2009 in Review

[PShabi]

Probably between 9k and 10k hands, which is still small, yes. I've played close to 360 hours and I think 25-30 hands is a good estimate. I've counted before.

I've never been able to successfully play more than 4 tables and sometimes that is tough for me to do. What stakes are you calculating for online? Online games are 100X tougher than live games. Maybe more. I'm not even sure I could win @ 1/2 LHE online anymore. They are that tough. And don't shrug this off as bullshit either. Play the games. The 4/8 half kill game I play in is softer than any online pre-legislation game I have ever played in. My edge is so massive it's laughable. Like, there is literally no one else at the table who understands limit hold em. It's free money. I cleared $600 in 6 hours Thursday and Friday night this weekend.

If I win .25bb/100 hands playing 1/2 LHE and I get in 350 hands per hour (3 or 4 tables) then I'm making $2/hr! WTF for??????

In my case, I am driving from my garage to the casino's parking garage which is exactly 1 mile away. So I'm spending $0.25 in gas and it's taking me five minutes to drive, park and walk to the room. My winrate does not include the beer I drink at the game, but it's cheaper than the beer I drink at home. Plus, I get $1/hr in food comps. So, my winrate is around $14/hr including that. What stakes am I going to have to play online, 4-tabling, to reach that? Assuming I can beat those stakes, which I'm not sure I can.

As Kurn stated, .25bb/100 hands indicates HUGE variance. I make less online and honestly, I have way less fun. Plus, I get a lot of thinking done at the table and take voice notes on my phone about shit that I need to get done outside of poker so it's like multi-tasking in a way.

[Talking Poker]

Fair argument. I guess it's just difficult for me to believe those numbers (on both sides). It just seems crazy to me that the difference in skill level between live and online is SO GREAT that the massive loss in volume you could play can't easily make up for it.

If you can only play 3-4 tables of 1/2 limit and eek out .25 bb/hour, then yeah, I guess that's true. But there are plenty of players who play 5 times to stakes, 5 times as many tables, and have 4 times the win rate. That's 100 times the hourly used in your example. I'm not saying just anyone could sit down and have those numbers, but I'm pretty confident you could do a lot better than you are giving yourself credit for.

[PShabi]

Depends on your definition of "plenty" but I doubt there are too many dudes playing 12 tables of 5/10 LHE and winning 2BB/100. Good ass players at that level are probably only winning .5-1BB/100 nowadays.

Also: I'm speaking from experience when I compare online to live play. Online $1/$2 FR LHE, it's usually 2 to a flop. In live games, I'm 3-betting J10s on the button for value when UTG raises and the field cold calls. You NEVER see that online in any LHE game. Raise UTG with AK and have 2 cold-callers and the blinds come along so it's 5 handed. Cold callers have J6o and K2s. Blinds are playing anything. The difference is staggering, it really is. I go to my local card room and in 350 hours I was by far the best player for 348 of them. The other 2 I was really drunk and was still the best but the margin was slimmer.