How long till you're a winning player?

[jcmack13]

I know 100,000 hands seems to be the consensus at a given limit to determine win rate, but what is the figure merely to establish that you are a winning player, say 0.5BB/100 or 1BB/100? I would guess the way to figure this out would be determining a 97.5% confidence interval and setting an answer equal to 0.5BB/100 and then determining a number of hands at a given win rate. i also imagine this depends on displayed performance, that is, if two players have 25k hands at a given limit, but Player A is averaging 2BB/100 and Player B is averaging 3BB/100, than Player B is more likely to be a winning player (even though, perhaps, neither player is *actually* a winning player), given that both players are subject to the same random fluctuations.

I'd do this myself but it's been a while since i took Stat.
who can do the math for me? how many hands to know with 97.5% certainty:
a)that someone winning at 2BB/100 is at least a 0.5BB/100 player?
b)that someone winning at 2BB/100 is at least a 1BB/100 player?
c)someone winning at 3BB/100 is at least a 0.5BB/100 player?
d)someone winning at 3BB/100 is at least a 1BB/100 player?

Thanks.

[DMBFan23]

depends on how much you want to "establish" it. do you want to be 50% sure, but within a narrow interval? 95% sure that you're at least a certain amount? 100% sure that you're within .01 BB? I mean it's all a math problem, but you'll never be very very sure until you play more hands than most anyone has.

[Sponger15SB]

I won my first 7 B&M sessions. Never been a losing player. Suckers.

[jcmack13]

[ QUOTE ]
depends on how much you want to "establish" it. do you want to be 50% sure, but within a narrow interval? 95% sure that you're at least a certain amount? 100% sure that you're within .01 BB? I mean it's all a math problem, but you'll never be very very sure until you play more hands than most anyone has.

[/ QUOTE ]

97.5% sure that you're 0.5/100 or 1/100 at a minimum.

[jtr]

In the spirit of teaching you to fish rather than just giving you a fish: this page (http://davidmlane.com/hyperstat/confidence_intervals.html) has all the information you need to make the calculations yourself.

[ckessel]

I deposited $150 initially. When I cashed out my first $200 I was a winning player. Doesn't matter if I lose my entire bankroll tomorrow, I'll have cashed out more than I put in /images/graemlins/smile.gif