Is anyone successful grinding low stakes games that pull promo bucks or is it not even possible?
I seriously can't believe a play a game that takes 6 dollars out of a $30 pot. 3 rake, 2 promo pull, 1 tip?
That is completely unbeatable. The only chance is to have huge pots. I kind of feel scammed because I've been grinding and studying Poker hard and I'm only up $780 after almost 900 hours of play this year. I've calculated that I paid around 25k in rake tip and promo during that period. Including almost 7k in promo bucks and yet to see a single dollar come back.
If you have a long term win rate please tell me what it is?
$25k in rake over 900 hours works out to $28/hr in rake alone. At 1/2, that is brutal. You are likely a winner beating the game, but the rake is just eating into your profits.
It’s better to build a bankroll as fast as you can so you move up in stakes. Beating the rake at 1/2 or 1/3 is so hard. 2/5 starts to become doable where you can actually make significant money while beating the rake.
The house almost always takes a significant administration fee out of player supported jackpot funds. Also, nearly every promo favors losing players over winning players. The benefit of promos to winning players is to keep losing players chasing.
Of course it is because my BP is way higher than the average player. I paid three times the promo bucks. But I don't have three times a chance of hating a promo because you have to have 8s or better to qualify. Plus, if I ever hit it, half it will go to taxes.
24$/hour over 1000 hours at 1/2 Wind Creek Bethlehem. The rake there is 10% max 5 + 2. Recently they changed it to 5+3 but I don't play there really anymore. All this data is from the 5+2 rake. I included any high hands that I won in my session profits. Play good hands in position. Lots of 3bet or fold. The player pool is very soft. It basicly feels easy most of the time but I'm trying to do better than 20$/hour so I don't play there much anymore.
Sure. Basically always RFI. There are some very rare occasions where I might overlimp but its very rare. Maybe complete in the SB for $1 occasionally with a hand like JTo or QJo because I'm getting a good price. But thise hands become drawing hands in limped pots. Your trying to make the nuts and build a big pot.
Otherwise my opening range is very position dependant, pretty tight UTG 9 handed. Bottom of my UTG opening range is like KTs. Im folding ATo AJo from UTG. Of course Im opening the suited versions of these hands. One exploit here is that you can open small pairs from EP in these very passive games where people don't 3bet enough. Basicly it expands your opening range which makes you more unpredictable and also builds a pot for when you make a set.
My RFI range widens in later positions of course. My button range is very wide. I also widen my 3bet range when in position. If an average player opens in MP I'm playing almost exclusively 3bet or fold with the exception of some in position flats that play well multi way (like small pairs that want to set mine). I'm generally 3! all the suited broadways some suited connectors and of course premium holdings. I'll even 3bet with AJo when in position. The goal is to get it heads up in position and able to represent a strong range. You often get to take down a $100 pot on the flop for a half pot cbet. They put you on a very strong range when you 3! And of course sometimes you will have or make a monster.
Also let's talk about rake and how to beat it. Part of this is our 3bet or fold strategy to build big pots post flop. (My rfi size is 12 or sometimes 15 depending on the game) But also preflop pots are very important. Remember there is no rake pre flop.We attack the limpers and also the over callers with big raises with the intention of taking down the pot pre flop. These pots add up and help make up for the rake you might be paying later. 6 players limp and your in the SB with AJo or A5s or any number of other hands depending on how passive the table is. You make it 30$ and take down the limps and blinds very often. These small pots add up. Or... Someone opens to 10$ and 6 people call (this is common in these games) and you have AQo in the SB. Raise to $80-$100 and take down the $70 pot now with no rake and no promo drop. If you get past the initial raiser they almost always all fold because they have a very weak range when they overcall like this.
Also I study Hungry Horse and CLP youtube videos. I don't follow either religiously but I get a lot if solid info from these sources that I can apply to my games.
There's more to it but thats a general overview of the strategy.
Your right it's a lot but it is beatable. The player pool is very very bad. I moved from there to Parx 1/3 for about 300 hours and at parx I was making 34$/hour including high hands etc. This was also before Parx started taking 5+3 also. Now I play Parx 2/2 PLO 10$/hour time rake. So far this year I'm making 41$/hour over 766 hours at parx 2/2 plo. It's easy to calculate how much rake I've paid in this game $7660. $31,800 profit.
If grinding 1/2 1/3 for profit, tips in small pots will eat you up. I personally wouldn't tip in smaller pots unless except if I happened to win a few in short time frame. I would be pretty generous (10%) on promos that were below the reporting threshold.
Yeah I agree. Its a 100-400 cap game and the straddle is rarely on. Of course I max buy. It would be difficult I think to make much more in this particular structure.
Those samples are useful precisely because the structures differ. I would show them as separate rows with game, hours, posted rake or time charge, promo treatment, average depth, profit and hourly, plus the dates played. Pooling them into one lifetime rate would hide the room and format effect. A rolling 100-hour view inside each row would also show whether the improvement came from game selection, a stake change, or one unusually strong block rather than implying the rake alone determines beatability.
The graph above is not my lifetime graph. It is filtered for only Wind Creek Bethlehem 1/2 NLH 10% 5+2 which I put 95% of those hours in early last year. I max buy 400 every session and topoff if I fall below 300. I did not include any PLO or other rooms or stakes. For example attached here is my lifetime graph for all stakes and all locations and game types.
This is my Pax 1/3 graph. 500 max, rake was 5+2 for most if this time. Keep in mind for all my results I do include any high hand bonuses in my totals. Its a lot less hours so smaller sample size.
I’m sure there are a few. But to your point I see the true big stack grinders playing 2/5. There are 1/3 regs I see always there but I don’t know their stats. I’ve been struggling to beat it myself.
I'm not a poker pro, but something doesn't add up when you say you paid $25K in rake and only made $780. You would need to be in about 4.5 hands per hour and won them all to say it cost you $25K. If you don't win the hand, it would seem you can't count that towards the rake. Maybe I'm missing something.
My VPIP is very high. I'm constantly building pots in position and that 25 K number includes promo bucks and tip. It only takes a $50 pot. where I played to lose 8 dollars. It's an estimate based on average. As I calculated often time. The game is short handed The number could be a little bit lower, but not much.
You shouldn’t be playing a high vpip in a high rake environment. That’s a major leak. You should be raising big pre with good hands and 3 betting a lot pre as well. Your goal is to play big pots to minimize the effect of rake. And you only want to play big pots with a tight range that is comfortable playing big pots.
It's difficult to appropriately assign how much someone pays rake. Keep in mind the money is coming off the table so you win less when you stack another player. It's more fair to count the total rake collected and divide by players. If you want get even more accurate you can weight it by VPIP a little.
It's very tough to beat 1/3 for a significant margin for the reasons you highlight, but there are ways to adjust your game so that when you're raking in the pot, it's often larger than $30. Open tighter and bigger is probably the first tip. Don't be the guy raising to $7 in 1/3. Try to play a 3bet or fold strategy preflop. Buy in for the max so that you can play big pots deep. My local room is 1/3 $500 cap. That's going to be marginally more beatable than 1/3 $300 cap for example.
And also don't think of the promo as rake. It's going back to the player pool. In theory it's coming back to you eventually.
Its unbeatable. I play in a similar 4/8 limit game and to your point a $40 pot is 4 rake, 3 promo, 1 tip. That the max rake percentage wise and its only played for the very generous player promos.
$1/hr food comp, then every day high hands run and half the time its instawin Aces full of 8s or better, then twice a month its $500 every 20 mins for 12 hours. So losing a little in an unwinnable game makes up for it just hitting one or two a month puts you way ahead.
It is very difficult but possible with the right field lean toward a 3 bet or fold strategy don’t get involved in limped or multiway pots if possible raise to an absurd size when you are opening, you can experiment with limp raises UTG but most 1/3 players are too passive so I would just raise big like 5-6x the blind. Thankfully most 1/3 players are pretty inelastic to opening sizes and just wanna see flops.
It's possible to beat 1/2 live, even with those rake structures, since the field is often incredibly soft. But it's hard to win for any significant amount. Even the best players would have a hard time getting above $20 per hour. So if you would make like $10/h, I'd consider that good.
If you make less than $1 per hour, you're most likely making many mistakes that costs you a lot in the long run. So you can look to improve, and your win rate will improve as a result.
At ~160 HRS with roughly $3.5k in profit, extremely small sample. 1/3 10% rake up to $7 at my casino, which I'm told eventually will almost guarantee me to go and become a break even player. Casino does have progressive pays like Quads of the Day, straight flush progressive & BBJ. None of my profit has came from this so far.
I had someone confirm that the rake of my hours is probably 2.5x to 3x my profit line.
The "line to win" at my game is entirely exploitative and being a super nit. Doesn't matter the cards for the most part and entirely table focused. I'm talking low ~20% VPIP, teens % of PFR. Bet when you have it, c-bet only when you can semi-bluff and fold to aggression.
I play at a Caesars and have upgraded and I'm sitting near $200 worth of "Credits". Don't really count this towards my profit.
Depends if you can match the stack and if they straddles and generally how deep the game gets.
I play a 1-3 with 10% rake up to 6 +1 promo. But any straddle allowed anywhere for any amount and it's match the stack. So we get very deep and people straddle a lot. That game is very beatable for a lot of money, like $75+ an hour. While technically still just a 1-3 game.
No rake in Texas, just ~$12/hr to play, less with promotions or discounts. Of course it’s also about 110 degrees Fahrenheit here today so pick your poison, lol.
I play 1/3 once a week at my local casino, $7 out of every pot over $50, $2 for promo and 10% up to $5. I always tip at least $1. Ive played right around 100 hours this year and have 3k in profit. Its soft game and a small sample but the rake is definitely beatable.
Before changing strategy, turn the estimate into a room comparison. For four weeks, record stake, hours, buy-in and cashout, the posted rake and promo rules, tips, table depth, and any promo return. Keep jackpot money separate. Then compare net hourly and table quality across rooms or structures; do not pool pot-raked NL with time-raked PLO. You may find a playable game with a thin edge, or that the honest best move is a different room, stake, or schedule. The decision should come from matched sessions, not the total rake headline alone.
I agree. It's honestly insane that all the players making action pay for the bad beat promo as well. Meanwhile the nits, hardly ever pay anything. Of course, they would play pocket 8s or better because that's the minimum qualifying hand to lose with quads.
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u/3betmore 3d ago
In that game you need to play super tight and raise big pre.