Blackjack vs. Poker question for Fred Renzey.

I've studied Blackjack off and on for the last 15 years and know what it takes to become a winning player, and what realistic profit expectations are for a strong advantage player of blackjack given a certain bankroll.

I just started looking into Poker, Texas hold em in particular (of course), and am finding out that realistic profit potential is pretty minimal. And that's if you actually are capable of becoming a winning player...

I know that game selection is important, but from what I've been reading, a really good player makes about 2 big bets an hour or even less. So when you're finally a winning player at 1/2 limit, you can expect to make about 2 bucks an hour..

When you progress up in levels, the competition gets better, which probably reduces your win-rate, so lets say you put all the time in AND progress into a solid player, and play say 10/20 limit, and your win rate is reduced to 1 big bet an hour, that's ten bucks an hour. Poker just doesn't' look that profitable.

Am I missing something?

What are realistic profit expectations for a winning Texas Holdem poker player?

What about online vs. live poker?

Thanks a TON for your time Fred! Your advice is greatly appreciated.

If you're looking at the best way to leverage a given bankroll, live Poker is NOT usually it. 2 big bets an hour is pretty much not possible above 3-6. Maybe a world class player could do it, but really you're looking at 1.5 at best.

Online poker, on the other hand, is one of the best ways to leverage a given bankroll. Since you can play multiple tables, and around twice as many hands per hour, you are able to get many times the return with the same risk of ruin. You also tend to have a lower rake, and rakeback or bonuses, which greatly reduce the risk of ruin.

DO NOT ASSUME that the higher the higher the stakes,the better the competition. There are a lot of very weak players,nay,make that weak games out there.

I wasn't assuming ALL competition was stronger the higher the stakes. I'm sure a smart player can find weak competition and loose games even at higher stakes, which is why I acknowledged game selection is important, but isn't the competition GENERALLY stronger, the higher the stakes?

It seems like an "advantage poker player," would be a poker player with a strong game, who selected weak games carefully in order to reduce variance and increase profit.

As a matter a fact, I'm sure this is very old news to old poker pros, but it would be very profitable to form a team of strong poker players that kept track, specifically, of the weak games in vegas to take advantage of poker ploppies that go to vegas just to play a few hands of mistake prone poker. Maybe they call themselves the Las Vegas Poker Ploppy Mafia. LVPPM.

You see, everybody wins in this situation, the poker ploppies get some strong competition showing them how NOT to play poker, and the poker players take their money for the lessons.

Two Very Different Learning Curves

Xen -- Blackjack is an entirely mathematical game. All the numbers have already been crunched into a cookbooked system. You learn the system in advance, then get to the table and just execute -- no subjective on-the-spot decisions. On the way home whether you've won or lost, there's never any reviewing of your play, or second guessing to be done. It's all cut and dried. Within maybe 100 hours of study and practice, you should be a winning blackjack player.

Poker is based in math, but containes a high degree of individual on-the-spot subjective psychological decisions. These decisions (once you get to a stakes level where worthwhile money can be earned) are what separate the acheivers from the also-rans. Where blackjack is a science, poker is more of an art. You need to learn to "feel" where your opponent is at, and be good enough at it to trust your acquired instincts when they go against the basics. With poker, you're constantly learning, and you never know it all. Some opponent at the table always knows something you don't. Every playing session needs to be reviewed for missed clues to understanding certain key hands. Because of these intricacies, a poker player evolves into a winner over the course of 500, or maybe 2000 hours -- or maybe never.

If you think poker is easy -- you don't understand it. Sure, find three real fish in a game and they make poker easy. But those games aren't easy to find at worthwhile stakes.
Two big bets an hour? I've read that in print, but don't know anybody who makes that over the long haul. Most winning semi-pros earn closer to a half big bet an hour in limit poker, and it has to be at stakes of $20/$40 or higher so as to minimizre the effects of the rake.

Texas Hold'em is the simplest pokerform out there right now. With only two cards of your own, it's the easiest game to get a good handle on and can be learned to play at a high level of efficiency in less time than other pokerforms. Problem is, it's the same for your opponents. After a while, at a $40/$80 Hold'em game, if there are no weak seats at the table, everybody's playing the same way -- and you're all bucking the rake.

Poker is an enthralling game, and it can be won at. But it takes a long time. Five years from now, you'll look back at your present game and say, "Geez, I thought I knew so much back then, and there was a ton I didn't even know I didn't know". Five years hence, it'll be the same thing over again.

Blackjack is a game of perfection. You have to play almost perfectly to win. But poker is literally a game of mistakes. Everybody makes them. The good news is, you only have to make fewer mistakes than your opponents to be holding the longer end of the stick.

Hmm, if you are looking to make a sizable profit from playing poker, whether online or live, you shouldn't bother with limit poker. Although the strategies between limit and no-limit are very different, taking the time to learn how to effectively use pot odds, all-in bets, etc, will yield a much higher profit for you. Anyways, good luck in your endeavours,

Rob.

Thanks for the reply Fred. I'm enjoying learning how to play Poker, and it's a huge help to be able to ask people that have already been there what to expect. It's interesting to see that Arnold Snyder decided to concentrate on Hold 'em tournaments... I guess he must have taken the profit potential of all types of poker into consideration before deciding to concentrate on Hold 'em tournaments. Do you play any tournaments?

Actually the math based concepts are what I find most interesting. Aside from accurate and quick board reading, I'm currently memorizing pot odds needed to call common draws such as four to a flush, gut shot, open ended straights, etc. with one and two cards to come.

My thought is that there are probably quite a few players who don't even go as far as learning when it's mathematically correct to call, and how to play mathematically in other situations.

I guess that's why initially I was surprised to hear how little profit potential there is in some games. I figured if you knew the math concepts, you'd be at least ahead of half of the recreational players, or the players who learn a little, but not much more.

As far as NL Hold 'em, isn't it best to start with limit?

Actually, this is a big misconception. The reason is that you can generally play a higher level of limit poker on the same bankroll than you can NL. The standard bankroll for NL is about 20 buy-ins, and the standard bankroll for limit is 300 big bets.

So, for $200 NL, you would probably want $4000. But if you took that to a limit game, you could safely play 5/10 or 6/12. So, you can win 6 bb/100 at NL or 2bb/100 at limit, but because the big blind is larger in the limit game, you'll win more money. I'm not disputing that a good NL player can earn more big blinds, but generally they have to play at a lower limit game.

Another big reason I think limit is better is that, online, a skilled player can generally play more tables of limit than no limit, and it is more consistent for earning bonus money and rakeback. I usually play 6-8 tables of limit, whereas I can only play 4 tables of no limit, or 3 of omaha or stud.

And then you have the REALLY good limit players (who 2+2 will claim doesn't exist) that win 4-6 bb/100 in limit. They definitely should stick with limit.

The hugely prohibitive rub with No Limit poker as I see it, is that the variance goes thru the roof, which is a no-no for an advantage player. To keep the variance within acceptable limits, you need to play such smaller blinds that I doubt you can earn as much as playing limit. Just a personal observation that could be wrong.

I feel the same way about tournaments -- only in spades. We strive to cut the S.D. down to the bone, then play all-or-nothing tournaments. I'm not sure one lifetime of tournaments is enough to reach the long run. This conclusion I arrived at after playing more than 30 tournaments.

By the way, all my replies pertain to live poker.

One More Thing

One more thing -- Hold'em is not the only poker game out there. Recent TV coverage of No Limit Hold'em has made it the current rage and has brought throngs of new players into the poker world. But other games like Omaha Hi/Lo, 7 Stud Hi/Lo and straight 7 Stud have more strategic depth. TV doesn't like to broadcast these, because much of the viewing public will be confused by them. At the table though,you have more ways to outplay your opponent in these games -- in a limit format.

Holdem is still probably the best game out there, because the variance is so low. The only real problem with holdem is a lot of people have learned some idea of how to play preflop, so you lose some of your edge there.

Stud is problematic for a skilled player. The edge is similar to holdem, but the variance is higher. Aces versus a random hand is much better in holdem than in stud, because you don't share boards. Pot limit stud, on the other hand, is one of the best poker games out there; maybe better than holdem.

Omaha probably offers a larger post-flop edge to a skilled player, but there's not nearly as much difference in hand values preflop, so you lose that aspect of your advantage. Aces and Kings double suited are maybe a 2 to 1 favorite over a random hand. And Omaha has larger variance, because you can flop the nuts, get all-in and have several callers on draws. On the other hand, Omaha probably has the highest big-blind-to-average-pot-size ratio of any game commonly played.

Hi-low games have the rake problem. Frequently you can be ahead of some idiot who is chasing for half of the pot, but often times they will get there. Stud hi-lo is awful for this, and even when you scoop, the pot won't be that much bigger than a pot in a high-only game, maybe one and a half times.

I'm confused by this statement. Wouldn't tournaments reduce your variance, particularly on the negative side?

In a tournament, all you can lose is your buy in, whereas you could lose much more of your bankroll playing limit/pot limit, no limit, in one sitting.

What does 2+2 claim is the best win rate possible for online and live limit?

The 4-6 BB per/100 is referring to multi-tabling isn't it?

Also, how many hands per hour are normally played in live, and online, single tabling and multi tabling?

Thanks

As an analogy, imagine playing blackjack where the only bet you can make is on whether you'll be dealt a pat 20 on your next hand. If you hit, you will be paid 8-to-1 on what is normally a 9.6-to-1 shot. So you bet only when the count is such that the odds against you are 7-to-1 or less. You've got the best of it, yet there's about a 20% chance that you'll lose your next dozen bets -- somewhat analagous to going "0-fer" in 12 straight tournaments. But your chance of going 0-fer in 12 straight open play sessions is about 14,000-to-1 if you win 55% of all your sessions.

Moo -- I like Hi/Lo games because they have a low variance and so many players make serious errors by taking poor pot odds for half a pot. Omaha post-flop is the classic case. Many players will take punishment to draw to a hand that probably won't win if it gets there -- particularly straights. The value of post-flop hands is much more puzzling in Omaha than in Hold'em, which induces compounding mistakes to the bitter end.

In stud Hi/Lo, you simply have the ever-present subsidy of players going for high-only hands. Also in stud, reading hands becomes a bigger skill factor due to the exposed cards. So does misrepresentation with your board cards.

So you're saying that there's just too good of a chance that you won't make it into the money often in enough tournaments, due to the fact that even though you may play a winning game, the structure of a tournament causes problems getting into the money often enough. ?

Yes, that's it. Here's another example. At the craps table, the hard 8 pays odds of 9-to-1 while the actual odds against winning are 10-to-1. This rather closely approximates poker tournaments where they generally pay about the top 10% of the field.

Now suppose you had a "sweetheart deal" where they'd pay you 11-to-1 on the hard 8 -- but -- you could make only one bet per week. There's a 20% chance that you'll come up completely empty for the next four months.

Most people at 2+2 think that 2-3 bb/100 is the most you can win at limit holdem. But there are a small number of players doing better than that, in the 4-6/100 range. And that's per table, not multi-tabling.

So, from a bankroll perspective, if you can win 4 bb/100 at limit, there's basically no reason to ever play NL, because you would have to win 15-20 bb/100 with the same bankroll. There may be a few people that can swing 15 bb/100 at a low NL game, but it's damn near impossible.

Question for Fred Renzey or moo:

Do you guys have any tricks for analyzing messy straight boards?

Moo, if you play up to eight tables of limit at once, I don't see how you could calculate all possible straights, when you have more than one table with a messy straight board.

Sometimes I miss the top straight and lose to it with the lower straight, unexpectedly.