Quote:
Originally Posted by dadjoey
Winrate will vary based on many factors. What is the largest game in the room? If there's no game to move up to, all the best players will either be there or in a different game in a different card room. Is your room a destination for recreational players? Las Vegas during the WSOP / weekend or LA during the tournament series come to mind.
Is there a ladder to that game or is there a huge jump between the biggest vs the second biggest game? If there isn't a reasonable way for a shot taker to win $ and move up, they won't. Also when players are losing or running bad, they'll often want the option to move down and rebuild. All players overrate their skill and this gives them cover to keep going.
Who are the worst players and how often to they play? What is their leak and how do you plan to exploit it? Games often end up with many good players just grinding out the bad players. Yes, there will be games with multiple donators who have bad leaks, but as you move up this is less and less likely. Even the spots will know how to bet when checked to, defend the blinds correctly, and have good post flop lines.
The largest game in one of the rooms I play is a 30/60 game. 1 big bet a hand = $120,000 / year at 2000 hours. I doubt there are five people if even that'll haul that much from the game alone. Of the three that come to mind, all exercise textbook preflop strategies and don't have over aggressive tendencies. They don't make 'moves' and at flat out consistent at calling with the best hand and getting called by a worst hand. $120,000/year seems like a lot because it's 'just' $10,000 a month. We've all had several run good sessions we hit that. Several good/great sessions != a year of sessions. You can't take your run good and multiply that infinite.
That said, if you're taking away half that, I would consider that very good. Poker is stupidly skewed because you have to play against players worst than you either by skill or enough run good. It doesn't matter if you're better than 90% of the card room or the entire poker playing population. To move up you just have to be flat out better than the people at your table.
Even with the $60k figure as a very good benchmark, I know for a fact most dealers are taking roughly that much home in tips and reported income. So the truth is your 50% run of the mill dealer is going to out earn your very good player without risking anything.
If you're in decent job making >$60k and earning $15-30k/year off poker, you're already huge winner. For LHE, I do think you need to be playing $40/80+ to even consider leaving the decent job. I'll leave it to regs from LA/LV/FL to talk about other regions.
Great post. My stretch goal 10 years,ago or so was to make 3BB/100 live on Commerce 20/40+ on a 1 week trip during LAPC playing 14-18 hours a day and DeathDonkey or another well known expert said it's not possible in the long run to make over 1BB/100 live.
However, there are exceptions where the best of the best like Schneids, BK, OnTheRail, Unguarded, AvoidThe9to5, DeathDonkey, pros from Colorado, could be making or are making well over 1BB/100 if they play primarily soft games and game selected.
For example, my best friend whose a genius that finished all college math in highschool who plays recreationally once a week makes well over 1BB/100 based on last 2 years.
Last edited by maka2184; 07-16-2017 at 11:08 AM.