Live play win rates?

[Kaz The Original]

What are average win rates playing live 5/10 and 10/20? Is it still 1BB per hour?

[Evan]

The average win rate will always be negative due to time/rake. Winning 1 BB/hour is nothing to be ashamed of if that's what you're asking.

[Kaz The Original]

I mean average win rates for 2+2ers playing B&M. Naturally poker is a negative sum game.

[Evan]

I just looked in StatKing. My win rate at live 10/20 over 85 hours of play is $20.30/hr. StatKing has decided that I have 22.11% confidence in that number, why I have no idea.

I don't know that that's anywhere near my true win rate or taht I'm an average 2+2er so take that for what you will.

[bicyclekick]

[ QUOTE ]
I mean average win rates for 2+2ers playing B&M. Naturally poker is a negative sum game.

[/ QUOTE ]

I wouldn't be too suprised if it's still negative. I'm not kidding either. The juice hurts so much and the % of players playing low limits where the rake is so hard to overcome. Maybe not the average 10/20 2+2er, but the lower ones I'd bet. Just cause they're a 2+2er doesn't mean they're any good at poker. I know I belonged to here for a bit before I even had a clue. I was like 40vpip.

Maybe I'm being overly pessimistic...who knows.

[Evan]

I agree with bicyclekick. I would be pretty surprised if you got a number >0 by taking the arithmetic mean of every 2+2ers live win rate, probably even their online win rate.

[steamboatin]

Evan, could you give an example of why the lower limits are unbeatable due to rake?

I have heard that stated many times but have never understood why. I don't understand if I get up with more money than I came with, How can I be losing?

If you are talking about the win rate for the entire table, then yes obviously, evryone is betting the same amount but the winner drags a pot minus the rake. The winner gets less than the total bet, but if He wins more times than He loses, doesn't He have to be beating the game?

[Evan]

At a 2/4 game in many places they are raking more than 1 BB out of each pot. That's just very difficult to beat. I also don't think most 2+2ers play particularly well. Combine those 2 factors and I would be pretty surprised if the "average" person on this site is winning money.

[steamboatin]

Okay, I understand now. Caesar's IN was raking $6 on the weekend but now they only rake $5. Just less than 1BB per hand at the 3-6 and 1/2BB at the 5-10.

I would think the average 2+2er does better than someone that doesn't study or work on their game at all but only 5% of poker players are long term winners so I believe you are correct.

Between variance and rake, I don't think you are ever going to win a lot of money playing low limit and most people are going to lose.

[Evan]

[ QUOTE ]
Between variance and rake, I don't think you are ever going to win a lot of money playing low limit

[/ QUOTE ]
Variance has nothing to do with it. Rake has everything to do with it.

Think of this, I pay $10/hr in time to play 10/20 and my "win rate" is ~$20/hr. So I'm paying out 50% of what I actually win in time. You don't pay significantly less in rake at smaller games but you do win significantly less in $'s.

[edtost]

try 33%.

[Evan]

I meant that time=win rate/2. Not said very well and your number is more useful. I stand corrected.

[edtost]

wow, that was way more polite than i expected.

[Evan]

eh, turns out you were right. I'll let you have this one.

[stinkypete]

[ QUOTE ]
but only 5% of poker players are long term winners

[/ QUOTE ]

is that so?

[Kellon]

I don't have Stat King, so I don't know exactly what figures you enter. Do you keep stats on rake that comes out of each pot that you win, or do you enter just the +/-$ of the session? I seems to me that if you enter just the total W/L of the session, the ~$20 W that you quoted earlier already accounts for the rake, and therefore you can't deduct the rake again. In other words, if I understand, you are winning ~$30/hour minus ~$10/hour rake, for a $20/hour win rate. Or am I missing something?

[Evan]

No, you are correct. The $10/hr is time charge, not rake, but that doesn't make a difference.

EDIT: Also, I just enter session totals into StatKing, not each hand.

[bicyclekick]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
but only 5% of poker players are long term winners

[/ QUOTE ]

is that so?

[/ QUOTE ]

no way. Online it's about 40%? At least 40% of those who play party poker cash games.

[sfer]

[ QUOTE ]
I would be pretty surprised if you got a number >0 by taking the arithmetic mean of every 2+2ers live win rate, probably even their online win rate.

[/ QUOTE ]

The mean will give you the wrong number.

[Mike]

In $4-8 and over the last three years I have cranked out just over 1.5 BB an hour. On average my swings are between 2.4 and .4 BB an hour. I have had win rates as high as 12 BB an hour and that is not unusual, but then in that type of play either is losing at that rate. For example last Friday I dumped 42.5 BB in four hours. On the bright side I made way over that the two sessions before, so it all works out over time. It is all ice cream in the end.

[bobbyi]

[ QUOTE ]
StatKing has decided that I have 22.11% confidence in that number, why I have no idea.

[/ QUOTE ]
If you go under the Tools menu (I think; I'm at work) you can set the confidence range. I think by default it is something like $10. StatKing is telling you that you can have 22.11% confidence in your results being accurate within your confidence range. Note that this assessment relies on knowing your standard deviation, so if you haven't played enough hours for your s.d. to have converged, then the confidence measure is useless. It seems paradoxical to try to state your confidence in your results having converged based on your results, which haven't converged, but it works because s.d.'s converge much faster than win rates, so after a pretty small number of hours, you have a good sense of your s.d. and can use it to determine how long you need to be confident in your win rate. If you want to know how much longer you need before you can be very confident in your results you can use the "ask the professor" feature, or there is a tool under the tools menu that lets you play with the numbers and see (I think).

Honestly, 85 hours isn't enough to mean anything in terms of win rate being accurate. I agree that 1 BB/hr is a very good live win rate. I'm up 2 BB/hr over my last ~100 hrs of 10/20, but I really think that I just ran well and that isn't sustainable. Part of the problem is that in my experience, really soft games are often the slowest games, so the fact that you get a lot less hands for hour dampens the goodness of the game.