Beating the rake

[southerndog]

I've sat a B&M table, looked around at everyone's stack, and it seemed EVERYBODY was losing. The rake is too high. No matter what, when you sit down, at very best, you will be the second best player next to the rake.

[ML4L]

Hey WakeUpCALL,

If a player's win rate were the same at B&M 3/6 and online 3/6, your analysis would be 100% correct. But, as some have pointed out in this thread, the quality of play online is much higher than it is live. There are a variety of reasons for this, one happening to be that more hands per hour (and thus more rake per hour in the absolute sense) means that fish can't play as long for their money. In any event, it is likely that a player's win rate for B&M will be so much greater than his online win rate that it more than compensates for the rake differential.

Personally, I win more BB/hr at live 10-20 and 15-30 than I do at online 5/10...

ML4L

[CrackerZack]

I think the key to vehn's point, and the part i agree with is the fact that an online loser can't delude himself into thinking he's actually a winner. B&M its easy... "oh, i had terrible luck today" and they don't know or record how much they lost (lets say 30BBs for argument), then have a couple of small losses, then record a bit win like 20BBs which they know is an exact amount of the win and think it more than offset their earlier big loss and the small ones in between. This happens every day in a card room near you. The power of delusion. Online, you have a balance, and it never lies.

[DrSavage]

I don't think you are right. In games as juicy as Party 3/6 I'm pretty sure one can make a decent living playing them. I've recorded over 300 hours of 3/6 play at party before i moved up to 5/10 and over that time my average has been around 2.6 big bets an hour per table. Playing 3 tables simultaneously made it around 50$/hour for me. These numbers seem insane to me also, but that's what my database is telling me. While 300 hours is not a very big representation, I would still expect that at least 40$ an hour playing 3 3/6 tables is very possible.

[Homer]

I don't disagree with you. I was thinking of B&M, where it is only possible to play one table at a time.

-- Homer

[Wake up CALL]

"What I was specifically noting was the overall lack of online mid limit games being discussed on 2+2, and the fact that very few low limit online players ever successfully make it to the mid limits of online play."

We disagree here.


"At some point a game hits a wall so to speak of where the total amount of money being dropped off it per hour is too much compared the stakes and toughness of the average player at that limit and cannot be significantly overcome by non-expert players."

What makes you believe this occurs sooner online than at a B&M? The opposite should in fact be true due to the lower rake. You keep stating since more rake is taken per hour that has an effect. It does not unless the pool of money is finite. You already agreed this is not the case. I do not understand your conclusions.

". In online games that wall so to speak is hit around the $5/$10 level, maybe even $3/$6, and continues on up to the mid limits."

I must assume you mean you still believe that 3/6 inline games are less profitable than in a B&M. Is this true?

"In online games that wall so to speak is hit around the $5/$10 level, maybe even $3/$6, and continues on up to the mid limits."

I see no evidence of this.

"In B&M that wall does not exist."

Nor do I see a reason for this to be true. Please explain how you came to this conclusion.

"The average opponent is simply that bad and decent to good players can and do build a bankroll and climb the ladder, just as I have done."

Why is it different online? Due to the difficulty in turning on your computer versus driving to a casino? For many many players it is much easier than driving 4 to 7 hours to a casino.

"Online poker has actual accounts - its tedious/difficult to actually spend your winnings, you have to withdraw the money rather than just spend the cash. Yet you simply do not hear on these forums of low limit players making their way to the mid limits of online play. Tell me why that is? "

I cannot tell you why since I disagree completely with your basic assumption that online players do not move up in limits. just look at the online sites and count the number of mid-limit games compared to all the B&M casinos in the world. There are more online mid-limit players than in casinos.

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It is pretty evident that we are coming to different conclusions based on different assumptions. Some of your assumptions (such as the rake percentages) are easily proven wrong, others that conflict with mine (such as the number of players that move up) are not. Using the number of posters in the mid-limit forum is not very convincing however I am open to other ways to compare the number of B&M vs online mid-limit players.


If I came across as condescending in my earlier post I apologize. But please understand your first two examples offered to prove your point made no sense and I proved it to your satisfaction by showing the underlying math. It becomes difficult to continue the discussion if you keep changing your parameters and also disagree with conclusions I have previously proven.

[Vehn]

First off I of course agree that if the "money" as a nebulous term is infinite there is no doubt that online play is more profitable due to the lower rake percentage, because logically bad players will continue to make the game profitable. However above the low limits (defined as $3/$6 and below for the intents of this discussion) it is not. You are correct on most of your points from a logical and mathematical standpoint and I do agree with you that if someone wants to play low limit hold'em online is higher EV than a B&M.

But you have to understand what I'm saying about the lid/mid limit wall to be true. It is true because the bad players simply do not last long enough at online lid/mid limit poker to make it the right choice for a decent to good player, dispite the lower rake % and faster hands per hour. The wall exists whether you believe it or not. My evidence of it is the fact that few to none online players graduate from posting here on 2+2 in the small stakes forum to the mid limit forum. There are few to none discussions of online mid limit hands. Very few decent to good players successfully move up from the small stakes to the mid/lid limits of online play. You may disagree, but I have stated what my evidence is and have yet to hear yours. There may be more mid limit games online than at a B&M but as a percentage of the total games there is much less; at my B&M, typically 10% of the tables going are $15/$30+, on Party Poker its likely 2%. It is because the skill to money ratio prohibits players from moving up. It is because online play inhibits reading players and simple GSP is the correct way to play - and GSP is not that difficult to accomplish especially at limit hold'em. There is direct evidence of the wall on this forum and you see it implied all the time.

I'll try and restate my opinion (yes opinion). Online poker is an excellent place to learn the fundamentals of hold'em. Its even an excellent place to make money if you enjoy playing by rote on 3 tables of $3/$6. If you want more out your poker playing experience, if you want to learn how to actually play the game instead of how to play a hand by the book against a blinking light, if you want to make some serious money at mid limits you have to go to a B&M.

[rigoletto]

There may be more mid limit games online than at a B&M

I'm pretty sure Wake up is wrong about this!

[rigoletto]

On another note: It seems to me that the division of this board by limits makes for posts of uneven quality. I see post of B&M hands in the mid-high limit section that are obviously made by mediocre players asking about simple concepts and I see some very good posts on complicated subjects in the small stakes forum by very knowledgable low limit online players. I play 15/30 B$M but it playes like online microlimits, so I would never post a hand from there in the mid-high stakes forum.

I sometimes wonder if a division between tough and soft games would be better.

[Wake up CALL]

My last effort, you wrote:

"There may be more mid limit games online than at a B&M but as a percentage of the total games there is much less; at my B&M, typically 10% of the tables going are $15/$30+, on Party Poker its likely 2%. It is because the skill to money ratio prohibits players from moving up."

I said there are more mid-limit online players (games) than in B&M casinos and above you agreed that is likely. What difference does it make if there are a higher percentage of mid-limit to low-limit games in a B&M compared to the corresponding number of total games? All this means to me is that there are more "beginning" players online and that they are likely to move up in limits as they both become accustomed to poker in general and either build their bankrolls or become more accustomed to playing at higher limits.

The mere fact that a higher percentage of some smaller number is higher has no relevance to the absolute total number. In other words if 10% of 100 players are playing mid-limits in the B&M and 2% of 2000 players are playing mid-limits online then that is comparing 10 players to 40 players. The 40 is still higher than the 10 no matter what percentage you used to arrive there.


To throw out a bone a skill to a money ratio has something but not much to do with what limits people play. A much more important factor is limit to pocketbook ratio, no matter how skilled or unskilled the participant may be. Just ask Huck Seed when he is broke and playing the 10/20 game or Chris Moneymaker who now plays 100/200. Neither of them has had a sudden change in skill but both are suddenly playing drastically different limits.