The vast majority of players lose at poker, so $30/hr would be far more than the average player makes.

I think $30/hr was meant in relation to full time players. So $30/hr at 2/5nl would be below average for full time players.
Those that consistently lose money are recreational players who can afford to lose since they make an income from something else and poker is an expense in their life.
Also, professionals who make under $30/hr usually quit and pursue other endeavors since their time can be better spent to make more money.

I also think you can only classify a player as a winner / loser only if there are ~1000 hours logged.

With a chart you can also see how much the win rate has improved in the last 250 hour chunk etc.

Good point. I think the hours logged should actually be higher. Assuming a full time player of 2,000hr a year, I think you need at least 1 yr to be considered a professional and over 2yrs (4K hours) to be a consistent winner.

What other profession would you require less than 1 yr of experience to be enough?

The long run in poker is really long = a great number of hands. You can find all kinds of opinions. In order to understand you really need to understand the math, fiddle with the numbers, and work it out for yourself. Math guys don't even agree. Different statisticians will come up with different answers. All those answers only suggest, with some degree of likelihood, what the real number is.

If you're familiar with the Normal Distribution (Mean and Standard Deviation are the Parameters) and The Central Limit Theorem, then you have the tools to do the calcs yourself. Anything else and you're just trusting somebody else knows what they're talking about. You use the sample statistics to estimate the parameters.

Stats can be used to make the untruth seem true.

Here's a link that says 100,000,000,000 hands are necessary to establish you're winrate to within .09% with 99.7% certainty:

https://www.deucescracked.com/forums...n-100-Billion-

Here's another link to a 2+2 thread where RustyBrooks contribution discusses the ins and outs of statistics and it's limitations:

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/15...g-run-1115874/

I've hung out in the probability forum and am familiar with RustyBrooks. He's a stats guy. I have a BS in stats but that really barely scratches the surface of the ice berg that is stats. I'd say 100,000 hands is probably enough if you're an objective and pragmatic person. But that's just me spouting off.

The rub is that 100K hands is about 3000 hours. And in that much time your game has changed significantly. So, all bets are off. No Dice

I'm better at stats than I am at poker. And I'm really not that good at stats imho.

Danny's article was about the $500 cap Bellagio 2/5 game, not the $1k cap games that you and most of your trusted sources probably play in. Not saying he's right, just saying you're not proving him wrong.

$13 an hour playing 2/5? And you expect people to take your "advice" seriously? You're just another guy that wasn't good enough.

Above is Daniel's quote. He says they MAY make as much as $30/hr from what he has HEARD. It doesn't sound like he is making any strong claim at all.

Squid doesn't know anyone that plays 2/5 at Bellagio? Seems unlikely. I know players all over the nation that play these stakes and have played them myself. The highest 2/5 winrates I've ever heard of all come from a $500 cap game.

Squid can confirm people playing at b winning more than 30/hr by a decent clip

I'd like to say/add a little more to my post about long run considerations.

The math is only the math. You can't argue with the math. You can argue with the validity of the application of the math and what you can and can not infer. Those are different things - math is not wrong but it can be wrongly used.

Sorry - I digress - that's not really the point of this post.

Math ignores a whole other side. That other side is your personal qualitative evidence that you are a winning player. This is where your own objective\ity could give you a leg up on understanding if you're a winning player or not.

I believe everyone is results oriented. There's just no way around it. You're more likely to analyze hands you deem (at game speed) are noteworthy and deserve careful thought about how you played it and how you could have played it. We're all merely mortal.

But those who lean toward objective and pragmatic are probably in a better position to understand how well they're playing. Some things are obvious and they happen frequently; you get sucked out on = you got your money in good, or you suck out = you got your money in bad. But there's a multitude of things that just aren't obvious; how large/small should your stack be to push ai with JJ from the small blind when ep raised 4x and got 2 callers? If you push and win or lose, did you make the right decision? Can you argue that it's better to see a flop first and push if no over cards come? Does it depend on your stack size and/or the types of players who have already entered the pot? And if you push pf and lose when a K comes on the turn (this happened to me recently), are you more apt to think about it later? The answer is yes for me. I now think calling pf and pushing otf would very likely have won me the hand (I was short stacked, 20bb).

Oh well, I just want to say that if you've played thousands of hours, you probably know how good you are or aren't.

btw, I took another look at that page where it says you need a 100 billion hands and I'm confused on whether or not whoever did it knows what they were doing. And I don't care enough to figure it out because it's really just mental masturbation at this point in my poker life.

peace - I'd still rather not see any of you at my table! But, if I do see any of you (that includes all y'all <--- redneck for everyone), I'd love to take you out for a meal and talk shop (most likely that's me learning from you).

I'm the cheapest guy I know. But the meal is on me. I like "The Loft" at The Orleans. You get a lot of bang for your buck there unless it's changed in the last couple of years. Now I'm thinking about food! I like sushi too and a great fantastic burger sounds good as well. Or may be mediterranean (schwarma or gyro) or vietnamese or Thai. Seafood = yum. Damn, I'm gonna get on yelp and figure out what to eat now.

The $30/hour for top 2/5 players in Vegas can not be accurate. I know quite a few 2/5 players, and I know of a few of them that at one point were making $50/hour and up. The others that averaged the $30/hour or less, didn't stay professional as they couldn't handle the grind for $25/hour. The guys that were making $50/hour range give or take, moved up and play higher whenever a good game is running, and put in less hours at 2/5 now.

Honestly I think the $30 an hour at Belagio statement is not far off. The reason is is that it's $500 max which is a lot lower than the casino I frequent for example. Which is $2500 max. So while there will be a small % of winning players that make over $30 at the B, the average is still probably in that area for the majority of the ~%5 / % 95 winner / loser poker player at the B.

$30 an hour, It's a little low of an estimate. But i dont see that number being much more accurate at anything over $35 - $40 2/5 B winrate for a pro there.

What you hear, what your pro friends tell you, those numbers are such a small sample size and don't take in account the low win rates that your friends on a downswing might not mention. $30 might not be that far off.

But maybe it is? My winrate at 1/2 has been $45 an hour over 1k hours. But that was at a $500 max 1/2 table. I still have a lot of room to grow as a player to increase that win rate. I just don't have many hours logged at Belagio 2/5 though so without a study or survey I don't think anyone can say for sure if $30 is accurate.

That number for a "top" player is definitely way way off. Top ~%2 / %98 player in the player pool economy I would say makes $65 - $75 at 2/5.

Nobody here has accounted for the downswing in NL Live action players..You tell me you average 45 or 50 per in 2/5? Great! What year was that? Today's game reminds me more and more of the middle/late 90's..By the end of the century, NL was dried up in Vegas and almost everywhere else ..This form of poker has a major flaw that is slowly (because of the size of the boom) eliminating the real soft money..

I'm pretty sure that the real solid Vegas grinders are still making 40 per at 2/5 1000 to 1500 buy in..But I highly doubt they can average what they did 5 years ago and probably even 2 years ago.

I'm guessing Daniel's people are pretty close to spot on with that 30 per estimate in a 500 buy in ..The reason I have to guess is because I dont bother with that kind of setup.

This is an Income Disclosure Statement from a very popular MLM (pyramid scheme) company. I'm posting this because I've always believed that poker and MLM schemes are very closely related to each other. Both occupations are filled with people who believe they can make an amazing living at their occupation. And technically, they're right. People actually do make millions in MLM schemes and in poker. But the number of people who actually get there is ridiculously small. Less than 0.5% ever make higher than a middle class income in MLM schemes. The vast majority make peanuts. I have to believe the poker world is VERY similar to that. Most people who "go pro" in poker won't lose money, but they won't achieve anywhere near what they expect to. The business model of MLM schemes guarantee that no matter how awesome you are, only a small percentage will ever succeed. I think the same can be said of the poker world.

This is why I believe OP's opinions should be given more respect. His experience is almost certainly similar to the 99% of poker players who tried to go pro but were never able to make it. The people who talk about wild success are either the 1%, or more likely they're just part of the 99% who have bought into the scheme but haven't figured out the scam yet.

I don't know if I can get behind your analogy but it's all in the numbers for me. For every one guy making $50/hour in 2/5 there's has to be 9 guys losing $10-$15 an hour each. It's a 0 sum game. The house is taking money off the top. It's just the way it is. There's no way around it. It doesn't seem that way. It's hard to wrap your head around that reality. But that's it.

You have to have an incredible amount of discipline and be willing to go out to play and end up not playing because the game conditions aren't right. You have to be willing to fold AQ utg under certain conditions even when your mind is screaming that AQ has value and folding it is squandering that value.

It's a ****ing mine field and a mind ****!

I definitely think it's more a people game than a card game. You have to remember how people play their draws so you can steal from them when they're on a draw. You have to know what people think they know about how you play and know how to use that to your advantage. You have to be patient and wait for the cards to cooperate with your grandioso plan because you're so smart!

Not everyone can be in to top 10%. Basically a bunch of people have to be in the other 90% for you to be in the top 10%. This is true for lots of things in the world.

Some people, like OP, are in the 90% while others who claim to make over $30/hr are in the top 10% (if their win rate figure is accurate.) with poker, I know that lots of people don't accurately track their numbers, flat out lie, or suffer from a mix of both so I understand why there is some hesitation in believing people's comments on win rates.

I don't think the size of the blinds has any relation to winrates.

How deep stacks are and how good the game are will determine how much you can win.

There is a huge difference among different 1/2 and 1/3 games and I'm guessing the gap is even larger for 2/5 where you have games that will play more than twice as large as others.

Oh really?

Yeh, no **** right.

Point is someone saying $x an hour at 1/2 or 2/5 doesn't really tell you much.

Hey I really enjoyed this OP because it basically sums up my feelings about poker. I moved to Vegas 7 months ago and I just reached 1000 hours logged with a winrate of about $15/hour. Pathetic really. I am pissed at myself because the last 7 months have been a total f'n grind. I wake up, study poker, watch videos, play online, then head out to the casinos and grind 1/2 or 1/3. I have had some good winning weeks where I feel like I'm the man, but I feel awful, just plain awful when I lose. All in all, the money I have made playing poker is not enough to sustain my lifestyle and I live pretty modestly. I have to quit though because I had a very expensive month outside of poker where I had to spend about 5K (1/3 my life bankroll) on personal things.

It's okay to shoot for your dream. I am happy I came to Vegas and gave it a real shot. Because in 50 years I can at least not have any regrets. But I know there is cooler stuff out there. I think I might go teach English in a foreign country or be a backcountry tour guide. Casinos are everywhere and I am always going to play poker so I am not just giving it up for good. But yeah grinding for a living is a grind. I've been laid very few times while here in Vegas. I don't do any drugs and I barely drink. I've gone clubbing a few times with friends. I've made very few friends. I had a streak where I went to the gym but then I had a bad week of poker and I have been playing catch up ever since - saying to myself, well once I win that money back I can get back to the gym.

A little depressed that this chapter in my life is pretty much over (and so close to the WSOP!) but I am excited to move on. Actually I would really like to work for Pokerstars or a poker magazine or something like that but those jobs are hard to get it seems. Advice on how to get a job inside the poker industry would be really helpful.

I think of poker as this vast ocean. We all start out as little fish and we try to eat eachother up and get bigger and stronger so that we can swim faster and farther. If you want, you can fest pretty good on the algea growing in the shallow waters. But the deep water is very attractive and we all want to be able to swim in the deep waters because thats where the big fish thrive. Well, most of us are going to get eaten up. And even if you are good at avoiding getting eaten up and you feast pretty good yourself, there is always a chance of a big hurricane coming around that can throw your against the rocks.

Thanks for letting me spill my beans.

Nice post FlusheeDraw. Thanks for your insight!

Nice post. Poker definitely has its ups and downs. Sorry about the big life expenses that seem to have knocked you off track. Can I ask what happened?

In terms of poker, that hourly is pretty tough to live comfortably off of. The worst has to be that after 7 months, you are leaving right before WSOP which can bring your hourly up A TON! You can get to $20+/hr for the year of you make it through the entire WSOP. It's possible that it might change your view off Vegas poker entirely and your bankroll a ton too. Just saying.

With so many tourists in Vegas and spending so much time on the strip playing poker, your pool of potential friends is pretty shallow so it is tough to make lots of friends.

Also, it seems like 1 problem you might have had was being too focused on poker. Many people come here to play poker and put in 50+hrs a week because if you're making $25/hr playing 60 hrs vs 40hrs, that's a difference of $25K a year! This tends to burn people out because as soon as you hit a run bad week(s), it's a total mind f**k! I did this myself and quickly learned to diversify my interests so that if poker sucked this week, I have something else going on in life to fall back on. Don't put all your eggs in one basket so to say.

Good luck with whatever is next for you!

I worked in sales prior to poker and it prepared me A LOT for playing poker professionally. I see the same things bring down poker players that made salespeople crash and burn and then leave.

Both require persistence and being used to (mentally) failing and facing loses/rejection. You need to remember that it is a numbers game in both. In sales, if you put in the calls and get rejected a ton, you need to keep going with a positive mindset to get the sales on future calls. If you get down on yourself, you're sales approach will suffer and you will crash because you won't be bringing your A game.

With poker, when you run bad you can't tilt and begin to play your B or C games, or worse! You might get bad beat multiple times in a week but you need to remember that it is a numbers game and overtime the run bad will balance out with run good of you keep playing your A game.

Both are psychologically draining when running bad and this kills people the most. Both are obviously commission based so you need to be comfortable with variance in your income.

Both also offer flexibility with your time and both give you a lot of power in your hands. Unless you are being micromanaged, both all you to analyze yourself and find and eliminate your flaws. Both require you to do efficient time management so you are working efficiently. You don't want to be playing the slow hours and missing the wild Fri and Sat night games!

Both have high highs and low lows and it goes back to being psychologically prepared for both jobs.

Also both can be taught to open minded people willing to trust their teachers and believe in the system.

Running good to start off are also good in both jobs. The reason I did so well in sales is because I ran well when I first started and I saw how much money I can make as I was sold on the job. Same thing with poker too!

I've seen plenty of good, smart, and nice people crash and burn with both professions.