Playing at Horseshoe Cleveland on March 16, a reg asked a dealer about a mutual friend, who from what I could tell recently moved to Florida to play poker after destroying the locals.

The dealer said this woman wasn't doing as well in Florida as she had been in Cleveland, but was willing to trade a few dollars/hour for more games, tournaments, and nicer weather.

Apparently, she had been winning $28/hour playing $1-$2 at Horseshoe Cleveland. The mutual acquaintance and I were dubious.

Is this kind of win rate possible? That's basically averaging a buy in per 10-hour grind.

Quick question for anyone that plays tournaments:

If you are playing in a reentry tournament (not rebuy, because you don't get your same seat, and you are treated like a brand new entry) and you enter it twice, but you cash, would you count your entries as two and there for have an ITM %of 100% but a cost of 2x the buy in?
Or would you consider it two entries, and an ITM % of 50% but the buy in was still 1x.

I realize that it's all just screwing with numbers, and the end result is really the same, but I didn't know what was standard.

I think that's more than possible; that's really not even that high.

I'm currently doing about $50/hour at $1-2, have just had my first losing session of the month (-$50 over 10 hours). This is mainly because I play against the same people all the time, I have history on everyone; at this point, the people around me may as well be playing poker with their cards faced up. You get these old regs who have been playing the same way for 10+ years, with no ability to adjust, easily put on tilt, and very much luck-oriented. These players don't see the game as means to make money; when they sit down at a poker table, their buyin, in their minds, is considered a sunk cost as opposed to an investment.

I think when talking about win rates at live poker we need to more concerned with sample size first and hr/$ second. I have a friend who plays 10 hours a week or so and looooves to call me up and brag about his 152/hr week.

And to answer your question, no.

to accumulate a sufficient sample size at 1/2 considering you see 25 to 35 hands per hour would take a very long time. furthermore, somebody who is destroying 1/2 for 28/hr is most likely to move up in stakes for more profit before such a sample size can be gathered.

First things first: there's a whole thread that is just about win rates.

This question would really be better suited to be asked in that section.

It can be found here.

Beyond that, if you assume that there is a mostly normal distribution of win rates among winning players (only winning players, not winners and losers) and that the average person wins 6bb/hour at 1/2. And the standard deviation is 2.5bb/hour, then that's 3.2 standard deviations above the mean, which would give it about .05% chance of happening.

So, if she's better than 99.95% of all other winning poker players, then sure she is likely crushing the game for 28/hour. But it's unlikely.

Congrats on the win streak so far!

Sample size bro?

I consider it two buy ins. when inputting stats I count it as two entries.

It would look like 50% itm. But like you said its the same thing in the end.

I would imagine that a woman with the right skill set would have a higher potential win-rate than a man with the same skill set.

I think this is an anomaly. But then again I play mostly in AC and clubs in NYC so I think is win rate isn't attainable the casinos and clubs that I play in because I play against many different people. Not trying to hate but $50 hourly rate just seems it of the norm and probably unsustainable.

2 different entries for a ITM of 50% is standard.

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Those are some pretty interesting assumptions you're making there. Any basis in empirical data or theory?

Nope!

But it it generally agreed that people who crush the game (so figure that is top 5% of the population) beat the game for 10+ bb / hour, which is what my assumption suggest. And most break even players eventually bust out or quit, and those that don't tend to fall behind the curve and eventually turn into losing players because many break even player don't study the game enough. So, these players are not a large group as they constantly on the move. Most people in this category slowly shift towards better winners (and move toward the middle of the 6bb / hour curve) or drop out and down into the long term losers section.

I'm not saying that my numbers are right, just that from what I've read, gleaned, and experienced they seem to fit well. So I use them as a base.

If OP want some more detailed and rigrous anlysis then maybe he should actually read the thread that is completely devoted to talking about win rates.

Irtm, under your assumption of win rate being distributed normally among winning players, there would be more 6 bb/hr winners than 1 bb/hr winners. It would be better to think of the win rates of all players as being normally distributed. Not sure if this is a good Assumption either, but the probability of a player having a given win rate will definitely decrease as the win rate increases.

I wish I ran well enough to think that $50 an hour was sustainable.

What was your biggest downswing and how many hours have you played?

15bb/hr is possible at almost every $1/2 table for the top players. The problem is the best players move up usually

10 big blinds the most you can make over the long run if you play perfect. All other stories are fish dreams that never come true. For a 1/2 NL with $200 buy in if you play long enough and are the best player at your table you can expect to make $20/hour.

This has been prooven many time over and over by my friends Izmet Fekaly and Jonny Downtown with their computer sims and live play. Ten big blinds per hour in no-limit. That's the solid norm, like Josef Stalin was saying in 1942 "Not a step back!"

How many people can be profitable at a table at a time?

How many mistakes can you make and still be profitable? For example, say you call a $10 bet into a $10 pot and are only good there 1/6 of the time, that's a $5 loss. That seems like a tiny mistake but if crushing it is $20/hr (at 1/2), 4 mistakes per hour would wipe you out. Can you still be profitable if every other player at the table is making the same mistakes?

All of them except one depending on how bad the other player is.

On average the casino is taking $100 / hour from a $1/$2 table. So if you have someone buying in at an average rate of 1 BI / hour ($200 / hour) then everyone else at the table can average $11/hour or 5.5bb / hour. If you have two whales averaging $150/hour each in losses then the remaining 8 players can make $25/hour or 12.5bb / hour. It really just depends on how much other people are punting stacks.

9 out of 10 can be profitable if there is one player losing a lot.

Ok, I can understand your hypothetical, but how realistic/likely is this? Seems a very optimistic scenario to me. I am talking about on average over the long run, do you need to be the best player at the table to make money, or can you be second or third best? Also, even if you are the best, is it possible (realistically, not hypothetically) to still lose money because you are not beating the rake?

Yes, it is 100% possible to be playing a in game where you are the best but everyone is solid. And the whole table is losing the the rake, including the best person.

If that's the case, though, you 100% need a table change.

If you're not at a table where the 3rd best person could be winning money, then it's likely that you should be looking for a different table.

How long does it take you to determine whether you need a table change? Lately I have been forming an opinion after the first 30 minutes and then waiting another 30 minutes to see if things change or my suspicion was confirmed.

The first thing I want to see is effective stacks of 100+ BB for the majority of players. If stack sizes look good I want to see a moderately loose and non-nitty table where most flops are going 2-3 way. If that's the case I'll usually ask for the seat change button once I figure out where the action is is concentrated.

Is there anything else I should be considering here? I'm amazed at how many people just don't take the initiative in seat changing / table changing. Maybe if you are a rec player you wouldn't care but I look at this as a business and am trying to maximize my ROI. It seems to be one of the best tools in your arsenal for helping your win rate.

Sometimes I know as soon as the floor points me to a table that I want a table change.

The presence of either tough players, tight/nit regs, or otherwise "known" bad spots will tip me off. If the table dynamic is otherwise bad, either due to the style of play or the stacks on the table, I'll ask for one within about an hour. When players leave or get replaced I'll re-asses that evaluation. Sometimes it only takes one new player to change the entire dynamic.

The problem is that there isn't always a better game to move to. At least in my local rooms there aren't many tables running, and a quick walk around the room usually reveals a couple of tables that appear effectively the same as the one I'm on.

I think about 13-15bbs/hour is possible for the bestest of players for a game with 100bb cap with a rake of 5% up to $5 max. However there are tons of variables that can affect winrate like what time of day/what days are being played, table selection and seat selection, juiciness of the player pool, ect.

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