10 years as a live pro, mostly 2/5, approaching $1 million lifetime profit, AMA

Yeah I’ve certainly considered it. I actually think it’s perhaps something I should have pursued earlier in my career.

I think what kept me from doing it was a combination of simply wanting all my own action (not answering to somebody else) and also humility about my skills as a player. I had doubts about my ability to beat big games. These doubts were fueled by running very poorly in the few times I jumped into juicer big games.

In hindsight, I think I probably would have done well if I had taken shots and had people put me in games that were bigger than 5/10

It’s not a big regret though, I have to say I’m pleased with how my career has panned out. I have good financial security and am steadily on my way to complete financial independence.

When it comes to money and frugality, I’ve always been disciplined. I have other areas of my life where I woefully lack discipline.

I feel bad sometimes, especially when I know somebody is really degen, or sometimes when I see guys who I know have young kids at home just spending every night at the casino dumping their money, but everybody is free to do what they want, there are plenty of jobs besides poker where you aren’t really “benefitting society”, and most people are not like this, they have the money to spare and they lose it somewhat responsibly.

Yeah I wouldn’t mind a purer job sometimes, and perhaps later in life I will have them, but there are many horrors in this world, and the vast majority of us don’t do much to make the world a better place, so I can’t give myself too much flack as a poker player. I believe I am doing some good in my personal life (which I deliberately haven’t gotten into to much in this thread)

Your winnings are very impressive. I want to know how you deal with controlling your 'going on tilt' times. Do you play a pretty much stable game or do you ever lose control when down money at a session/game and decide to start tilting or gambling. I assume you have this in check for the most part given your incredible achievements to date.

thanks,

Tilt is essentially not a thing for me at 2/5. I honestly don’t think I’ve been perturbed a single time this entire year or last year to a level that would affect my play. I win at such a high rate, and my net worth has grown over the years to a level where 2/5 swings, bad players hitting 2 outers on me, and stuff like that, just don’t even register anymore.

That’s not to say I am totally emotionless, I think an easy example of something that would mildly annoy me is if I’m up a good amount all session, and at the very end I get dusted and end up even or down on the day. But “mildly annoyed” is the key, and I wouldn’t say I play any differently.

When I play bigger, I find that I am absolutely more emotional, and that’s a hard thing to control. Just focusing on strategy, and perhaps playing a pip or 2 tighter in a lot of positions, to make sure that I’m not getting out of line, is all I ever do.

If I ever find myself so irritated that I think my judgement is clouded, I will step away from the table for a bit, or if it’s a mediocre game anyways, I’ll just leave. It’s rare, but I’ve done that at 5/10 in the last couple years

Do you think your win rate varies by locale? Do you believe (or know) if your bb/hr is higher at your home room? I would guess yes, because you know the player pool so much better than when you travel (keyword is guess)?

If you're an unicorn overall then don't you really stick out in your home room? Don't the other regs know how to play you back? Or why don't they?

How would you rate the quality of an average reg this year versus 5 or 10 years ago?

Great thread, thanks. Your ability to be uber consistent and beat rake and tips for an actual liveable rate is really impressive.

[No reply to this: I'll guess Baltimore.]

I think my win rate does vary by locale, but it has less to do with having reads on people, and more to do with just the skill level in the room. I think there are rooms, and regions in the country, that are far, far softer than others. I happen to think I’m in one of the better regions in the country.

For sure I stick out like a sore thumb after a while in my main room(s)

I’ll say this: I have moved around a few times in the last decade, so my “main room” has changed a few times. If I had stayed in the same room this whole time, I definitely think a lot of the player pool would be “over it” haha, especially some of the smaller rooms I’ve been in.

I am “medium” social and friendly. I’m definitely not the life of a game, but I talk a bit, crack jokes, talk **** to the right people, etc.. so think people I play with generally like me, which goes a long way in people being tolerant of losing their money over time.

Having said that, in the room I’ve made home the last several years, I’m quite confident there isn’t a single 2/5 player that elicits more table changes than I do lol. I don’t mind it when it’s regs because that seat usually just gets filled with a worse player, but it does sting when a whale decides to stop playing with me.

All I’ll say about Baltimore is I’ve played there (Md Live and Shoe) and it’s a good region! It was even better before DC opened

1. I think I’ve probably tried to answer this a couple times in this thread. Hard to pick one. Probably learning what baseline strategy in a two blind cash game actually looks like (super tight), and then extrapolating from that how and why I am allowed (able) to play so much looser than that. The answer is of course because the population plays far too loose and passively. For example, you can easily open 55 or KJo profitably from EP in most 2/5 games, but in a tough game those are pure folds. You’re gonna be wide open for 3 bets and also people won’t be flatting with dominated junk in tough games.

I also had big aha moments in tourneys when learning how significantly bubble and ICM dictates how tight and loose you are, depending on what stage of the tourney you’re in, and what relative stack sizes are. I’m mostly a cash player but gaining proficiency in tourneys was really fun.

2. I hope I bluff pretty close to optimally. If I didn’t think so, then I should probably adjust right?

There are definitely player types who I will go for it a little more, if I think they reliably fold to a lot of pressure (top pair, even overpairs reliably folding on certain boards) , and then other players against whom I only really go for high efficiency bluffs because they are just such stations (like if I have 7 high when I missed my open ender and I can try to bluff out queen high and king high)

People like to say “never bluff a station”. This statement lacks nuance. You should have bluffs against every player, the range just really constricts if you have some dope calling off with 4th pair on a wet board facing multiple bets. Against someone like that, your bluffs should be hands that have absolutely zero showdown value, and hopefully good removal, and then you should have a very robust value range to exploit all their loose calls

1.) How much rake do you think you've paid lifetime (my guess would be in the hundreds of thousands)?

2.) What would you say is the "max winrate" for your typical game, assuming that you exploit your opponents perfectly?

3.) Could you elaborate more on your previous quote about bluffing frequencies?

4.) How quickly do you characterise your opponents to change your play towards them - obviously you have initial thoughts on appearance, demeanour, but how quickly do you adjust to the way that they are playing?

Thanks for the thread!

1. Oh god that’s a good question. I’ve been a live pro for over 11 years now. I am definitely far from playing 2000 hours a year, probably average more like 1600. How much rake would I pay per hour? I don’t even know, maybe $20? So that math works out to around $360K. And then let’s not even get into tips. That’s in the 6 figures too. Yikes

Thankfully there’s still a nice slice of pie for me left over. I’m gonna finish this year around $100K profit, probably only 1200 hours played (big life events). When I started this thread I was at almost a mil lifetime, so now is probably more like $1.1 mil. I’m sure in the next handful of years I’ll be approaching $1 mil profit just from 2/5 which is pretty wild.

2. These questions are so hard to answer. I’ve been averaging right around $100 over the last 2 years which is insane, but if we harken back to years like 2016-2018, I was only making like $50-60. I’m not sure why my hourly has gone up so much. Maybe a little extended rungood. Maybe inflation just making 2/5 more accessible to more people, maybe rooms increasing to a $1K or higher max…probably all of those things

I’m not arrogant enough to say I’m the winningest 2/5 player by any stretch of the imagination either (although I suspect I’m in the upper echelon) so it seems very likely to me that someone is making more over an extended period without running super hot.

3 and 4. I could elaborate on bluffing and frequencies in so many different ways, it’s hard to choose. I’ll drop an opinion I have that relates to this:

I think the VAST majority of the 2/5 pool, even legit professional players, make adjustments too quickly based on incomplete information.

It can take a very long time to really have an accurate gauge of someone’s skillset. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve played with someone and I was thinking “wow this guy is pretty solid!”, sometimes even playing with them for 50 or even 100 hours, and then I finally see one or more big pieces of evidence that they really aren’t that good.

The best source of evidence, by far, is at showdown, especially a showdown in a hand where there were critical decisions on each street. Watching a player execute sensible sizings across all streets with a hand that makes sense at showdown, can give you a good inclination that they know what they’re doing. This can even be in a hand where they were bluffing and lost if their hand selection makes sense.

The opposite is true too, seeing someone show down poor hand choices can quickly let you know they are a weak player.

I do stereotype players, I think it would be silly not to, and I’ll make small adjustments based on limited info, but I only make big “heroic” adjustments based on very strong evidence.

I’ll try to make some simplistic examples. Let’s say I’m facing a jam preflop, and with zero info I think I should call off 99+, AQs and AKo. Well, if my opponent is an 80 year old guy who I’ve played with for 45 minutes who I suspect is tight, I’m fine letting go of the AQs, the 99, and maybe the TT, but I’m not gonna do anything absurd like folding QQ or KK, which is the sort of over adjustment that I’ve seen all the time from mediocre players.

On the contrary, if the all in is from some other stereotype, a young guy riding a short stack, someone who seems like they’re drinking or tilted, someone who seems like they’re a gambler, someone with lots of bling, etc.. I might dilate to hands like 88 or 77, AQo, AJs, etc. The stronger the stereotype or read of their disposition that they may be punting, the wider I go, but there are limits. There’s a lot of intuition and estimation to it.

That doesn’t mean I’m afraid of making extreme adjustments, I just understand that stereotypes only go so far.

To exemplify this, in 2023 I folded KK preflop either 3 or 4 times (can’t remember which) and I got shown AA each time. Each situation was unique, but I was pretty confident in all of my folds because of who my opponents were. I distinctly remember doing it twice in the span of a few weeks. When the second situation occurred, I was like damn again??

But folding KK preflop is an absurd adjustment that almost always takes hundreds of hours with a player. You have to know that they are a scared tightass who won’t have QQ or AK in whatever line they took. These scenarios do occur, but they can be quite rare.

I could go on and on, but I’ll stop for now.

And when I say that pros make bad assumptions too quickly, fish are even more wildly off with theirs

Playing live poker, it’ll happen daily or weekly that people will make comments about how I, or someone else is playing, that will tell me that they have no idea what they’re talking about, or they’re extrapolating way too much based on a sample of 30 or 60 hands.

I am neither tight nor loose, but it’s very easy over a sample of 2 hours for me to either be super card dead and not involved in any meaningful pots, or for me to be VPIPing like every other hand and play a ton of big pots. And it’s amusing the wild assumptions and comments people make in response to these samples. And it’s even nicer that they share them out loud, making it that much easier to know how you are being perceived ��

Not sure if there are any rules against self promotion here, but I am considering offering coaching for the first time in a long time.

I would charge $125/hour for video coaching. We can have an initial consultation going over your skill level and your needs.

I’m really looking for people who already play a significant amount of live poker, and who want to improve their winrate, or perhaps make the move from 1/2 or 1/3 up to 2/5. I want my coaching to be worthwhile for you, and the people who will benefit the most are people already putting in the work. If you’re a beginner, there are much cheaper ways to learn the basics.

Given that I’ve been making almost $100/hour at 2/5 for the last 2 years, I think I can be of tremendous value to anybody who is struggling at live poker, as long as they are eager to learn.

DM me if interested!

Hi,

I would welcome your insight pls.

I'm struggling with aggressive betting by people that are not as skilled as their betting amounts would indicate. I'm not talking about Shove Monkeys. It's my having a set on the river with the felt showing a straight potential. Only to end up discovering the winner won with 2 pair-as an example.

I'm good at reading the felt and betting patterns, but when I run into this, I'm missing some pots. These aren't bluffs either. Just weaker play with exuberance I figure.

All in all, it's my aggression needing to improve to push past the bs. I.e.: but are my pocket 10s on a 739r flop with heavy betting any good to continue? Fearing I'm up against a set. If I bet into them they'll sometimes reraise on a weak draw and my 10s don't seem good.

Is there anything beyond accepting it as poker that can be done?

I welcome all input from all sources too, including any experiences.

Thx
B.

I don't think this question has been asked yet - how old are you?

I'm in my early 50's and recently Phil Helmuth commented on age as a factor in the WSOP Main Event.
I see that almost all the tough pros in my local room at 2/3/5 (9 tables going at 2pm on weekdays) are younger than me. Do you see many players crushing your regular game who are over 50?

Wow, that sux, what you're implying. I'm 60s.

But if you're going to say that testosterone level and aggression are necessary to counter aggression...I don't find value in that. Bc age and experience of "tempered" play, meaning less emotional, I see as far more valuable in poker.

Maybe I didn't explain my question well.

I'm curious if players more experienced than I, have gone through a phase and/or have a practice of seeing beyond this youthful exuberance in betting to increase one's win rate. I've tried bet size/pocket cards patterning, counter betting, but I'm resigned to just skipping the hand and moving on to the next one. Bc I haven't pinned down a method yet. This, after when I am able to see "their" hole cards. Iow, I see it as a leak I'd like to get better at.

What I did fail to mention is that this is online. Undoubtedly, a factor, but from what you've said before, you are a more experienced player than I. So I took a chance in writing for an opportunity to grow my game. A game that is, more or less, a (mostly profitable) part-time job/intellectual hobby. I love the complexities, subtleties, and "artful" nature in being successful at poker. Something I've always enjoyed since being a kid.

Thank you for any advice you see fit.
B.

This is a question for the OP - Live Pro... I'm interested in his age.

So how I would phrase this is “I struggle with people who are very aggressive with all of their value holdings, and they often put way too many chips in the pot relative to how strong their hand is”

I mean the solution is pretty simple, if you know a certain player will overplay their hand, then you need to make sure you have an adequately widened call range to account for that. In a situation like you described, you might just have to hold down the call button with a set because you know they can be spazzing off with 2 pair

One of the more memorable hands I played in the last couple years, we were heads up to a flop of $200 at 2/5? Flop came 874r and my opponent jammed $3500 eff into $200 after 3 betting preflop. It was one of the most absurd Jams I’ve encountered in my career. I had bottom set, and I think it’s kind of a sick spot because we’re super dead vs 88, 77, and in really bad shape vs 65, but ultimately I decided there was a fair chance this was q clueless spazz with an overpair, I called, and beat AA. Gotta just hold the call button and sometimes get shown the bad news. Don’t fold hands that are really high up in your range unless you have an extremely strong understanding of the villain.

I’m 34. It’s exceedingly rare for me to see somebody over 50 who I would consider really beating the game for a lot. I think guys in that age typically got into the game long before we had such advanced strategy, and they are unwilling or unable to learn how to play really well. There are obvious exceptions like Erik Seidel.

What’s interesting to me is how most of the best players seem to be fairly close to my age now. I feel like there really aren’t that many super good young guys anymore, especially in America. Nowadays, when I see a kid under 25 at my table, I’m usually happy to see them. They skew way more towards being slightly degen, into sports betting and crypto, and just not great at poker.

When I was early 20’s, boy it was not like that at all.

Is there anywhere online you see as a good place to get a good poker strategy for live low stakes high rake poker that I can memorize and execute

Memorization is only a small part of being a good poker player. Yes you should have a good understanding of baseline ranges, good sizings to use, etc, but understanding the WHY behind every decision point is how to succeed. Good luck

Why have you guys become more miserable?

Why do you take so long in hands that are irrelevant? I lose about 3 hands a hour compared to 10 years ago which costs me about $5hr. I know you tip like **** bc it’s your job and I even defend you guys when it comes to that. The issue is costing me 2-3k a year.

Do you care?

Have you been robbed?

I can’t speak for other players but I try not to waste time. A good chunk of decisions I make are immediate, especially preflop.

The only spots where time is taken is if I either genuinely need to think, or if I have to think about my range.

Let me explain the second part. An easy example would be if there is already a raise and a 3 bet and I look down at a hand that I’m always going to 4 bet, like KK or AA. I will take a little time to think about what the bottom of my range is, because it’s important for me to know in the hand, and also to avoid having any obvious timing tells. If I just snap 4b, it greatly reduces the chances of it being a hand like 99 or A5s, at least in general.

Or like if I know im jamming a river in a big pot, I also have to think about what other hands I’m gonna be jamming.

Otherwise I really don’t “waste” any time, and even in the aforementioned spots it’s not a significant tank.

I probably make more money per hand than you so I assure you I want to see hands!

I also don’t think I’m miserable, but I can speak on this: there is a healthy contingent of very mediocre live pros in this county who aren’t really that good or balanced. They historically made a living by guys just punting into their super nutted ranges, and as the game has evolved, they aren’t making nearly as much money by being nut peddling nits, and they’re hurting financially. That is the typical makeup of the misreg

Hello there. I am not sure if you are still monitoring this thread, but if you are, I am wondering which training materials, both free and paid, would still be good in today’s 2/5 environment. I am asking this question since you obviously have studied a lot of content, both good and bad.

Are there any free training courses that you have found to be effective and up to date? Or would YouTube videos from Doug Polk, Guerrilla Poker, Jonathan Little, BlackRain79, provide the best mindset? How about paid courses? There are quite a few expensive courses out there, but there is always the danger of the content being mostly from ten years ago or so.

Also, what is your opinion on poker coaching? At what point do you believe that hiring a poker coach would have the greatest impact on your game?

TLDR: How would you start if you had a clean slate of knowledge, but knew with training materials were good for today’s game?

Thank you for reading.

I think the answers to a lot of your questions depend on what your experience level is. Also, for 2/5, the level of play can vary quite substantially from city to city. I haven’t been traveling as much recently because of big life events, but I know that 2/5 in Vegas is just orders of magnitude more skillful than in other random parts of the country. So treating 2/5 in America as some kind of uniform level is not really accurate imo.

If you’re a newish player, or maybe you beat 1/2 for a small amount, I think watching tons of Doug Polk videos on YouTube would be very useful. You could also subscribe to upswing, I haven’t used it in years but I’m sure the content is quite good.

I can’t really endorse Crush Live Poker, I liked Bart a decade ago but imo he teaches people how to be “good nits” and I think upswing would be better

You can definitely get a coach! The hardest thing is just finding one who is not a charlatan and can actually help you exploit live poker. I’d be hesitant to hire someone who has only played purely online.

I think the answers to a lot of your questions depend on what your experience level is. Also, for 2/5, the level of play can vary quite substantially from city to city. I haven’t been traveling as much recently because of big life events, but I know that 2/5 in Vegas is just orders of magnitude more skillful than in other random parts of the country. So treating 2/5 in America as some kind of uniform level is not really accurate imo.

If you’re a newish player, or maybe you beat 1/2 for a small amount, I think watching tons of Doug Polk videos on YouTube would be very useful. You could also subscribe to upswing, I haven’t used it in years but I’m sure the content is quite good.

I can’t really endorse Crush Live Poker, I liked Bart a decade ago but imo he teaches people how to be “good nits” and I think upswing would be better

You can definitely get a coach! The hardest thing is just finding one who is not a charlatan and can actually help you exploit live poker. I’d also be hesitant to hire someone who has only played purely online, as they usually aren’t as well-versed in the major exploits that are necessary for live poker in most cities

I’m currently in a $7300 downswing at 2/5 so now I don’t feel so bad.

Great thread, just found it, will study it.

$7300 is not terrible, especially if you are playing in deeper action games. I can pull that off in 2 sessions if I run badly enough 😀

Good luck turning it around!