Under normal conditions today, what's the ceiling for the best live high stakes players? I'm sure good mid-to-high stakes players can make mid-to-high six figures, but what do you think would be the long term annualized EV for *top* live players?

I don't think this should've been moved to Beginners Questions.

About $3.50/hand

Way too slow, WereBeer beat you to that one.

@OP: the ceiling is pretty high. If Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates decide to play a $1bln heads-up, the winner is the biggest poker winner ever. But what does that matter?

Welcome to the forum ... One thing you will find here when these types of questions come up is the 'standard' answer of 'It Depends.'

There is no ceiling on 'high stakes' Players. If they put in the hours (and run well) the earning potential is limitless. The one issue they may have is finding games to sit down at. You also have to consider what games are being played in the area and how often they run.

I know of 'a guy' in Florida that is just playing 5/10 PLO and is 'possibly' taking down over $30k per month. Is that 'high stakes'? Not really, but it is the highest stake in that area and apparently there are enough Players/bankrolls to sustain this game.

What's reasonable? If you think about DNegs and PIvey and how they built their bankrolls ... they put in the time. Ivey talks about 20 hour sessions followed by a 4 hour nap and then another 20 hour session. Certainly the times have changed and the edge a Pro might have over other Players has decreased .. and there are probably less 'gamblers' out there as well.

Good luck, we like it when new members join in ... unfortunately this thread gets a vanilla label and a 'It depends' response. GL

Well, I'm aiming at an estimate of the win rates of the top players in normal big games, like the biggest games being spread in casinos currently in Bellagio, Commerce, Asia, etc. Not a dream game against some fish like an Andy Beal.

This isn't what I mean though. We all understand that there are mid stakes games where very good players can earn $200k-$500k per year on average playing poker.

A leatherass live player who makes tree fiddy per hand might make tree fiddy k per year

1.367.732,24 Dollars - higher is not possible - thats the criling...

It's just an incredibly stupid question OP.

I have run the calculations myself, and can confirm that this is correct (assuming normal conditions)

We all......? You may be the first.

Not really a good look for you to refer to anyone else as a "fish".

You do realize that the vast majority of high stakes live poker happens in private games and getting into these games is way more important than ‘skill’?

Why would you want to be a superstar in a game full of stars if you could be a star in a game full of beginners?

Since you mention Andy Beal: A couple of years ago, Pamela Anderson’s lawyers claimed in court documents related to their divorce, that Rick Salomon made $40 million from playing poker the year before, mostly in games that featured Andy Beal. The biggest winners in poker are guys who are both decent players and able to get into those games. Doesn’t help to be a crusher who doesn’t get action from anyone above 5/10.

Thisis a meaningless question? Are you asking what the 'best live high stakes players' make just out of curiousity, or do you think that this will give you some information to help you make decisions? It is a difficult question to answer, as they obviously won't publiicze their losses (or in many cases, their wins). It is an irrelevent question, as no one who has even a dream of being a top 20 live player would ever need to ask this question.

A more pertinent question would be , what is the win rate for solid pro's, playing live, at the different poker variants, at different stakes. Is it stands, you won't get a serious answer, because you asked a nonsense question.

And I agree 100% with King Spew. Invariably, anyone coming to BQ and calling other players 'fish' has a stunning lack of self awareness and likely doesn't understand why everyone is happy to see him join the game.

No one knows and anyone who is making significant money is not going to come on a public forum to tell people.

Just for fun, let's say that you consider midstakes 5\10 or 10\20 NLHE. To earn 300K playing at 10\20, playing full time (assunming you can find a 10\20 game that runs full time), you would have to be winning about 7.5 BB an hour, or approximately 25BB/100 hands. This is an uncommonly high winrate at this level.

Playing 5/10, and making 500K, you would need to win 25 bb an hour, or 83 bb/100 hands.

I don't think your numbers are realistic.

If there's dudes pulling in $500k a year playing 2-5 NL, then I'm really messing up at life for not being at the tables right now.

Since there's not, let's temper that number. The real annual of "good" 2-5 NL players live is probably around 1/10th of this.

To think that a cash player can make 200k+?

Dude. If you wanted to play high stakes for living it's the most important question which is why I posted. It just isn't a beginner question. Anyways thanks for the feedback :P

He absolutely was a fish compared to his opponents when he played. It's even documented on the public record. I played with one of the players who played him recently and asked, "Did he really lose $30m to you guys?" to which the guy replied, "way more."

I was looking for the community's estimation but I posted in a different forum originally. Something like, well, there are __ number of big games going at __ stakes, and it's reasonable to assume that the better players can earn between __ and __ BB per hour, so the very best players might be capable of earning something like ~$ __ per year, under normal conditions. The conditions never stay normal obv.

Ah ok. that sucks. I was hoping to get feedback from actual mid stakes pros about the quality and regularity of big games and kinda guess what those guy might be pulling down.

My loose guess is that it's not more than $1-2m per year. This while there's tons of action at lower stakes and plenty of room for smaller stakes players to make some money. So it feels like poker is maybe more idk 'democratized' (?) than it was during the boom.

Good point. I should correct the OP to include that I didn't mean private games or strange one-off games etc., even though it's true that the money is probably mostly made there!

Well, I see if like this: Can live $5/10 to $25/50 NL or PLO players and $40/80+ LHE and mixed games players average something in the neighbourhood of $1,000+ per day in the long run? I'm not off base here. Many players do this. Only a small group of players rise above that level though. I'm curious what the community thinks about how well they might be doing.