent adjustments.

Other suggestion for win-rate improvement would be studying 200BB+ and searching for deeper stacked games, long-term you can achieve a higher W/R in these games.

Ok, let's forget the 10 BBs/Hr, but i want observations from long term winners.

My Q isn't about how to improve or if it's possible to be a >10 BB hero.

My Q is do you winners which is more likely for you, do you accumulate a 200 BB winning day from winning a bunch of small pots or is your entire day come from 1 or 2 big wins?

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Long-term view just having a better understanding of each individual spot will generate win rate, online for example most common spot of SRP BTN v BB decent chunk of your win rate due to how often it comes up. You are also going to have bigger overall win rates vs fish than regs. I understand your specific question though, will address that.

IMO from my experience late-night sessions with drunk whales/maniacs making huge mistakes, big portion of win-rate going to come from large/medium sized higher variance pots vs them. Nitty early morning games aggressively fighting for small/mid sized pots will make up more of the session win rate. 1st session example more likely to have bulk of individual winning session session from smaller-frequency large pots. 2nd session example winning comes from winning the smaller but more frequent pots.

I think the best poker players are good at adapting to their competition. If they're weak tight bluff them relentlessly. If they're loose passive play tight aggressive.

It happens both ways, but the key is the big folds. You can’t depend on winning a couple of big pots, but appreciate when it happens. You can always win some small pots with aggression. You can’t force it, just be ready when the situation presents itself.

But you have to make some big folds. I was in doc’s post talking about aggression and realize that I could fold that hand. But I have to be there - his description caused many fold suggestions, but the way I read it, I wanted to slam jam that guy. With my own read, I may have seen it differently.

Overall if you’re not being shown a bluff now and then, you’re not folding enough in those situations. Having a very strong 2nd best hand and folding is a superpower.

Start tracking the times you call a big bet and lose. Or overvalue a big pair and take it too far.
You win in this game by losing less than the other players in similar situations.

Every game is different
But it’s the big pots that matter for sure. That’s why reading the situation and your opponent is vital. I think you’re looking for the wrong thing; it’s not how you win (small pots or big pots) that happens naturally, you can’t force it or control it.

Focus instead on when do I get out early, who is capable of bluffing and when should I lay it down. When you can outplay the field, it makes no sense to call off a big bet most of the time. If you can only lose a big pot by being coolered, you’re on the right track.

Reading Players is number one - focus on this
Reading the board and the action is next
Constantly work on the fundamentals
Then, just play the game.

Don’t feel pressured to win the session, you can play again tomorrow.

And if you really want to win:
Play strong hands in position with the betting lead. Track the hands you play that do not meet these requirements and you will realize

Finally, don’t let anyone fool you - we all make mistakes, make bad plays, have bad days, have bad luck and leave defeated - it’s an unavoidable part of the game. There are no guarantees and you are not entitled. You have no choice but to accept the results of your decisions and keep trying to improve them.

If you knew how hard that crusher worked on his game, you would not be surprised at his mastery.

^this.

Master playing multiway pots. Isolating at LLSNL is hard. You have to raise too large to get it HU such to the point that even vs fish you narrow their range to really strong hands. People are so scared to see a flop 6 ways but think of it like 2-card PLO, the multiway nature of the action will create big pots for a rather minimal investment. You could probably limp the vast majority of your holdings since your range will always connect better than theirs. You limp 88 to flop a set, they limp 74o to flop a straight. Who is going to win more showdowns though? I still prefer to juice the pot and raise anyway as a sort of "limping with initiative" despite the fact that they still call with the same range. Open to 3BB and be happy if 5 people call, because you will essentially always be on the upside of any 'cooler' situations you find yourself in. You really need to be at the $10 blind level playing 200BB minimum if you want to have any chance of targeting specific players preflop.