Bart Hanson says play at least 2/5 to reduce the effect of rake

This is your second post today that involves bigger open sizes in LLS games, why are you so married to that as a solution when more seasoned players constantly tell you the opposite?

It does not matter what size you open. In a 10% capped at $5+$2 , ~$180 is coming off the table every hour. That means the average win rate at the table is -7.5bb/hr in 1/3 and -4.5bb/hr in 2/5 before counting jackpot returns. A 3bb/hr difference in average win rate is huge when you consider ~10bb/hr is what most consider the cap for a win rate in these games.

The other factor is if you think 2/5 players are much better than 1/3 players to the point that it would offset the rake factor, you need to get better at poker. As much as 90% of the 1/3 and 2/5 population isn’t +EV.

Good points here. I am also confused as to why you made a second thread. These two threads should really be combined.

Another significant factor not mentioned above is the buy-in cap. Yes, you can open to $15 at $1/$2 and get 3 callers, but then you are playing $250 deep (sometimes much less) in a multi-way pot. There is a limited amount of money that can be made post-flop and a skilled player is handicapped playing extremely multi-way. At $2/$5, if you open to $15 and get 1 or 2 callers, there is always going to be tons of stack depth behind, potentially $1000 or more. So there is more money to be won and more room for skilled players to maneuver, be it by bluffing or getting maximum value.

I think the idea / thought in general is that, in the same room, 2/5 will play deeper than 1/3 and thus the average pots will be bigger and help outrun the rake more (especially if the rake is the same in both games). So for example, in a room where the rake in both games is a max of $10, if the average "decent" pot is $100 in 1/3 then 10% of the pot is raked, but if the average "decent" pot is $200 in 2/5 then only 5% of the pot is raked, so you begin outrunning the rake a bit.

However, you really have to counter balance that with everything else. There may be a higher percentage of better players / lower percentage of terrible players in the bigger game. The privilege of paying the blinds to see an orbit of cards is ~doubled. My guess is the biggest difference is that you'll likely see a lot bigger SPRs in the bigger game where solid turn/river player becomes so much more important, and if you're not really good at deeper stack (and it certainly isn't in my wheelhouse) then you might struggle.

Our room rarely gets a game other than 1/3 NL going (especially during the times I play). But when I do see the 2/5 game go (which will only ever consist of a single table at most so zero table selection also), it usually seems to be quite a lot of the better / more difficult players in the room swarming a whale or two. I still recall talking to one young pro (who has since burnt himself out and no longer plays) who played in the game, and once mid session he honestly wondered why he was sitting in that game when a neighbouring 1/3 game just looked so much better.

When I moved from 2/4 Limit to 4/8 Limit back in the day (simply slightly more than doubling stakes due to bigger game being a kill game), my winrate went up 3.5x (instead of the expected 2x) due pretty much only to outrunning the rake better (admittedly small sample sizes). But I don't think the same thing really quite applies as much to leveling up in NL... unless you are clearly one of the better players on the table deepstacked.

FWIW, I'm dreading the day my 1/3 NL is switched to a 2/5 NL game (which it undoubtedly will) as I'm not convinced I would actually win hardly anything more (especially using my purposeful shortstacking method) and meanwhile the extra $3 an orbit / $9 an hour in blinds will be devasting.

GcluelesslevellingupnoobG

I’m with you on this gg. When 2/5 does get going (rare) it’s a nitty bunch. The 1/3 games I play often have stacks going in. The big pots, bad players, and a little bit of skill offsets the rake.

More times than not straddles basically turn the game into 3/6. I respect Bart Hanson, but this thinking is outdated. I could see it if you compared 1/2 to 2/5, but 1/3 rocks.

The guy talking limited amount to be made postflop hasn’t sat in our game with $400 buyins, three-way all-ins, constant $100 bets, & never a dull moment. You can double the rake the way I tip and I’m making money.

Didn’t read the other post being referred to, but I think you make a good point here. Where I sometimes play they have a regular 2/5 game, but more than a few pros have told me they make more money at 1/3.

I have to echo what GG said. My room only gets 2/5 going on saturday nights and sometimes friday nights.

The game is usually ...

1. a combination of decent recs up to semi-pros.
2. gets straddled and double straddled every hand because they all want a big game so it becomes 10/20 really.
3. everyone tightens up and plays a very TAG ABC approach because there's strong players in the mix and every hand is 3-bet or 4-bet pre, I'd say over 60% of pots are 3-bet pots.

1/3 deep is just a better game in every regard. I played a bomb pot last night 1200 effective with a guy, he flops weak trips on one board and nothing on the other and I clean him out with Queens at a flopped SPR of like 12.

Sounds like you have a great $1/$3 game. I agree with you that there is a significant difference between $1/$2 and $1/$3. I also don’t doubt that there are situations where the smaller game will be more profitable. I still play over half my volume at $1/$2 because I game select $2/$5 pretty hard. That said, at my room $1/$2 is often full of nits and short stacks and there are always multiple $2/$5 tables running.

What’s wild is this whole thread is people who admittedly don’t play 2/5 and rarely even have the opportunity to play 2/5 commenting based on assumption and the nebulous claims others have made.

Every argument being made here only even sort of makes sense if you’re way better than the 1/3 players but way worse than the 2/5 players which doesn’t make sense because the 2/5 players aren’t that much better.

When almost every player who has grinded there way past 2/5 agreees on something that is mathematically provable, and many who are still playing the smallest game available disagree, it shouldn’t be tough to figure out what the situation is.

To the extent I agree that blind sizes aren't as relevant live as they are in theory, the same factors make stacks sizes more important. So forgetting blind sizes entirely, playing a game where doubling up means you win $990 out of a $1k buy in is going to be better than winning $490 out of a $500 buy in.

In any case, I'm not buying your premise without some data. Anyone who's played these games can intuit that $15 raises get called "a lot" in both 1/3 and 2/5, but ain't nobody eyeballing the difference between them getting called by 25% versus 35% of players, or whatever. Have some humility.

Your premises don't even lend to the conclusion. If there are more 3!s in a 2/5 game, that means less hands are getting raked, and the pots are bigger relative to the rake. I understand this is probably more lending to your "you are playing worse players" observation, which brings me to my next point...

Whether you measure by dead money or buy ins, the stakes are 75-100% higher at 2/5 than 1/3, so with the extra (say) 10bb/100 in rake, you have to beat the 1/3 pool twice as badly as the 2/5 pool for it to be worth your while toiling away at the lower stake. I can imagine conditions/rooms exist where this is the case, but more realistically, both player pools are absolute trash and (with all due respect) any decent player should be happy to double the stakes and pay less relative rake to play even the "tougher" of the two pools.

Allll THAT being said, Hanson's advice isn't necessarily practical even if it's theoretically true. Most people who are rolled to play 2/5 play 2/5. (Hell, there's probably more people who play 2/5 that AREN'T rolled for it than vice versa). So what is the actual application of his advice? Get staked? That's just extra rake.

There's a whole genre of financial advice that's like "If you had capital, you'd have ways of turning that into more capital, " which functions less like financial advice and more like gloating.

If the average pot won on 1/3 is $100 compared to $150 on 2/5 and the cap on both is $10, you're paying less rake as a percentage of your winnings on 2/5:

• 10/90 = 11% on 1/3
  
• 10/140 = 7% on 2/5
  

Probably more significant is stack depth at the table. The 1/3 games I have played tend to be much shallower on average in terms of bb. Not only do you want pots to exceed the cap as often as possible, but you want them to exceed the cap by as large an amount as possible. There is much more opportunity for this to happen when stacks are deeper.

Bart's advice is general and intended for people who intend to make a significant portion of their income from poker.

I'm sure there are games in like Alaska or some place where freshly paid fisherman punt of large sums at 1/2.

I'm sure there are areas where poker has dried up and 2/5 goes once a week and the action sucks. Unfortunately, you just won't be able to make decent money at poker in such an area.

In general, you can't make more than $20/hr or so at poker unless you play in decent games at 2/5+.

If you enjoy playing, there's nothing wrong with that. Most hobbies cost money. Yours will hopefully bring in several thousand a year.

A lot depends upon the assumptions you make. For example if the buy-in at each game is match the stack rather than a hard cap the analysis changes. If you don't assume pots at the 2-5 are twice as big but a more honest 60-80% bigger as the game is not twice the size. the analysis changes. If you ignore that bankroll management and risk aversion can make a 2-5 a beyond their safe means game for some 1-3 players the analysis changes. Isn't it strange that all the "analysis" here assumes these things do not exist and instead bias the analysis with assumptions that are designed to make their conclusion correct?

^ That a 2/5 on average will have larger pots and larger stacks than 1/3 are safe assumptions due to game structure. Bankroll considerations and risk-tolerance are more difficult to generalise, however; but if players are willing to risk less of their net worth, then they'll likely pay more rake as % of potential earnings.

My experiences are different from others here.

I think 1/3 is nittier; a lot of the players there are too scared to move up. You get players there that might have tried 2/5, and it was too big for them so they stay at 1/3 where they are comfortable.

1/3 also has the promo chasers that don’t like to raise PF and hate it when others raise PF, and nits and OMC types. A lot of players I’ve seen won’t 3-bet QQ or AK.

Some players also have a wife or gf that will yell at them if they lose $200 so there’s no way they are playing 2/5 and risking a lot more.

However, 1/3 with a $500 max buy-in instead of $300 max tends to be a much better game. Much bigger stacks and I think it does scare off a lot of tighter 1/2 and 1/3 regs that are used to playing in smaller games with a $300 max.

2/5 has a lot more aggressive pros, occasionally has 5/10 players who are waiting to be in a 5/10 game, and at some of the tougher 2/5 tables even the weakest players are easily good enough to beat 1/3 (where I’ve played).

But I still agree with Bart. It’s much more aggressive but because it’s a much bigger game you can win a lot more. There aren’t as many weak players, but when you do play against them it’s in a much bigger game with much deeper stacks.

I think what people don’t understand in this thread is that most of us don’t live in Vegas. If we had lots of 2/5 games to choose from and use our skill to find soft games, then we would all play 2/5. However, when all the 1/3 games are soft and they open the 2/5 game and it’s awful - a few short stack nits, and the rest strong, solid players - it makes no sense about rake.

If we had whales sitting in the 2/5, yes we would be playing. I think it’s all relative to circumstance. When the whales walk in our rooms, they play 1/3 and maybe straddle a lot.

I assume most people here are based on the US. Where I live (Europe), the entire framing of 2-5 vs. 1-3 doesn't even make sense because rake isn't standardized for any stake; each casino can just do whatever they want (not to mention private games, but private games usually have higher rake). 2-4 (usually it's 2-4 not 2-5) may have higher rake than 1-2 depending on the place. Could also have different player strength depending on the place. The poker scene is also tiny in comparison.

And my casino doesn't even have 1-3, it has 2-4 and 5-5 and 5-10. I've also played 2-4-8 at a different casino.

Bart cut his teeth in high-rake games, and his content is distributed globally, often to people in high-rake environments.

If your local rake is low by comparison to the global average, and if the 1/3 games are noticeably softer than the 2/5 games, and you're not trying to pay your bills with your poker winnings, an argument can be made for playing 1/3 instead of 2/5.

If you do play 1/3, and are concerned about the rake (as you should be, no matter how low it is), a good adjustment is to play fewer pots, but try to make the pots you play bigger, when the rake is capped. You'll end up paying less rake winning a low number of big pots and paying more rake winning a high number of small pots.

I play for fun. I've played both 1/3 and 2/5. Generally, the 1/3 games are softer and more fun than the 2/5 games in my local room.

This is good advice --- and possible to base strategy on it. 3betting rather than cold-calling initially springs to mind (as well as buying-in deeper).

wait til you guys hear what happens when you move up to time games

If you are playing fairly tight, you are paying a smaller share of the rake than the rest of the table is. The promotional rake mostly goes back to the players so should not be considered rake. Most places don't have a drop like California.

With multiway pots and shallow, there are certain ways you can print without needing strong deep stack postflop skills. For example, small pps are hugely profitable 5-ways against players who will stack off or close with 2 pair. Then you can 3! JJ+/AK over a raise and callers and build a huge pot pot with low SPR with shallow stacks, so it is easy to go with the overpair or TPTK. You will often have a pot of 75 or so 5-ways and it will get checked around or a tiny bet and calls, so you can often bluff at it and maybe barrel.

Not everyone might want to play HU pots 200xBB deep against regs.

Yeah, it really depends on your skill set and what you're good at / what you ain't. Doubt hardly anyone here plays in a worse rake trap than I do (my 1/3 NL game being raked $9 + $1 + $1) but I've still managed to do ~okish (although admittedly not crushing either) using a ~shortstack strategy.

GcluelessoutrunningtherakenoobG

Don't be a tease. Tell us what we're in for. How do time games differ, in your observation?

I speak to a few regs. who play in the timed 5-10 games, that run locally, and they are all happy to tell people it's the lowest rake by far ... a few of them will even rant about how the big problem is that the rake is much less visible in non-timed games, and that's the main reason it's so high.

BUT, and I feel like this can't be overstated, I'm also pretty sure any 100-200 games have an almost non-existent rake but I'm 100% not playing those.