low limit hold'em

[tripdad]

i'm no great poker player, but i started in november, and have had pokertracker since january. my numbers say i earn 3.5BB per hour at the $2/4 full ring and $3/6 short handed combined. i suffered 1 downturn of 100 BB, and another of 70 BB. i feel my numbers are accurate because they are steady month to month. you are definitely doing something to cause you to be just break even. my guess is that you don't play aggressively enough when you are ahead, and that you call down too much when you feel you are behind. too many players think top pair with top kicker is the holy grail, calling turn and river raises with them way too much.

cheers!

[Dynasty]

[ QUOTE ]
I found this post really interesting. Would you say that it's worth playing at a game where you (anyone) are just break-even for a while, for the sake of improvement?

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes, it's worth playing higher for a little while and then stepping back down.

I wrote that post more than a year ago. When I went into this thread, I didn't recognize how old the thread was until I was surprised to see I had already responded.

Believe it or not, I know think the low-limit games on the Strip are even easier to beat than I did a year ago. However, I think the 2.0-2.5 big bets/hour is still the ceiling.

[tripdad]

[ QUOTE ]
- collectively you're an underdog to the field. Even AA only wins something like 1/3 to 40% of the time....

[/ QUOTE ]

this is such hogwash, i wish i never had to see this stat ever again.

AA wins 1/3 of the hands in which it enters the pot with 9 other players and.........NOBODY FOLDS! this is a "no fold'em hold'em" stat misused way too often, because 22 is going to fold when the board is K T 9 rainbow. players fold, gentlemen.

cheers!

[HUSKER'66]

[ QUOTE ]
Maybe that's what is holding me back from beating low limit hold 'em.
- the bad beats and the maniacs do alter my state of mind, I've got to be tougher

[/ QUOTE ]

Dentist,

Pick up Alan Schoonmaker's book, "The Psychology of Poker". He has some great insight to what makes a maniac "tick" and how to counter that type of players style. It will also help with your mental attitude and help you see that you can indeed "beat the game" that has this type of player.

Play well. [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

Husk

[BBill]

I posted the original question “Are low-limit Hold’em games beat-able?” just over a year ago. Here’s an update of my progress since then. First let me say that at this time in my life poker is a hobby that I truly enjoy. I play only in my spare time though so I have not advanced as much as some of you will or have.
After reading the advice in this thread, and re-reading a few of my poker books I decided to learn No-Limit Hold’em and Heads-up. And yes, I found that low-limit games are beat-able.

I spent the next year playing Heads-Up sit-n-gos at various sites mostly stars, dynamite and UB. I've played
about 350+ 5.00, 10.00 and 20.00 tourneys 70% limit and 20% NL. I calculated my win rate overall at about 60 - 65%. I also played and won a Heads-up tournament, placing first out of about 20 players.
Overall I cashed out a few hundred dollars and came to the conclusion that making money playing HU sit-n-go’s is hard work, physically hard work but it is profitable.

Also I started playing NL/PL at Party when they still offered the .10/.25 PL games. Soon after they switched to .25/.50 NL/PL only and I continued to play. I played tight (seeing 15% - 18% of the flop) and really just waited for somebody to make a mistake.
In .25/.50 PL as per Pokertracker records I average about 6bb per hour ($6.00 an hour in Poketracker terms) I think this is about average to slightly below. I also started playing at the gaming club and some other prima sites where poker tracker does not keep track. I’ve done slightly better at these sites.
I’m still averaging about 6.00 an hour playing these games, I dropped some playing the .50/1.00 NL games and went back to the .25/.50.

I will say that playing NL/PL improved my Live limit game considerably. I recently went to Atlantic City where I did very well playing the 2/4 limit at the Tropicana, I also did well at the Borgata 3/6 limit and won a few bucks playing 4/8 limit at the Trop. I also did well at the Mirage 3/6 game a while back.

At this time I am considering getting back into playing online Limit but I’m taking my time and I’m in no rush to move up to the higher stakes. Right now I’m playing in the HULA tournament (2+2 heads up tournament that will take about 10 weeks from onset to completion.)

Bbill

[Styles]

Congratulations! Nice to hear a longterm turnaround and success story!

[ResidentParanoid]

In a loose game, it's usually very obvious when you are ahead, and when you are beat. That includes when you are ahead pre-flop with AA and then are way behind on the flop based on the cards and the action. My guess is that you are not acknowledging the fact that you are behind in multiway pots. You have to give up on your hand when you should know you are beat.

Also, my experience with very loose games with people playing everything from K2o to 26s, etc, from any position is that you have to be very patient. The nice thing is that when you have your winning streak, you get paid off again and again and again and again....

When I played more B&M, this was harder, since the dead-card periods can last for weeks when you only play maybe 8 hours per week.

[Bob T.]

Cool. I was thinking about this before I got out of bed this morning. I don't need to make the usual withdrawals that I make for a couple of months, I made the resolution to use the extra money to take some shots at higher games when it seems right.

Good luck,
play well,

Bob T.

[MarkD]

Ok, I've always had one problem with the search function and I'm not sure if it's just a problem for me but it sucks and it happens on two different machines on two different networks.

Let's say I search by poster name: Clarkmeister within the last 1 year over all forums. The search should return hundreds of results over multiple pages, right? Well, I only get the first page of results. If I click next to view the next page it tells me my search yielded no results.

Is this just me or does everyone have this problem? Does anyone know of a solution?

[Clarkmeister]

That's a bug that sometimes happens, sometimes doesn't. I usually just change the "# of threads to show on page" to 100 instead of the default of 25. But it doesn't alway happen. Actually, now that you mention it, it may be just during the "user name" search.

Also note that the user name search is useless for any posts prior to the new software implementation in Sept. 2002.