.50/1, what can be made?

[dacubbie]

After playing .50/1 for nearly two months I've become very frustrated. I've got 15,000 hands logged and my bb/100 is a low 1.47. What kind of bb/100 can be expected in party poker .50/1 from a good player? After a 80bb downswing I'm beginning to wonder if poker isn't my thing. Someone please post some personal experiences of making a good bb/100 over a long period to bolster my spirits. Thanks.

[shadow29]

4.xx BB/100 after 10k hands.

My SD was 19.xx, however. Partly due to my totagg of 3.4x.

[davelin]

Post some hands and we can help you out. While your winrate may not be as high as you'd like, it's definitely not something to be ashamed of.

And 80BB downswings are nothing.

[eleventy]

After about 14,000 hands I'm above 5bb/100. I have been on a huge upswing over Xmas and raised my bb/100 from 4 at about 10,000 hands. My guess is a lot of bad players are blowing their Xmas cash. Hope it keeps up though.

[DeathDonkey]

Any positive BB/100 is a good thing. If you don't enjoy the game whether or not your making X dollars at it poker is not for you. Your situation is not uncommon, but consider this. You are being paid to partake in a hobby that (hopefully) entertains you. So don't worry so much about BB/100 and have fun, or find something better to do with your time. Playing 0.50/1 and not enjoying it is not profitable enough to be worthwhile.

-DeathDonkey

[dacubbie]

Fair enough. I enjoy playing poker. However, I'm playing .50/1 with the intentions of getting good enough to move up some limits and make some cash. I'm beginning to realize that I need a lot more work though. My VPIP is 20.49, went to showdown 30.70, won at SD 55.4, PFR 6.01, and total aggression is 1.46. Only thing that jumps out at me is that my aggression is too low. Probably calling down too many bets? What aggression factor is optimal for .50/1?

[shadow29]

Your VPIP is too high, your PFR is too low, and your totagg is anemic.

[KingOtter]

I think recommendations for totagg to be above 2.50.

Mine needs work, too... about 2.15 right now, but that's brought down by my river aggro of 1.91. I've been working on that and have actually raised by about .1 lately.

KO

[Milky]

After a nice upswing (aren't all upswings nice though, heh) I'm at 5BB/100 after 13k hands. Was at around 4BB/100 for a while before that. 4+ is definitely sustainable at this level but probably not the average.

Honestly any xBB/100 that's not in the red is good. Might not be "great" but it's better than losing money /images/graemlins/wink.gif

[shadow29]

Yeah dude, I really love upswings.

I was at 8.00 BB/100 for a while after 7k hands (but that was augmented by something like a 12BB/100 1k hands). I sooo almost made those whole long post "Is this sustainable" but then I got lazy.

[Milky]

Those "is this sustainable" posts are just to show off the poster's huge ePenis and have nothing to do with anything usually /images/graemlins/wink.gif

I was at 7.5BB/100 over about 5k hands before hitting my first downswing.

[Shillx]

I would do anything to have a winrate of 1.5 BB/100.

Brad

[shadow29]

I know, it was going to be a joke...

Anyway, Shill in order to get a BB/100 over 1.5 your vpip needs to be >4. Do you see why?

I'll let others elaborate...

[zuluking]

"50/1, what can be made?"

"One Milllllllion dollars!"

[VBM]

so, let me put a different spin on this...do you have an idea of what your weaknesses are? where your potential leaks are? poker is sort of a sinister game.

1 mistake, e.g. chasing runner-runner flushes & getting paid off, subconsciously reinforces making that mistake over and over. and it's so subtle; it may just take lots and lots of hands for a weakness like that to become obvious.

showing some of my own warts, AKo was a huge loser for me, b/c i was just so aggressive every time I got it, and refused to drop it like, ever. It sounds so stupid, but having that strong starting hand, even when it didn't translate to a strong hand after all the streets are dealt, made me stubborn.

But, it wasn't until i saw it in black & white in PokerTracker that I realized I chronically go too far w/ these hands (1/2 of what defines a fish, right? plays too many hands, goes too far with them) and it's exacerbated by the other half of a fish's nature (trying to tighten up, you tend to want to win the hands you do actually play)

and also, as i'm sure it's been reiterated, 15k hands? doesn't define a player by any means...your BB/100 could easily be 2X that or 1/2 of that.

stay positive, stay focused, be your own toughest critic. and stay off my tables when you do.

I guess the point is, don't sweat it. you can get better and beat the game more. just keep an eye on how you play, look for weaknesses and think and discuss them here. it invariably makes you a smarter, better player. /images/graemlins/tongue.gif

[droolie]

What is sustainable? This is very debatable but I sincerely think some of the best players in the world could sustain a +10BB/100 winrate at .50/1. In order to acheive this you would have to play the best tables at only the best times and then have a killer postflop game coupled with a comparatively high VP$IP. Playing weekday mornings where tables can be rock gardens is death to your winrate and being very selective pf reduces variance but takes some marginally +EV hands out of the mix therefore reducing the highest possible BB/100.

Most players who could do this wouldn't waste their time at .50/1 to prove it though. For the rest of us mortals anything over 7BB/100 is probably unsustainable (though through 18K hands party has yet to prove that to me muahahahah!)

I would love to see a month long BB/100 tournament where some of the best 2+2 play 10,000 .50/1 hands and whoever has the highest BB/100 wins a jackpot at the end. It will never happen but sure would be fun to see what the aggregate results are of the top players.

[SomethingClever]

[ QUOTE ]
ePenis

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm using this.

[Greg J]

My own winrate over 20k hands is pretty anemic too: <2.5/>2.0. That includes downswings of 190, and two of 150 BBs. Very frustrating -- it seems like the suckouts never end. It is always good to question your game. I constantly question mine, and know I still have plenty of holes.

The other day when I was at a restaraunt sitting with my wife driving back down to Baton Rouge I started spinning a knife on a flat, level table while waiting for out waiter to bring back out check. It drives her crazy that I fidget like this sometimes... but I do, and always have. Anyway, there was a 50% chance that the knife would point in my direction on in the opposite direction on each spin, and the first 3 times ir pointed in my direction. So I started varying the strength of the spin each time, and it still pointed at me... 8 more times! This is the equivilant of flipping a coin and it coming up heads (or tails) 11 straight times. Sometimes this happens in poker. You loose all the coinflips in big pots... opponents hit runner runner flushes to beat your flopped set of queens (still steaming over that one), over and over and over. And yeah, it does affect your winrate, even over a relatively large number of hands.

Then again, maybe we just both really suck at poker and should give it up. Judging the quality of my posts lately I think this might well be the case for me /images/graemlins/tongue.gif

[DocMartin]

Your VPIP is fine for .5/1, there are several players here that have been successful with VPIP higher than than 20%. Mine was a little over 23% for 20K hands with 6+bb/100. The goes to showdown looks a little low with the wins at showdown a little high so you can likely take some hands a little further than you do.

Definitely raise more though. This sets up later aggression which you should work on as well. When you play as many speculative hands as your VPIP suggests (and you should at this level) you cant be quite as aggressive as a lot of the tighties with VPIP's under 18. I think over 2 is a decent number.

Read and reread SSH, it's the .5/1 BB/100 building bible.

Best of luck

[mack848]

I've seen stats from many aggressive players whose river aggression is about the same as yours. On almost all occasions the river stat is a fair bit lower than flop and turn.

[pointcount]

14,000 hands 3.57BB/100 at 50/1

[kenberman]

[ QUOTE ]
I would love to see a month long BB/100 tournament where some of the best 2+2 play 10,000 .50/1 hands and whoever has the highest BB/100 wins a jackpot at the end

[/ QUOTE ]

This is a great idea. unfortunately 10K hands in a month is a little high for me for 1 month, and even at 10K the sample size police will come after you.

[frank_iii]

[ QUOTE ]
What is sustainable? This is very debatable but I sincerely think some of the best players in the world could sustain a +10BB/100 winrate at .50/1. In order to acheive this you would have to play the best tables at only the best times and then have a killer postflop game coupled with a comparatively high VP$IP.

[/ QUOTE ]

Agreed. I do feel that 7BB/100 or higher is certainly sustainable with decent table selection and online play primarily at the peak hours.

While that is the case, everyone asking about win rates is asking the wrong question. So are the people asking "am I a good player?" You need to just stop asking these questions and just keep learning and improving.

What will you do differently if someone here says "yes, you're a good player", or "yes, you're making the top of the BB/100 scale"? Will you study less since you're now a certified 2+2 micro master? Will you never change your game? No, of course not. So why even ask the question?

STOP THE INSANITY, as Susan Powter would say.