First +1 regarding polling 100 top 5/10 pros to get a good winrate average

2nd: I think if you're looking for a baseline as to how you're winrate stacks up 100/hr seems like a reasonable number to say I'm doing very well (whether you're playing well, running hot, etc is obviously up for debate but being strictly results oriented you're doing well)

3rd: I'd be curious as to what the top live 5/10 winrate is in the country over 1k hrs is (is there a pro in this country who's made 250k over 1k hrs at 5/10?)

4th: Will winrates increase in the future as the economy recovers or will it decrease due to the level of competition constantly increasing?

1- no

2- winrates will decrease

4) There is really no point in speculating about what will happen when the economy turns around since that is not really anywhere in sight to begin with. Not to mention that people will have gotten better by the time that happens, PLO could be the new live craze by then, etc etc... Pretty much too many factors to be trying to consider how games will be in 5+ years.

Good post cs. One thing I can always depend on you for is honesty.

Gl man

Oh yeah I agree. I've been basically running badly for my last 500 hours, or 5 months, so you can definitely be running badly for a long time.

With live poker it's basically impossible to establish your true winrate because it takes years to get a really adequate sample, and by then your game has probably changed and the game around you has changed. Most players can be confident that they're winning/losing players after about 500 hours though. The fact that your edge is much bigger live definitely makes BE-stretches shorter in terms of number of hands (but not time).

I do think with the current state of the games, we can agree that win rates are dropping slightly.

The only way to assess win rate in my opinion, is to do it every time you sit in a game, by surmising your RELATIVE EXPECTED WIN RATE. And it's far from an exact science (which is why i totally agree with what dgaf said about enjoying the ride). We do these calculations by observing other people's decision making and comparing it to our own, every single time we sit down to play. We constantly try to see who is making mistakes, who's making good decisions and bad, and who's being and doing the exploiting. It's arbitrary and the information you use is constantly shifting. Unfortunately, just like when you're trying to narrow someone's range on the turn and river after specific actions, when trying to determine your own win rate, you're constantly working with incomplete information for a number of reasons.

1. your ability to be honest with yourself about how well you're making decisions and how often you're really playing your A game VS your player pool is hurdle numero uno. It's very rare that I meet someone who is capable of doing this in the first place.

2. Player's skill levels and tilt levels are always changing. There may be 10 regs that you think (correctly) you have an arbitrary 30/40$ edge against when you're all playing your B+ games and running equal. Add two or three recreational players to your games constantly, and you have a nice win rate, hypothetically of course.

But what can happen, and often does, without people being truly aware of it is this: You start playing with 2.5 recreational players on average instead of 4 everyday. And the recreational players get a little bit better and start playing more snug. (We've all seen this over the past few years)

THEN, what also happens is that you can start to run under expectation for long periods of time, which causes you to play your B- game more than normal, because it's subtly affecting your decision making without you really being %100 conscious of it. And at the same time, some of the regs in your game are running really good, and the byproduct of that is that they're playing above the rim more than normal due to heightened confidence. So now you're win rate against the bad regs in barely there, and against the good regs you're actually playing at a disadvantage.

So, all the sudden your win rate has plummeted for 6-12 weeks, right under your nose, and you're not even aware of it. But then two years later, you're looking at your 5/10 results and trying to decide your win rate, and everything has changed! You're skill level, the player pool's skill level, the economy, game selection, the limits you're able to play due to that, and on and on

**** your results, we don't play enough hands live to even have a clue how variance is affecting us over the course of a few years. Try messing around with this variance simulator. It will blow your mind.

http://www.evplusplus.com/poker_tool...nce_simulator/

Once you can see the big picture more clearly, you start to realize how pointless this kind of discussion can really be. The best we can do is constantly define our edge in the best way we know how, play our A games as much as possible, play in the games where we honestly assess that we have the biggest edge, and let the results be whatever they are, because aside from the monetary value money has, the rest in pretty meaningless.

Figure out the variance in your game from your own spreadsheets or numbers others have provided. Take the square root of xxxx hours, multiply by your hourly standard deviation, divide by xxxx hours. Now you've calculated one standard deviation of your winrate over xxxx hours. If 2000 hours doesn't work, try a larger number. Trying to figure out a good sample size in live mid-low stakes capped games isn't fuqing rocket science...

lol, can i borrow your spreadsheets?

You're an LA player, right? Might want to pay attention to your market.

Good advice.

100/hour I'd say is easily attainable if you don't suck at deep play

When the online wizards say that a good winrate online is (/was) 1-2 PTRBB/100, is that before or after rakeback?

I believe that's before RB.

Even today, an excellent rate is around 2.5ptbb/100 and thats before rakeback. This also is speaking of the 200nl to 400nl range of game as well. Higher for lower stakes and lower obv for higher stakes.

Regs don't mean they are winning or good.

I don't know what "easy" means but most regs and I would think most 2+2 posters are not 10bb/hr winners, although I think that is achievable.

$100/hour is achievable in casino poker in the Northeast playing 5/10NL (AC, Philly, and assuming Connecticut) for a handful of players in each pool. There are some new iPhone based apps (PokerJournal is the best by far, imo) that make tracking all this very easy and automatic.

However. . . it's pretty rare that a player has both the proper bankroll management and emotional management to maintain the style that achieves that over years and years in a live setting. There are some who think that they are achieving this, and they may even have enough of a clue to deceive themselves into thinking that their short term results are real. It's brutal to watch them fall back to earth, but most do.

I'm basing this on the fact that most of the grinders who I see "stick" year after year are generally ABC TAGs who are pretty good at manufacturing games, entertaining the recreational players, and avoiding tilt. I'm guessing they're at about $25-$50 / hour, with about half my variance.

Many of the guys here deride these players. But these are the guys who I expect to see when I sit down in 2015.

Excellent and probably accurate post. I think we play together, and my assumptions are the same as yours. I have assumed that the average, successful grinder at 5-10 that you describe as ABC tags are around 30-35/hr, and the 10-10 ABC tags are around 40/hr. If they can get in 2k hours a year, they are making a good salary with independence. The handful of really good players in this pool have a much higher variance, but over time a much better win rate. Two great quotes in your thread:
"these are the guys who I expect to see when I sit down in 2015."
" It's brutal to watch them fall back to earth, but most do."

Too many variables to say for sure. There is definitely an adjustment moving back and forth between 5/10NL and 2/5NL.
Yep.
It just depends on too many factors. There are modestly +EV nits, and modestly -EV nits.

I play a 3k cap 5-10 game and my lifetime hourly is 119.25 over 521 hours. I know that it's too small of a sample, and obv I ran good during that time and quickly moved up to 10-20. But I feel I can beat that game for about 75-100 hourly consistently.

30/hr is not a good 5/10 winrate in any game IMO. When you sit with these 40k/yr guys in 2015 expect them to be miserable alcoholics who hate life.

The signs point to "no."

After all, these guys were there in 2006. They don't seem to have changed much in that time, either in playing style or attitude towards life.

It's not the lifestyle I would choose, but why can't you show a little respect for guys who've successfully managed to make a living from playing the game? You don't have to respect their skillz, but you should respect their longevity.

I don't think these people should be respected at all. If you are really that miserable making money by playing a game than you have pretty much failed at life. If you want an easyish 40k/yr get a job at Starbucks or whatever big chain and work your way up to manager. They make at least this and get medical benefeits 401k etc which poker won't give you. Oh and since you are some kind of management you can probably get weekends off so you can still play poker at peak times. I can't stand people who are always miserable and usually go out of my way to poke fun at them and be somewhat antagonistic. Ok so maybe I poke fun at almost everyone, but the difference is I don't care what the miserable crabs think of me. I don't want miserable/negative people near my business and I certainly don't want them near me when I am playing a GAME. Pretty much all the poker players who are successful I can play a 400bb+ pot with and then have dinner with them or a conversation and the result of that pot literaly has no effect on our mood or anything else. I've had players blow up and curse me out for making some "terrible" play, but then 30 mins later apologize and shake hands, that I can respect. Not some d-bag who complains every time his Aces/set get cracked or he goes more than 30 mins without a playable hand.

As much as I agreed with your other post, and I respect your objectiveness in posting in these forums, I have to disagree with your above viewpoints. I don't like negative people either, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't respect someone. There are hugely successful business people that are just negative. I play with good, successful poker players, many of which were very successful at online and effectively transitioned to live to earn what I expect to be 75-100 BB/hour, who give off a hugely negative and miserable auro at a live poker table.

Just because the grinders we are talking about aren't as good as the better players doesn't mean they should get a job somewhere else. Their miserable demeanor doesn't mean that they hate poker more or less than any other endeavor. They are choosing this lifestyle for whatever reason. I personally come from very meager beginnings and I know what it is to have to work hard for little. Personally I love poker, so if I had the choice to work at Starbucks or play a game that allows me freedom and enjoyment, then the choice would be easy. Poker players can choose to invest in 401(k) equivalents, but obviously most do not (I could write a book on how bad poker players spend money outside of the table).

I am ok if you want to antagonize people you don't like. I chide people for being negative at the table. Just don't think that they don't deserve respect just since they grind for lower amounts than the better players. They didn't fail at life. They probably would be miserable doing anything.

As an aside, these guys in 2006 were probably making 75-100 an hour then since the games were so good and their style, while not optimal, still got the money.

If these guys want to grind out $35/hr they should be playing 2/5. They'll get paid more often and with less variance (which I'm assuming is what they are afraid of). It's not fair to other professionals and fish who want to gamble to have these guys taking up a seat. It's comparable to a homeless person who comes into a restaurant, eats from the bread basket, drinks a water, and then leaves without tipping. That guy should be eating at the shelter for free down the street instead of taking customers away from the restaurant and making another guy wait in line.