PokerJournal allows you to export to excel and email it to yourself. If nothing else, you could use it as an Excel entry tool. One of my friends is a professor at Penn who did R analysis of my data. Pretty cool.

Anyhow, the big thing about using your phone is that it prevents all the shenanigans because you always have your phone on you. It eliminates "lapses" of memory or incorrectly entering important data points. I know the EXACT SECOND I sat down, and the EXACT SECOND I cashed out at the cage. No error, and no inadvertent (or less inadvertent) fudging of the data.

I'll take excel over any other system any day, but I'm really good with excel.

Best android app I had tried was Poker Agent - have an iPhone now and I like Poker Income Pro Bankroll Tracker better than Poker Journal for some reason.

I second Poker Agent. It's the best by far.

Thanks guys and sorry. The way I set up my Excel spreadsheet years ago didn't discern between sessions of different limits. It was a daily update with the exclusion of the first 108 hrs. I just recently also started using Poker Income Pro for the iPhone.

If I had to estimate I would say my winrate from all sessions previous is $100/hr at 5/10 give or take $10.

Keep in mind that the bulk of that 5/10 is from the uncapped Wynn 5/10 with the 2nd most being the 3k Aria. Especially the last 800 hrs or so I've been pretty strict with game selection. Using a network of friends to communicate about games at different casinos (bum hunting) and more recently jumping in and out of 5/10s and 10/20s at Commerce constantly. It's my experience that must moves tend to have higher hourly rates.

I wouldn't say I play any better than the top regs at these limits. PokerFink's stat of ~1700 hrs 5/10 /w $110 hrly since Oct '09 is particularly impressive.

PokerAgent is the best for Android. The free version will let you put in 10 sessions after that you have to get the paid version.

Very little of it are HK home games. Most of it London/UK in general, and some Macau/Australia (now more hours).

In fact I am down in HK home games (f PLO) but up in Macau.

To the people who make $100/hr+ at 5/10, is that number only achievable if you buy in for more than 100bb? I've been forcing myself to play 5/10 somewhat underrolled (for a guy with no other income) for the past ~6 months. I buy in for $1000 in both the 2/5 and 5/10 games and everytime I'm sitting with a piddly 1K stack at 5/10 I ask myself am I really gonna make more money playing 100bb 5/10 against 6 other pros and 1-2 fish than playing deep 2/5 against 6+ fish and maybe one other semi-competent reg. This excludes those rare times a millionaire whale sits at uncapped 5/10s prepared to drop 10K for a good time ofc.

Yeah. I'd rather sit at 2/5 with 1k than 5/10.

It depends.

You can have two solid players both who have an expectation of $40-50/hr at 2/5 buying in for $1000. One can have a $60-70/hr expectation at 5/10 and the other a $80-90/hr expectation.

Not all pros are equally good at playing exploitatively against fish and not all are equally good at playing vs other pros.

You definitely have to be buying in for more than 100bb to realistically have a $100/hr expectation at 5/10. The regs who win at that rate are better than the other regs at their table so they shouldn't have a problem covering.

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I don't know what it is. I do have a hard time adjusting down.

I'm quite certain that I have a lower expected BB/hour at 2/5NL than 5/10NL and above.

And it's not close. I go from being a consistent big winner to perhaps even -EV at the lower limits.

It's not a leak I feel particularly compelled to plug I guess.

Bum-hunt the softest game, whether 5-5 or 5-10, and get everyone to straddle.

There usually isn't 6 pros in a capped 5-10 game, and if there are, those 6 pros are idiots.

At my casino at least the 5-10 is 2k cap vs 500 at 2-5 so you don't have this option to play deeper in a smaller game. I think you almost definitely have to buy in deeper than 100bb at 5-10 to have a $100+ hourly rate, unless it's some amazingly soft game

All this, especially the bolded

I agree w/ this assessment also, well written and honest/accurate numbers.

Everytime I hear some 2/5 player crowing about thier "long term" win rate of $50-70 per hour, but you never see them playing 5/10 or 10/20, I just wanna throw up....

Curious as to why.

I know players who have clocked 70ish/hour at 5-5 1000bb games for 3000+ hours and elect to pass 5-10 and certain 10-20 games in their region simply because their game is full of over aggro fishtards and the 5-10 and 10-20 running usually has all the pros who wont play lower in them. The 10-20 doesnt run nearly as often, and 5-10 is spotty off and on with regard to how good the game is, but the 5-5 is a monster nearly 100%.

I find it smart that my player chooses to play in the game that is consistent and he has a super winrate on a reg basis. You disagree?

Admittedly I doubt that very many players qouting 70-80 an hour at 2-5 are really winning that over a huge sample, simply because most players exaggerate their winrate or lock it in mentally even though small sample. The amount of hours necessary to truly know a live winrate is absurd.

Why, why it does make me wanna throw up? Mainly because its just another lie, and inflated win rate boast from another low stakes player that knows everything ...and is ready to tell everyone about it.


I agree. Game selction is important. And I also agree, have personal experience & have seen smarter type of players choose games where they can make money..regardless if they have a roll to play in a larger game.

My point was that A) its nearly imposible to "average" (long term) $70+ per hour in todays Las Vegas $2/5 games, B) I have played a LOT of $2/5 and have a current pulse on win rates -so when I hear inflated numbers its just more noise to me C) Without exception the better $2/5 players I know have all at least experimented w/ playing some 5/10 -and those that beat that game [long term] have at least played some 10/20+.

Yes, impossible in Vegas. The 5-5 i speak of is in Texas. And agreed, normally its a bullcrap from the player anyhow. Most that I talk to take their results from the last 6 months and quote that as their winrate. (if it was good that is--lol)

Probably not impossible in a private game that really plays 1000bb effective stacks with large standard opens.

Nothing is impossible in the right private game setting, but that's not really relevant to this thread.

Fair enough.

How are the London/UK games? I've heard mixed reports.

There's nothing wrong with starting with 100bb -- and in some game conditions it's optimal -- but being comfortable playing deep is mandatory for a high winrate. And even if buying in for 200bb+ isn't mandatory, pretty much all the biggest winners do.

This is super important.

The "best" players don't always make the most money.

Depends how you define best. I define best as those who make the most money. I'm assuming you define best as those who make money from the best or those who have the most talent?

Then Tobey Maguire is one of the best poker players?

If that's the case then Jamie Gold's the best player to have ever played the main event because he won the most from it.

I define "best" as someone who's able to play at a relatively high level in the games they play for the most amount of time compared to other good players in the game. In the games I play in I'm pretty much up against all the biggest winning regulars, and yet some of them win more than I do... in fact that is my #1 priority as far as improving, to work out exactly why some of these guys lose to me in HU pots more often than not, and yet at the end of the day win more than I do. It's not exactly due to tilt, since I tilt less compared to most people. But some of these guys while maybe unable to play at the A+ level for the entire session, are able to play between B+ to A pretty much day in day out 24/7 365. Others, who might be able to play A to A+, sometimes due to issues other than tilt, are on their C game and lose a big pot because of it. In the end the "solid" player wins more. Is he a better player? No. But he wins more, without ever reaching A+, or even capable of getting there. But the player who is capable of playing A+, is it easy for him to elevate his C game that comes out once in a while, to B or A-? No.

And if you think this is because, he, or I, tilt, then let me tell you why it's not the case at all. Some of us, due to factors outside our control(eg. relationships, family commitments, investments, lifestyle choice, or whatever), sometimes could for example play tired. But you say "don't play tired", however it's not so simple. Sometimes being a professional means you have to put in the hours tired or not, and if you feel you still have an edge in the game and this is the only time in the next few days that you can play, then you play. But your winrate is reduced obviously. Or how about if you have to take kids to school(not me), then that means you can't play too late since you still need to sleep but get up early. Other people might play in countries where smoking is allowed at the tables, and trust me if you are a non-smoker and people at the table smoke, it affects your performance. There are literally unlimited number of reasons that could affect someone's play at the table.

So yes, in the end the best player is the one who has the fewest distractions as well as the greatest mental control, and being skillful helps but you don't need to be the most skillful to win the most. Some people also are just lucky in that poker is alllllll there is in life so they can concentrate on it 100%, while others have commitments/distractions.

And once again as far as winrates go, all the stuff posted in this thread are just for reference only, because any of these guys that go on downswings after winrates have been posted will not come back and tell you "my winrate is now 20% less" or something like that. The same goes with every conversation you have with any poker player who tells you they are winning this much or that much... people only open their mouths when they're winning, when they're losing they shut up. And statistically live poker is not even ever going to be enough to give you a conclusive winrate because there's not enough hands, opponents change, table conditions change, etc. If somebody like 'nanonoko' would ever read this thread he would LOL at everyone who thinks live poker's sample size is reliable... I mean he logs millions of hands and isn't even going around bragging about his winrates.

Lastly consider this, live-wise I have played at a certain casino where for 5/10 I crushed at $150/hour over 1,200 hours... and I wasn't even running that hot... that's a decent sample is it not? Then it took just a few hands to bring that winrate right down to even below acceptable levels(let's just say I lost a $18K pot on 5/10 quad over quad.. and another pot was muchhh bigger but just as bad a beat).. they were 2 terrible beats, but still, there wouldn't been no point for me to post the $150/hr figure because I knew it was still a small sample even after hours... and the sample now for that casino is still not big enough either... in fact it might never be big enough.