blonde poker forum

In this months InsidePoker magazine theres an interview with Richard (http://www.blondepoker.com/blondepedia/blondepedia_view_player.php?player_id=371) Redmond (http://www.blondepoker.com/blondepedia/blondepedia_view_player.php?player_id=371) from Bad Beat, in which he staes that only 5% of poker players make profit over time, is it really this low a figure??

Discuss.

Don't even know if it's that high.

Depends on how the data subset is - is it all poker players, or all active poker players, or what?

Bear in mind that there are very, very, very many players who start playing poker, play for a very short time, lose their money and never play again. The ones who start playing and win are far more likely to continue to play, so a subset of active players (like any poker forum) will be self-selecting for winners.

Interesting question - I've often wondered about this. You always see the figure of 95% losers / 5% winners trotted out, but I don't know where it comes from.

Obviously you'd expect losers to outnumber winners because of the rake, so that in itself would make it roughly a 55-45 split. Then you'd expect that more players would fall into the average, break-even-without-the-rake category than into any other - ie players would be 'normally distributed' in terms of ability, with more being in the middle 5% than in any other 5%. All these players would end up losing because of the rake, so you'd expect a wider split than 55-45.

Then you'd also expect that the game attracts a lot of players who give it a go, lose money, and stop playing. Losers are much more likely to give up and be replaced by someone else than are winners, who are much more likely to stick around. So that would make the split wider still.

Intuitively, I'd guess that the split was something like 75/25.

But after all this, my Poker Tracker tells me that after 110k hands of NL cash I have played against 40.7% winners and 59.3% losers. Nowhere near 5%/95%. (If I filter it to only include players with more than 500 hands, I get slightly more winners than losers).

I read a thread somewhere else where other people also said the split in their PT was about 40/60 winners/losers. (Would be interested to know what figures everyone else has, but I imagine it's similar).

So where are all these losers? And where does the 5% figure come from?

I'm sure this is a big part of it - but still, you have to ask who these people are playing against. I don't seem to have played against my fair share of them.

My suspicion is that the 5% figure is total fiction that lots of people have heard so many times that they now just repeat it as fact. But I'd love to be proved wrong..!

Is it likely that tournaments produce fewer overall winners and more overall losers? The rake's generally higher, and maybe it's harder to get lucky in the short-term (you can't win a couple of hands and leave the table). Also, tournaments are cheaper and have the prospect of winning more, so are perhaps more attractive than cash games to losing players.

Your stats tell you about sessions not winners or losers. 

Provided i am in the percentage that are winners i don't care what the figure is..............

How do you mean? On the Summary tab, "13,136 Unique Players, Winners 5,502, Losers 8,022". I'm not referring to the Session Notes tab - is that what you're talking about?

I thought the figure was 10 pc, but I can accept 5.
Would expect that most regular good players would be able to make a rough estimate: you know the general standard of play, and can extrapolate along with some guesses. It is pretty easy to just keep losing money at poker, and despite the damage this does to your pocket, keep playing roughly the same way, while winning occasionally to keep you itnerested. The qualities that put you in the 5 percent really are absent in most players' games. Probably missing in mine also, I'm just going through an incredibly lucky 4 year streak.
I'm also tighter than a gnat's.

PT only records sessions.  In any session it would be reasonable to have a 6/4 split between losers and winners.  Your total figure doesn't have enough data on the individual players to determine whether they are winners or losers, you would need 10k hands minimum.  Put it this way, if you lost 55% of sessions long term - do you think you would be a winner?   

I remember reading that it was 10% win 5% break even 85% lose

and 90% of the 85% say that they are part of the 5%!! ;)

and 80% of those think online poker is rigged

maybe my maths is way out here, but if only 5% are winners, it must mean that their ROI is on average 2000%, since that 5% will share all the money in the pot between them, meaning they win 20 times what they put in...

The figure I have seen is 8% and this was based on one of the major sites data (stars i think). It has to be pointed out that this data has certain bias in it, where one time losers played once and then quit. You get very few people who win once then decide its not for them!

Its hard to estimate how many consistent winners you have from the current pool of active players, my guess would be about 15% maybe less. You have to be some what skilled to beat the rake in the game long term.

If you take sng's for an example, a person running at 10% roi is actually beating the game for closer to 20% when the rake is taken into account. So half your "winnings" end up with the site. Then again im very of the opinion that sng's with the edge becoming ever lower that rakes should be cut to keep the games moving long term as im sure numbers will fall over time as no-one can beat the rake.

Sorry, but unless I'm missing something (it wouldn't be the first time) this just isn't right.

PT tells you whether each individual player that you've ever played against is winning or losing during the time that you were at the table with them. It's nothing to do with winning or losing sessions (though obviously it will also tell you how many of your sessions were winners and how many were losers). This is the figure I was quoting - that only 60 % of players in my database are losing during the time I've played with them.

I don't need 10k hands on each of them to say this. I'd need 10k hands to say whether any particular player was a winner or a loser. Because otherwise I wouldn't have enough of a sample. But here I don't need a big sample of hands, per se, only a big enough sample of players.

Sure, some of the players in my database will have won more than they should, and some will have lost more than they should. But over a sample of 13,000 players, those discrepancies are going to even out. It's the number of players that's the key, not the number of hands.

The split between winners and losers doesn't change all that much however many (or few) hands you look at. I've just played 700 hands this afternoon - winning players on my tables (from their hands today) 43.5%, losers 56.5%. Last 30,000 hands - winners 42%, losers 58%.

As I say, the higher rake on tournaments and SNGs compared with cash is likely to make the split wider. And also there's the fact that millions of people have probably played a few tournaments, lost their money and not played again.

But take Laz's point and relate it to cash. Say 10 actual big blinds per 100 hands is a very good win rate (since it is). That's only just better than winning the blinds every round in a full-ring game, but is well in excess of the rake from one round of play (at low levels). And yet almost everyone playing is losing? Where's all their money going..?

Look at it another way - watch some of the people who scrape a profit playing low-limit cash, and think how theoretically badly they play - there's people sitting there playing 10/2/1.5 and still making money. Are they really in the top 8% of players..? I'm sure everyone who wins would like to think that that puts them in the top 5% or 8% or whatever, but ias far as I can see it just can't be right.

Most players are on an upward journey so when you win at a lower level it is only natural to move up through the stakes. You can win 3 STT's and then invest all your profits into 1 bigger MTT. If you fail to cash then although your win ratio for games is 3-1 you are actually categorized as a loosing player in terms of overall ROI.

I don't think a negative ROI is an thoroughly accurate indicator of ability...but having said that it is the only stat that really matters. Jamie Gold will be a winning player for ever but that doesn't necessarily make him a great exponent of the game.

Surely better to win at the lower levels than lose at the higher stakes?  Also, if a player is winning over a long period - then theoretically they are playing well, aren't they?

Yes, of course; and yes, of course... That wasn't the point I was trying to make... I'd just like to know where the famous 5% figure comes from, and how it can possibly be true. But I'll give up and go away now...

 ;surrender;

I have no idea.  Ask the OP!

If you really think that 40% of cash players are long term winners then fine, but no one else thinks this is correct and everyone's PT stats have this 60/40 split.

This is not really related.  However, I was wondering how many full time online mtt players are staked to play by other players?   I read an excellent artice on p5s recently written by a young full time player who is bankrolled to play.  I believe Mike Matasow was refered to by one of the HSP mouths as being backed by Hellmuth in the latest episode.  I wonder how many known online pros are helped in this way?


link to article

http://www.pocketfives.com/48CFC330-C8A4-48F4-8151-021C1E3E9C47.aspx