Exactly. This thread is baically BBV without the bad beats and variance.

Btw 1/2 nl 296hours 50.74/hr , 1/3nl 645hours 11.91/hr 624hrs 28.23hr...if i were going to post only 1 of those stats which one would i choose?

Every good player who crush online 5/10+, some of the best percentile of poker minds who have transitioned live who've played some 1/2 in down time have agreed with me on 20-30bb hourlies at low stakes and 10~ at 5/10+ sometimes higher. Everyone who says 10bb/100 have never or cannot beat online above 1/2. Coincidence?

Show me a genuinely good/top of food chain reg who plays very well who says 10bb is very good. No offense, but most who say its high are mediocre regs who've probably played less than a million hands in their lifetime, and thats not your fault, but how can you trust yourself to make assesments of possible winrates when you're not even a top player who knows how to squeeze value to the max? Do you even overbetting often? If not you're almost immediately out of the discussion because that alone probably adds up to 5bbs in potential hourly (also implies better bet sizing understanding in other spots, understanding that non overbettors likely don't have).

It sucks to admit you're mediocre but that's tough. I had 1% roi at husngs in my first 5000 or so games. I didn't go around saying everyone who had 5-8% must be running good.

fwiw there were huge posts regarding what is the highest winrate possible at 10/20 at the commerce and the reality is that almost nobody has a winrate above 10xbb/hr and those who do are statistical outliers.

tbh I'd take anybody's claim regarding live winrates with a big big grain of salt.

10/20 is a lot tougher though; I think that's pretty key. That's also why moving up sometimes barely improve on your winrate. Sometimes there are 1/2 games that have almost as high a hourly as 2/5 because of this, or even higher.

Also most people suck, so obv most people have **** winrates. That's just how it is.

it seems like no one actually posts winrates in this thread. it almost looks like one guy made one post with a $20/hr winrate at 1/2 on the first page and there's been 163 pages of arguing about it since. lol

Uh, why can't you do both, or intertwine the two, using your slightly above breakeven winrate, and HH's that contributed to it, to further the discussion regarding your attempt to improve?

----------------------------------------------------------------

This is just in the last couple of pages. (I'm not saying any of the specific people above are fudging, just making a point).

On top of that, we're not just talking about this particular thread, it's all over this site - in other threads in Live Stakes, or in B+M, or Home Poker, etc.

This is this year UK. PLO and NLHE only (winrates in both similar but PLO is <10% of volume.

$200,000 ytd is pretty sick bro. Nice work if true.

Shiet. If I am making 200k a year, I'll be anywhere else but here.

Huh 200k?

I think the good grinders online who play 1/2 make more than 50k/year, 100 if they put lots of hours in right? It's not that surprising.

The first filter is the second two combined in case you think it's three separate ones, so first is my total.

I def ran good at high stakes but IMO not by THAT much. I had a few -5 to 10k sessions too. I'm not saying this shows or says anything precise about my or anyone's winrate but since it was asked, those are my stats.

Low is 1/2 1/1/2, mid 1/3 2/5, high 5/10+.

Oh, only 61, not 122, so about $100k. Still very solid.

Thanks for popping in, Russ.

My understanding has always been that commuting expenses are not deductible, but driving on the job is a legit expense. For example, when I ran my law firm, we paid mileage if you had to drive from the office to court and back, but not for your daily commute to and from the office.

Isn't that right?

They require a handwritten (ink) log for mileage? So dropping it into a spreadsheet wouldn't be sufficient ... yuck.

This doesn't extend to session logs does it? I think most of use here use various electronic means to track sessions (graphs and statistics FTW!).

But you're wrong!!! The thread is only 25 pages

fair enough. i wasn't bashing, just commenting.



also, as far as the seemingly high winrates, it's been my experience that they are possible but usually indicative of short sessions and/or small sample size.

a lot of times if i see someone with a 10bb+/hour rate, it will be with an average session of < 4 or 5 hours. when u play short sessions like that, you're almost never losing multiple buy ins, and when you double up you're win rate is huge. lets say you're at 1/2 and in a 4 hour session you double up your 300 and leave. that's 37.5bb/hr, which is huge. now lets say you stayed another 4 hours and won an additional $100, it's already dropped to 25bb/hr. If you stayed that extra time and actually lost $100 back, it's dropped to 12bb/hr.

thus a 10bb/hr winrate with an average session of 4 hours is NOT the same as a 10bb/hr rate with an average session of 8 hours. it means much much less as far as showing the skill of the player. and i don't say that to bash anyone that's posted a winrate like that, you very well may be able to sustain it for longer sessions, but that's just how it is.

as for what's sustainable and what isn't, it's going to change drastically with game structure and quality. from what i've seen in a 2/5 game with a 100bb buy in, i think 10bb/hr is approaching the best in the player pool IF you're average session is over 6 or 7 hours.

I'm not sure this is correct. Couldnt said player play 3-4 hours and drop his entire buyin and maybe another as well? You have to account for that scenario as well.

it's considerably more rare with short sessions to play 2p2-poster-worthy poker () and lose multiple buy ins. you'd have to run pretty bad. i'm absolutely not saying it doesn't happen, it just isn't common. however being in for 2+ buy ins isn't exactly uncommon with an 8 hour+ session average.

I think there should be a criteria for posting your WR.

For example:

BI format: 40bb - 100bb, etc.
Rake/drop: $5 flat or $4/$2, etc.
Average number of tables: weekday or weekend.
Sample size: 800 hour or what not.

Then it would be much easier to compare apple to apple.

Commuting mileage is not deductible. That's commuting to and from your place of employment.

This gets far trickier with driving to and from a casino where you play poker on a self-employed basis as a professional gambler. Let's say John Smith is an online gambler in Irvine, California. He has a home office (whether it's deductible or not is irrelevant) where he plays poker. Once a month (when there's a big tournament series) he drives to Commerce, the Bike, or Hollywood Park to play. His mileage is likely deductible. If the mileage is deductible, the tolls are, too.

Now let's say Mr. Smith lives in Frostbite Falls, Minnesota. The only poker room within 100 miles is at the Badenov Casino. He does not play online poker. Instead, he drives to the casino five days a week to play. In this case, it might be considered commuting mileage.

This is definitely something each professional gambler should discuss with their own tax professional as their facts and circumstances could impact the decision as to whether mileage is deductible.

-- Russ Fox

Yes but if you won those buyins that session then all you can really lose (for the session) is one buyin.

I don't think it matters. That's why we play hours not sessions.

For online play, a spreadsheet should be sufficient.

For live play, while the IRS can accept a computerized log; however, they do not have to. For live play, I strongly recommend a contemporaneous written gambling log (in ink) where you note the date, casino name, game you're playing, table number, start time, end time, and result.


-- Russ Fox

I agree with this, but there are two things at work here.

First, there's a play problem. Longer sessions may result in decreased concentration, or opponents adjusting to your play. Both of these are fixable problems with a little effort. You can learn to not tilt off 3 BI a session, but you may not realize that you're getting outplayed until it's too late.

Second, there's a potential change in the table dynamic. If you've got a good environment (Vegas?) and there are juicy games 24/7, then when you chose to play doesn't make any difference. But if on the other hand your local game is very good only on weekend nights, and a rock garden during the day and during the week, you can't just blindly assume that your winrate is constant under both conditions. So a player that plays short sessions during the best times, when the games are juiciest, will have a higher hourly winrate than a player that puts in 8 hrs/day, every day, even when the games are less favorable.


The second issue is the one that really makes it tough (impossible?) for a "pro" $1/2 player to survive in many markets.