Your strategy for $25-$40/hr playing poker???

droolie · #1 10-17-2005, 11:05 AM

I play part-time in the evenings. I whore everywhere and have RB at the dying skins. I have a goal of >$400 a week average and would not like to play more than 15 hours. I guess that means I'd like to clear $25-$40 and hour. I'm sure many of you clear much more than this but I'm wondering how you do it.

What's the lowest limit I could reasonably play with incentives?. I've been playing seriously for about 15 months and study my brains out. I dislike 6-max but beat party 1/2 over 15K for a small WR which is as high as I went in 6-max. I'm confident I'm a winning player at 2/4 through 3/6 full-ring.

I've had many weeks where I've cleared more than $400 and over the last 3 months have probably averaged more than that when I put in the hours. I guess I'm just looking for alternatives to my current strategy.

Any ideas would be appreciated.

toss · #2 10-17-2005, 11:10 AM

Play more tables or move up. Thats all really unless you don't mind hopping from bonus to bonus.

crunchy1 · #3 10-17-2005, 11:11 AM

How many tables are you playing?

Pog0 · #4 10-17-2005, 11:20 AM

$25/hour is possible 8-tabling as low as 1/2 with incentives, although if you can crush that game, might as well play higher, the 2/4 games aren't much harder.

[ QUOTE ]
What's the lowest limit I could reasonably play with incentives?.

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Is this just a curious question, or do you have a reason to play as low a game as you can get away with?

krimson · #5 10-17-2005, 11:23 AM

4-table 3/6 with a winrate of 2bb/100 plus 0.5bb/100 of rakeback.

I've been playing all 6m recently, so please correct me if this is wrong.

200(?) hands/hr x 2.5bb/100 x $6 = $30/hr

flair1239 · #6 10-17-2005, 11:25 AM

I need a certain amount of money each month from poker as well.

What I did was take the lowest BB/100 that I thought I would run at over a significant period of time and figure out how long I would have to play. I did not include Rakeback or bonuses in the equation.

For me at 5/10 full, I picked 1BB/100. So for me to achieve my financial goals and my bankroll growth goals, I figured I would have to play 24,000 hands a month minimum.

Figuring about 250 hands an hour(four tabling), I decided my goals for weekly hours should be 24. I then decided how to play those hours and made a schedule. This schedule is not rigid and I change it depending on what obligations (Work, Daughter, girlfiend etc.) However I do use it as a strong guideline.

The only thing I care about is getting in my hours and hands 24 hours/6000 hands. Usually I run over on my hands, I bank this overage to use for free days off. This has helped me care less about my results. If I am stuck $500 for the week I do not play more to make it up. Also I am pretty good about just playing my time, this has eliminated a major leak of mine of playing long sessions when I have been losing. If I am down 20BB when my 3 hours is up... that is the way it will be. But if I am having fun (ie winning and have good tables open) I may go an extra 30-45min. But the games have to be really good to justify this.

This is what works for me. It is not results oriented and it keeps me focused.

SeaEagle · #7 10-17-2005, 11:26 AM

You don't say what limit you play at, nor the number of tables you normally play. Without that info, it's hard to answer your question.

Having said that, if my goal was to make $25-40/hr (and not more than that), I'd teach myself to 8-table at Party 2/4, when 2BB/100 would come out to about $40/hr.

If you're only willing/able to 4-table or less, then you're going to have to play 5/10 or at least 3/6 but, unless you're already comfortable with these levels, it's probably easier to add more tables at a lower limit than to develop the skills needed to beat a higher limit.

sfer · #8 10-17-2005, 11:28 AM

[ QUOTE ]
I dislike 6-max but beat party 1/2 over 15K for a small WR which is as high as I went in 6-max. I'm confident I'm a winning player at 2/4 through 3/6 full-ring.

[/ QUOTE ]

A small winner at 1/2 6-max is probably not a winner at 2/4 and 3/6.

droolie · #9 10-17-2005, 12:02 PM

I usually 4-table 2/4 to 3/6 full-ring though I have 8-tabled .50/1 in the past. (I know I'm better when I 4-table but could probably auto-pilot 8 table without much dropoff.) I can only 3 table 6-max though I occasionally 4 table with 2 full-ring tables and 2 6-max tables. Lately I've been trying to improve my game and concentrate more on reads and have been avoiding overloading with tables.

The reason why I asked for the lowest limit was for stress reduction purposes. Playing 10/20 and above will take some serious attitudidanl adjustments on my part concering the value of money.

sfer- How can you say that? I know I'm not that great of a player but we all know it's quite easy to have massive variance at 6-max regardless of the limit over an extended period of time. As far as my 6-max winrate is concerned the sample size was around 20K and I spent the last 10K digging myself out of a pretty big whole I dug for the first 10K where I played terribly and had ridiculously horrific luck to boot. I spent most of the last 10K playing with a few of my 2+2 buddies (winning 6-max players) sweating my play while IMing just to be sure I wasn't playing like a complete moron. This process gave me a great deal of confidence and dramatically improved my six max play and in turn my full-ring game.

Despite the strides I made I know I could certainly use improvement in my 6-max game and I try to play at least once a week to keep learning and improving.

sfer · #10 10-17-2005, 12:08 PM

[ QUOTE ]
sfer- How can you say that? I know I'm not that great of a player but we all know it's quite easy to have massive variance at 6-max regardless of the limit over an extended period of time. As far as my 6-max winrate is concerned the sample size was around 20K and I spent the last 10K digging myself out of a pretty big whole I dug for the first 10K where I played terribly and had ridiculously horrific luck to boot. I spent most of the last 10K playing with a few of my 2+2 buddies (winning 6-max players) sweating my play while IMing just to be sure I wasn't playing like a complete moron. This process gave me a great deal of confidence and dramatically improved my six max play and in turn my full-ring game.

Despite the strides I made I know I could certainly use improvement in my 6-max game and I try to play at least once a week to keep learning and improving.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm not saying whether you were a winner or a loser, just that someone who cannot beat a standard 1/2 short game online is, I believe, not a favorite in the standard 2/4 and 3/6 game online.