Mr. Parker, in your quick example you did on the impact of a whale leaving the game, i'm fairly certain that your numbers do not add up, just saying.

Also I agree that you could potentially make more money playing vs regs if you know how to exploit them super well than vs random fish.

Obviously it doesn't add up because the focus is on loss rate..., just saying.

Ok, well you could have easily had it add up, instead the winning player is winning a solid 20bb per hour

You do realize that it isn't as literal as adding everything up, right?

There are several other factors involved, and I wouldn't claim to be able to cite them all, thus I left it open-ended for further discussion.

Table could easily have bunch of people with loss rate of 20bb/hr, but it doesn't mean that there is a guy winning at 100bb/hr.

I'd guess somewhere about 80% for players at a 2/5 NL game that are losing players.

As for percentage of people winning 5bb+/ hr at that same game?... hmm, 10%

Percentage crushing it? < 5%

*just my guesses, I don't know 2/5 NL player pools inside out.

~~~

In the PLO game I play, it is all regulars. The percentage of winning players is much higher in this player pool than a pool of rando weekend rec players at 1/2. Most lineups have ~3 lifetime winners in it. Which I guess means the losing players are just getting absolutely destroyed at this game.

Funny thing - I'd also guess that 80% of 2+2 is comprised of losing players too

Few more premises:

-2/5 game
-Table deals average of 30 hands per hour and rake/jackpot $5 per hand
-Dealer gets average of $1.5 per hand dealt

Right off the bat, there's a 30bb/hr super crusher and a 9bb/hr crusher at the table.

So the table must be losing on average of 44bb/hr for someone to win 5bb/hr.

I wouldn't be dropping by much either if I was winning 91% of my sessions!

I feel the same way about my game, and I have seen that all the competent players use Poker Journal, so I would assume that they're not keep coming back if they're getting crushed...

It's amazing that how bad some of these players must be getting crushed and not even know it...

Bip! Farts in church.

I think a lot of regs delete sessions from their tracking software when they were tilted, didn't play well, etc. It inflates their w/r and thus ego.

My guess would be that number is probably a little low.

I always feel bad for the pew behind me

How much of this in your opinion is inertia and how much is an ego thing? Like, "I want to play vs. the best" kind of thing?

Either way, seems ridiculous if your #1 priority as a pro is to make the most you can per hour.

This assumption is very incorrect and, IMO, what leads to a lot of failures for wannabe pros.

#1 priority is to make money, not the most you can, just like any other job.

Wannabe pros often make the mistake of trading other things for the sake of making more money and find themselves burned out or in unforeseen circumstances as result of such pursuit.

This is surprisingly common. "That session doesn't count because I didn't play well," etc. I don't think they get the point of tracking software.

Thank you for forcing me to clarify - it's not all about the best hourly. However, it doesn't make sense to me to sit in a rocky reg-infested game if there's another one with rec players that is worth more per hour.

If I were a pro, I agree with you 100% WRT your viewpoint and would approach it that way - quality of life is why one gets into professional poker in the first place. Make enough $$$ to make you happy.

You mean they make mistakes in their schedule and the variance they are taking on or something more tthan that?

Mdl is now 600 max. Shoe 1-3 is a fish fry, but you should be testing the waters occasionally, imo.

If I had to choose only 1 special hand from yesterday, I'd go with this one...

Utg (350), I (600) make it 25 in CO with 76s, BU (covers) calls, nitty SB (265) 125, UTG quickly calls, I fold, BU folds. Flop (300) 974, SB allin 140, Utg takes 15 seconds and makes the call. Board 974,j,8 and utg 42s is good.

That's under the assumption that reg-infested game has lower overall loss rate than rec players game.

I think all of these faulty assumptions that "regs are bad and recs are good" came from that scene of AC table in Rounders...

Last few pages of discussions should at least debunk some of that myth.

Think about your own regular 9 to 5 job.

Would you trade it for 3pm to 11pm and weekends from 5pm to 1am for 20% premium?

Why? (don't have to share it, because answer only applies to yourself).

Yea, I guess that is the right question to ask. I assume most "pros" find that they have to play all of the prime hours just to get by.

That brings up another question I have been considering. How much do you think a top 2/5 player's winrate changes from say midday Wednesday to midnight on Friday night? Assuming a busy room like Maryland Live. 20% seems low to me but I don't have enough data during the week to know personally.

That also depends.

You can be a crusher on weekends and get destroyed on weekdays.

Most people become winners by beating rec fish on weekends, but those fish don't come around often during weekdays.

I am sure that a weekday winner can easily crush weekend games for higher WR, but not the same the other way around...though how much it dips, it's hard to say.

And gl on the day of the week sample size problem.

I think most of it is inertia. Some dudes just roll in and never table change. That being said I am willing to wager that there is also some ego involved.

During slow times I have rolled in...looked around and gone home. This has happened a handful of times in my past many thousand hours in the casino. But when I looked at the line up of the few games being played I decided it was not worth playing. I am quite sure I am one of very few who is willing to do that

Was just reading the intro, so just going to post a goal for October.

Will finally be settling down and want to play poker consistently. I've been traveling all over the country and playing randomly at various casinos to satisfy the itch and make some money money.
So first month of poker goals:

1: 160 hours @ 1/3

2: Come out Positive
Would love to post an estimate, but all my data so far is based upon a small sample size,
and I'll get flamed hardcore. So for now, lets just win

3: I recall 9 times I made arrogant/tilty plays to lose my stack, so lets reduce that number
proportional to hours - 1. Make it only 3 times for October.

4: Get up when the table is dead or I've lost focus

5: Stick to my game... I'm not that good yet.