out of my 33 sessions how often should i be winning here? Overall I'm playing a very TAG style. Unfortunately I only bring 1 shortstack buyin per session normally. As you can see in the chart has initially has worked for me so i continued that trend. I bring $120-$150 if i lose it I walk. Too many times though i get nickel and dimed down to a really short stack and I'm forced to race.

some leaks;

i dont have example hands but in general.............

I remember once i left $500 on the table. i should have called a no brainer in a possible $1000 pot agains a bluffy asian dude. 2-3 times i made very poor tilty mistakes which cost me around maybe $300 or so, but i have made some very difficult folds that were usually correct(they showed) and avoided some coolers.


Are these stats indicative of a TAG style?

Aren't small loses plus Big wins what we want to see?

Finally, i'm looking at some graphs in previous posts and i do see people winning many many times in a row unlike my graph where on average im winning every few games and at first every other. maybe it's because of the short stacking?

need some more opinions.

It sounds like your issue is more of a bankroll problem than a playing style problem. If you can afford it, you should bring 3 buy-ins with you for each session.

so 3 buyins at $300 each? this is 1/2nl $300 max.

Also, there are times where i am winning by a little but lose it all. I tend not to get up until i have a lot or lose it all. Im not saying im forcing the action or anything but maybe that's why my win count is low? if i double up and the game is juicy ill never leave and then lose it on a suck out. this has happened a couple of times but not many.

so if bring multiple buyins i may actually end up winning. specifically the nights i lose 1 buyin and leave increasing my cashed out wins? This might be why i lose more often than win.

If you are playing 1/2 you should bring $600. You shouldn't buy-in for more than $200/pop. Playing with more buy-ins means you will need to be more cognizant of tilt because you don't want to just blow your next 2 buy-ins after losing your first.

I usually bring 600€ with me for 1/2.
But for a few weeks now i bring 800-1k with me in case their is a juicy uncapped 1/2 or 1/3 table running.

I think you have a mindset problem or your bankroll isnt big enough. You should buy in for 100bb and later when you are more comfortable you can buy in deeper.

Thats not a winning strategy. Keep playing if the tables are good and if you think you are still playing good. If tables are bad and you are not playing good just leave and come back the next day.

Shadow ... there are a couple of issues you're facing here.

First off, 164 hours is a very small sample to draw conclusions from. A little bit of being card dead and missing a few spots can impact your winrate very significantly over that time. So to get a feel for how you're doing as a player we need to talk strategy (go to other threads for that).

The second problem is your bankroll management. You need to bring more money with you and be willing to rebuy after you bust. Or top off. I won't play $1/2 without $600 in my pocket to play with.

I won't hate on you for buying in for $150 instead of $200 ... that's fine depending on the table dynamics, but you need to be aware of how that impacts your ability to call or raise speculatively.

The last issue is your time management. Leaving a game because you bust once, or sticking around too long because the game is "juicy". That will get you out of good games with one unlucky beat, and keep you too late in others until you fall off your A game and start making mistakes. Pick a target time to go home and stick to it instead.

Strong winning players typically win between 60 and 70 percent of sessions. I think not rebuying is causing you to have more losses than normal, especially if you continue playing very short stacked. In high take games it is hard to have much edge if you get down to 40BB or less. If you buy in 150...whatever, but I would either top up once at like 100 or leave at 100.

Mr. Shadow, I would suggest posting some hands and getting feedback.

GgoodluckG

I have recently begun playing in a Northern California 2-3-5 game. I would prefer not to say where for reasons I hope are obvious.

I have kept careful records. I have played 86 hours in this game and netted $7,781, working out to an astonishing 18.1 big blinds/hour.

My variance per hour is 5626.2 bb^2/hour (standard deviation 75.01 bb/sqrt(hr)), and the corresponding standard error in my win rate is 8.1 bb/hr.

On the one hand, this sample size is tiny: it is only about 2,500 hands, about five percent of what conventional wisdom says is needed to get a decent measure of win rate.

On the other hand, my observed win rate is more than two sigmas above breakeven. I might not be truly pulling $90/hour out of this game, but my true win rate is likely to be somewhere in that ballpark, i.e. somewhere between $50/hr and $130/hr.

Is bb/hr even the right measure for reasonable win rates in NL games? For this particular game, the buy-in cap is $1000, i.e., 200bb rather than the online standard of 100bb. If our results are dominated by small pots (i.e., blind steals and flop c-bets) then the buy-in size shouldn't matter; but if big pots are an important part of our results then the buy-in size is critical. This 2-3-5 game would play something like twice as big as the Commerce 5-5, because the Commerce game's buy-in cap is half of this one.

Should we be thinking about win rates in terms of buy-ins/hour rather than big blinds/hour?

Here's a sanity check about these win rate and variance numbers: my spreadsheet includes an estimate of bankroll requirement for this game, 9/4 * win rate / variance (cribbed from MM's Gambling Theory and Other Topics). At my current observed win rate and variance, my required bankroll for this game is $3,500, i.e. three and a half buy-ins. No one in their right mind would want to play this game with this small a roll. I certainly am not doing so.

I'm not sure how you can extrapolate anything from an 86 hour sample size. You can win $7800 and still be a long-term loser in the game. Hell, I saw a losing player win and subsequently lose more than that in a single 2/5 session ($500 cap). I know another long-term loser that builds up $3k stacks on the regular at 2/5. He could easily go on a heater and win $7800 in a couple sessions of 2/5.

Youre on a heater. Good luck.

86 hours is nothing. Completely meaningless sample.

However ... I would agree with the argument that the buy in cap, or more precisely the average stack size has easily as much to do with our winrate as the blind structure does.

You're on a heater, I've had 100-hour periods where I win 40BB/hr, it's just unsustainable. This was also in a 200BB 2/5 game. Also have lost ~10k at 2/5 twice. I think you have a high risk of ruin unless you are super disciplined and nitty. I've lost 3k in one session about...four times. I'm sure I would have lost 3.5k in one session except I only bring 3k.

Also doing variance calcs with small sample sizes is misleading because your game conditions are non-constant, meaning winrate is only approximated by the normal distribution. I had 99% confidence contervals saying I win more than 15/hr but reality has brought that down to 12ish. It's hard to appreciate just how good you're running if you aren't doing things like constantly coolering people, which in my heater I wasn't, I was just noticeably dodging runbad for an unusually long period. If I got it in with a set vs a flush draw or OP vs smaller OP I'd hold up more than I should, wasn't having people spiking bigger sets OTR or any of the other nonsense I'm experiencing lately.

GLGL

Delete

Do you guys include high hand prizes and rakeback in your poker income app to determine win rate? Right now I don’t bc I wanna find out my win rate from just play but would like to see if people include this in their win rate statistics.

This has been asked here many times. Most include normal high hand bonuses like $400 because you are paying $2 out of every pot you win to pay for that promo. You're just getting your own money back. Some dont include it all anyway though.

Nobody should be including large bonuses like bad beat jackpots in their hourly win rates for obvious reasons.

I think most people also dont include any rake back or hourly comp money because its mostly used for food and things like that. There are very few places where you get cash for comps and its not much money anyway.

Like Mike said typically people include high hands and perhaps hourly promos but not huge things like BBJs.

If you use Poker Bankroll Tracker you can add wins under the category "Jackpot/Bonus" and that way you can easily track both winrates, what you make with and what you make without the bonuses. It's probably not a huge difference unless you are playing 1/2 or maybe 2/4 limit. In my 2/5 games the bonuses just add ~ 3 dollars an hour.

Thanks! I feel I should prolly include bc money is taken out of many winning pots to fund the high hands. I’ve made 640 in promos and rakeback while only making like 580ish so it’s a big part of my win rate. I will include in jackpot section to be able to separate and see real win rate omitting this info

I was talking Win Rates with some guys at the local cardroom. And one player made a claim that the rest of us did not believe. So we made a wager.
There is no way to prove if his claim is fact or fiction.
So we decided to bet whether or not the "average poker player" would believe that his win rate was reasonably possible.

2018
Level: 1-2
Total Hours: 1052
Win Rate: $55

Notes:
This is Oregon, so there is no rake
This win rate does not include money spent on tips or the daily door fee.

Given the amount of hours he claims to have put in this year, do you believe that his win rate is believable?

Personally, I find it difficult to imagine that even a high-stakes pro who was stepping down from nose bleeds for a year winning over 27 bbs per hour.

What do you think?
I know you do not know the player in question, but is it reasonably possibly for anyone to win $55 an hour at 1-2?

Please advise
Your answers will determine who wins the bet.

--CM

Not having/counting rake and tips is adding $15+/hr easy, quite a bit more in some environments. Does the game play deep? Straddles? Shorthanded? Is it the biggest game in the room/area?

1000 hrs aint that long. Run good is a thing. No rake is awesome. If the question is could it be done, yeah you're losing this one of course it could.

Yeah, it's not likely but it's obviously possible if he heaters like crazy and game conditions are good.

Is it possible? Yes, I suppose so. Is it likely that he's actually done it without including a BBJ in his stats? No, I seriously doubt it.

I've played those games, they are good, but not that good. They didn't play particularly deep when I was visiting. The no rake thing is huge, as is the not including what he spent on tips, but even if we give him 7BBs an hour for those effects, he's running way above what I would guess is the max long term winrate in that game.

Since you are soliciting answers from the "average poker player", I think you are asking in the wrong place. The average poker player is a losing player.

IMO, with no rake or tips, the answer is Yes it can be done by a top player, but I think you win the bet because the "average poker player" will not believe it can be done since they cant do it and probably don't know anyone who could do it.