Hourly rate in PL/NL

How does a player calculate what their hourly return should be at a pot limit or no limit table? Specifically, I play the 9 handed 1-2 game on UB.


Thanks in advance,


-Marlow

I've seen this question asked many times before, here and on rgp. I've never heard a good answer. It's possible you could get data from a handful of known good players and average out their numbers, but I doubt you or anyone else can get that data.


If the best on UB only profits $5/hour long-term, I wouldn't be able to say that's impossibly low. And if the best actually make more like $30/hour, I wouldn't be able to say that's impossibly high. I just don't know.


Later, Greg Raymer (FossilMan)

What it should be, I don't know. But I can give you an example:


I played 300 hours in the same poker game last year and had a win rate of 18 big blinds an hour (18$/h, I thinks there's a 95% chance that the actual EV is somewhere between $9 and $27, according to my stats).


On the net you can play more hands/h but the rake in the UB game is quite high.


I'm no champion and I didn't play against very live opponents, so I'm sure a much larger rate is possible under good conditions.


When you have played more than 150 h, could you please post your results here?


/S, Sweden

Greg,

First of all, thanks for responding. Second of all, your post further cements my desire to focus exclusively on NL and PL. Obviously, this game rewards skill in a way that limit poker simply can not.


-Marlow

S,

I'd be happy to. Unfortunately, I've been playing away from home for the past months, and I haven't been able to track my results with StatKing like I do at home. When I finally DO return, however, you can expect to find them here. Good suggestion....


-Marlow

One big problem is that an expression of the blinds doesn't really describe an NL or PL game. I've played in 1&2 NL games where you could never see a flop for less than 20, and I've played the same format where you could continually see a flop 6 ways for 2.


Maybe a better way to describe big bet games would be to state the avg. number of players and average size of the pot on the flop. E.g. 3 players @$30.


Of course Big bet games ebb and flow so much that accurate estimates would be hard to make.

One of the reasons an hourly rate is so hard to figure in PL and NL has alot to do with stack sizes. For example, in last Tuesday nite's NL game at Foxwoods, 10 handed, 1 guy has $12,000, 1 guy has $8,700, about 5 guys have between $300-$600 and 3 guys have $100 at the beginning of the game. Rough estimates.


Every guy there would have an incredibly different hourly rate even if they won the same amount of hands depending on who or whom they went up against. 2 hours later, much of the money has moved and you complicate the figures.


I have played about 15 sessions of Live NL in the past 12 months. Every winning session has vastly different hourly rates ranging from $25 to $900 per hour.


I, like Greg, just don't think there's a solid way to figure out something like this that does not have a fixed bet amount or fixed cap amount.


JMHO

going to be hard to get a number for OVERALL because each game (different places etc) can varry so much


why do you ask..what is purpose

I guess I just wanted to see where I am in relation to other players. I think that I am a winning player, but I wanted a better yardstick than just my own results from a few dozen sessions.


-Marlow

Does it ever become detrimental to have too many chips? At what point does it become detrimental to have too few?


I can't ignore the basics forever...


-Marlow

OK, I understand. in real world have played P/L and N/L for years, and would only record $$$ not time,,,time would be distorted by fact I LOVE to play--thus per hr win rate is less than it would have to be


I never really think in terms of per hr---my BR tells me if I've been good or bad


of course in real world you can pretty much know haw everone does, but not on the net

it appears I may slow play more than you do. yes, it hurts to lose some of these, but by slow playing I have wwon some huge pots


no records, but I THINK I make more $$$ this way


??????? its allways a ???? though


good luck

I don't know if this is going to answer your question, but it becomes detrimental to have too many chips only when you don't know hot to play them. Having an enormous stack may mean employing different strategies and tactics than were used with a small stack, and being unable to make the transition may imperil your chips.

I've been giving this some more thought, and maybe the only way to categorize NL games is with the average size of the final pot.

After reading all the responses the one I am closest in agreement with is Phat Mack. The determining factor is how many chips are at the table and their distribution. Since the p/l n/l buy-ins are limited at UB it is reasonabley possible to determine an average amount you should win as a winning player but hardly an hourly win rate.


Jimbo

In the UB games, keep track of how much you play per week. If you play a lot, after a few months you will start to get an idea of how much money you are winning per hour. Since the UB games are probably more similar on different days than live games, you can pretty much calculate your $$ per hour based on how many hours and how much profit.

What should you make? Well, that is up to you and your skill level. Personally, my results compared to the size of the blinds in these games is far greater than they would be in a limit game, as I imgagine it is for all winning players.


That is the beauty of pot-limit, especially with small blinds. You don't get blinded down in full ring pot limit games. In mid-limit games, you may. A good 10-20 player expects 20-30$ an hour, but the fluctuations are high because of the blinds in relation to the expected win rate. In the UB pot limit games, the fluctuations can still be high, but a "bad run" in pot limit can often be narrowed down to as few as two or three big hands getting beaten by underdogs in large pots. In my limited experience, it seems that a good pot limit player will overcome a bad run much faster than a good player in limit play, because all of his money is made in a very small number of pots. That is, because you will generally be heads up by the river in pot limit games, you can generally expect to lose a lot less in the showdown than you would in a limit game. Even in mid-higher limit games, it is not all that unusual to have 4 opponents on the river. In pot limit, this would be very rare indeed. Therefore, because you will almost always be facing less opponents in the pots in which you invest money, if your play is solid, you can expect a much higher win rate compared to the blinds in the UB pot limit games. The small blinds don't chip away at your expected win rate nearly as much, because the pots you win will be many many times larger than the blinds, whereas in limit they will be no where near as large compared to the blinds.

In limit games your hand has to beat more opponents and they are getting the price to draw you out, this coupled with your expected win rate compared to the size of the blinds makes, IMHO, limit poker much worse in terms of risk versus reward.

You are wise to learn and play mostly pot limit and no limit poker. You will find probably find that you win much more consistently than you would in limit poker. In PL and NL, the better players win and the worse players really have little chance in the long run. In limit the bad players can stay afloat much longer...


One word of caution. A bad beat or suckout in pot limit is much more *emotional* than one in limit. Be prepared to get all your money in with the best hand (or worst at times) and lose it. In limit, the suckouts are basically justified, but in pot-lmit this is often not the case, and you will sometimes feel like someone dropped a piano on your head. /images/smile.gif Personally, the two biggest pots I've ever been in in live games, I was a 5-1 favorite and a 3-1 favorite and lost BOTH times. (I'm only 23 and hopefully this changes eventually). This is where your fluctuations come in in pot limit, but if you are careful about where you put your money in, players will be making much larger mistakes for much greater amounts of money against you in big bet games, and the win rate compared to the blinds is therefore huge for a good player.


So, to sum up and answer your question (sort of), a very solid player should make many times the blinds per hour in the UB pot limit games. How many, well that depends on you.

The amount of big mistakes.

interesting question and nice reply from Shaun. i'm not sure why its so hard to work out your hourly rate at PL - just divide your profit by the number of hours you played, i'd have thought.


Out of interest, i'm really only a beginner but after around 300 hours i average - at a 50c/$1 blind game - about $10ph, but i had a good run this week and my average for this week alone was $35 per hour. So I expect a consistently good player (not me, lol) could expect to make around $25 an hour or so at that blind level.