Handling the variance of $1/2 and $1/3 live

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KingTurd

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I'm a winning player but have always had issues with financing bankrolls. I keep poker and life finances separate. I have never taken from career income to poker income and never plan on doing so. I completed a stake recently and gave myself a a bankroll to work with but I just blew through it when the variance of these low limit live games struck hard. Besides saving up personally how have you all managed to handle the huge swings that these low limits can bring when the standard pre flop raises are 6BB and larger?
 
Aaron Soto

Aaron Soto

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What was your Bankroll for 1/3 or 1/2? I guess would be my first question. And yes the variance can get pretty bad on 1/2 and 1/3 swings of 2,000$ have happened. Here is my February month. Up 1,700 or so.

2/6= +200, 8 hours win
2/7= -160, 8 hours lose
2/8= +385, 8 hours win
2/9= +385, 12 hours win
2/10= -65, 12 hours loss
2/11= +480, 10 hours win
2/12= -10, 10 hours loss
2/13= +350, 12 hours win
2/14= -110, 12 hours loss
2/16= +426, 10 hours win
2/17= +380, 9 hours win
2/18= +68, 10 hours win
2/19= -640, 12 hours loss (-100 on roulette Wheel, +45 on Slot Machine)
2/20= +308, 6 hours win
2/22= +169, 9 hours win (-20 on slots)
2/23= -597, 14 hours loss (-108 on roulette, -25 baccarat, -20 slots)
 
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mikeisthebestever

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Clean up your preflop and hand reading skills and your variance will decrease dramatically. When I first started at 1/2 my range was too wide from almost every position, and it resulted in some massive wins coming my way, but also led to me getting stacked with 2nd best hands at an equal rate. I used to either leave at -200 or +2000, now I am much more stable, typically smaller wins, but much more frequent.
 
Aaron Soto

Aaron Soto

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leaving with +2000 on a 1/2 game? What are these buy-ins 500$? haha.
 
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KingTurd

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I cashed out a stake that I completed and went with a $1,000 bankroll. playing 1/3. Nowhere near ideal but I had to start from somewhere. I went through that within 4 sessions unfortunately. I wish I had more to begin with but life wasn't affording that at the time.Luckily, I reviewed hand analytics of how I played through those 4 sessions and ran it by my text groups and it was just variance and hitting poorly consecutively. Doesn't change my bankroll issue currently though.
 
ingybingy

ingybingy

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Another thing that you need to take into account is that you can't beat the rake at 1/2
 
ingybingy

ingybingy

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I've moved from live 2/5 to online. Typically the only thing I will now play live is tournaments. Fortunately, the wsop circuit comes to Harrahs Cherokee 3x a year, plus they have another series or two of their own every year.
 
Aaron Soto

Aaron Soto

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Agree with you 100%1/2 over the long run is nothing but a big waste of time. You lose, win, lose win, lose, win etc. etc.
Play pots where your up against 5 opponents etc.
You may have good months in 1/2 but it still always evenly pans out to where you either break even or make 5-10$ hourly rate. Not even worth the time. Live, the rake is just too high, plus the tips. It just adds up. Can't beat it.


1,000$ is not at all enough of a BR for 1/3. A complete Buy-In for 1/3 is 300$. If you run bad may as well say goodbye to that money. I would say 3,000-4,000$ minimum. And you better play perfectly every single day. No tilt, no mistakes.
 
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KingTurd

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Agree with you 100%1/2 over the long run is nothing but a big waste of time. You lose, win, lose win, lose, win etc. etc.
Play pots where your up against 5 opponents etc.
You may have good months in 1/2 but it still always evenly pans out to where you either break even or make 5-10$ hourly rate. Not even worth the time. Live, the rake is just too high, plus the tips. It just adds up. Can't beat it.


1,000$ is not at all enough of a BR for 1/3. A complete Buy-In for 1/3 is 300$. If you run bad may as well say goodbye to that money. I would say 3,000-4,000$ minimum. And you better play perfectly every single day. No tilt, no mistakes.
I'm beginning to think I will just save up for an extended period of time and wait until I can safely hit 2/5. 1/2 and 1/3 are just not worth it anymore.Hello again online poker.
 
ingybingy

ingybingy

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It is certainly my opinion that 1/2 1/3 is not an effective means of making money in the long run.
I feel as if a lot of poker players fail to realize that all that matters is their $/hour stat. Going to be very difficult to have a decent $/hour stat playing 1/2 or 1/3.
Frankly 2/5 live is a very tough game to make a living at if that is the route you're looking to go I would suggest also adding in some online.
 
Aaron Soto

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I actually would have to disagree about being able to make a stable income from poker playing 1/3 NL. It can definitely be done if you consider 3,000-4,000$ a month enough to make a living with. I'm currently saving up a nice bankroll for 1/3. No more of this wasting my time playing 1/2 crap. 1/2 i break even simply put it's just to hard the buy-ins are 40 Min - 100 Max as well. 1/3 the Buy-Ins are 100 Min - 300 Max. It makes a massive difference in your hourly rate. Check out my earnings from January/February in 2016. I was able to pull this off consecutive months as well. 1/3 is definitely possible to make a good stable income at. I'm at about 4900 profit in about 33 sessions here.
 

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Marginal

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Guys you don’t play low stakes to make money you play them to get better so you can beat higher stakes
 
Aaron Soto

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I agree Marginal but not too many people have just 10,000$ sitting around lol not everyone can be as lucky as you man. Although we wish we were. I think you can clear about 30k a year playing 1/3. But yeah eventually you definitely wanna go into playing 2/5. I think if your playing 2/5 NL that's really the sweet spot as far as making money playing poker. I honestly think if your beating 1/3 consistently you def wanna go into 2/5 and take it from there.

I think a lot of us low stakes players only play because we just want to "be in the action".
 
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Marginal

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What i mean by getting better is also partly to grow the roll to where you can do a more worthwhile stake. By not making money i mean, keep what ever winnings you have into the roll instead of withdrawing for life reasons. Grow it organically at those low stakes while you build the roll and then move up.

In any case you dont want to jump too high too early because ya know, if your struggling to maintain win rates at 1/2 you will be struggling at higher stakes as well.

It is gonna be extremely tough but it will be worthwhile once you grind through it.
 
ingybingy

ingybingy

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I actually would have to disagree about being able to make a stable income from poker playing 1/3 NL. It can definitely be done if you consider 3,000-4,000$ a month enough to make a living with. I'm currently saving up a nice bankroll for 1/3. No more of this wasting my time playing 1/2 crap. 1/2 i break even simply put it's just to hard the buy-ins are 40 Min - 100 Max as well. 1/3 the Buy-Ins are 100 Min - 300 Max. It makes a massive difference in your hourly rate. Check out my earnings from January/February in 2016. I was able to pull this off consecutive months as well. 1/3 is definitely possible to make a good stable income at. I'm at about 4900 profit in about 33 sessions here.

From my experience 1/2 1/3 is obviously an easy game (somewhat frustrating with the pace of play and table banter), but of course, as the result of variance and the high rake it is a very difficult game in that regard.
To me, 2/5 live cash is a much more lucrative game obviously, but the competition is drastically better at this level, thus its tough in that regard. Also depending on where you play and how you play it can have some serious swings.
An important thing about cash games is when you buyin your buying either for the max or to match the top stack if possible. When the top stack is 3k it can be a big game.

In regards to the 3 to 4k a month to me that's really not enough to make a living. Yeah its great if you can devote 12 hours a week (I'm assuming like 6 hours a Saturday and Sunday) and make 4k a month as a nice little added income, but not as total.
 
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briandaniel0532

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is very dificutl play cash i prefered mtt
 
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KingTurd

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I actually would have to disagree about being able to make a stable income from poker playing 1/3 NL. It can definitely be done if you consider 3,000-4,000$ a month enough to make a living with. I'm currently saving up a nice bankroll for 1/3. No more of this wasting my time playing 1/2 crap. 1/2 i break even simply put it's just to hard the buy-ins are 40 Min - 100 Max as well. 1/3 the Buy-Ins are 100 Min - 300 Max. It makes a massive difference in your hourly rate. Check out my earnings from January/February in 2016. I was able to pull this off consecutive months as well. 1/3 is definitely possible to make a good stable income at. I'm at about 4900 profit in about 33 sessions here.

Did you track how many hours you were playing during those sessions? That seems like a ton of a play so I'm curious what your $/hr broke down in to during that period.
 
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Well, there's that old rule to handle variance to have at least 20x the buy in. Some people are more conservative, leaning to 30, 40 times. But I guess 20 would be enough.
 
ingybingy

ingybingy

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Well, there's that old rule to handle variance to have at least 20x the buy in. Some people are more conservative, leaning to 30, 40 times. But I guess 20 would be enough.
I think that's a bit arbitary at this point in poker. The game has evolved so much that it really a mute point in my opinion. Also I think that it depends on whether or not you are playing poker professionally or just for fun.
 
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