Originally posted by pokeng
Hi, Ivic.
Very good content as usual. I think i did ask you this before, but, i cant find the post. Given, the current state of the games, and the almost Zero rakeback from PS, what is the minimal buy you should play spins to get at least 5$/hour under these 3 scenarios:
1. 2 Tabling
2. 3 Tabling
3. 4 Tabling.
I ask this because i dont know what is a standar win rate prerakeback for the diferent stakes: 1, 3, 7 and 15. I live in south america, and that 5$/hour is the treshold to start living lets say normal.
Thanks a lot.
Originally posted by pokeng
Hi, Ivic.
Very good content as usual. I think i did ask you this before, but, i cant find the post. Given, the current state of the games, and the almost Zero rakeback from PS, what is the minimal buy you should play spins to get at least 5$/hour under these 3 scenarios:
1. 2 Tabling
2. 3 Tabling
3. 4 Tabling.
I ask this because i dont know what is a standar win rate prerakeback for the diferent stakes: 1, 3, 7 and 15. I live in south america, and that 5$/hour is the treshold to start living lets say normal.
Thanks a lot.
Hi pokeng,
Just to clear confusion, my name is Predrag, my friends call me Pedja (nickname) and Ivica Iliev 77 is current sports director of Partizan Belgrade. So you guys can call me Pedja, it feels funny getting called Ivica Ivic Ivi all the time ♦
In regards to your questions, they are spot on, on to give you detailed answer I would actually advise you to do following things:
- Download SwongSim latest version HERE
- Run the program
- Select the site (Example: Poker Stars)
- Select the stake that you are aiming or currently playing
- Select number of games that you play per month (I use 100 hours estimate to calculate hourly easier, so 3 tabling 100 hours is 2500 games for example)
- In the rakeback % add 4 or 5% as that is current Stars RB program
- Select to display winnings in money not buy ins
- Bellow that column write stake that you play (example 7 for 7$ spins on Stars etc)
- Finally, in the chips box (all the way up, close to ITM distribution of 1st 2nd and 3rd places) enter cEV that you expect to have.
Once you input all this information, you should check winnings amount and then take that amount and divide it by 100 (because you used number of games that you get for 100 hours of grind) and that is your actual HOURLY on given site and stake with RB.
The beauty of this software is that you can get answers all on your own thanks to it using numbers that you have and are aiming to have.
Now my recommendations for actual numbers and stakes:
2 tabling
If you are 2 tabling, your edge should be much higher and therefore your cEV should be very high - especially on micro and low stakes even up to 30$ stakes on Stars. The reason is because you play many games with 2 recreational players, very little vs 2 regs and then some % of 1 reg 1 recreational player. This allows you to maximize your cEV by having 70+ cEV 2 tabling easily in my opinion. The higher the cEV , the lesser will be the variance and lesser will be importance of RB ! This is why a lot of coaching and staking programs ask their members to only 1 to 2 table, to maximize the edge of HUDs and game plans and to decrease variance. In other words, if you are 2 tabling and have low cEV (I would say lower then 70 on stakes up to 30s), you probably have both pre and post flop leaks and have not learn to readjust to game plans properly. Also, added value with 2 tabling is that you have more time for decision making and you can go more deep with each hand and actively learn while grinding (improve your range vs range, combo counting, pot odds, check stats of opponents etc).
Major problem with 2 tabling is volume. You get up to 15-16 games per hour and grinding 100 hours per month you get 1.5-1.6k games. So regardless of higher cEV, your hourly may be very low due to low number of games that you play - again this depends on stakes and what your hourly hunting is. Since you mentioned 5$ per hour, you will get this soon on 7$ stakes 2-3 tabling easy in my opinion!
3 tabling
This is better because now you play 24-26 games per hour, your decision time needs to be more automated and now you start to really see effects of hourly calculations (especially with sites that offer higher RB then Stars for example). You play 2.4k+ games per month (2.5k more realistic) in 100 hours of grind, and now your cEV for example if you are good with game plan pre and post flop and automating stats reading and adjusting should not suffer much. In other words, if you were 2 tabling with 70 cEV , 3 tabling with 63-66 cEV is certainly possible and it wil actually give you better hourly vs 2 tabling, because you play 50% more volume vs 2 tabling, therefore you get 50% more money from RB alone which more then makes up for lost win rate. Be careful when adding 3rd table, if your hourly suffers greatly (if you drop by 10 cEV or more vs 2 tabling) I suggest you practice more game plans, stats reading and post flop spots that cause you trouble before going full into 3 tabling.
4 tabling
Finally, 4 or more tabling is where true mastery of the game is - in my opinion. If you can 4 or more table and not have a shitty cEV, and that again depends on stake, site, field (if you play a lot of recreational games which Stars no doubt offers) you can still get very good cEV (in my opinion 60+ cEV 4 tabling on 15s is possible, so stakes less then 15s you can have even higher due to more recreational type games). The higher up you move, the more reg games you will have - this is the rule of thumb in Spins.
Now key things when deciding what you should do (2 vs 3 vs 4 tabling) and where you should play (Stars low to no rb vs other sites with RB) is following:
- How do you react to "large" swings per day?
If you loose your shit when you drop 20+ buy ins in day in and day out, then stay on Stars and play recreational games because other sites have (in general) more reg games (depends on stakes and your ability as well!). If however you can handle those swings, then other sites are probably better option (depends on stakes you play currently ofc as well as multi tabling skills and RB)
- Hourly importance
How important is hourly to you? Would you rather play for 50% higher hourly but play more difficult games or play for 50% lower hourly and cruise vs the field (listening to music, watching movies sit coms etc). These are individual preferences. Someone will always go for higher hourly, treat poker as business, aim to improve vs stronger field, while someone will pull the breaks and feel satisfied with such and such hourly but having less stress at the tables. Both approaches are perfectly fine in my opinion, you just need to find yourself and be true to where you fit. Ideally, you want higher hourly and to have both stressful games and less stressful because stressful games cause you to work on your game, dig into lost hands and find leaks that you improve while less stressful games increase your cEV and you print money. However, like I said, nothing wrong sacrificing hourly for less stressful grinding and less to no trouble spots. Since you mentioned 5$ hourly, you can get to this on Stars even playing 3$ stake and definitely possible on 7$ stake with lower cEV 2-3 tabling so that can be ideal choice (constant traffic, great ratio of 2 recreational players per game, safety of site etc)
- How safe do you feel playing non Stars site?
This can be huge issue for most players and stables because Stars is most secure site no doubt. So if you don't feel safe moving your money to other site(s) then simply don't do it, stick to Stars.
- Traffic
When do you grind usually? Can you adjust your grind times to play other sites?
Stars has 24/7 traffic, other sites lack this greatly so that comfort and knowing that you can fire at any times 4+ tables at Stars is worth so much to a lot of people. However, if you can adapt to grind times and change up your grind routine, you might benefit more from playing other site with RB vs Stars.
- Importance of RB
Unlike Stars now, most other sites offer RB. In games like Spins its important to have RB to cover losses because 50-100 buy in swings (depends on your cEV, ratio of regs in a game and variance) are standard IMO. So having RB can really cut down those losses to less painful ones, while on Stars when you drop 50 buy ins it can feel like it will take forever to return those without RB now. Again, less rake on Stars so with same cEV on Stars vs other sites, your variance will be better, swings will be lesser but important thing is no matter how good your realistic cEV is, you will have swings. I think its very important to have RB because when the shitty months come when you put in 2.5k+ games and you are BE pre RB, RB can actually give you money for your living expenses and more while on Stars you make 0$ that month and that can affect mindset of a lot of players.
Conclusion:
- If 2 tabling, aim to have 70+ cEV on any stake from 1 to 15s on Stars (other sites as well)
- If 3 tabling, consider changing to sites with RB and aim to have minimum 55+ cEV because with RB you will make more then 2 tabling Stars with 70 cEV
- If 4 tabling aim to have 50+ cEV, don't play Stars because you are missing value to get huge portion of hourly money through RB, so switch sites and calculate the hourly using swong sims software I shared in the post in the beginning.
- Stay on Stars if your goal is to play micro to low stakes 1-2 tabling and work on your game. Move sites if you can play 3 or more tables because chances are you are missing at least 30% (most RB programs on any site are 30% worth) of your hourly increase if not more.
- Finally, keep working on your game, learn to play regs and to maximize winnings vs recreational players because games are getting thougher day by day and its important to maximize winnings and hourly at every single point of time.
Hope that helps and clears doubts - for exact numbers for 5$ hourly, play around in Swong Sim software, it will help you a lot understand what targets you should aim for with 2 3 and 4 tabling (16, 25 and 32 games per hour).
P.S. Greetings and all the best to South America 
Currently I play $1-$3 USD Spins.
