Definitely somewhere between B and C. A normal job you have breaks that may or may not be unpaid. A normal job you have commuting time. Also a normal job you don't get free food/drinks so I wouldn't even deduct tipping the cocktail server or food costs.

It's easy. If you're trying to figure out the financial benefit you gain from poker compared to something else, use A.
If you're trying to figure out what you make while actually playing, use C (most helpful for comparisons with other people).

You could ask the same question for working a "traditional" job, but since most people are only concerned with the cash they are taking home then the time to get there isn't a huge piece of the equation.

However when you compare it to another job the the transit time, down time, cash out time becomes important (opportunity cost).

Usually B. Unless I take an hour for diner or something and then I'll take that out. 5 minutes to take a leak or grab a coffee doesn't matter. C's too complicated for my log system.

I've done A in post processing before, adding extra hours based on the average driving time for specific rooms. But don't think it's worth it unless you're trying to decide to make a career out of poker. In which case you should also include study time IMO.

When someone says "I make $22/hr at work", whether they are a waiter, a carpenter, or whatever else, they aren't including driving time to and from work. They are counting the hours from when they clock in to when they clock out. If they get to work 15 min early but cant clock in yet, they dont count those hours. I dont see how poker players are any different. Why would we count driving time or time waiting to be seated or any of that?

If you want to compare how much money you can make in poker room A which is a 10 minute drive to money made in poker room B which is a 45 min drive, and you can only be gone from home for 5 hours, then you should include drive time when figuring out which room is more profitable overall for you. But I still wouldnt include drive time for purposes of your win rate.

I pretty much just compute Time I Leave Table - Time I Sit At Table, with the only exception being if I take a fairly long break (such as a dinner break). Not too worried about bathroom breaks where I probably only lose a few hands each time (and at the end of the night I'll round down to the nearest five minutes to help make up for this).

Including your driving / waiting to get on a table / etc. hours doesn't seem to make much sense in computing winrate because that means you'll have drastically different winrates at closer/further casinos / etc. and that seems like an odd way of comparing things (such as if you were interested in what games are better, assuming you'd ever get in enough hours over consistent conditions).

GcluelesswinratetrackingnoobG

That may be for a waiter, but some tradespeople get paid for travel time. I know this because I sell to companies who want to track that sort of thing.

That said, a poker player who's stated to the IRS that they're a professional gambler is an independent contractor. I don't know what the utility to track this other than for tax write-offs & deductions.

Even if you don't get paid for travel time, it's 100% considered when comparing job offers. That full time position that pays $10k/yr more but requires an extra hour commute? Might not be worth it.

It you've playing poker primarily as a hobby you should be much more worried about how you're *playing* and look at the table winrate. And then remember how much *other* hobbies/vices can cost per hour.

when i played full time my hourly was time at the table. I had multiple years over 2k logged. Last year during the big promo SPC had logged approx 375 bravo hours in the calendar month (it was a 50 hr cycle, she nailed 7 promos and her w/r for the month was obscene). 150 is simply not that tough. It takes work to be able to log long sessions while maintaining focus. It doesnt happen overnight but with focus and discipline you can make it happen.

I'm guessing with hours like that you have to be a full-timer Shai?

I often wonder exactly how many full timers I have sitting in my lowly local 1/3 NL game. Seems there is an ever revolving cast of players who are attempting this (at least as far as my untrained naked eye can tell) but then eventually fade away.

GgoodluckG

To be fair. You can do a lot w shorter sessions if you just go to and fro.

My number one game fix is to shut it down after I realize I may be tired and have played 2-3 hands sub optimally. Just pick up my chips and leave.


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Yeah I'm a full timer. Though my hours are nothing compared to SPC or squid even. I could theoretically do 200 a month, maybe even 300 if I had a prop bet or something, but my expenses aren't that high and playing that much is going to burn me out super fast.

I also sleep more than most people due to medications I'm on. Don't think I'm capable of playing 10 hours a day 6 days a week or whatever as that's 12 hours a day going to/from casino, leaving just time to eat and shower aside from sleeping.

I've noticed my attention starts declining pretty rapidly at the 8 hour mark but I'm working on ramping up my hours. For now though 150 hrs is plenty ambitious. Maybe I'll get to 2k a year eventually.

8 hours into a session I’m just starting to hit my groove.

shai - now that you have been around a while. I think a great way to avoid burnout it to kind of preplan your year. You now know what months the action is ossum, which ones are slow, and which ones have good promos too grind. So what I would do is plan certain times to be hardcore and work my ass off, times where I am in there working regularly, and times when I can take big chunks away and reset. This worked quite well for me.

Thanks Shai.

I go with option C. I take a lot of breaks to walk around when I play so I feel like I want to know what my actual winrate looks like. It also makes my winrate look as good as possible for when I want to brag on 2+2.

Option B would probably be better when comparing how much you could make playing poker as compared to another line of work. Between time at the cage, bathroom breaks, food breaks, and waiting for a game I know I can’t strictly compare my poker hourly to my hourly rate in my old career. I would say it takes me 9.25 hours to play 8 hours of poker.

What did you find useful in helping you develop this focus and discipline? I know exercise has been good for me if for no other reason than it helps me sleep.

I’m a very driven person but I also have diagnosed ADD so focus for long periods of time is not usually my strong suit. If it’s not a particularly social game for instance I spend way too much time on my phone while I play which I know cuts into my winrate. A lot of my biggest sessions are when I’m hyper focused and thus able to play crazy exploitative.

Must be nice. I feel like twice my age (am 32) and take three different meds that cause sleepiness and low energy as a side effect. For one (klonopin) it is more like the main effect. They keep me functional though so quitting not really an option at the moment.

I played 10 hour 1/2 sessions for a while but definitely noticed I made the most mistakes in the last two hours. So I've been limiting my 2/5 sessions to 8 hours max unless the game is crazy good in which case I'll power through it for a couple more hours.

Are there any younger pros that are worried the game won't be around later in their career? Maybe 15 or 20 years? If you look around most poker rooms it seems its mostly middle aged+ that populate the room. The game could shrivel up if there aren't any milennials that get hooked to the game.

Yes. I'm very worried the game could dry up, a different less beatable game becomes more popular, casinos universally increase the rake and winrates plummet, or a conservative political revival bans gambling at a national level.

Political changes are obviously the worst threat but more likely is the game just slowly shrivels as the population ages, as real wages stagnate and people have less disposable income (people gamble more when the economy is thriving), and casinos slowly but steadily increase the rake. Achievable winrates could be half what they are now in 15 to 20 years. Gotta make hay while the sun is shining and all that.

My nightmare is I put just enough time in to get really good and then get a repeat of Black Friday where Congress has randomly banned gambling. And I'm late 30s or older at this point with no marketable skills.

Only good news is it's even worse for casinos as far as millennials and the games the casinos want them to be playing like slots. Millennials just don't play slots and degen games at even close to the rate of previous generations. So casinos may be forced to keep card games around and find new ways to generate revenue.

I've also noticed there are few young rec players at games bigger than 1/3. Maybe they just don't have the money but most young guys I see a lot are winning players and most of the recs 50+. The young recs I do see are some of the worst players I've encountered. Really wish they'd play more often.

Congress ain't banning gambling. Gambling is a state issue and while some states are run by the religious fanatics, others are more on the left. In the area I live in, I've seen like 6-8 new casinos within a few hours of me pop up in the past 10-15 years

I count from seated until leaving. If there's a meal break in between it gets included in my poker hours as well.

Never had a good reason besides it's easier but it makes sense when I think about it. I can't control how long it takes to get to the casino, or how long it takes me to get a seat. It doesn't make sense to say I am worse at poker because there was a traffic jam. But I do need to take breaks, and those are things I can control. Once I am in a game I can play for eight hours straight or I can play for six hours and have two meal breaks; my bb/100 would probably be different between the two, I can make a decision that maximizes my hourly.

I think casino poker has a lot of life left, but I do think it will become less and less accessible in the future. I started playing poker just before black friday, back when it was easy to dive right into .01/.02 online and start building a bankroll from nothing. With online poker drying up, new players won't have nearly as cheap an education.

Can't speak for rest of the world but in the states there are 3 states that have legalize online poker (nv, de, and nj) and they all share a player pool on at least 1 site (888/WSOP). Supposedly there are several more on cusp. As more states legalize it and join pacts with other states, it won't be long before a large population portion of the country will be playing together. It will also probably stay segregated from the rest of the world player pool for some time.

I doubt we see another Moneymaker boom, but there should be an uptick coming within like 5-10 years

I think some of the problem with lack of interest from younger people is just lack of disposable income. Disposable income comes with age for many people.

States have congresses too. If Florida banned poker I could move but it's a serious inconvenience.

The state/national divide is problematic and the main reason online poker is such a joke in the US. Only thing that's really going to revitalize poker like before would be national legalization of live and/or online gambling, and online would have to have a shared player pool. Preferably both. In the religious states with no casinos people still play poker for fun but they are just terrible at it. Can't imagine how juicy the games would be in Texas for instance if they legalized gambling. Plus low cost of living. Right now there aren't many good choices for where to grind 2/5 to 5/T. I put a lot of research into it. And for 10/20+ it's basically Vegas (expensive), DC (super expensive), or LA (super duper expensive).

We get some largish population states like Texas, New York, Illinois, Ohio, Georgia, etc. to legalize gambling there may be some hope. And I mean if it's full legalization like in Vegas and not just allowing high rake Indian casinos. Also would be great if Florida fully legalized it. Be nice if Seminole had some real competition like Caesars and MGM.

But...it's not much of a priority for either party to legalize gambling. Republicans tend to be against it for religious reasons. Democrats are often also against it because they think casinos unfairly target poor people.

In the long run I figure progress wins out and poker is legalized nationally but who knows how long that will take? I could be dead by then.

I remember before Black Friday feeling paranoid about the UIGEA and thinking the government wasn't going to tolerate online poker for long, but like most people with such concerns I wasn't taken seriously. Then one day I log on to Stars and it says players from my area can't play. I instantly know it's over.

I think a lot of the current online sites like ACR and Ignition are in pretty dubious legal territory and can get shut down whenever the government feels like it. Which is part of why I haven't even tried playing online in years. Lot of strip mall poker rooms in many states also in dubious legal territory. I'd say I'm lucky to live somewhere with legal casinos but most of my life I've lived in states without any, and I decided to move to Florida specifically to play poker, so, not lucky, but still grateful the entire nation isn't as backwards as some parts.

Thanks for triggering my paranoia with your off topic question whoever asked....

I'm just going to focus on the present. Fear is the mindkiller.

Name one state that has banned live poker once it was legalized. Name one state that has tightened gambling laws in the last 20 years? States make a ton of money from gambling tax revenue. Once they get used to that money, they are never going back.

Things move very very slow but gambling regulations are being loosened not tightened. I remember back when people said Texas would NEVER allow a state lottery. It took longer than most states but it got legalized eventually and 3-4 years ago they were only a few votes short of legalizing poker in Texas. They had the investor money lined up to open a large poker room in downtown Dallas. It will be legalized there eventually. Probably during the next recession when the state needs more tax revenue.

Weed is being legalized everywhere. NJ just legalized sports betting. The NBA just signed a sports betting deal with MGM.

Lol casinos are not going to be regulated out of existence.

but dog tracks that house several poker rooms may soon be

see florida bill