5.6/100 at 0.25/0.5 NLHE is ok to sustain with good table selection.

Oft quoted is 50k hands to before you know if you're a winner.

It is quite possible for bad runs for a good player to drop to 2bb/100 over 10k hands and peak at 10 bb/100 for the same amount.

Over 5k hands... you might just be 'lucky'

oopos limit.... I know nothing about limit but Steve quotes 7bb/100- which isn't actually that much different

The high variance of LLHE can make this very possible to maintain because of the large pots and action, but for the same reason, you could have 5k trends of -3 or -4 BB/100 which will take you back to earth. That's about what, $60-$80 over about 10-14 days? I don't see this as being impossible.

Possible, yes. Lucky, maybe. Do we really know yet? No.

To be up about $160 over 5k hands of .25/.50 still requires a good amount of skill, so I couldn't see you falling under 3BB/100. In penny NL, I'm over 80BBs/100 in 3k+ hands over the span of 5-6 days in this bet. Is this gonna be maintained through August or when I start playing .05/.10.? No, but it tells me that I'm playing well right now and to maintain this style of play.

Keep it up and 3-4 BBs/100 is very realistic. How are you selecting your tables?

Thanks for the input. Everyone seems to be echoing my thoughts. I'm playing well and winning well, at the moment. PT is giving me a 17.1 VPIP percentage and a TAP rating over these 5k hands, so I'm liking my chances of avoiding a meltdown.

Alex. In selecting my tables, i've basically set myself an entering stack of $10 per table, and look for tables with several stacks underneath that in which to pick on which isn't that hard to find.

I also don't mind seeing 1 or 2 BIG stacks (30-40) at tables like that as most I have seen tend to be looser players who are putting a majority of their bankrolls on the line if not all, which makes them fairly easy targets when I have a hand worth playing to the river.

So far this has been working on tables that are all very loose, as well as tables that have had at least 3 or 4 tight players (15% and less VPIP).

Wait, Alex, High variance???

NL has more variance... thats the point of NL. LImit is jsut a slow grind, You lose some, you win more. Your big hands don't always hold up, but you don't get stacked in the process, you just lose a couple bets. Theres no way I would consider LImit a "high variance game", and thats the main reason I play Limit 90% of the time. TIs a tedious, monotonous, grind, that is better garuntee, but lower WR, than NL.


6 bb /100, is on the upper edgs of sustainable. expect 4-5 in the long term. But 6 would be cool, and is possible. But yeah, You can never have a big enough sample to know.

BUki, Stack size has very little application to LImit play. I don't care if the entire table has 2,500 bb's in front of each of them. In fact I like that. I would prefer to be a healthy stack, yet still the shortest at the table. Means they'll hang around longer trying to recoup. ITs going to take several big hands to crack any healthy stack. For a deeper insight into this, we had a good thread a while back.

I wasn't very clear. I meant high variance and microlimits in relation to mid and hi limits where a lot of writers are playing where they say that you're looking for 1-2BBs/100 hands.

I think he was speaking of getting a read on people through their buy in amount. I don't look into this much in limit. The lobby gives you enough. It's my only problem with Empire. Their lobby sucks for finding NL and PL games. The limit games, I get enough from avg. pot, but I have to lurk more and longer.

It really depends on your style of play, bboy. If you play one game for 4 hours, playing SUPERtight, you'll have a low variance in NL and your SD will be fairly low as well. In limit, you'll really playing more as one long session if you play this way.

This really is a personal opinion that's also dependent on your opposition. I do have more variance, but make more in the long term MT'ing 10/20-30/60 than $100-$500NL games. The $500NL live game has a lot less variance because it's easier to profit waiting on a large hand and trapping as are the $100-$200NL games online.

Your VPIP heavily contributes to your variance and your opponents are a factor in your VPIP along with yourself. In NL, wait a biggie in a loose and reel in the fish. 4 people have already limped. Someone will grab the bait. In loose limit games, a lot of high potential hands are more playable in late position, due to odds as are chasing draws. In loose NL games, you can lower your variance by minimizing your draws because you're gonna get sucked out a lot less because you can control the price of your opponents' draws more effectively.

All in all, this is theory and everyone likes to argue what effects variance more if you're playing solid-aggressive poker- your opponents or you. I say it's how you react to your opponents and how you use the stakes to your advantage and to their weaknesses.