Limit Texas Hold'em: Expected Win Rate

Question
What kind of win rate should a good player expect playing small limit Texas hold em? I play mostly $1-$2, and want to know what kind of goal I should be shooting for. Thanks.

Answer
I'm assuming you're playing Texas hold em online? If so, then somewhere between 2.5 and 3 big bets an hour should be considered pretty good. You will hear people claiming to win more, and heck—for all I know maybe they are. But I would doubt it. Most players who claim gaudy win rates don't have a large enough sample of played Texas hold em hands from which to draw any real meaningful conclusions.

How big of a sample do you need? I'd say between 75,000 and 100,000 hands. That may sound like a lot, but trust me—a lot of crazy stuff can happen in a 20,000-30,000 hand run. I've had 20K runs where I've won 5+ big bets an hour, and similarly sized runs where I've just hovered above even. When we talk about the long run in Texas hold em poker we mean the real long run; not just a couple weeks of steady play.

Also, note that the 2.5 to 3 BB/100 benchmark is for players who are multi-tabling. If you're playing only one table you can probably inch above the 3 BB/100 hands mark provided that you're a) actually paying attention to your game, and not surfing the web or watching the tube while you're playing, and b) using a program like poker tracker. And even then I would think that 3.5 BB/100 hands would be a very, very fine win rate.

Back to Mailbag