Everyone's situation and skill set is different. My salaried job requires about 2 hours of actual work a day (I'm talking going to meetings, reading e-mail, etc.), most of my peers probably put in about 4-5 hours of work a day. The rest of the time they're screwing around, taking smoke breaks, surfing the web, etc.

I'm probably a little better at LHE than I am at my day job.

Playing more than 3 hours of LHE is tiring (and boring) for me, but I generally am paying attention to hands that I'm not in.

Soft jobs exist, just like soft games. The better you are at something, the less effort and concentration it requires.

You can win in Hold'em w/o paying much attention to your opponents, just not maximum. Your first three hours are going to be your best in a session and you want to pace yourself if you intend to play longer.

+1

Why is that ridiculous?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

If you were talking about a near infinite sample size it wouldn't be ridiculous, but for one lifetime of data it will certainly skew the winrate. I'd imagine the only people beating live 2/4 over any real sample have a big bbj in there somewhere.

But really, if you have the ability to know your winrate both with and without jackpots included then why not?

Hitting the jackpot is not a skill game and does not measure skill. Imo, if management and accounting is worthwhile, you primarily want to measure skill level. And secondarily how much goes to rake and food/bev. It's unimportant how good you are at hitting a jackpot and other promotions.

Completely disagree. When you are playing a 5+2 or 3+3 game or whatever you aren't adding $2 a hand to your wintate so you certainly shouldn't subtract promo winnings. I wouldn't include a bbj because it will skew your results but I would certainly include aces cracked, splash pots and even bbj table shares in my winrate.

Also you can't say promos are unimportant when there exist 4/8 games I can beat for north of $20/hour when including promotions. The promos make up a good bit of that hourly and it would be foolish in not factoring them in in trying to determine my expected hourly for a given game or stake

So you think a variable winrate is the way to go ?
This would end up in some serious bad bankroll issue management ..

It's perfectly fine to average out what the extra stuff averages out to and put it to the winrate+promo-food if you prefer to know the finance of playing a game. But if you want your skill in the game itself then this is merely cosmetic surgery, IMO. I don't keep track anyway so don't even know why I'm posting.

You don't really have a bankroll for most promo filled games since any losses can generally be replaced easily by working. If I'm playing 4/8 when it's aces cracked I'm not to worried about having 2000 hours of samples winratea so I can know what my risk of ruin in, but I would be curious to know if I'm winning or losing money at my hobby

That's not an accurate picture of your skill though. If you are playing a poker game with a $5 rake and a $2 bbj/promo drop that you get back 80% of in theory then your actual skill is a winrate in the game with a $5.40 rake, not a $7 hand rake

I mean there's plenty that goes into your winrate in a normal game that has nothing to do with skill. Drunk guy sits down and raises every hand blind until the river. Do I excise the 5k I won from him from my winrate?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I was thinking just now the same thing, and it occured to me that you could score the dead money divided by skilled players perhaps.

What if we lose 5k in the game

I'll gladly admit I'm not smart enough to take full advantage of the statistic, but I'm sure it means something over enough sessions.

>160 posts talking about winrates? LMAO!!!!!!!!!!!!OMG!!!!!!!!!!! The last thing that will ever help your winrate is........................



:P

I regret making this post because now I'll never get this minute of my life back.

I think there are a few things that one can take away from this thread:

a) if you have a negative winrate, it's ok. Study more and hopefully things turn around.

b) if you have a positive winrate, cool, good for you. Have a beer or celebrate your limit holdem prowess in your own way. Keep studying though.

Sorry, I'll let the adults get back to their conversation. I just hope the thread has some entertainment value for some because I see no potential ev gain as far as winrates go.

my 2 cents. you get what you paid for it.

It is naval gazing at a point, so I get the outrage, lol. It all depends on how much work you want to put into records.

i've been on both sides of the coin and can honestly say poker is harder than work by FAR. i went BACK to work after not being able to hack it as a live pro. there were a bunch of extenuating circumstances (hospitalizations/surgeries, stupidity literally losing $ as in misplacing a large amount of cash, etc.) but i can easily say the toll live poker takes on you is FAR more than any desk job.

1. the hours are horrific. you have to be willing to close down games to get SH opportunities. this is usually super early in the morning/late at night.

2. the commutes are killer. i went to AC every other weekend+ for a long time and while i do actually love driving and listen to all kinds of stuff to expand my mind and entertain me on the drive, nobody is invincible and impervious to those commutes. so unless you live right by your casino and don't ever travel to others, it's a huge toll, in more ways than one.

3. live poker is VERY different than online poker. i had to learn that and it wasn't a super smooth lesson. i played too loose for too long before really learning that lesson. live reads are definitely a thing and if you're sitting there on candy crush, i don't care if you're phil ivey, you're losing money. it's not just about knowing the game and "what to do in each situation," it's about recognizing what situation is presenting itself. if you haven't been paying attention to everybody and what they're doing, i don't care how well you know each person, you can't be on top of their mood on a hand to hand basis if you're not paying attention to the game. this is why live poker is so taxing.

for a time, i played chess and did other stuff on the phone and my results reflected that. when i stopped doing that, i realized how much money i was giving up by not paying attention. you miss bluffs, value bets, all kinds of opportunities by not staying in tune with the exact moods of each person at the table. it adds up. don't think that it doesn't.

but that's the thing, you can play LONGER if you aren't paying nitty gritty attention. everybody has a set limit of time they can concentrate on something. now, i work overall probably more hours but it's far easier for me b/c "concentrating" on statistical analysis and consulting is way less taxing than having to FORCE yourself to concentrate on mundane hands. i'm interested in what i do and love helping people. even when i played professionally online and paid for grad school with it, i didn't respect myself b/c i was a drain on society.

4. and that's the final point: you're a drain on society as a poker player. some people don't think about this or don't care about this, but it makes a difference to some people as well. unless you do charity work or help other people you're only out there for yourself. now, i'm back to solving problems and helping people. if my big idea i'm working on goes well, then i'll end up helping tens of thousands of people and whole institutions. that feels good at the end of the day.

so as you can see, a lot of what was said above in this thread is garbage unless you're in the very very very top % of poker players, either in skill or luck. the point is that with poker, as with many other things in life, what you get out of it is directly proportional to what you put into it.

the jackpot discussion is also lol.

your winrate isn't just a reflection of your skill unless you're only in it for the ego. if you're PAYING something, no matter what it is, and you get BACK something from it, you have to take the total EV of it.

that said, 80% back is hilariously stupidly high. you're LUCKY if you get back like 1% of what you put into bbjs/promos (unless it's a silly good promo, which i've never seen). so it's fine to a) assume you get back 0% when calculating you're ev, and b) if you DO get something back, definitely include it in your overall winrate. over the very long run it'll even out.

EDIT: but if you're calculating your living based on that winrate, then obviously exclude it if you win a bbj. just assume you're losing all the $ you put into rake+promo and if you can survive on that winrate, then great.

Regarding being a drain on society: the tax dollars you pay are certainly a net positive for society and this often gets overlooked

yeah even more so in a high state tax state it's gonna be tough to convince me consistent poker winners are a drain on society.

/dead horse

Donate to charity.

There are two types of poker players: those that can survive playing for a living and those that donate via their paycheck, retirement money, or social security income. Whether you win or lose you are contributing to the economy in some way. Saying a poker player is a drain on society is IMO false. Poker players put food on the table for casino dealers and floor and also contribute to the economy by paying gas and tolls to travel there. A lot of players that also play NL receive a 1099-misc at the end of the year and pay taxes on high hands and other promo winnings.

A couple of ways poker players are a drain on society:

1. They don't make anything. They are simply profiting by moving money around. Of course, much of the financial industry does this as well. But there are strong arguments made by the Bernie Sanderses and Elizabeth Warrens of the world that those folks are a drain on society too.

2. There's extensive tax evasion in poker. Obviously some poker players are correctly reporting and paying their taxes. But a lot of them are not.

3. A winning poker player's winrate comes from other people engaging in a socially destructive activity. Again, this isn't that different than some other fields. For instance, to take a part of my profession, criminal defense lawyers benefit when the crime rate goes up. And when they do their job well, criminals sometimes go free who shouldn't.

Nonetheless, when folks become compulsive gamblers, when they bet their rent money, etc., poker pros benefit from it.

None of this should be taken as a condemnation of playing poker. I think it's a totally reasonable way to make a living. But if you ask me on a very purist level, is it good for society, I'm not sure it is.

I personally found playing poker to be a more honest and ethical profession than criminal defense attorney fwiw.