Quote:
Originally Posted by $tack$Poker
I like your definitions here. In your opinion, what proportion of recreational players do you think are profitable? Of that subset, how much time do you suspect they spend playing and studying, on average, per week?
That would really depend on the game, though it would be low in most casino rooms as the rake is proportionally very high in smaller games and the higher stakes games are tough to beat. In my regular 20/40 LHE game I am currently probably the only regular who is truly a "pro" by my definition (it doesn't go enough hours a week to attract full-time pros; I only play part-time, with some travelling to other areas to play other games). There are quite a few other winning players though.
At least one regular is someone who used to be an online pro, and then was a live pro for awhile when the game went more regularly but now has a job and only plays occasionally. There are a few winning older retired guys whom I'm pretty sure have enough (pension/social security) income to pay the bills but make some extra money by playing. They have plenty of time, so maybe play 25 hours a week on average. Then there are several people who have never been pros AFAIK and have regular jobs making good income, but play for fun/intellectual stimulation like you and have the bonus of making money on their hobby. Maybe they play 12 hours a week on average. I will likely get a regular job again within the next few years and join their ranks. Maybe half of these guys would not be winning players in a tougher game with more pros (like the ones in Las Vegas).
Then, of course, there are a lot of losing regulars or semi-regulars, along with a few random bad players that show up once or twice to try out the game then disappear. Maybe 1/3 of the players in my game at any time are winning players, but the winning players generally play more hours than the losing ones. In raw numbers, maybe 1/8 of the regulars are winning players, but that's a very rough guess.
It would be even tougher to know how much time any of the guys spend studying poker, but I would say it's likely to be extremely low. I don't really spend a lot of time studying poker anymore myself, and what I do study is often not about the game I mostly currently play, as there just isn't much new info or discussion about LHE. I'm trying to learn more about other forms of poker so I can also enjoy and be profitable at them for when I want a change of pace or do not have LHE available to me.
I have studied a good amount about NLH as well, and am a competent winning player but just don't enjoy it much. While there is still plenty of new NLH material to study, I would still guess that very few recreational players spend any significant amount of time studying. Though maybe others would know that better than I would, I bet that you would be one of the very few recreational players who were studying enough to improve their game, so I imagine you would have a big edge on anyone who isn't a pro.