How many hands / month can higher-volume players handle??

[teddyFBI]

I'm having major jaw surgery in a couple weeks which will sadly confine me to a bed for a few weeks afterward. So I'm planning on using it to play an absolutely disgusting amount of poker...might as well put a good spin on it...besides, I've always wondered just how many hands I could actually handle in a month...and because I really won't have anything else to do during that time by no fault of my own, this seems like a perfect opportunity to try it.

At my stakes, 15/30 and 20/40 usually, I don't typically play more than 3 to 5 tables...is it foolhardy to think that I might be able to get in 100,000 hands this month??? When I used to 8-table the 3/6, 3,000 hands / day was as easy a thing as there ever was...but i wonder whether I'll be able to tolerate 10 hours / day, 6 or 7 days a week (what i'll need to play, given my calcs) without burnout.
Any full-time players here want to chime in with what they average / month? (hands played, that is)

[Nigel]

Have you ever done 100k before? It isn't pretty.

Nigel

[geormiet]

I don't think you can play 100k hands in a month without doing permanent damage to yourself. If it's mindless, like 8 tabling low limit, that's one thing, but if you're playing 15/30 or 20/40 online you'll just go nuts. Unless you're willing to forego player reads and basically lose or win very small.

[eric5148]

Don't use that time just to play poker. You'll get burned out and start to hate it, which will then make your days really suck. Play whatever you normally do, then use the rest of the day to learn stuff.

[Altaslim]

I once played a paltry 32K in one month and almost shot my dog. I can't imagine going for 100K.

[LImitPlayer]

Between 60-80K each month

[edge]

I'm aiming for 40k hands/month during the summer. In May, I just barely made it. In June, I ended up with about 32k. So far in July, I have about 15k. I just don't think I could bring myself to play 100k hands/month, but others may have much longer attention spans.

[Peter_rus]

I play 30-40K every month. It's hard for me to make this number higher for now as multitabling is boring and can't play it 5 days a week and by playing lesser tables - it's harder to accomplish though i can play it way more.

Think of it this way. If it takes you 10 hours to play 3000 hands, 30 10hr days would be 90000 hands. Better count on 11 hour days for the full month, and don't worry about burnout. You can meet that goal then rest up, sounds like this is a short term experiment for you. If you were going to full-time it permanently, expect burnout somewhere around week 6 or 7. Too much of anything is not a good thing. Good luck, hope you meet your mark.

[Nigel]

Peter,

How many tables are you playing these days? I noticed you playing a fair amount of short games, how is that working out for you?

Nigel

[MicroBob]

What about the famous (or is that 'infamous'?) Brian who regularly plays 100k hands or more a month?


I played 20k hands in 4 very long days on only 4 tables when I was in the raked-hands marathon in Feb for the PPM cruise.
It was REALLY freaking tough.
also - to get enough party points I had to play 10/20 6-max where I wasn't entirely comfortable.
I finished -30BB's for the stretch (was up as high as 160BB's but fatigue clobbered me).

[DemonDeac]

read a book

[Nightwish]

This is insane. My goal is 6,000 hands/week, and I think I'm playing more than many pros here.

[Peter_rus]

Yeah, im back to 3-tabling SH (usually 2 30/60 + 1 15/30) games a while ago as my 30/60 full tables results has too small bb/100 after fair amount of hands. It's seems good for now, though ev isn't big also, so im searching for leaks.

[Guthrie]

[ QUOTE ]
read a book

[/ QUOTE ]
while listening to classical music.

[fimbulwinter]

[ QUOTE ]

Any full-time players here want to chime in with what they average / month? (hands played, that is)

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm attempting to pull 50K this month. I'm roughly on schedule.

fim

[goodguy_1]

I try and play 12K-14K hands a week and I almost always do 42K-52k hands a month.

[goodguy_1]

[ QUOTE ]
What about the famous (or is that 'infamous'?) Brian who regularly plays 100k hands or more a month?


[/ QUOTE ]
A contact told me Brian faded away.. dont know if that is right or not. I chatted with him via PM initially when he was just getting set up with rakeback to 12-20 table $10-20 Full or whatever it was....havent heard from him since...

[goodguy_1]

[ QUOTE ]
Don't use that time just to play poker. You'll get burned out and start to hate it, which will then make your days really suck. Play whatever you normally do, then use the rest of the day to learn stuff.


[/ QUOTE ]
sounds good...I'm just starting to read a huge collection of poker books. 4 down about 35 to go hopefully be done in next 2-3 months ..I'm trying to read/re-read 1-2 books a day right now.

[BigBaitsim (milo)]

12-18K hands/month, but I've got a day job, wife and kids.

Fortunately for me, I only sleep about 4 hours a night.

[dogmeat]

Good luck with your surgery. I'm sure it will go fine -

Your eyes will be really overworked reading and staring at a screen (computer or TV) for more than 8-12 hours per day. I would recommend switching from reading to playing to neither every couple hours. If you can talk after your surgery, make sure you pick up the phone and get caught-up with friends and family - it's theraputic, and will give your eyes a rest.

FWIW, I play "full-time," but only manage about 35,000 hands a month. I've never managed more than 45K

Dogmeat /images/graemlins/spade.gif

[TimM]

[ QUOTE ]
A contact told me Brian faded away.. dont know if that is right or not.

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't think so. (http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=holdem&Number=2875130&Foru m=&Words=&Searchpage=0&Limit=25&Main=2874119&Searc h=true&where=bodysub&Name=4153&daterange=1&newerva l=1&newertype=m&olderval=&oldertype=&bodyprev=#Pos t2875130)

[edge]

I'm heads up against 1/4 of Brian this month, and I'm behind schedule /images/graemlins/frown.gif

[TStoneMBD]

i cant imagine putting in 100k hands. sounds impossible to me, but if you can do it thats awesome. keep in mind however that if you do manage to do it, it will probably put you on burnout and you might not be able to put in many more hours for another month or two after that.

let us know how it turns out. get well soon.

[O Doyle Rules]

I played 120,000 hands in 39 days of play when I was doing the TruePoker WSOP challenge. Prior to that I would normally play between 30-50k hands month in and month out.

I would not recommend it without a particular incentive to shoot for. I think I am still feeling the effects of playing so many hands in such a short time period and I have still not got back into my regular amount of play yet.

I anticipate I will, but I did suffer some burnout as a result of the 120k hand challenge and I would expect you would too if you play 100k hands in a month.

[Cerril]

I made a post in the Psychology forum to this effect. I've barely gone over 12k hands this month so far, and though I'm pretty far behind my ideal schedule it still puts me in the top couple percent at worst of hands played. Trying to compete with the most insane makes it easy to lose sight of what a reasonable goal is.

[sammy_g]

just reading this thread is making me feel burned out on poker.

don't play 100k hands in a month. you'll never want to play again.

[krishanleong]

questions like this should be phrased in terms of hours, not hands since multi-tabling and short vrs full has a dramatic effect on number of hands. That said, I think about 120 hours a month is tops for me.

Krishan

[BIGRED]

I'm not full time, but I play night and weekends.
About 50K hands per month is my avg, 6 tabling 5/10 6-max.

[TimM]

[ QUOTE ]
I think about 120 hours a month is tops for me.

[/ QUOTE ]

That's my monthly goal. It's about the most I can stomach. Comes out to about 32,000 hands for me at 4 full tables.

[okayplayer]

I average ~35-40K hands/mo.

[TStoneMBD]

i think that counting hands is more important than counting hours for this because 120 hours of 2tabling is alot different than 120 hours of 6tabling.

[Cosimo]

[ QUOTE ]
i think that counting hands is more important than counting hours for this because 120 hours of 2tabling is alot different than 120 hours of 6tabling.

[/ QUOTE ]

Both are important. 30,000 hands per month 1- or 2-tabling would make me want to kill myself from the glacial pace (online, much less live). Online, I can't take more than 10 seconds to make any decision, and there's a lot less info to process (so I can't even try to detect tells). 30,000 isn't even possible live; 15k is probably tops there, and that means spending every waking hour at the tables. So hands alone isn't the only measure.

Take the other extreme; 30,000 hands per month 8-tabling is about 15 hours a week, or about 2 hours a night. That's an intense 2-hour session, at least for me. Doable, but not easy, and that's cuz I'm used to 6-tabling. I think many forum denizen couldn't do it. 120 hours 8-tabling in a month might fry my brain. I've sometimes (rarely) worked 100+ hours a week at my day job; a 300+ or 400+ hour month 8-tabling would probably be way -EV for me, in addition to -life expectancy.

Right now I'm at about 80 hours 6-tabling, for about 25-30k hands. I think that's above average for number of tables and hands, but about average for number of hours put in.