At the moment I'm sitting at 419.75 hrs and a $17.74/hr winrate. Pretty brutal downswing since then w/a 2 very nice sessions, a good session mixed in. Since my quoted post my sessions look like this:

-$330.00
-$378.00
$31.00
-$337.00
-$498.00
$750.00
-$89.00
-$90.00
-$110.00
$30.00
$6.00
-$170.00
-$106.00
-$271.00
$87.00
$108.00
$409.00
$805.00
-$401.00
-$571.00

Where do you play at? This sounds similar to my room, but they take $5 max rake?

I play in a little casino in Illinois.

Ah ok. I'm in Indiana.

Not directly in my log. I assume that bathroom breaks are uniform regardless of location and an unavoidable few hands I have to miss. But the transportation costs are worth considering when you have multiple options for places to play. Since the distance doesn't change from session to session, I use an average travel time for each location, and a general fuel cost (could make this more accurate I guess).

Take a simplified example:
Casino A, $5/hr winrate, 30 mins travel time one way, free parking
Casino B, $10/hr winrate, 60 mins travel time one way, $10 to park/tolls

Assuming a typical 6 hour session
A) ($5*6 winnings - 40miles/30mpg*$4/gal )/(6+1)hrs = $3.52/hr
B) ($10*6 winnings - 80miles/30mpg*$4/gal - $10 parking)/(6+2)hrs = $4.92/hr

Based on the raw winrate numbers, it looks like Casino B is a better place to play, but once we account for the additional travel time and costs, there is less difference between the two. If we decrease the winrate at B a little to $8/hr:
B+) ($8*6 winnings - 80miles/30mpg*$4/gal - $10 parking)/(6+2)hrs = $3.42/hr
In this case it makes more sense to go to Casino A, even though a raw 'at the table' winrate says otherwise. This gets even more pronounced if you correct for the same 'out of the house' session length, ie leave the house at noon and get back at midnight.


Now obviously these kinds of corrections depend on the length of your session, vehicle fuel costs, etc. So I agree with you that it doesn't make sense to include them directly in your session results. But they are handy when you're looking back at a year's worth of data looking for potential leaks.

wow my local dog track is 5/2 max rake. fcuking $2 bbj rake wtf is that man. probably why i just make the 2 hr drive to the bigger casino.

actually, if you are going to figure gas prices into your win rate, you also need to consider wear and tear on your car. so if you are driving twice as far to casino B that's twice as quickly you will need an oil change, other repairs, and, eventually, a new car.

True.
To some extent at least. The actual "wear and tear" of highway miles is pretty overblown by most people, the transients of starting and stopping and short trips are much much worse. So a 60 mile highway trip isn't really twice as bad as a 30 mile trip. In fact, 20 3 mile trips would be MUCH worse than 1 60. With an older vehicle that's been paid off for a long time and well maintained I'm not concerned about things breaking, or the fictitious "depreciation" of the car's value.

But yea, if I was to do a really detailed accounting of winrates/expenses I'd have to include an estimate of that as well.

Tips, comps, cost of food ($10 dollar burger vs $12 burger?), would all have to go into a full analysis.

Sol, that was a very good post about the poker lifestyle and the importance of balance. Don't want to go OT but anyone that reads this and is considering going full-time with poker should go back and read that post.



Have nearly 100hrs at 2/5 since moving up 1.5 months ago and I'm just over $60/hr.0 feel like that can go up as I get to know the play pool better. Had a pair of 3BI downswings that stung but as the BR grows so does my comfort with the swings. Still buying in for 70-80bb, sometimes I top up to 100bb if it's a real good game.

I had a pretty good winrate at 1/2 before taking a shot and it's become apparent to me that my regular game was very good 1/2 game. 300 max and w/usually 1-2 shortstacks. The 1/2 games at my new room are a joke. You're lucky if there are more than three 100BB+ stacks, no wonder people underestimate winrates.

Everyone thinks this way when they have a run good. 3 buy in downswing is nothing. Wait until you get to a 1-2 month downswing, in which you lose every time to 2/3/4/5 outs.

Read that and immediatley thought lol 3 buyins isnt a swing

lol this! Im in shock reading everyone's posts. Ive had about 10 sessions in a row where i have gotten stacked for 100-300bb's and each time i am way ahead.

They are running amazingly well or are massive nits.

lol - this sooo much it isnt even funny. I lost 4 bi in a single hand this summer to a 1 outer. Congrats on the 60/hr heater - but you need to log some hours b4 you can declare that w/r

the claim being made is that he has been playing full time for 18 months plus.

lol my friend - ill see that and raise you - he has a hard time believing people win over 50/hr in vegas b/c 200bb bi yet.......wait for it.....he thinks his 60/hr can go up as he learns the player pool even though he buys in for 70-80bb. I dont quite follow this line of reasoning

wait wut? I think i missed that post. Which is odd, because as we all know I am stalking him on the WWW.

My largest downswings at 1/2 have been 11 BI and that's happened to me twice, then I've had a 10BI downswing once. I've also had sessions where I've won 5 to 6 BI. You guys are just playing to nitty if you've never had a 4 BI downswing.
Sitting waiting for premiums and pp's to set mine and grind out 6/hr doesn't sound very fun to me.

haven't gone back that far in this thread but doesn't playing deep vs. playing shallow also come into play here? For instance I play deep 150BB starting 100% of the time and am usually 200+BB deep in 1/2 NL for sure, usually in 2/5 also......

I'd imagine so. My game is capped at 100bb unfortunately. I just don't see why anyone would short stack 1/2 when the player pool is always going to be terrible, being deeper is better.

Being deeper would mean the swings would be greater, as you should be getting involved in way more pots, and therefore having more gross spots.

Is it your contention that playing deep makes for larger downswings or smaller ones.

My personal opinion is that it makes for smaller ones in most LLNL games.

Why do you think smaller?
Opposite for me.
If I'm deep and my opponents are deep I'm probably playing twice as many hands against them as if we were both 100bb. Bad players don't know how to adjust to a 250bb stack and play it the same way if they had 100bb. So shouldn't we be playing way more speculative hands?
Playing way more speculative hands = more swings no?

Also being deep lets us play way more aggressive, because we have more fold equity. Playing more aggressively = more swings.

I've had 11-15BI down (depending on how you count the 300max games vs 200 max games). Opening up my game and getting into thinner spots for big pots (60/40 for $250 each? Sure!) certainly added to it, lose a couple of close spots in a row and your in bad shape. That NEVER happened when I played nitty as hell and bought in for 50BB

Well I'd be willing to bet your winrate improved

I could see being deeper being less variance against weak tight opponents because you'll avoid the variance of needing the best hand to win at showdown. But on average it should expose you to bigger swings in the negative or positive.

I've played with utr before at the bellagio. He's a nice guy but he seems to play more on the passive side so I could definitely see him not having a downswing over 4 buyins. I'm sure his winrate suffers because of it though. I've never seen him in the 5/10 games there either.

Only if you are playing a drunk wild preflop/flop shoving game. If your skill level is above your peers, deeper is almost always less variance.