How many hours on average a week do you play?
What blinds do you play?
What is your hourly rate?
What casino do you mostly play in?

Thanks for input.

I try to play around 7-15 a week I possible. I play 200nl. My hourly over the last 60 hours is 35.09. I mostly play at the sycuan in San Diego.

15-20hrs week
$1/$2
$41.80/hr, 302hr sample size
Star City, Sydney, Australia

LOL

The real question whenever these threads come up is "How do you know you are beating the game for a decent amount"

So rather than post my rates, let me post my opinions based on grinding from the past 2 years of grinding 1/2nl, 1/3nl, and 2/5nl for a living. Even though I play 5/10nl as well, I don't have the hours at 5/10nl required to feel comfortable giving an opinion

Winrates fall into 4 winning categories for me: Breakeven, Okay, Good, Crushing

In terms of hours, you shouldn't start to believe your winrate until you get to a MINIMUM of 300hrs. And that should also include a self analysis of your wins and loses beyond "I got sucked out on". You should break down "how" you are winning and losing. The more of your wins that come from flopping/turning miracle gin hands like full houses and straight flushes, the more likely you are just running hot. The more your wins come from well thought out play and value betting and good folds, the more likely you are playing good. (Notice my use of the word "likely")

In terms of the winning categories, the following is my opinion.

1/2nl and 1/3nl (assuming 100bb buy-in tables)
Losing 50% of players 0bb/hr or less
Breakeven 20% of players: 2bb-3bb/hr
Okay 15% of players: 4bb-7bb/hr
Good 10% of players: 8bbbb - 12bb/hr
Crush 5% of players: 12bb+/hr

[B]2/5nl (assuming 100bb buy-in tables)
Losing 40% of players 0bb/hr or less
Breakeven 25% of players: 1bb-2bb/hr
Okay 20% of players: 3bb-5bb/hr
Good 10% of players: 5bbbb - 9bb/hr
Crush 5% of players: 10bb+/hr

I want to call attention to the CRUSH aspect. When you are on a heater, you can easily average 20bb/hr over a 100hrs leg. What often happens is someone gets on a heater, crushes the game for 15bb+ for a few weeks and then thinks "Man, i'm the next Ivey or Durr".

But then, the math catches up to them and they hit a "downswing" when in reality, its not a downswing, its actually just a normal swing.

The sickest example of this is there was this 2/5nl drooler who was one of the biggest donators to the game, easily would lose 3-5 $500 buy-ins per session.

Then I was at the table when he ran like god and made $5K in 2 hours. Then he went on the sickest 3 day run i've ever seen, 3 sessions where he cashed out between $4k to $7k.

So, now, he thinks he's crushing the game and asks my opinion if he should move up to the 5/10nl game which allows up to a $3k buy-in and really plays more like a 10/20nl. I tell him he's not ready but of course he thinks he's the best player ever so he moves up.

And then he has a lucky run at 5/10nl, 4 days of cashing out around $5k - $10k. So he's loving life, being a ballah and then the math catches up with him.

Over the next month, he easily drops over $70k at the 5/10nl table and the 5/10nl players literally FIGHT each other to get at the same table he's playing at LOL. All the while he's whining to me about suck outs and bad beats, etc etc.

What makes his downswing or more accurately "normal swing" even funnier is ego, since he "moved up" to 5/10nl the thought of coming back down to 2/5nl came across to him like slumming LOL.

Eventually he went through all his disposable income and disappeared from the casino for a few months until he got some more money. Of course "now" he considers himself a 5/10nl player and only plays that game, so he burns through his bankroll pretty quickly. He'll play for 1 week then disappear for a month then come back for a week burn through his bankroll, disappear for a month, rinse and repeat...

Two of my friends have paid the floor people to give them a call whenever he is at the tables LOL. Its like the batsignal. He comes and sits down and players literally come to the casino bursting through the doors out of breath rushing to the table hoping to get on the list and to the table before the free money train runs out of steam

dgi, are your categories just referring to regs? Otherwise, the losing 50% of the table at 1/2 (9 max) have to lose an average of 16bb/hr for the math to work out assuming $90 comes off the table every hour (-14bb/hr if ~$70 comes off the table per hour). I guess it's possible since it's LOL Live, but seeing that huge red figure surprises me a bit. No one ever admits to how much they lose and it's also a sobering reminder of what is needed for an easy NLHE game.

Oh and good story as well.

Thanks for analysis. I will post my hourly when it reaches 300 hours. Most people will not post their information if they are not a winning player or barely break even.

what's the point of standard deviation/hourly rate?

I've put in 167 hours over the last month and a half playing 6-12 LHE. My win rate is about 1.1 BB/hr, with a SD of about 12 BB/hr.

Unless they have eliminated the moronic rake that they had when I was there in 2006, this is not
Possible.

I was talking about everyone not just regs, basically my guesstimation on any random 1/2nl table. But yeah, i'd say that the average player loses about 16bb/hr easy if not more. Also keep in mind

Think about it. Assume a 100bb buy-in.

Its not unheard of for an average of 1 player busting out once every 90 minutes and 1 player reloading once every 90 minutes (if anything this is conservative.

So we EASILY got 133bb per hour flowing into the table.

Here is another way to think about it, how often do you see players cash out?

My typical sessions are 6 - 10hrs.

During my sessions, the majority of players DO NOT CASH OUT, THEY BUST OUT.

The casino I play at has 45 tables, 9 people per table. So that is 405 people in the casino. So with all these people isn't it interesting how the casino's cage only has 4 windows (usually 2 are closed) and that is enough to service 405 people playing poker? Think about that. That means that the vast majority of players aren't cashing out!!!

If I had to guesstimate, I'd guess that less than 10% of poker players playing a session cash out ahead. Not to say that players don't get ahead, they do. Its just that most players don't know how to leave when they are up. They play too long, tilt, get fatigued, make mistakes, etc and bust out.

Next time you play, while you are waiting to get seated, take a look at everyone playing, then look at the board, then look at the cage and see how often a player actually goes to the cage to cash out.

This is possible at 1/2nl IF its a deep stacked 1/2nl table where players average a 200bb+ buy-in.

We have an uncapped 1/2nl game in the Bay Area where the average buy-in is 200bb - 400bb. So sure, in that game, a $41/hr winrate is possible.

But If we are talking a 100bb max buy-in table, then $41/hr winrate at 1/2nl is extremely unlikely unless its the world's sickest heater.

I don't even know if 300 hours is enough. I just checked and I logged 295 hours at $2/5 with a win rate of $50/hour. But I know I dumped just over 4k in three days earlier this year (playing bad). Had I played good it would shoot my win rate to way too good. That makes me think I've been running good because I just don't think I'm that great of a player yet. I did run through a terrible down swing about a month ago but I dropped down to $1/2 in the middle of it so it mitigated my losses at $2/5. Combined this with the fact that at one place I play the $2/5 plays deep (rather than just 100bb) I'm not sure what my true win rate is and I have almost 300 hours. Maybe in another 500 and I will know.

My point is: there is so much more than just hours played to determine your win rate. I really like what dgi says and if you can find out how you are losing money and track it I think you can determine better how you are doing. More losses to suckouts versus more losses of playing bad = true long term win rate.

I have been in the gamblin scene for a long time (sole source of income blah blah blah). My belief is that DGI's numbers are way off. My honest opinion is that 90%+ of players can not beat the game of 2/5 nlh. But lets just for grins call it 90% Of the 10% that can "beat the game" most dont beat it for strong enough to withstand a major bad run or have bad bankroll mgmt and fall off the scene.

When I refer to bad bankroll mgmt I mean betting on craps, going out "baller" etc. The gamboolin biz is extremly tough and places like vegas are designed to seperate you from your money - and they do it very well.

As I said earlier this is a very tough biz. Most that set out to go "pro" fail (read 99%). In the past year alone I have seen a whole slew of people drift away. I'm sure some found something far more productive and rewarding - but most simply couldnt cut it one way or another.

If you are seated at a good table, most players are there to have fun and splash chips around regardless of the pot odds given. If there is more than two or three "serious" players at my table, I would rather table change.

You have some decent points within your post but I don't agree that 50% of players are breakeven or better in $1/2 over a good sample size. When you take into account the rake and that their are a lot of shorties not buying in for 100bbs that are quite bad these players will get lucky some days but over time will be huge donators if they play frequently without adjusting which many just don't do in an effective way.

Even if you factor in that some of the losing players are extreme donators with deep pockets (at least for the stakes they are playing) I still don't think 50% of $1/2 players are breaking even.