Wow ! Nice results ! GL in 2019


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beastly results, where abouts did you play live?

This discussion was from yesterday over in Karamazonk's PG+C. My posts are bolded and Tyman's are in italics. Brought in over to mine to stop cluttering someone else's thread up and hopefully continue the discussion over here a little bit more. I think there's good value here to read a back and forth between 2 long term (10+yr) pros. Also hopefully Tyman and I can each get a little something out of it too.

Good write up, glad to hear you're enjoying life on and off the felt again. I think the majority of pros vastly underestimate how much a balanced and fulfilled life away from the table affects their enjoyment of poker. Therefore, it's no surprise that once you started intentionally focusing on improving your life, you started enjoying poker again. Congrats!

I'm curious for you and Tyman....how much of your accumulation of disdain for variance over time do you think is a result of purely just the temporary downswings and bad beats/other results of variance? Or does it have anything to do with being under more financial pressure (lifestyle inflation/bigger monthly nut) these days and perhaps a smaller bankroll than earlier in your career? I've noticed the same sentiment in a couple other long term pros too, but they have been financially stressed.

Cause I feel like it should be the exact opposite, and it is for me (11yr pro). I feel I understand the nature of variance better than earlier in my career, as well as have a much better overall mental game and therefore handle it way better.

But who knows, maybe its my results the past few years and I just haven't experienced enough negative variance lately that's given me a bias? Would love to hear any other long term (4+ yrs) pros thoughts too.

For me it's definitely not a financial pressure thing at all. I've been smart and careful with my money over time and done well enough that I am generally pretty set at this point. I wouldn't say I'm set for life but barring something terrible happening I have saved enough that I would be fine even if poker were to disappear tomorrow. I also have very reasonable monthly expenses which helps. I know a lot of poker players tend to overspend especially during periods of over expectation results. Personally that's luckily never really been a problem for me. If you aren't saving up a lot of money than poker as a job is a pretty big mistake imo, because the poker economy is def getting worse and starting at the bottom somewhere later with no money doesn't sound fun.

I agree about having a much better understanding of variance after playing so long, but tbh I think that actually has the opposite effect on me. Knowing the extreme insanity that variance can be in this game just isn't a fun thought. Obviously you can end up on the good side of variance as well but there will always be negative variance and downswings. My mental game is actually really good in terms of my actual play. I don't play much worse or play more hands or move to higher stakes or whatever else chasing losses (which for a pro should obv be pretty standard stuff to not do). It just ends up taking some of the enjoyment away from poker because I know there will be many days where I put in a hard days work but end up with the feeling of moving backwards (even if I moved forward in terms of ev).

I also worry about how fast things seem like they can change. I've had a great last 10-15 years of results in poker but past performance doesn't guarantee future performance. Rake has been raised over time, players have gotten better, rakeback has been reduced, and at least as a US player the whole landscape of being an online grinder today is sketchy sites and apps with lots of software bugs. My winrate is still strong but who knows what changes will continue to happen over time. It's a delicate balance of being confident in your abilities while also being self aware enough to know that you aren't invincible. I'm sure plenty of the crushers in poker from a decade ago didn't think they'd ever stop being better than the competition and some of them probably lost a lot of money before they realized the economy had changed for them.

And last thing I'll add to what has somehow turned into a ridiculously long post lol, is that these big spots that can come up in a poker career (and even just in other areas of life) are such deciding factors of where you end up. This is especially true in terms of tournament results. Imagine how the trajectory of Jason Mercier's life changes if he doesn't bink off one of his first live tourneys for 1M+. There are a bunch of grinders out there who are all similar in skill but some % of them get a big break bink and many of them don't. Sean Snyder was talking about this in his most recent post in DGAF's thread in terms of how huge an effect a small % of big pots has on what his yearly results look like. tldr variance in poker and life is crazier than we think. Sorry this was so long!


Great post tyman...I’ll start by start by saying congrats on the saving over your career. Sounds like you’re in a great spot and have numerous (maybe more?!) years of living expenses saved up.

I agree with your general sentiment about the craziness that variance is and for sure almost everyone in poker underestimates it. Especially with some of the stuff you mentioned like tourney binks, running hot at beginning of career and the slingshot effect that can have, as well as of course live only players like Sean Snyder who chooses to play a huge range of stakes and games that opens himself up to crazy variance from year to year, or even over a career.

But how does all the above effect you specifically whatsoever currently? Don’t you mostly play online and like only between 1 or 2 different stakes?

*btw if clogging up thread can obviously just move discussion over to mine, or just end it altogether too.
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Oh I forgot to address the part where you said you get less enjoyment because some days you know you will run bad and not get rewarded for your effort. That’s short term thinking, not long term. That doesn’t sound like you fully get variance on a subtle and deep level.

Also your paragraph about games dying and the changes to the industry. That’s not really same topic as variance and the accumulation of bad beats over time though.

Thats just a fear/paranoia thing that’s common in a ton of industries but even more so within poker it seems. Every year for a decade plus it’s been poker is done. Remember like 2014 when it was all really supposed to be dead soon? GTO! Then solvers in 2017! But it’s 2019! and even online there are still great games. Let alone live poker. Of course it’s harder/players are better, and you have to do more things to keep your edge/find good games. The market has become more efficient. But poker isn’t gonna just die in the next few years. My suggestion would be to really question your assumption that poker really is changing so rapidly and might end soon.

Sorry end of rant, but I bought into this misconception year after year until lately. Not gonna go into how I realized it was wrong or why bc I said end of rant and I need to get my old ass to bed lol.

*plus who the **** wants to solely play poker for a living for another 15+ years anyway, right?!


Yeah idk whether karamazonk wants his thread cluttered with this discussion. I guess I'll answer this one here and then karamazonk can let us know if he wants us to move it elsewhere when he checks in on the thread.

Thx for the congrats, although obv it's something everyone should be doing no matter their profession. Just especially important for poker players with the resume gap and the way the poker economy is going. Yeah I could live for many many years on what I've already saved, although obv goal is to continue to make money lol. Having just turned 30 and wife not far behind I also imagine prob having a kid in the next few years so hoping to save up as much as humanly possible before that huge expense and lifestyle change lol.

So these days those variance things affect me more intermittently, but unfortunately they still occur from time to time because randomly really soft bigger games will be going or I'll have a deep tourney run. As mentioned above this past summer I got like 20th in the wsop online bracelet event after losing AA to 88 aipf for a pot worth 2nd in chips and 150k up top. That really really stung lol. I ran like god that entire tourney up until when it mattered most. And I've unfortunately had a small handful of those situations throughout my career where I ran very very deep with life affecting money up top and ran very badly to bust for a small bink. I'm not a high volume tourney grinder and those spots just don't come up very often and running better in those spots for obvious reasons would have been very beneficial. And just to be clear no one deserves to get there and run good any more than any other person, but that doesn't make it suck less Another recent example was that early this year I was on a very soft asian app. There was a lot of pretty damn soft $3.75/$7.50/$15 blind straddle games going. I broke about even in them and was easily 25-30k below ev and unfortunately that particular asian app got shut down. I ended up having a pretty great year but obv adding 25-30% ish to the yearly total is signficant. But yeah unfortunately there was no way to answer that question without some bitching about run bad. This stuff has way more significance in the life of a tourney grinder, but is still something I have to encounter from time to time.

Idk if you follow Benabadbeat's thread but he's a long term very good player and has friends that are also very good players. And he's on like a 300k hand breakeven stretch. Granted US games are softer so things shouldn't ever get THAT bad, but just the idea that there are great players out there playing not even that high of stakes and a normal part of that is multiple hundred thousand hand breakeven stretches is just deflating to me a bit tbh. It's probably better to know what's possible but I think it was more enjoyable to be ignorant about it. It wasn't even THAT many years ago that we all thought 20-30k hands was a decent sample for what someones long term expectation was.

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I think you can understand variance and still feel negatively about it. Like I have a decent idea of what my ev hourly probably is when I'm grinding, but knowing that doesn't make me want to have to go through the ups and downs in order to end up there. Even if someone were to only grind one stake all year, let's say 1/2, and in good games, there is still going to be a big disparity in results between the best running version of themselves and the worst running version of themselves over that year. If I could pay someone 10% of my hourly to get 90% of my hourly variance free I'd for sure do it.

When I say poker is dying I just mean to the extent it eventually becomes a waste of time. That point will be different for different people of course. I don't think online poker is done, but I think hourlies will continue to shrink over time. In my personal opinion, and in terms of what makes sense for my life, I would not find playing poker worth it if I can't make a certain amount per hour. I really don't think anyone can honestly look at the direction online poker is headed and feel confident that it has a long future ahead of it as a viable profession. Live poker is a totally different situation. Hourlies have shrunk there too but I think if you're willing to grind mostly 2/5 and grind out somewhere around $30-$50/hr, that'll probably be available to people for a long time to go. Personally the idea of being a full time live grinder sounds pretty awful to me, unless I could grind something like 75/150 10 game mix forever.

*Sorry your thread is getting super cluttered karamazonk, I'm sure a mod can move it to mine or IntheNow's thread if you decide you want it moved.

Tyman,

Just want to re-iterate in general I totally get what you're saying and we are a lot closer in our views than it may seem from my responses. I've seen your intelligent and level headed posts for years around here and I almost always find myself in complete agreement with whatever you decide to write.

On this recent discussion I still pretty much agree with you. But I do think I look at this from a more birds eye view and in a more relevant and beneficial way imo. However, even though my views have changed lately I do still find myself thinking and feeling exactly like you. But I've been wanting to write about some of this stuff for a while anyway, so I'm just gonna spew away. Maybe someone (you, me, a reader?) will get something from this all. I'll copy/past a few things you wrote and put it in italics and respond.

***one more time after reading everything I'm gonna write, I still agree with you mostly and maybe it sounds like I don't. I do, it's for sake of discussion too I guess.
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Yeah I could live for many many years on what I've already saved, although obv goal is to continue to make money lol.

That is incredible/ridiculous man, congratulations! I don't know if you realize how rare that is in America and in poker. That's such an advantage you have mentally for poker at taking a very long term results oriented mindset. Just outta curiosity, what's your average yearly expenses? I just ask because I live in a high cost of living area and can't imagine having many many years saved and am a sicko that wants to torture myself when I hear your expenses lol.

Idk if you follow Benabadbeat's thread but he's a long term very good player and has friends that are also very good players. And he's on like a 300k hand breakeven stretch. Granted US games are softer so things shouldn't ever get THAT bad, but just the idea that there are great players out there playing not even that high of stakes and a normal part of that is multiple hundred thousand hand breakeven stretches is just deflating to me a bit tbh. It's probably better to know what's possible but I think it was more enjoyable to be ignorant about it. It wasn't even THAT many years ago that we all thought 20-30k hands was a decent sample for what someones long term expectation was.

But he's playing in games where obviously with a 300k break even stretch he isn't that big of a winner. Even a 4bb/100 player has less than .5% chance of breaking even over that many hands. He's also maybe playing tons of hands per hour so it's not actually that many hours of break even play. He also could probably find softer environments, being technically good at poker is only one piece of the puzzle to max success.

But why is that deflating to you? It has no relevance to your reality at all. Your'e in a completely different environment, and you have said you trust yourself to always adapt anyway. That sounds like a mental game leak to me. IMO mental game doesn't have to only mean you don't tilt much while playing or chase losses. It can mean you let certain things that aren't relevant/beneficial to your success hurt things like enjoyment leading to apathy, issues putting in volume, etc.

For example, in DGAF's thread he does obviously understand variance better than most and how crazy it is in so many ways. But it appears to me it's lead him to focus way too much on things out of his control. It's become and obsession/fear that's developed into huge mental leak causing him to have inaccurate views of reality (like there's no edge in full ring live/it's a variance fest) that has subconsciously lead him to play his A-game less (because hey, it doesn't matter since all up to variance) than he would have if he had more of an internal locust of control. BTW, it's still my favorite thread all time by far, and I really really like him and root for him. Just using as an example because I've spent so many endless hours reading that thread over the years and always find myself agreeing with so much but then stopping at a certain extent, kinda like with you here I guess.

I think you can understand variance and still feel negatively about it. Like I have a decent idea of what my ev hourly probably is when I'm grinding, but knowing that doesn't make me want to have to go through the ups and downs in order to end up there. Even if someone were to only grind one stake all year, let's say 1/2, and in good games, there is still going to be a big disparity in results between the best running version of themselves and the worst running version of themselves over that year. If I could pay someone 10% of my hourly to get 90% of my hourly variance free I'd for sure do it.

But that's the nature of poker and how we make money from this game. With out this then there would be no more fish. It sounds like you want poker to be chess. And the ups and downs don't hurt as much when you focus on the long run and trust your edge.
*But just the other day I found myself swearing out loud after a few ridiculous beats online, so it is hard. And I do feel poker pros go through so much acute suffering/pain than other professions. Just saying we can all do a better job of having less subconscious (damn that word kills me for spelling) fear and a more birds eye view and long term approach to variance.

When I say poker is dying I just mean to the extent it eventually becomes a waste of time. That point will be different for different people of course. I don't think online poker is done, but I think hourlies will continue to shrink over time. In my personal opinion, and in terms of what makes sense for my life, I would not find playing poker worth it if I can't make a certain amount per hour. I really don't think anyone can honestly look at the direction online poker is headed and feel confident that it has a long future ahead of it as a viable profession. Live poker is a totally different situation. Hourlies have shrunk there too but I think if you're willing to grind mostly 2/5 and grind out somewhere around $30-$50/hr, that'll probably be available to people for a long time to go. Personally the idea of being a full time live grinder sounds pretty awful to me, unless I could grind something like 75/150 10 game mix forever.

In general I agree obviously for most hourlies will go down. I do think for the top players in their environment they haven't really shrunk at all in recent years. The best players are just so much better than the losing players now. What's happened in the last few years is that the very best players in their respective environments have just gotten so much better than the fish who are losing at a faster rate than ever. So I think for the very best, the variance has actually gone down, especially live where stacks are deeper. It's why a lot of players think the most sustainable form of poker are games like Limit Hold em, because there's more variance, giving fish/breakeven/marginal winners more of the illusion that they're better than they are. Kinda brings it back to poker can't be chess, we need the variance, therefore can do a better job than we do currently letting it effect our enjoyment/happiness/suffering.

Also, I can honestly look at the direction of online poker and feel confident it will be possible to make a good living in the long future. The question is what are you defining as long term? I mean who the hell knows what anything will be in 30 years, and who wants to grind online poker for another 30 years anyway? Do you mean a few years from now? People have been saying this for over a decade now, and no end in sight imo. If we define a length and minimum hourly for a viable profession, I'd be willing to bet on this (either for heaps in escrow, or just for fun ).

I was all over the place here and spent too much time and didn't come out as I liked, but **** perfection I'm just gonna hit submit now. If anyone else wants to chime in that's cool too, or I'm down to just end topic now too lol. Messed up my time management this morning .

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Not much I can really disagree with there, good discussion man!

2019 Goals:

Poker:
[ ] 1400 quality hours played

[ ] no specific monetary goals, but to meet my medium-long term financial goals I need to personally average at least a net income of $200k+ per year

[ ] Treat poker like a business more than I ever have.

Health:
[ ] I want to be 175lbs by the end end of June and maintain through end of year if I decide that's the right weight for me

[ ] more vegetables and less alcohol overall. I also would like to take a month off of alcohol at least, broken up into 2 separate 2 week periods.

Money:
[ ] Get my budget dialed in and save AT LEAST $15k from specific expense categories compared to 2018.

[ ] be closer to achieving some other form of other income by end of year, passive or non-passive

Mindset/other:
[ ] Solidify my direction for the next couple years wrt to business/making money. Will I continue only playing poker in same games? Will I start traveling a decent amount and playing in bigger games (20/40nl-50/100nl)? Or will I begin transition away from 100% of income from poker, to other income generating things (passive and non-passive) part or full time?

[ ] become more comfortable with being un-comfortable. Keep challenging myself and keep growing, no stagnation and getting too comfortable. Less over thinking and perfectionist behavior causing paralysis and procrastination. Less fear of failure.


[ ] Focus more on building relationships. Feel less competition with everyone and give more in general in my life without a clear path of getting anything back in return. I’ll give financial things I’ve learned, as well as business side of poker, **** it I’ll even give actual poker strategy if need be.

[ ] Way better time efficiency. That goes for poker - more focused study/work, and more focused on A-game when playing- but in general too. I want to be more present and not on my phone when with family/friends. I want to block off specific time for work related activities only.

[ ] Do a q1/q2/q3/q4 review with an updated and more brief next 3 months goals post

[ ] focus more on the present micro moments, while always aware/never losing site of the long run

Very nice goals. In regards to the developing other sources of income part, I feel like the hardest part of that is finding other sources of income that are actually more valuable to spend time on than spending that time playing poker. Like as an extreme example, obv it would make no sense monetarily to do something that earns you $20/hr (unless it's passive) when poker yields 4-5x the hourly. It is difficult to find things that are worth the time while also not needing some previously held sort of skill/knowledge.

I really like the way you write your thoughts down OP! Wishing you goodluck!

Thanks guys!
thx. I'm in an undisclosed part of North America where the games can be good, but I've realized absolutely don't make up for the cost living, rake, and taxes
Yeah totally, that's probably the main reason I've never come close to getting out of poker after all these years. However, I've come to realize a few things lately: (1) Poker really has given us more knowledge/skills than we realize that are valuable and marketable, (2) thanks to the internet this is the easiest time in history to be an entrepreneur and make money online, (3) Most of us have been through enough suffering or been frustrated by certain problems and motivated to find a solution that other people would get value from (4) the long run is long, meaning just because your'e sacrificing immediate money for a year or two or five, doesn't mean you will be in the long run (it could be the opposite), (5) passion and things that excite you and give you a new challenge potentially won't feel like nearly as much work compared to something you're feeling apathetic towards. With that said, I have no idea if I'll even have made one cent away from poker in a few years. I really do look at this from a long term perspective where there's no rush. And yeah, anything passive would be way down the road, after many hours of work put into whatever it is. But it would have to be something that I'm completely excited/passionate so that the actual money side of things wouldn't have to necessarily be better than poker.
Thanks man, I really appreciate that. I'm trying to get better/more efficient and not so wordy. One of my goals this year (guess I forgot it in my 2019 goals, I'll put in my 1st quarter goals that I post here soon) is to post/write a lot more.

Poker definitely provides some good transferable skills. I still have not been successful in figuring out things that I'd want to do besides poker where my life would still be as enjoyable. It's tough to find work that you enjoy. 150% agree about the being willing to sacrifice short term ev for long term ev when it comes to starting to go down a different path. Personally I'm def willing to start at the bottom somewhere if need be as long as I feel it's something I'll enjoy and has a reasonable ceiling when it comes to advancement and pay. I'm actually considering taking a couple courses in things that interest me while I continue to play poker just to keep my mind learning about other things. I have my bachelors but it's just a generic marketing degree and it's nice to have the degree but I don't have any thoughts on a specific job I'd want to get using it. I hope you find something you enjoy that you can spend time on to go along with poker!

Waking up early to do the "9-5" grind is the nut low... until the pay check comes in

in, GL!

Yeah man I'd say definitely take the courses, can't hurt, as long as it's not cutting into poker too much. Just the intention and act of learning new things ups the chances a ton obviously, and could end up potentially taking you down a path you wouldn't of ever thought.

I'm a college dropout and never going to get my degree, so looking for jobs is outta the question for me. I don't know about you, but after living this life for so long, there's no chance I'd want to work for anyone. But that's also just my personality anyway.

Hmmm, go on....
Thanks man

Haha yeah understandable. I know I COULD do the 9-5 type of life if I had to, but I don't desire it at all unless I actually enjoyed what I'm doing. I think I am a lot happier day to day living this lifestyle vs the more traditional work lifestyle for sure. The flexibility is just amazing obviously and pretty much no line of work will prob ever offer the same level of freedom.

1st Quarter Goals

[ ] 450 *Quality* hours played. This will be my heaviest grinding quarter of the year because games are best in the 1st and 4th quarter, but it's very likely gonna be easier for me to get in more hours in the 1st than the 4th this year. This will be hard for me considering I typically play VERY low volume at all on weekends and very low volume online at home past 6pm on week nights. I'm definitely not your typical poker pro, lol. I'm also taking a vacation in that time frame as well. Sacrifices will have to be made, which is totally fine. I'm looking forward to breaking old mental leaks/habits.

[ ] 2 significant post per week here at least, shooting for 3 really. The posts will mostly be about personal finance and mindset, with a little poker as well. I want to solidify my thoughts with these posts, hold myself accountable, get budget down, and hopefully help anyone out reading in some way.

[ ] weigh in at 178 lbs or less with no strength lost

[ ] have my budget down so I can figure out where I’ll need to cut my ridiculous expenses and come up with plan by Feb. I'm just waiting for chase to release my credit card year end summaries to compare with 2017 and then go over everything to see where and how much exactly I need to cut down. I already have figured out how much we spent in total for 2017 and 2018. I'll address in future posts.

[ ] get to my taxes in March and have most of it done by end of quarter. Also optimize and save.

[ ] go 2 weeks with no alcohol

[ ] finally get life insurance and set up a will

[ ] sign up for a new credit card. Also get my wife to sign up for a different one as well. Because who doesn't like a free $1,200-$2k for doing pretty much nothing.

Enough ******* talk,

5-4-3-2-1....let'g go!

fyi your estimated taxes can be put on credit cards to hit your min spend

I actually never pay estimated taxes. I've always valued having that money as part of my bankroll throughout the year for mental purposes, making it less likely I'd have to move down stakes if run really bad. The penalty for not doing estimated taxes always just felt small and worth it to me.

I'm thinking it's time to change that for me though. I've had plenty of money for a few years now, so it's no longer relevant to me. I just have been doing it for the past few years out of habit. Pretty silly now that I'm thinking about it actually. It's also a brutal feeling paying it all at once, haha. Especially this year - April is gonna suck!

With my credit card expenses, it's no prob to use it for a month or two on my normal life purchases and hit the min spend limit.

What's Your Real Win Rate as a Professional Poker Player?





*This post applies to regular wage jobs and business owners as well, it's just effects professional poker players a little more dramatically - and this is a poker forum after all



Let's have a discussion about win-rates in poker. But not your typical poker players' discussion on what bb/100 or bb/hr (for live poker) is currently achievable. That topic has been beaten to death plenty over the years. Let's zoom out and look at win rates on a broader, more expansive scope. In a way that is more relevant to our lives - more accurate and real.



From now on I'm gonna refer to win rates in the form of $/hr or hourly. That's really what matters at the end of the day. And there's some bad news for professional poker players wrt to hourly rates. Your hourly is way less than you think it is. Like....way less! That's ok though, it's not all bad. Once we become aware of this, we can use our new found perspective to make our lives and future better. The closer we can get to estimating our "real hourly", the better informed decisions we can make going forward.



Here's an example of a hypothetical Professional Poker Player (PP) to illustrate my point with some numbers*:



***note that these numbers are going to be general and simplified to save time and get the point across without getting lost in the weeds with all the many tax details, business expenses/write offs, etc. There are concrete ways I came up with all these figures though. Some of the assumptions will be listed at end of post.



PP has averaged $100/hr playing poker over the last couple of years. He has averaged 1,500 hours at the tables split evenly between online and live play -making $150,000/yr. When asked by his close friends or family he proudly says he makes $150,000/yr at around $100/hr. But he's leaving out a few things that make his hourly look and feel higher than it really is:



Taxes (-$25k): Between federal and state (high tax state like CA or NY) taxes it's tough being a business owner because you have to pay both the employee and employer side of FICA taxes. Taxes alone bring his hourly down to $83/hr



Retirement (-$15k): PP chooses to save 10% of his gross income in a SEP IRA in order to lower his current tax bill and save for his retirement. *Note that this is a small after-tax savings rate of 12.5% that wouldn't allow him to retire (if that's all he saved total) for another 47 years or so. Since he won't have access to this money (without a big penalty) for at least 30 years, he tries to just forget about this money and pretend it doesn't exist. Therefore, it's not really part of his take home pay he gets to actually benefit from. Now his hourly is down to $73/hr.



Business Expenses (-$3,200): PP has to keep up with the evolving poker environment and pay for operational expenses (coaching, products, software, subscriptions, gas, etc.) every year. He can write off a percentage of these that are reflected in the numbers. Brings his hourly further down $71/hr.



Time spent working but not compensated for (412 hrs): These include studying, watching videos, getting coached, going over HH's, Pio work, and time spent driving to/from casino. Now down to $56/hr





So PP has actually worked a total of 1912 hours and received a take home pay of $106,800 for a "real hourly" of $56. PP actually makes almost 1/2 of what he thought using conservative numbers and assumptions imo.



I could stop there, but let's go a little further down the rabbit hole and try to model out what PP's hourly will be in a few years. I'm going to go on the assumption that games are going to continue getting a little harder over the next few years. And that since PP has a high hourly he's probably playing in the biggest games in his area and there isn't much room for higher stakes online.



Inflation (-$5/hr): In 5 years the stakes will still be the same in poker, but at a 2%/yr inflation rate over 5 years the purchasing power from that money will be %10 less. No raises in poker at the pace of inflation like most jobs. Brings it down to $50/hr



Tougher Games (-$5/hr): Many people would put this at super conservative for the next 5 years. But this post has been negative enough, let's look on the bright side here. Now down to $45/hr



Safe estimate for possible past run-good and future outlook (-20% or -$9/hr): PP has to account for the fact that maybe the past couple years he ran above expectation and is being too rosy about the future. Since this is what he does for a living, it's always better to be safe and conservative and over-rolled and not over spend based on inaccurate projections wrt to his earning potential. Hourly is now $36



*I came up with these^^^^ last few numbers from the "real hourly" figures of $56/hr and sacrificed some accuracy for time here....this post is taking too long lol.





So PP's "real hourly" or take home hourly is $36/hr. And at the end of the year he’s only taking home a total of around $68,800. Of course you can debate some exact numbers here and there, but you get the picture by now!





***some more of the assumptions: PP plays 1/2 hours online and 1/2 live, casino is 30 min drive each way and average time played there is 8 hours, writes off business expenses at 20%



Conclusion:



I'm always trying to get the most clear, unfiltered, and bigger picture view of reality (just like we try to in poker to make correct decisions) and I think this way of looking at your job does that. It's a little depressing, but once aware of how little you're really making per hour you can make better choices wrt to your future.



How would this way of looking at your job change your spending habits? How would it affect your time management? How would it affect your view of your future in poker? I know how it's affected mine, and I'm grateful I've been exposed to and adopted this way of looking at work.

25k for fed/state/self employment on 150k sounds low, unless it's factored in different deductions and stuff? I also don't think subtracting the retirement savings part makes sense even though you don't have access to the money til retirement. Imo subtracting taxes and expenses of doing the job brings us to the most useful number, and then from there you can break down how much you can afford to spend to live and how much you can save for future savings goals (i.e. house/car/kids college/etc) and retirement.

I'm a fan of the the general idea behind this exercise though. People don't spend enough time thinking about their hourly expectation and how it relates to their expenses. Which I'm sure is prob a big part of why poker players tend to overspend not realizing they are running hot and then screw themselves when falling back to expectation.

Sup, very interesting!

If you are really serious about mindset/self-improvement, get the book The Mind Illuminated.


Goodluck

What’s up, thanks! What was interesting about it to you?

Btw I’ve heard of people (non poker players) realizing they are making 1/4 of what they thought they were per hour at their job once going through a similar analysis. Pretty sick imo!

Thanks for the book rec, however after reading summary/reviews it just looks a little too similar to many books I’ve read on meditation.



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ur being way too ridiculous with this calcuation.

#1: everyone gives their salary/hourly pre-tax... so... why are u removing this?
#2: this is ******ed. he still made that money from poker. it needs to be included in his hourly. if he dumps all his profit into his retirement fund, is he making $0/hr playing poker? lol.
#3: yy agreed. and u need to be recording this for tax purposes.
#4: THIS is the real thing, and frankly the only thing that should be included in ur post. nobody does this, but it's massive. quite stupid to not record this if you want to know your actual hourly.

the rest of the points are pretty ridiculous. nobody knows where poker is going.

maybe it'll be legalized in 2 years and the game will get another boom and current hourlies will be 2xed.

you could also argue that the economy continuing to improve -> more people gambling -> higher winrate so that beats inflation. this is just something that shouldn't be included in a calculation.

what if shortdeck becomes the next new mainstream poker game and winrates are literally 20bb/100 if you were good at nlhe?

i realize ur intentionally giving an incredibly conservative/pessimistic view, but it really shouldn't be considered. i'm conservative as ****, but including those points (and #1 and #2 lol) is a horrific idea.

anyway, his "real" hourly is $77. which is the $146,800 net profit over 1912 TRUE hours dedicated to poker. PP is a sick crusher actually.

Taxes should be pretty close to reality imo. Remember, only $135k is taxable bc of the $15k that goes into the SEP IRA. Then multiply $135K x .9235 (employer side of FICA that's deductible), and then that number by .153 (self employment tax). What would you estimate taxes owed on that income would be? Do you have a SEP IRA btw? I never talk to other poker players about this stuff, so I'm curious.

Fair enough, how about looking at your win rate/hourly in the way I wrote wrt to total hours worked? Seems a better reflection of reality than thinking your hourly is just your win rate while grinding.

As a pro, how do you think about and estimate your expectation for next couple years? Do you think looking back over the last couple years and projecting that out over next 2 years is sufficient. Or do you like my idea of giving yourself a ran-well/games are getting harder buffer, and planning for something like %20 less if hours and stakes remain the same?