I didn't know this was possible.
I've been playing low limit cash game poker over 20 years and have always been a winner.
As I got better over the last ten years, I would win about 60% of my sessions, and it would be common to win 5/6 or occasionally win 8 or 10 in a row. In all of my playing, I also never lost more than 10 buy ins in a row which only happened once. Despite some small downswings, I've averaged only one losing month every 12-18 months playing 5-6 days per week for around 30 hrs a week.
I'm very proud of this because it means I am a playing low variance style which I think is ideal for cash grinders, because it doesn't induce tilt. Everytime someone calls me out for being tight, it's from someone who plays every hand and thinks that's normal.
However, what I have experienced these last few months I didn't know was possible.
Since, October 1st, I've played 6 days a week and only have had 3 loosing sessions. And those losses were very small, less than $100.
This is also a 1/2 casino game with 10% rake ($6+3 max rake ). Some people think when the rake is that high, it can barely be beat. If you are saying that, it's because YOU can't beat it, because I've been doing it my whole life, and even more so lately.
Over these last few months, I've also never had to make a full rebuy and only had to top off for $100 or so only a few times.
I don't know what to attribute this to, but if there is one thing I have learned is to stay humble.
I did spend a few months studying on GTO wizard and realized I was doing some things wrong, but you still have to hit flops and not get outdrawn a lot to win this consistently, don't you? I'm also on medications for ADHD that seem to help me be less impulsive and think things through, but it's also easier to be disciplined and patient when winning every day.
I used to think 10bb/he is the best one can do, but I am starting to think that this really depends on the game you play and how good you are at exploiting these standard loose passive / weak tight players.
If it's possible to make $50-$100/hr in a heavily raked 5/5 game in CA, then why can't we do something similar at even lower stakes with even worse players?
Have I entered a level I didn't know was possible? Or am I just having a good run?
24 Replies
Is it maybe possible that your ADHD medication might be turning you into some sort of poker-playing cyborg, calculating pot odds with the precision of a supercomputer while your opponents are still trying to remember if a flush beats a straight. It's as if you've discovered a glitch in the Matrix where instead of dodging bullets, you're dodging bad beats with Neo-like reflexes.
It must be the ADHD medication bro. What brand are you using? I need to try that **** out in my homegames.
I've been playing low limit cash game poker over 20 years and have always been a winner.
As I got better over the last ten years, I would win about 60% of my sessions, and it would be common to win 5/6 or occasionally win 8 or 10 in a row. In all of my playing, I also never lost more than 10 buy ins in a row which only happened once. Despite some small downswings, I've averaged only one losing month every 12-18 months playing 5-6 days per week for around 30 hrs a week.
I'm very proud of this beca
If you think you are being humble, you are sorely mistaken. You are living on the good side of variance. Good for you. Seriously really good for you, but don't let good fortune blind you to reality.
Even the best players in the world are subject to variance. You get KK versus a really bad player who has AA. Or you have KK and they have QQ. It goes in preflop and there is a Q in the flop. It happens to everyone who plays long enough.
Or you overbet the pot against a flush draw. Even though they aren't getting proper odds they call. They hit and you lose. It happens. Variance (luck) still matters in poker, despite how much you think you are playing low variance poker.
Also, just know that if you are playing low variance poker, by definition you are winning less than you optimally can. I am sure it is still enough positive EV to be a winning player in the long run, but not enough to completely overcome variance. Even low variance EV players still encounter it. You cannot completely escape it, especially to the degree you have done currently.
Be prepared for Variance to ream you a new butthole in the future. It is coming, no matter how deluded you are thinking you can avoid it.
If it's coming, then why hasn't it happened after 25 years of playing over a million hands?
Sure, I've had downswings, but there are different kinds of downswings.
No one downswings purely from bad luck, because everyone plays worse when they are losing, and then they play too long. I think I have a good ability to avoid big losing sessions and churn out consistent wins because I know when to start and stop sessions, when to table change, etc.
I have several friends who do the same thing at low stakes. It's much easier to have a high win rate at low stakes.
In the example you gave with over betting vs a flush draw - that's a high variance way to play the hand. If someone NEVER folds and has no fear and will call any amount you bet, then you can play it a bit like PLO where you wait for a safe river to pile money in. You wait until you have a lock on the hand, so that when they call you are always printing. Avoiding variance might in theory cost you money if you never tilt and play the same winning as when you are losing, but NO ONE does. Chip Reese was known as the greatest cash game player because he did this so well.
You can also escape it by playing with passive players who don't build pots when they should so even when they do bad beat you, it's rarely for much money.
The people who don't believe it's possible will never do it because of their self limiting thoughts.
My guess is it is variance.
I ran amazing in September and October, and thought I had reached a new level of good play myself. I've been playing poker off and on for many years. But, in the past year I've been playing alot more, and I seriously thought through study and practice I was now trending toward realizing a 15-20 BB/hr win rate.
However, in November, I just started losing pretty much every session. At first I was proud of how I was playing well despite losing 6 sessions in a row, 8 of 9 sessions. But the bad/cold run continued, and eventually I could see it was affecting my play, causing me to be more passive, especially on later streets. I tried to adjust, but the bad run has continued. I think it further affected my play because I was now not having as much fun, and finding it harder to be fully focused on the game.
Anyway, November has now been by far my worst month of the year, but at least my winnings for Sept/Oct are not completely wiped out. But it's been yet another lesson about how poker variance is a bitch. For November, I have 20 sessions with a win ratio of 25%, down $5300. Overall for 2024, I am at 441 hrs of live 2/3/5 NL, with a win rate of $45/hr.
Took about a year to kick into God-mode.
Learn how to fold rivers, punk!
You just might be the best poker player that has ever lived. I would seriously consider liquidating all assets you own and immediately going to the highest stakes poker game you can find and clean it up. Just make sure I'm not there because I don't want to contribute to your fund!
If it's coming, then why hasn't it happened after 25 years of playing over a million hands?
Sure, I've had downswings, but there are different kinds of downswings.
No one downswings purely from bad luck, because everyone plays worse when they are losing, and then they play too long. I think I have a good ability to avoid big losing sessions and churn out consistent wins because I know when to start and stop sessions, when to table change, etc.
I have several friends who do the same thing at low s
Believe me. If there is anyone on this site who understands just how horrible play can be at certain limits. It is like your opponents are playing with their hands face up a large portions of the time. Absolutely no doubt.
Certain limits can be absolutely laughable
That said, variance can be an absolute monster. I have both experienced and heard of stories about very good players going through the most absurd downswings. That also means there are also players who are going through crazy upswings.
They probably do not realize it because they just think it is normal. Good for them ( and good for you), but don't be deceived.
I actually got to play quite a bit with Jeremy Becker when he went on the insane run at the Wynn dailies (winning an absurd number of tournaments in a few months). I genuinely do not mean to demean Becker. He is a very good player. He really is. But I have seen him during that period run like God. I know that phrase sometimes get thrown around a lot, but this was insane.
My wife barely knows the fundamentals of poker, barely. Let alone any sort of strategy, even basic strategy. However I truly think she could have won a tournament or two with the cards he had. It was absolutely insane.
That also means that there were players during that time who played unbelievably well (better than Jeremy), but no one knows their names because they ran really bad.
6 sigma events are absurdly rare, but there are enough poker players being dealt enough poker hands that way worse variance happens.
vegas and the ****ing mirage!
Sounds like what you’re saying is between being a good decent regular and one of the best low stakes players in the world. A 20bb WR is probably closing in on impossible, at least in a public game where the lineup always switches.
And if we run out of our amphetamines we are really in a pickle
I've been playing low limit cash game poker over 20 years and have always been a winner.
As I got better over the last ten years, I would win about 60% of my sessions, and it would be common to win 5/6 or occasionally win 8 or 10 in a row. In all of my playing, I also never lost more than 10 buy ins in a row which only happened once. Despite some small downswings, I've averaged only one losing month every 12-18 months playing 5-6 days per week for around 30 hrs a week.
I'm very proud of this beca
So about 45-3 in sessions the last two months?? That's a legit sun run, but nothing more. The sentence about "never having to make a full rebuy" during the streak really hit me. I had a similar streak a while back (31 straight wins, 93-8 for the year), where late in the 31 in a row I realized, "Jeez, I haven't lost an all-in in months." Super sunny is what it was. "Copious sunshine," as the Weather Channel likes to say.
Somewhat like you, I was about a 65% win rate for decades previous to this heater year. Had no clue how good I was running in either instance, the career or the heater. Since I feel I'm so in tune with what you are describing here, I'm going to tell you what is going to happen, as a metaphysician of great gifts. You are going to have about a 125,000 hand run in which almost every single run out is death, in which almost every single turn card is the worst card possible for your hand (either suspected or known, that is, with hands either exposed or concealed), in which you take 1-outer and 2-outer beats at about 25 times the expected rate, in which completing a nut flush draw or nut straight draw vanishes to less than 1% while your opponent's equivalent draws approach 100%, in which the utter card deadness reigns, and in which all your opponent has to do is call out loud for a card and it comes approaching 100% of the time. You can have it. It's your turn. I know I can survive it, I already have. You are so far from the long run of what any of it means statistically that any presumptions made from your results is completely unfounded. Caro wrote on it well decades ago. Punters like me and you bring it to life.
You just might be the best poker player that has ever lived. I would seriously consider liquidating all assets you own and immediately going to the highest stakes poker game you can find and clean it up. Just make sure I'm not there because I don't want to contribute to your fund!
I'm the 1/2 and 1/3 GOAT only.
What about beta-blocker (adrenaline blocker) medication use? Would that be illegal doping too?
Did not read a single word
standard variance
They generally make me calmer, not exclusive to poker but I guess it helps. I take them for anxiety and high blood pressure so I was always generally pretty skittish before them. I doubt they're safe to take regularly without doctor supervision.
keeping the simps away with beta blockers does sound like it'd do a lot to make yourself way more chill
