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dsaxton
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08-08-2007, 09:50 PM
Post subject: Is it possible to make money playing this game?
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#1 (permalink)
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4-of-a-Kind
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: Arlington, VA
Posts: 2,667
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I've thought and read about this game a fair amount, and feel like I understand it reasonably well. Yet all I do is break even against complete fuckwits who just spastically click the call button, then raise me when they hit their gin cards. Anyone else have a similar experience with 6-max limit? Personally, I don't see why any sane person would want to sustain the swings of this game for the sake of a few bets an hour multi tabling.
(As for why I'm playing limit again, I got bored with no limit cash games a long time ago, played SNG's for a while, eventually started running like ass and decided to try out a new game.)
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KoRnholio
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4-of-a-Kind
Join Date: Jul 2005
Posts: 2,165
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I put in a lot of hands of 2/4 6max on crypto and feel the same way. There were only a handful of regulars that I actively stayed away from, changing tables or even quitting for the day if they were around.
Yet there were a ton of donks who would literally "spastically click the call button" (I couldn't put it any better myself) and others who would raise/re-raise anything resembling a draw or made hand. Yet I was never able to consistantly beat these groups of players who seemed to have such glaring holes in their play.
I'm afraid to open my PT database back up to see how much I actually lost, but I imagine it was in the -1.5BB/100 range over tens of thousands of hands. At full ring at the same stakes/site I think I averaged about 0.5BB/100.
I'm pretty sure that the 5% max $3 rake really ate into any profits that could be attained at 2/4. Those big 10-15 BB pots seemed to come up so much more often than at the rockfest that is full ring nowadays.
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Some days it feels like I've been standing forever, waiting for the bank teller to return so I can cash in all these Sklansky Bucks.
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Fnord
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Moderator
Join Date: Dec 2003
Location: I'll Do You Like A Truck
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The rake is too high on these games at the lower levels. At the 10/20 level and above the players are difficult to beat for a lot of money unless you find a great table or are a specialist.
Simple sanity check: Figure out how much rake you're paying over a typical couple hundred hands or so, then ask yourself if you honestly think your opponents tend to give up more than that much money in mistakes. Back when I was taking a shot at 5/10 I was SHOCKED at the results.
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DrivingDog
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Full House
Join Date: Jul 2007
Location: UK
Posts: 923
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I agree it is pretty frustrating to play against idiots who call down with next to no chance of winning then suck out on the river cause they made 3s and 2s, hit the bottom end of a gutshot, backdoor flush, or whatever to beat your AA. But really those are the idiots who are making you money -the odds dictate that they have to in the long run chasing with poor odds.
Also i take a certain pleasure in having a donk call my AK to the river on an AKQ86 board when he's sitting there with 44. It just cracks me up! What does he think i'm betting with, 33? Or is he just hoping to hit his two outter and then when he doesn't hope that i've been bluffing?
Anyways, I'm sure it takes more skill than i have to make money at the higher levels. But on PS with bonuses and whatnot i do manage to make about 1k a month on 1/2, running about + 1 bb/100 (i play quite a bit).
I guess it's pretty obvious to anyone here, but the most important thing is to find opponents who play less skillfully than you (and sit to their left if possible). Luckily on PS at 1/2 it is pretty easy to find three or four tables with at least two fish on them, and the occassional maniac who will fourbet bottom pair on every street. Poker tracker and Poker Ace come in really handy for table selection, and together only cost about $75.
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"You can fool some of the people all of the time, and those are the ones you want to concentrate on." (George Bush).
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KoRnholio
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4-of-a-Kind
Join Date: Jul 2005
Posts: 2,165
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DD, we realize where the money in poker comes from. I too appreciate when people call all the way down with a 2-4 outer, whether they hit or miss.
What we are debating is whether or not there is enough room to make a profit from our opponents' mistakes after the rake. The guys who call down 44 on the AKQ86 board are few and far between though, most opponents will play at least a little better than that.
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Some days it feels like I've been standing forever, waiting for the bank teller to return so I can cash in all these Sklansky Bucks.
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Fnord
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Moderator
Join Date: Dec 2003
Location: I'll Do You Like A Truck
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The problem is that at small stakes 6-max NLHE, if it's just me and 3-4 other TAggy kinda guys, we just trade around small pots and don't pay much rake while we take shots at each other or wait for a fish to sit down.
Proper LHE play dictates capped out pots with very marginal hands on a regular basis. Also, the edge is bigger for the better player in the NLHE case.
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dsaxton
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4-of-a-Kind
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: Arlington, VA
Posts: 2,667
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I am questioning how much of an edge one can have in this game. Certainly, you can engage in analysis, and consistently make near optimal plays, but in the end, I'm not convinced that these plays are that much better than those made by players whose thinking about the game only barely makes sense.
I go on runs where I feel like a genius, then I miss every flop for a while, get some hands cracked, lose everything, and suddenly in a frustrated daze I can't remember how I ever made a profit. It feels like I've just gotten done flipping a barely biased coin a few hundred times. Which side I happened to bet on really didn't make a whole lot of difference.
It sort of reminds me of quote from John Maynard Keynes: "In the long-run, we're all dead." Or, in our case, broke.
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Fnord
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Moderator
Join Date: Dec 2003
Location: I'll Do You Like A Truck
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I just reviewed the rake schedule again. http://www.pokerstars.com/poker/room/rake/
Figure most pots run just under 10 big bets.
2/4 isn't bad as someone giving up on the flop or turn will result in an unraked pot. Only big encounters will hit the second dollar.
3/6 is only a 50% jump in stakes, but now just about every pot is raked and anything that hits showdown will hit the second dollar too.
5/10 is going to rake most pots $2 and you'll probably pay up that third buck for that 6th guy. Figure if you're winning about 50% of the hands you're playing it's nearly a buck a hand played going to the site.
You don't really get a rake break until the 10/20 level and those games are tough.
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euphoricism
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4-of-a-Kind
Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Your place or my place
Posts: 3,610
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at party, the 10/20 was a *significantly* better game than the 5/10.
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DrivingDog
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Full House
Join Date: Jul 2007
Location: UK
Posts: 923
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I think it takes a lot of experience to get really good at 6max LHE (or at least that's my excuse!) so maybe move down in levels until you find one where you can consistently make a profit, then try working you're way up from there. I started at .50/1 and moved up quickly to 1/2, where i've been for about four months. I've tried 2/4 but i'm only just breaking even at it so until i've learned to beat it i'll stay mainly at 1/2.
Like I said my profit is modest, but at 1/2 at least I find a fair amount of players who WILL chase with bad odds. Not necessarily two-outters, but players who will chase four or five outters when the size of the pot doesn't justify it are not uncommon AT ALL at this level. And as I'm only sitting at tables where at least two players have VP$IP > 40 and make some mistakes after the flop as well, and play reasonably sensibly myself, then yes like i said i do manage to beat the rake. At this level the good players usually aren't that much better than you and the bad players are often much worse.
If you sit down with four or five TAGs at a 6 max LHE game you better be playing for fun 'cause the only one making money is the house baby... 
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"You can fool some of the people all of the time, and those are the ones you want to concentrate on." (George Bush).
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DrivingDog
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Full House
Join Date: Jul 2007
Location: UK
Posts: 923
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Out of curiosity i surveyed the first 100 players in my PT database who had played 100 hands or more against me (mostly at 1/2). Here is the distribution of their VP$IP:
VP$IP% --- number of players/100
<20% ........ 2
20-30% ... 28
30-40% ... 27
40-50% ... 23
50-60% ...13
60-80% .... 5
>80% ........2
Admittedly this is only one important stat out of many, but it does suggest that about 70% of these guys are playing suboptimally preflop, and that about 20% are just completely clueless! Naturally most of the money is made postflop but if they haven't figured out the easiest part of the game then what are the chances they understand the harder parts? It would obviously be less fishy at the higher levels but my point is that even a decent player can make a profit at 1/2.
I'd be interested to see VP$IP stats from a higher level (or any stats from any level for that matter).
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"You can fool some of the people all of the time, and those are the ones you want to concentrate on." (George Bush).
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midas06
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4-of-a-Kind
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: NZ
Posts: 2,196
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lol dan didn't you make a thread like this this time last year?
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dsaxton
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4-of-a-Kind
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: Arlington, VA
Posts: 2,667
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by midas06
lol dan didn't you make a thread like this this time last year?
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Yeah, but I keep stubbornly refusing to believe that I can't crush these people.
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Jibalob
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08-09-2007, 06:00 PM
Post subject: Re: Is it possible to make money playing this game?
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#14 (permalink)
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Flush
Join Date: May 2007
Location: Out of my roll
Posts: 512
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by dsaxton
I've thought and read about this game a fair amount, and feel like I understand it reasonably well. Yet all I do is break even against complete fuckwits who just spastically click the call button, then raise me when they hit their gin cards. Anyone else have a similar experience with 6-max limit? Personally, I don't see why any sane person would want to sustain the swings of this game for the sake of a few bets an hour multi tabling.
(As for why I'm playing limit again, I got bored with no limit cash games a long time ago, played SNG's for a while, eventually started running like ass and decided to try out a new game.)
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its only ;profitable at low stakes if the table is not completely full of fish. I have come to the conclusion that when the whole table calls down to the river every hand (this is not un-common all the way up to 3/6 on some sites) that it literally is like a game of bingo, everyone wins their share of the hands and you all lose to the rake
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PLEASE READ ULTIMATE BET THREAD IN "ONLINE POKER ROOMS" FORUM
Wait, this is .05/.10 and you got sexied, I can't believe that shit, limit must really be dying.[/quote]
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Fnord
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08-09-2007, 06:21 PM
Post subject: Re: Is it possible to make money playing this game?
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#15 (permalink)
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Moderator
Join Date: Dec 2003
Location: I'll Do You Like A Truck
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by Jibalob
its only ;profitable at low stakes if the table is not completely full of fish. I have come to the conclusion that when the whole table calls down to the river every hand (this is not un-common all the way up to 3/6 on some sites) that it literally is like a game of bingo, everyone wins their share of the hands and you all lose to the rake
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Now you're being really silly. If the whole table calling to the river made a game difficult, then I'm in big trouble in my current game. Once the game is going well anywhere from $100 to $200 or so goes into the pot pre-flop.
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Jibalob
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08-09-2007, 06:55 PM
Post subject: Re: Is it possible to make money playing this game?
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#16 (permalink)
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Flush
Join Date: May 2007
Location: Out of my roll
Posts: 512
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by Fnord
Now you're being really silly. If the whole table calling to the river made a game difficult, then I'm in big trouble in my current game. Once the game is going well anywhere from $100 to $200 or so goes into the pot pre-flop.
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I'm not being silly, and I dont understand how you could possibly gett $100 - $200 in the pot preflop when the whole table is taking a call.. call.. call.. strategy, were're talking a maximum of $45 even at 3/6. The problem is that unless everyone is pretty much drawing completely dead to you after the flop, almost everyone is getting the odds/implied odds to hit their 3-outer or whatever it is they're chasing whether they know it or not. If everyone plays every street every hand with any cards then everyone in theory should win the same amount (with the exception of yourself with a slight edge). Problem is the edge is so slight that the rake just eats it all up.
If on the other hand you are playing a table with 1 complete fish, 1 super weak-tight player and a few mediocre players + some good reads you can really crush the game IMO.
I'm not saying I'm right, you're wrong just explaining why I think that super-loose super-passive tables are not as profitable as they should be. I really do think you need at least 1 other half capable player on the table to help break things up.
Edit: by the way, isn't it great to see a bit of life in the SHLE forum again?
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PLEASE READ ULTIMATE BET THREAD IN "ONLINE POKER ROOMS" FORUM
Wait, this is .05/.10 and you got sexied, I can't believe that shit, limit must really be dying.[/quote]
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Fnord
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Moderator
Join Date: Dec 2003
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I play 8/16 half kill these days. Most hands are at least 4 people to the flop. Many are 6+. When the right people get going, it's capped pre-flop. I win way more than my fair share of pots that I put money into.
When I get really lucky, I make better hands than them.
When they don't get lucky, send the pot.
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euphoricism
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4-of-a-Kind
Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Your place or my place
Posts: 3,610
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Be fair. B&M =! Online. Cut your stakes by ~75% and you have an equivalent online game. Even that might be generous. My local 10/20 game played like a slightly above average online 1/2 game. Wish I had some bankroll.
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Fnord
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Moderator
Join Date: Dec 2003
Location: I'll Do You Like A Truck
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Yes, the PokerStars 2/4 is way tougher than the game I'm spending most of my time in. Although I'm thinking Commerce 20/40 in a couple months or so.
It took me longer that it should of, but I'm pretty happy with where I'm at in poker right now.
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euphoricism
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4-of-a-Kind
Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Your place or my place
Posts: 3,610
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The half-kill is more likely going to end up being a better game than the 20/40. The gamblers just love those kill pots!
5/10 live is an interesting dynamic. I think its the perfect stake, live. It's high enough for the serious players to make some serious money, but low enough that people still continually buy in for $100 and think they're good to go. Then they miss their draws, curse their luck, and think that big win is just around the corner. And on goes another $100.
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Miffed22001
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Straight Flush
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Marry Me Cheryl!!!
Posts: 8,181
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by Fnord
The rake is too high on these games at the lower levels. At the 10/20 level and above the players are difficult to beat for a lot of money unless you find a great table or are a specialist.
Simple sanity check: Figure out how much rake you're paying over a typical couple hundred hands or so, then ask yourself if you honestly think your opponents tend to give up more than that much money in mistakes. Back when I was taking a shot at 5/10 I was SHOCKED at the results.
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I made my br on 5/10fr at party back when you could get 'doidgy rakeback' but sure i agree on this that the game just isnt worth it.
At 10/20 unless a fish sits down, you arent going to beat anything, not even the rake.
Fr+rb was possible but even then only sick players were beating the game for 1.1bbs/100 on party back when it was really bad.
Quote:
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Originally Posted by euphoricism
at party, the 10/20 was a *significantly* better game than the 5/10.
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qft
Quote:
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Originally Posted by euphoricism
Be fair. B&M =! Online. Cut your stakes by ~75% and you have an equivalent online game. Even that might be generous. My local 10/20 game played like a slightly above average online 1/2 game. Wish I had some bankroll.
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I used to have a 10/20 local game (about 15miles away) now im lucky if i can get a live game or even anyone who even knows what poker is. Limit games would kick ass if i could get people to play 
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Fnord
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Moderator
Join Date: Dec 2003
Location: I'll Do You Like A Truck
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I was talking about 5/10 6-max. Before I left poker for a while I was playing 5/10 6 max and had run terrible taking shots at 15/30 full.
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Miffed22001
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Straight Flush
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Marry Me Cheryl!!!
Posts: 8,181
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by Fnord
I was talking about 5/10 6-max. Before I left poker for a while I was playing 5/10 6 max and had run terrible taking shots at 15/30 full.
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5/10 6max was beatable but the swings just meant you couldnt sanely 10table it.
I remember multiple times running up $xk's on the day then dropping 95% of it the next. You just cant dop that with NL even if you 10 table because you cant make that many mistakes.
Fnord did you play higher than 5/10 6max online and if so where? I tried stars which was dumb and just couldnt get online when party was busy at those stakes.
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Fnord
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Moderator
Join Date: Dec 2003
Location: I'll Do You Like A Truck
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Never took shots at 10/20 6-max. I hated my Blind defense game.
Also, it's not so much mistakes that kill you at 5/10 6-max (or whatever). It's needing to play $100 pots with not much of anything on a regular basis then shipping off $3 of that over to Party.
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Miffed22001
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Straight Flush
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Marry Me Cheryl!!!
Posts: 8,181
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by Fnord
Never took shots at 10/20 6-max. I hated my Blind defense game.
Also, it's not so much mistakes that kill you at 5/10 6-max (or whatever). It's needing to play $100 pots with not much of anything on a regular basis then shipping off $3 of that over to Party.
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fwiw, i never got to ask before.
Even with rakeback (i dont have my stats anymore) does it make much a difference if you had 30% rb (lets assume not contributed) I remember banking a fair bit of cash just from that alone (although id hate top see total rake paid stats in comparison to the amount of rb i actually got)
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euphoricism
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4-of-a-Kind
Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Your place or my place
Posts: 3,610
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I beat party 5/10 6m for 1.5/100, but I was *anal* on table selection.
I also had pokerEdge.
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Fnord
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Moderator
Join Date: Dec 2003
Location: I'll Do You Like A Truck
Posts: 19,333
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by euphoricism
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That program was SICK.
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TylerK
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4-of-a-Kind
Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: PEANUT BUTTER JELLY TIME
Posts: 1,791
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If everyone at the table is much more likely to call to showdown at a 6-max table, wouldn't it make sense to go against conventional 6-max wisdom and tighten up your preflop range, and knock off the silly betting with air?
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TylerK: its just gambling if i want to worry about money i'll go to work lol
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euphoricism
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4-of-a-Kind
Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Your place or my place
Posts: 3,610
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We regularly crushed 1/2 and 2/4 running about 18/8. That was quite a while ago, but the games probably havent changed that much.
So yes. Tighten up. Bad players spastically clicking the call button are your income. Embrace them.
Remember that it takes a LOT OF SHIT and a LOT OF AWESOME to balance out to only 1 big bet per 100 hands.
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TylerK
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4-of-a-Kind
Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: PEANUT BUTTER JELLY TIME
Posts: 1,791
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by euphoricism
So yes. Tighten up. Bad players spastically clicking the call button are your income. Embrace them.
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I'd also argue that it's otherwise thinking players who read online that in 6-max you should call down with ace high or bottom pair.
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TylerK: its just gambling if i want to worry about money i'll go to work lol
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Fnord
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Moderator
Join Date: Dec 2003
Location: I'll Do You Like A Truck
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Don't fold hands pre-flop that you should play.
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TylerK
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4-of-a-Kind
Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: PEANUT BUTTER JELLY TIME
Posts: 1,791
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by Fnord
Don't fold hands pre-flop that you should play.
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TylerK: its just gambling if i want to worry about money i'll go to work lol
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Jibalob
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Flush
Join Date: May 2007
Location: Out of my roll
Posts: 512
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I'm giving this game up and switching to NL if things dont start going my way soon. 1 downswing is enough to knock you down about 3 levels in limits (and upswings dont seem to exist lol).
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PLEASE READ ULTIMATE BET THREAD IN "ONLINE POKER ROOMS" FORUM
Wait, this is .05/.10 and you got sexied, I can't believe that shit, limit must really be dying.[/quote]
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