Based on my own data my win-rate at 1|2 is $20/h and my standard deviation is $200/h. Based on these numbers breaking even over 400 hours would be a -2 sigma event, which corresponds to about a 1/40 chance. Unlucky but not unreasonable and a losing year may be likely over a lifetime of play with this level of volume for a player with a certain play-style and game conditions.

What’s everyone using to track live results? Used to have poker journal but last I knew it died with the new phone updates, any newer version of that or something similar?

Poker Income seems popular but I didn't like it. I started with Poker Mate in 2014 and still use it although I also use the free version of Poker Bankroll Tracker (2018+) now as well as it is more feature rich (SD, Graphs, Data export, odds calculator, etc). The app developer for Poker Mate said an update was in the works so I'm going to continue to use both for a bit rather than back port 4 years worth of data so I can completely switch to PBT.

I used to use poker income but switched to poker agent after poker income customer support was found to be non existent

How many hours have you have tracked with the $20/h win rate?

Appreciate the statistical breakdown, thanks!

This is the highest estimate for potential win rates I have ever seen, in any forum, for any stakes NL. That's fine, I am asking for opinions, but I would like to know how you are coming up with such a number. Unusual claims like this need some kind of evidence backing them.

Are you a reg in LA 5/10 games? Where do you usually play?

I genuinely think this is accurate although I am heavily biased here. The games are very soft, but its a mixed bag between rec and regs. I think the regs are 'not good' and the rec players are terrible. The issue is, 5 'not good' regs at your table will slow down your hourly dramatically, if just for the fact that they are folding a lot more. Some days I have zero regs at my table but generally its 3-4. You would think January would have tons of recs (LAPC), but it doesnt really. You just get a few more whales and a lot more European players.

Your post, in which you quoted mine, hinges heavily on correcting something I didn't say. I said people have insane money here, which is indisputable. That's all.

I just needed a source to pull numbers from. I don't have a huge 1|2 sample. 1222.2 hours at $22.74/h. That doesn't include promotional winnings.

Rainbow, I am basing my numbers off my personal results and the results of some of my best poker friends (although not at the Commerce), who I consider to be some of the top players in the game. I am aware that my estimates are high, but I think most people tend to downplay the expectations of others based on their own person biases. Also, I believe Bart Hanson completed 2 500 hour 5/10 challenges at the Commerce over the last few years and had an hourly of over $140.

Hey, his true expectation could just as easily be higher than lower

Interesting that you constantly always take issue with sample sizes of strong players. No comments at all and no eye rolls when people post marginally winning hourly rates. Why is that? Why do good winrates from good players bother you so much?

Actually, I believe his results over 1,000 hours were around $149/hr. This was while he was also involved in business, managing his company, and studying/ playing other games. I'm not sure he'd expect his hourly to be well below $140 in the 5/10 Commerce games, as you seem to be claiming.

No he hadn't. You can find them in the clp forums. I think he did one in 2018, but that's not up. From what I see,

2017 = $103/hr over 497 hrs

2016 = $119/hr over 474 hrs

2015 = $136/hr over 454 hrs

I don't think it's possible given the scumminess/unwillingness of poker players to be honest but I'd snap side bet anyone in this thread that they can't win $100/hr at Commerce 5/10 full time in a year (say, 1800 hours). And I'd be a massive favorite every time.


I know Bart personally and you have to keep in mind those hours he plays during challenges are often cherry picked for the best times to play poker. I guarantee there's less than 5 people making $100/hr full time at CC 5/10 in 2019.


Finally, people worry too much about winrates. The key is just to play as much volume as you possibly can in the best games. You can't just control your all in equity, going card dead, etc. But you can control just about everything else.

I had a ~100 hour downswing in November/December and I'm up 15k so far this year. 100 hour downswings are definitely real.

Regarding the commerce, I never played the 5/10, the 5/5 wasn't that great when I played it but not a huge sample. The 2/5 $300 max had the most action and worst players I've seen in my life. In just a few weeks I had countless games where people would blind shove, flip a coin to make decisions, and games where straddles and blind raises would stretch from UTG-CO and then people would stack off with 89o. I would thus imagine the 5/5 is also pretty juicy, it just wasn't any time I played it.

This month marks 2 years into retirement. Below are my $2/$5 NL results:

Total Hours 1,144.49
Total $31,458

Monthly Hours 47.69
Monthly $1,311

BB/Hr 5.5

Very nice results. Congrats!

Those numbers are slightly lower than what I saw, but even if we go by those numbers, it seems prettty apparent that an hourly of well over $100 is very possible/probable for strong regs. If such regs really focused on table selection, seat selection, and playing during key times, their hourly rates would be even higher. I am in the midst of my own 500 hour challenge in a little smaller game and will post my results when I’m done, likely in fewer than 2 months.

Congrats samo!

I'm guessing day-in / day-out retirees attempting to play for a modest income make up quite a decent chunk of a lot of tables I play at. Sorta somewhere in-between the "pro" vs "rec" player (whatever those terms mean), and some of them likely do fairly well (more leaning towards the "pro" side than the "rec" side).

Ggogogo,imoG

While 500 hour challenges are fine and all (noting that for a recreational player like me this would be a year's worth of play), I think what Johnny was getting at above is that it's still a fairly small sample size overall. I posted 6 giraffes a few pages back sorta illustrating this (all 1000+ hour samples, with some decent result differences).

Ggoodluck!G

And those 5 people are just the 5 pros who ran best this year. It’s likely to be 5 different pros next year.

Wrong. I know many people who I’d expect to have over a $100/hr winrate over a year of 5/10, and I’d expect them to clear that yearly hourly 90%+ of the time. I also don’t believe Bart was just some absurd outlier who happened to run considerably better than expected in all 3 500 hour samples...nor do I think his winrate is the absolute max of what’s is “attainable” for every other good player in rhe country.

Right, selection bias.


Thanks. Yes, we are all heavily biased. Maybe I could do better.

I'm still not totally sure I believe $175/hr is possible long term though. It just does not seem like anyone is winning that much, and even $125/hr really stands out so I think I would notice that insane level of crushing at $175/hr. I can see up to maybe $125/hr (?) if you've stumbled upon the key to getting max from the rec players. That's just how it feels from my sample. I'll keep my eyes open for new lines and things to exploit from the weaker players. It does become hard to change things when what you're doing already is working.

Until I started running bad about 50 hours ago, I was at $120/hr over 200 hours. I was thrilled with that but just can't imagine maintaining that - eventually other people get hands that they won't fold, and eventually your cards slow down and limit your options. I have room for improvement in some areas (live issues, like sometimes keeping track of stacks) but I doubt I have such major leaks that I could improve my win rate by more than 50%.

It's not even about honesty. It's about the delusional nature that comes with the environment. I'm sure people are being honest in their minds but they are just mistaken. I would be willing to say that no players playing full time at commerce 5/10 are making 100/hr over a meaningful sample. The fact that people on this forum extrapolate from some small sample they played at commerce and then confidently say they could make 200k/year is crazy. Then combining that with some silly excuse why they choose not to is painful to read and misleading.

1500 hours of live poker in the exact game we’re talking is not a small sample. It’s also not like he barely made $100/hr. In fact, he cleared $100/hr over that sample fairly easily. Since he’s a very good player, it could even be argued that his winrate could even go up as he learned others’ tendencies and whatnot...and it could also go up due to others avoiding his table as they learn how good he is. There’s almost no reason to think that’s he’s not a $100/hr winner in the game...and there’s almost no reason to think other very strong players aren’t capable of attaining even higher winrates than he did.