Winrates, bankrolls, and finances
Venice's Introduction to the Thread.
I make a rule to not change someone's post unless it violates a rule. However this is the exception. Not because APD's post is bad (it is good), but because there's lots of discussion back and forth on winrates, and some people are just looking for a simple answer to winrates and bankrolls.
The simple answer is that winning is good. The majority of people playing poker lose money. Poker is a worse than zero sum game because of rake. Therefore if you are winning, you're doing well.
Harrington wrote that if you are beating a live game for 10BB/hr, you're crushing it. That's $20/hr at 1/2 and $50/hr at 2/5. That doesn't mean that you can't beat it for more, it just means that over time winning that much means you're vastly superior than your opponents. Most people don't sustain that over a long period of time because they move up to win more money.
The second simple answer is to stop worrying about what your sustainable winrate is. In order to get a big enough sample to statistically generate an accurate winrate, you and your opponents have play thousands of hands exactly the same way. Poker doesn't work that way. If you aren't improving your play over that amount of hands, you're falling behind your opponents. Therefore, the results are meaningless.
Finally, Kurt put it best that you need 20 buyins to play a level.
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/78/mic...
On to the rest of the thread.
So here it is... The Win Rate thread (and other finances)!
This thread will basically be a containment thread and will stock pile all of the questions and answers about winrates. I would also like to include bankroll management and other finances into this thread. Bottom line is this, if you are worried about a win rate you should probably be worried about bankroll management also.
Instead of starting this thread like all other winrate threads by asking the question, "What is a good hourly/winrate at live 1/2?" I would rather take the time to explain a few tools live players have to help us with it and to also help us become disciplined. The "whats a good rate" questions I am sure will be asked time and time again.
Online players have some superb tools that they get to use. HUD's, databases, OPR, PTR, Shark Scope, and the list goes on. Live players have one thing, our memory. As we all know the human mind is prone to what is called human error, or in a lot of "winning" poker players cases exaggeration and forgetfullness. I think its important to discuss how we go about keeping track of all this information that will be important to and for our games. So get your pens and pads ready, or phones, and get ready to start logging!
What goes into a winrate? A lot of people simply log the hours played, the amount they bought in for, and the amount they cashed out. At the end they calculate it all together and wala a winrate or, like most live players use, an hourly rate. This is probably the easiest way to do it. When I first started logging my play I would bring a binder with me that kept all my poker "stuff" in it and I would log it into the book at the end of the session. If I had forgotten the binder I would make a quick note in my phone and write it later. I always made it a point to do it right then and there though. Never ever wait! Human error will kick in.
Times have gotten much more advanced though. Live players now have some pretty useful tools that we can use. First one I will talk about is Poker Journal for the Apple fanboys.
Poker Journal by Michael Golden is a program that will track both your live and tournament play (and any game you would like to add to your database) and calculate everything for you. It will give you your hourly rate, time played, average won, average lost, sessions won and lost, and much much more. It will also graph your sessions and run reports for you. You want to know what day or time has been the best to play or what location is the most profitable? Simply filter your stats and its all there. It will also run live cash games. You hit start and the clock goes a ticking. Unfortunately it runs only on the iPhone and iPod at the time and is $12.99.
Next is www.checkyourbets.com. I personally have not used this, but going to the website and looking at some of the screen shots and reading the FAQ it looks pretty solid and its FREE! 😃 Others on here use this site and I will let them add what they feel is appropriate.
Last is cardplayer.com. Their format is very simple yet boring. If you want something quick and easy with not too much detail then its for you. It definately beats a pen, paper and calculator, but I would go with one of the other ones personally.
There are others, but I think those are some pretty good examples. So why go through all this trouble to tell you about these tools? Simple, you want to know what kind of winrate is to be expected then start logging. What I do is not going to be the same as what you do or anybody else does. Not only will you start to learn about winrates at the different levels but you will be able to disect your game and learn many things. It will teach you discipline. When you are making it a point to log each session you will start to treat your poker more like a business and become more serious about it. Also important is to log your expenses. You need to know if you are spending too much and if it is affecting your roll.
Bankroll is another important thing. I think we all can agree that 20 BI's at 1/2is a good starting point, but if you dont want to wait to save up $2k just to play some poker there is nothing wrong with taking shots. In our world (casinos) this is the smallest game offered and we really have no choice. I will leave the bankroll information out for now as there are many different opinions on it.
Last thing I want to add is that this needs to be a place where people compare rates and notes with little to no brags. If you are going to come on here and brag you better have some proof (I gave you some great material above) and many hours to back your claims up. For those that have been wanting to log their sessions now is the time to start. I can see many good self challenges coming out of this and more disciplined players.
Thats it for now. Let the questions begin (and reappear many times).
It's impossible to track, because the way standard deviation is calculated you can't use hourly averages extrapolated from sessions. In order to do it you'd have to record every single hour played individually. The way the apps calculate it is bogus
If you look into a mirror and say "Mason Malmuth" three times, a malevolent demon will magically appear in this thread to explain to you how wrong you are, and that if you bought the new edition of his book Gambling Theory, and Other Topics you would find the formula for computing standard deviation of winrate from a dataset of sessions of different durations.
This thread has many pages devoted to standard deviation; unfortunately when I look at complicated math formula, my eyes glaze over, so even though Garick explains somewhere how to calculate it, I just can't do so.
I am using two apps to track my winnings. Poker income I think has it wrong I think, because it gives me a standard deviation of 43BB per hour. Rungood says that my standard deviation is 97.6BB per hour.
Yeah I was less interested in the math and more interested in just comparing across multiple data points.
There is a way to calculate the standard deviation weighted for the hour you play in a session which I have calculated in Excel, but I think that underestimates the true variance. Maybe this is because each session is already smoothed out since it lasts multiple hours. Over 184 sessions and 1,158 hours, my hourly has been $86. My weighted standard deviation per hour has been $575.
But I have a spreadsheet where I take an hourly rate and a standard deviation and make a simulation of what a random 1,000 hours would look like if winnings are normally distributed. Maybe it's because my downswing happened when I was playing bigger games more often, but with $86 hourly $575 standard deviation, a 25k foenswing over a random 1,000 hours is extremely uncommon. A more reasonable variance seems to be 1,200. If your win rate is $100/hr and your standard deviation is $1,200, you won't always have a 25k downswing lasting 300-400 hours) over a 1,000 hour period, but it will happen often.
So maybe a good rule of thumb would be to assume your hourly standard deviation is at least 12x your average win rate. But if you are planning to play poker professionally and want to be safe, it doesn't hurt to overestimate the variance in terms of seeing how likely big downswings are and make sure you are prepared for that.
Makes a lot of sense to use Excel for that, I was wanting to avoid getting too much into the math of it but definitely seems like that's the bestway to properly quantify variance with the tools we have at our disposal.
There is a way to calculate the standard deviation weighted for the hour you play in a session which I have calculated in Excel, but I think that underestimates the true variance. Maybe this is because each session is already smoothed out since it lasts multiple hours. Over 184 sessions and 1,158 hours, my hourly has been $86. My weighted standard deviation per hour has been $575.
But I have a spreadsheet where I take an hourly rate and a standard deviation and make a simulation of what a rand
Yes, I use this method in my Excel sheets to calculate the Std Dev. And you are correct, it tends to understate the Std Dev slightly. This is due to the smoothing effect. Essentially each individual session is view as all having the same variance for each hour of the session. While this is obviously incorrect, it provides a close enough number for me to feel confident in using it to as least ballpark my swings with primedope or another variance calculator.
FWIW... I consistently calculate a much HIGHER std dev for the live full ring games I play than the suggested 60 to 70 bb/hr. I play a LAG style and find I am usually in the 140bb/hr area in std dev.
Currently on a 15 month winstreak at 1/3 NL (and up in the early goings of this month too).
Took a quick look at my records. Not remotely close to my fish-on-a-heater glory years stretch of 23 months, but have easily surpassed my other bests of 11 and 9 months.
Might have something to do with me upping my recreational pokering frequency to ~twice per week (from ~once per week) while playing half the session lengths of before (which is probably good for my shortstack wheelhouse). Or maybe just all luckboxing... noting I kept the streak alive at one point by booking a $3 win for one month (enquire within regarding my coaching rates, ldo).
GpullingashardasIcanonthedoomsdayleverG
Ok, I was just checking my online database and I was looking at my win rate in micro tournaments when effective stacks were above 90BB. My win rate is around 30BB/100 over 48,000 hands which is the equivalent of 9BB per hour in a live poker environment. Then it dawned on my that online MTTs don't have rake which in live poker should be around 8BB/100 or so/ Also whereas micro MTTs at the early levels resemble live poker play more than online micro stakes, they do play somewhat differently and ar
So I just came across this reddit thread which features database analysis of 4 million hands of 5NL:
Microstakes rake is EXTREME. Players invested a total of $45,640 over the course of 4.4M hands. The casino raked 57% of that money. The rake amounts to 11.75BB/100.
- 1. BB won/lost distribution. This graph shows how much money players actually won/lost. 1/3 of players are profitable. 2/3 of players lost money. Less than 8.6% of players won more than a single buy-in. The top 5% of sharks claimed 66% of all money wagered. The vast majority of players are close to break-even. The bottom 1% of players account for 20% of the money wagered. A few whales supply most of the poker ecosystem.
- 2. EV (win rate) distribution. 20% of players are crushing it with a 10+ BB/100 win rate (although that's hard to maintain). Among players with more than 10,000 hands (n=56), the top 10 achieved an average win rate of 13BB/100 +- 6BB. The average EV is -11.7BB/100 (see rake above).
- 3. Calculating mass win rates is tricky. Each player needs a reasonable sample of hands. Unfortunately, filtering out low-volume players introduces bias as the data contains less recreational players. This makes it look like more players are winning. Filtering out high-variance players has a similar effect, excluding wildcards and maniac players from the dataset. It’s a tradeoff between accuracy and bias.
- 4. Visualizing luck: This graph shows how much money players won (BB left scale), compared to their all-in equity adjusted EV(BB/100 right scale). Lots of variance here. Some players were simply much luckier than others.
https://www.reddit.com/r/poker/comments/...
Even if 5NL online is equivalent to 5/10 live or above, this indicates that the 10BB per hour i.e. 33BB/100 numbers quoted as the gold standard is a best case scenario for a tiny minority of all players.
The number of players in this sample is something like 11-13k but the analysis only found 56 players putting serious volume and winning. That's approximately 0.5% of the population.
It's over 10bb/hour. This year I've not really had a bad losing session, like down 2 buyins or more at the end. Mostly this is from being able to turn around sessions where I hit a cooler top 2 pair into a set or something for a large pot into breakeven or slightly winning/losing sessions. Or from hitting those cooler hands after already being up considerably on the session. But overall I've had a solid number of multiple buyin winning sessions, a good number of double up-triple up sessions, a mixed bag of small winners and small losers, and no big losers so overall the year is pretty positive.
It's over 10bb/hour. This year I've not really had a bad losing session, like down 2 buyins or more at the end. Mostly this is from being able to turn around sessions where I hit a cooler top 2 pair into a set or something for a large pot into breakeven or slightly winning/losing sessions. Or from hitting those cooler hands after already being up considerably on the session. But overall I've had a solid number of multiple buyin winning sessions, a good number of double up-triple up sessions,
Very important skill.
Just hit 2500 hours at the $5 level, vast majority at 5/5, a few hundred at 2/5 and 3/5.
That 1000ish hour breakeven stretch was pretty painful, not gonna lie. But I've learned so much in the latter half of this sample that I'm excited to put another 1000 in and see if I can't bring this winrate up from $30/hr to around $50/hr.
Yeah, that 1000 hour stretch looks brutal. Looks like you were cruising along at about the ~1000 mark shipping about 10 bb/hr and then... WHAM? Congrats on working thru it.
My guess is the long term is a lot tougher to get to than most realize.
Ggoodluck!G
Yeah, that 1000 hour stretch looks brutal. Looks like you were cruising along at about the ~1000 mark shipping about 10 bb/hr and then... WHAM? Congrats on working thru it.
My guess is the long term is a lot tougher to get to than most realize.
Ggoodluck!G
Mmm, I've experienced this kind of stretch at least a few times (I'd say, off-hand, without looking at my spreadsheets). More than once I'd be like, cool 10bb per hour, only to then suffer the old "reversion to the mean." Or maybe "regression to reality" is the better expression, that is, the reality of a dwindling or overstated skill level, inability or unwillingness to improve, changing game conditions, higher rake, etc. Anyway quitebrazen's results are more than respectable imo --- seeking to reach 10bb is smart, too, as complacency in mid-stakes live is the devil in disguise.
6 months of breakeven happens, over a full career of playing you'll probably experience 1 year where you just lose straight even playing well. for me that was like year 4 I lost overall the first six months of the year I went to the WSOP the first week I flopped the nuts and got it all in 11 times in cash games and lost every hand. That was also the end to that year of playing because I had no more bankroll.
The accelerant to getting out of these stretches is usually game selection, but it's possible to also just run completely terrible for a stretch.
Impressed about your results.
What Solver do you use to study and/or how do you study off-the tables?
Mostly GTO Wizard, either presolved for 6 max, 6 max ante + straddle, or GTO Wizard AI. Also some using HRC to solve some preflop spots that are kind of unique: straddle, double straddle, button straddle, large ante which can help to come up with strategies for standup game, and nodelocked spots vs specific ranges that I think deviate a lot from solver.
HRC I use less often and more when I am digging into something specific. I study GTO Wizard every day, mostly with trainer in 6 max straddle + ante because I find that closest to the games I play. I usually don't the trainer and then study individual spots I find interesting. Also study hands I played that I find interesting. I also try to mix in some studying of preflop ranges as different open raise sizing and use the range builder to practice these a few times a week.
I enjoy studying quite a bit and do it kind of compulsively. Probably somewhere between 7-15 hours per week. Mostly on my phone.
I also have a small study group of other professional poker players that play in different areas where we discuss hands/strategy. I try to focus a lot on how people deviate from equilibrium strategies and how to exploit that.
I also have spent a good deal of time this year studying live tells. Elwood's books Reading Poker Tells and Verbal Poker tells have been helpful along with talking to some people who are more seasoned in live tells.
6 months of breakeven happens, over a full career of playing you'll probably experience 1 year where you just lose straight even playing well. for me that was like year 4 I lost overall the first six months of the year I went to the WSOP the first week I flopped the nuts and got it all in 11 times in cash games and lost every hand. That was also the end to that year of playing because I had no more bankroll.
The accelerant to getting out of these stretches is usually game selection, but it's po
Yeah, it is said so often, but you will run worse than thought you would at some point. At least on some emotional level. Like, if you're buying in 5k in at 10/25/50 game, there is a good chance at some point in a 1,000 stretch you will go on a 100k downswing. 50k downswing very likely.
So far I have dealt with a 25k downswing earlier this year and digging out of a 20k downswing currently. Standard buy in is 1k to 2k depending on the blinds. If you are a strong winning player and other strong players believe in you, selling action in bigger games to make them within your bankroll limits may also be an option. At least if the stake you want to play is not always readily available or the bigger games are just too good to pass up.
I basically haven't been playing live since Covid, do you guys think game conditions have changed at all or is live 2/5-10/20 the same as ever?
I basically haven't been playing live since Covid, do you guys think game conditions have changed at all or is live 2/5-10/20 the same as ever?
I'd say the games are pretty healthy but one thing I've noticed is people don't like to play deep and games break early. I played a lot in 2019 and a lot of my winrate then was from being willing to sit very deep and keep the game going into the morning when players start making large mistakes. Before covid a lot more recreational players used to show up after 1AM than now too.
For the winning players here - what's the longest stretch (in hours) you've gone break even?
Spoiler
^ I'm currently at 250 hours, 53 sessions, ~7000 hands and break even.
Not sure what if anything this indicates
For the winning players here - what's the longest stretch (in hours) you've gone break even?
I had a close to 300 hour breakeven stretch in the past, wich of course was very rough to play through.
As fas as i understand from discussions on this topic earlier on this forum, other winning players have experienced similar horrible stretches as well. So 250 hours is absolutely not out of the ordinary. Imo if you play enough volume or big volume over many years aka thousands of hours you are likely gonna encounter stretches like this eventually.
Imo you dont know how bad negative variance can be before you experience it for yourself.
Spoiler
^ I'm currently at 250 hours, 53 sessions, ~7000 hands and break even.
Not sure what if anything this indicates
Im currently on a 700 hour be stretch myself with no end in sight, that includes a 20k downswing in tourneys. I think i reached my peak and went on a 20k+ downswing in a month and tried to climb back up from it ever since.
So 250 hours is nothing
Spoiler
^ I'm currently at 250 hours, 53 sessions, ~7000 hands and break even.
Not sure what if anything this indicates
The more you have 1000's+++ of other hours at a decent winrate clip, the less this means.
The less you have 1000's+++ of other hours at a decent winrate clip, the more this means.
ETA: I posted some stats in post#26745, but I've had breakeven stretches of 200 hours / 194 hours / 148 hours (where I went into and then dug myself out of downswings) plus a stretch of 168 hours (where I just flatlined without ever being stuck more than $749, lol). Currently sitting on 6,269 hours of 1/3 NL at $20.98/hour.
Ggoodluck!G
