Online Poker : 75% of loosers

I read on a financial review that 75% of all online poker players were loosing money over time. Any comments ?

[speirs]

I thought it was more. Something like 90%

[D.H.]

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Online Poker : 75% of loosers

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So, 25% are 'tighters'... or is there a group in between?

[PoBoy321]

If you check most people's PT stats, you'll see it's more like 60%, although many "winning" players are either very slightly ahead or breakeven.

[diebitter]

I read it was 90-95%

I bet there's a lot of players who think they're winners, but have put in hundreds before they got any good, and just 'forgot' about all that expense.

I assume 20% are tighters and 5% big winners. You gotta have some big winners on tournaments and high stakes tables.

[LockLow34]

My name is Lock and I'm an online looser. Mostly because of just that reason: much looser online than in the live games where I've been a consistent 2bb winner over the past year (with the records to show it).

much looser games is your reason for losing?

[MediaPA]

I don't care about the rest of the world/players. I'm up, and that's all that matters. However, I'm definitely not a winning player. Isn't poker a beautiful thing?

[Sniper]

Jackpoy Jay wrote a recent article quoting 2 separate online poker room managers saying that 7-8% of online players end the year positive.

There have been several recent threads on this, do a search on the forums.

[lozen]

Most say there winners bur are not. If you told me your a online winner. I would ask you how much did you make or loose on June 30th 2004. If you could not answer your problay loosing. No records = not winning

[speirs]

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Jackpoy Jay wrote a recent article quoting 2 separate online poker room managers saying that 7-8% of online players end the year positive.

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These indeed look more like the numbers that I was thinking about.

[speirs]

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No records = not winning

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Good one. Probably true.

[Hellmouth]

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much looser games is your reason for losing?

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If you cant beat them ... join them.

Mostly even level of skill + House rake=Likely loss

Seems pretty straightforward to me.

[OrangeKing]

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I read on a financial review that 75% of all online poker players were loosing money over time. Any comments ?

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As most people in this thread have said, that's very generous - it's probably more like 90%. In the short run, it runs more like 60/40, but most of that 40% find a way to lose in the long run.

PS: losers, not loosers /images/graemlins/tongue.gif

[Sniper]

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In the short run, it runs more like 60/40, but most of that 40% find a way to lose in the long run.


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The 40/60 numbers come from ring players PT stats... the 7-8% only makes sense once you account for STT and MTT players and other factors.

[WhiteWolf]

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In the short run, it runs more like 60/40, but most of that 40% find a way to lose in the long run.


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The 40/60 numbers come from ring players PT stats... the 7-8% only makes sense once you account for STT and MTT players and other factors.

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I think OrangeKing has it right... You will only have a small number of hands on most of the players in your PT database. So you will have some long term losers that went on a short-term win streak and have positive numbers in your db, and you will have some long-term winners who had a short-term bad streak and are losers in your db. Since there are so many more losers than winners, you will misclassify many more losers as winners than the other way around.

Some math to illustrate:
Assume 90% long term losers and 10% long term winners.
Assume, because of small sample size, you misclassify 1/3 of the long-term losers as winners and 1/3 of the long-term winners as losers.
The percentage of players you will classify as winners are:
(.33 * 90%) + (.67 * 10%) = 36.4%
which is suprisingly way off the true number of 10%.

[Sniper]

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You will only have a small number of hands on most of the players in your PT database. So you will have some long term losers that went on a short-term win streak and have positive numbers in your db, and you will have some long-term winners who had a short-term bad streak and are losers in your db. Since there are so many more losers than winners, you will misclassify many more losers as winners than the other way around.

[/ QUOTE ]

No, do some datamining and you will see for yourself that the 40/60 for ring game players holds up! These numbers, roughly, are consistantly reported by everyone.

Tournament play, where there are very few winners, brings down the aggregate numbers of poker players making an annual profit.

This sucks, up untill now I thought I was part of the 'elite 10%', and now I find out I'm only part of the 'elite 40%'

My ego is hurting /images/graemlins/frown.gif

[WhiteWolf]

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No, do some datamining and you will see for yourself that the 40/60 for ring game players holds up!

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Interesting, what kind of datamining are you talking about? I would think you would need several thousand or tens of thousands of hands on an opponent before you can classify him as a winner/loser with a high degree of confidence, and I'm fairly sure most PT dbs out there do not have a lot of opponents with this large number of hands. My PT db is pretty small, so I'm just speculating here.

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These numbers, roughly, are consistantly reported by everyone.


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I would expect everyone's db shows the same pattern: Lots of opponents with few hands (and a lower probabilty of correctly classifying as a loser/winner), and a very few opponents with lots of hands (and a higher probability of correctly classifying). Thus I would expect that everyone's db would overestimate the number of long term winners amongst their opponents.

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Tournament play, where there are very few winners, brings down the aggregate numbers of poker players making an annual profit.

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This is a good point....

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I read on a financial review that 75% of all online poker players were loosing money over time. Any comments ?

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I believe the higher estimates. I would guess probably 80% or so are losing players, another 10-15% are about break even, a few percent are winning at a decent rate, and a small percentage or fraction of a percent are winning at a very high rate.

While not positive, I would suspect the results of the top 10% could easily be within the bounds of statistical fluctuation, and not indicative of say, the 98th precentile players being significantly better than say, the 93rd or 94th percentile players. Just an opinion.

IMHO, it is impossible to be ahead in the long term without winning tournaments on a relatively regular basis (e.g., somewhere between 1-4% of total tournaments entered).

I think most players have a hard time getting a Final Table percentage this high, much less bagging the event.

Or put another way, if you buddy tells you he is ahead after 500 tournaments, but at the same time tells you he has yet to win, he has either been very unlucky at a lot of Final Tables, or he is lying his a*s off.

[Runner Runner]

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Most say there winners bur are not. If you told me your a online winner. I would ask you how much did you make or loose on June 30th 2004. If you could not answer your problay loosing. No records = not winning

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This is not necessarily true, I don't keep records, and I have been withdrawing money from from my poker account on a monthly basis, and I haven't deposited in a couple years. I would only be able to tell you how much I made, if I looked at my withdrawals history.

With regards to the % of players that are winning online, I wouldn't be surprised if it is less then 10%. Many winners multi-table and losing players usually don't so that will up the % of people who are winners sitting at any given table.

I am going to guess that at the low limits, maybe 15% of the players at a table are winners, mid-limits maybe 20% and higher limits...around 33%.

[pzhon]

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If you check most people's PT stats, you'll see it's more like 60%, although many "winning" players are either very slightly ahead or breakeven.

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As has been posted dozens of times in the past, this is merely an artifact of the low number of hands everyone has on most players in their databases. It has almost nothing to do with how many players actually win over the long run.

I have 12k players in my database. I have about 70k hands. That means the average number of hands I have with each player is at most 70*9/12 ~ 50. I expect the median to be much lower, and I suspect this is typical of most players.

If 100% of my opponents lose 3 BB/100 with a standard deviation of 15 BB/100, they are all losers, but after 50 hands, it is easy for more than 40% to be winning. If the results are normally distributed, 44% would be winning.

[Scotty O]

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I read on a financial review that 75% of all online poker players were loosing money over time. Any comments ?

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post the link

[ewashingtons]

my poker tracker stats read (over only 20,000 hands though) 45%winners, 55%losers. so as far as the 75% i can believe it... thinking that it isn't any higher than that. i would imagine that the 25% winners are a mostly made up of small gainers, meaning only 5% of all players could be up a lot.

[Sniper]

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Interesting, what kind of datamining are you talking about? I would think you would need several thousand or tens of thousands of hands on an opponent before you can classify him as a winner/loser with a high degree of confidence, and I'm fairly sure most PT dbs out there do not have a lot of opponents with this large number of hands. My PT db is pretty small, so I'm just speculating here.

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Do a search on the forums for datamining threads, there are many. Some people are pulling down 500,000-1 million hands+/month.

[dibbs]

They are pretty loose.

[Pirc Defense]

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Jackpoy Jay wrote a recent article quoting 2 separate online poker room managers saying that 7-8% of online players end the year positive.


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What kind of accounting is happening, though? When they say "end the year positive," what exactly are they referring to?

For example, on 01JAN05 I deposit $500 bucks at Paradise and proceed to lose it all over the course of three days. I don't play again, ever. So, at the end of the year, I'm a loser. Are my stats counted in this "end of the year" stat?

I'd say that for players that play steadily over the full course of a year, the stats are higher than 7-8%.

[ahnuld]

lol

[KidPokerX]

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I read it was 90-95%

I bet there's a lot of players who think they're winners, but have put in hundreds before they got any good, and just 'forgot' about all that expense.

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Hundreds? How about thousands?

[BluffTHIS!]

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I thought it was more. Something like 90%

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A couple years or so ago Sklansky posted here that it was 90% for live games and that the reason for this was the amount in rake that the losers had to lose in order for a winning player to make 1BB/hr. Although the total dollar amount of rake is much larger online because of the number of hands played, the rake is usually proportionally less per hand so that might indeed lower the 90% figure to 75%. If the losers multitable though, even the effect of lower rake will accelerate in time, and so the 90% figure might be applicable after all.

[Rotterdaum]

I don't know if this is statistically correct, but isn't it common for break even and losing players to have many winning sessions before a very large losing one? So pokertracker people are recording a lot of people having a lot of winning sessions thus recvording them as winners. And the losing sessions happen much more rarely so you are more likely to observe a break-evenish or a marginal losing player win than lose.

[Sniper]

Here's my thoughts which were posted in another thread on this topic...

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If you examine all the factors, its fairly easy to see where all these numbers are coming from...

Rough expectation for long term players:
Ring Games - 40% win / 60% Lose
SNG - 20% win / 80% lose
MTT - 5% win / 95% lose

Other factors to account for...

The winning expectation numbers move up a bit when you account for extra $$$ from RB, Bonus, Point programs, Freerolls, etc.

The losing numbers move up alot when you account for the large number of players that try to play and lose their initial deposit and never return.

If you consider the relative number of people that play ring vs tournaments, its not to hard to understand how a casino mgr would be quoted as saying winners are less than 10%, but a ring players PT database shows 40% winners.


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I thought it was more. Something like 90%

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A couple years or so ago Sklansky posted here that it was 90% for live games and that the reason for this was the amount in rake that the losers had to lose in order for a winning player to make 1BB/hr. Although the total dollar amount of rake is much larger online because of the number of hands played, the rake is usually proportionally less per hand so that might indeed lower the 90% figure to 75%. If the losers multitable though, even the effect of lower rake will accelerate in time, and so the 90% figure might be applicable after all.

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I gotta think it's close to 90% also. It would certainly explain why Party/Empire can afford to give away free money to play on their site.

[Komodo]

</font><blockquote><font class="small">Svar till:</font><hr />
I don't care about the rest of the world/players. I'm up, and that's all that matters. However, I'm definitely not a winning player. Isn't poker a beautiful thing?

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Its pretty important, since if 90% is losing players, then its not hard to see that many of them will stop playing.

[Sniper]

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Its pretty important, since if 90% is losing players, then its not hard to see that many of them will stop playing.

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This is not necessarily true... there are many reasons why people play poker, other than to make money.

More than 99.9999999%+ of lottery players are losers, I don't see any slowdown in the number of people playing the lottery /images/graemlins/wink.gif

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It would certainly explain why Party/Empire can afford to give away free money to play on their site.

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Party would actually love 50% winners and 50% losers, because that means fewer people would stop playing and Party would get more rake.

[Hattifnatt]

I think it's like 90% that loses money. But they might mean that 75% of the people playing online are just losers...

i think it's more.

[Onaflag]

Is this the new "Test" thread? Just wondering.

Onaflag..........

[twolf]

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I read it was 90-95%

I bet there's a lot of players who think they're winners, but have put in hundreds before they got any good, and just 'forgot' about all that expense.

[/ QUOTE ]

Hundreds? How about thousands?

[/ QUOTE ]

For an online player I don't think this is true. Mostly because of the lower limits than B&amp;M and the amount of hands/experience/information you can get. All you have to do is study/practice and have decent comprehension and bankroll management skills. Now if you only try to learn playing B&amp;M it will likely take much much more money to become a winning player

[speirs]

On a side note, you can now officially add me to that 90% I mentioned earlier.

Assuming a 5% rake online (??) That means that every dollar wagered pays out .95. So, to beat this, one must be 1.05263 times better than "average".

Where "average" is 1.0, "winner" is (&gt; or =) 1.053.

Let's consider a "crushing" full-ring limit player is a +3BB/100 player. After 100 hands, a break even (or 1.05) player would have to win 7.5BB just to be at even (you pay 7.5BB every 100 hands). A "crusher" would have to earn 10.5BB over this period.

3/7.5 = .4, which means a crusher is 40% better than a break even player.

So, where "X" is average skill (slight loser), and equals 1X. Break-even is 1.05X, crusher is 1.47X

Among 1000 players, if the 1000th player was a 1.47 player and 500th was a 1.0 player, then about 565 would be a 1.05 player, (if it's a direct relationship ??), which means about 435/1000 players are showing a profit*, or 43.5%, while 56.5% are losing.

*This assumes nobody plays more than 1 table at a time. Since we know that the more likely you are to win, the more likely you are to multi-table, we can easily assume that the winners are much more rare than this. Guessing that the "average winner" plays 3 tables at once, I imagine this makes the winners 3 times as rare, which would bring the number down to 14.5%, which would render 85.5% of online players losers.

This is all quite fuzzy math of course, but hey...whatever. I think the number is probably around 90% in all honesty. No way it's lower than 85%.

[Cincy Peach]

Don't you all think that the number one reason for losing is refusing to change? I have noticed that changing my poker style is like changing your personality - and some people are just not up to it. I am guessing that two-thirds of the players online do not search for and plug holes.

[meow_meow]

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Assuming a 5% rake online (??) That means that every dollar wagered pays out .95. So, to beat this, one must be 1.05263 times better than "average".

Where "average" is 1.0, "winner" is (&gt; or =) 1.053.

Let's consider a "crushing" full-ring limit player is a +3BB/100 player. After 100 hands, a break even (or 1.05) player would have to win 7.5BB just to be at even (you pay 7.5BB every 100 hands). A "crusher" would have to earn 10.5BB over this period.

3/7.5 = .4, which means a crusher is 40% better than a break even player.

So, where "X" is average skill (slight loser), and equals 1X. Break-even is 1.05X, crusher is 1.47X

Among 1000 players, if the 1000th player was a 1.47 player and 500th was a 1.0 player, then about 565 would be a 1.05 player, (if it's a direct relationship ??), which means about 435/1000 players are showing a profit*, or 43.5%, while 56.5% are losing.

*This assumes nobody plays more than 1 table at a time. Since we know that the more likely you are to win, the more likely you are to multi-table, we can easily assume that the winners are much more rare than this. Guessing that the "average winner" plays 3 tables at once, I imagine this makes the winners 3 times as rare, which would bring the number down to 14.5%, which would render 85.5% of online players losers.

This is all quite fuzzy math of course, but hey...whatever. I think the number is probably around 90% in all honesty. No way it's lower than 85%.

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Your math is all wrong. I don't know where the "paying 7.5BB/100 hands" number is coming from, but this number is highly limit dependant. For example, at 5/10 6max, the average player pays a little over 2BB/100 (tight players pay less because they win less pots).

[meow_meow]

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Interesting, what kind of datamining are you talking about? I would think you would need several thousand or tens of thousands of hands on an opponent before you can classify him as a winner/loser with a high degree of confidence, and I'm fairly sure most PT dbs out there do not have a lot of opponents with this large number of hands. My PT db is pretty small, so I'm just speculating here.

[/ QUOTE ]

Do a search on the forums for datamining threads, there are many. Some people are pulling down 500,000-1 million hands+/month.

[/ QUOTE ]

Here is the fallacy in your argument.
Nobody is capturing every hand that every player plays.

When I look at my own 5/10 database, I have an average of 55.3 hands per player. Only 57.7% of the 10816 players in my db are losers.

I'm guessing that the average number of hands/player in even the largest mined db isn't anywhere close to 900, but lets use that as an example.

Lets say that we have a huge population of players, 90% of whom have a true winrate of -2BB/100, and the remaining 10% have a true winrate of +2BB/100 (lets also say everyone has a reasonable SD of 16BB/100).
Now, lets observe each of these players over a 900 hand stretch. What percentage of these players will be losers over 900 hands? Just 61.8% , even though 90% of them are long term losers.

What if we watched each player for just 100 hands? 54% would be losers.

Even if we were able to watch each player for 2500 hands, only 68.9% would be losers over that stretch.

[BarronVangorToth]

Another factor to consider when people provide their opinion of how many are winners...

Imagine if I went to a game and raised and reraised any time I could regardless of what my cards were.

And then imagine if I did this for 100,000 hands.

Do you think most of the people I will have played against would be winners?

Does that make everyone winners?

Is the "X-Factor" (i.e. the person giving the information) relevant?

When one person says 10% and another 20% -- are we assuming they are equal?

That they can read the data the same?

That there aren't other factors?

Barron Vangor Toth
BarronVangorToth.com

[Sniper]

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Here is the fallacy in your argument.

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The statement you quoted was a fact, not an argument, so I'm going to assume for purposes of this comment that you were refering to my earlier statements regarding the 40%win/60%lose rate for online ring game players.

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Nobody is capturing every hand that every player plays.

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For starters, the poker rooms themselves have all this data /images/graemlins/smile.gif

Secondly, sites like poker edge and poker prophecy are datamining almost all hands played.

Third, there are several others datamining more than enough data to make their observations relevant.

Fourth, you can also draw conclusions from the aggregation of many players relatively smaller sample sizes.

The data in all cases points to the same roughly 40/60 split for ring game players!

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When I look at my own 5/10 database, I have an average of 55.3 hands per player. Only 57.7% of the 10816 players in my db are losers.

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Thats close enough to 40/60.. see /images/graemlins/wink.gif

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I'm guessing that the average number of hands/player in even the largest mined db isn't anywhere close to 900, but lets use that as an example.

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I've already covered that... there are others that have compiled substantially more data than you.

However, lets take a closer look at the average ring game player...

The average ring game player... is a "recreational" player, losing roughly -2BB/100 (mostly attributable to rake), and plays somewhere around 1,000 ring game hands/month.

Its probably worth noting at this point, that this is a relatively insignificant amount of money. In fact, the vast majority of ring game players neither win nor lose an amount that they would consider significant.

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Lets say that we have a huge population of players, 90% of whom have a true winrate of -2BB/100, and the remaining 10% have a true winrate of +2BB/100 (lets also say everyone has a reasonable SD of 16BB/100).

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You have just created random numbers... try doing the statistical analysis on factual data.

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Now, lets observe each of these players over a 900 hand stretch. What percentage of these players will be losers over 900 hands? Just 61.8% , even though 90% of them are long term losers.

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Play around with the numbers a bit and you'll see that it really doesn't matter if any particular player is a winner or loser, that in the aggregate the 40/60 holds up.

For statistical purposes, try assuming that the BB/100 "spread" between a top 10% player and a bottom 10% player is relatively small around a -2BB/100 average, and see how the numbers look then /images/graemlins/wink.gif

Wonder how many of the losing players quoted are people who only played for a day and then quit after failing to get the sign-up bonus.

[meow_meow]

Obviously you didn't get my point at all.

Let me spell it out:

Variance evens the playing field over the short and medium term.

Then I made up an example to illustrate this point. If you have a link to real data with large sample sizes, I'd love to see it. Of course, no such data set exists, because the vast majority of recreational players never play anything like enough hands.

Feel free to ask the monster dataminers how many hands they have per player. I would be incredibly surprised if it was higher than 500.

[Sniper]

Meow,

Willing to bet that your allocation between winners and losers in your PT database looks substantially the same next year at this time! /images/graemlins/wink.gif

I think that the poker sites are different in the skill level of their players. Party Poker has the most fish just by the number of players on the site. I think the lower limit players are losing at the 90% plus level. Mid-range players at about 85% and higher limits at about 70%. I track all my wins and losses. I also move my play around to the different limits and play on different poker sites. More losing sessions on Party Poker but bigger wins if you can stand the draw outs. Full Tilt has the more consistsnt wins for me and fewer ups and downs. All the infomation is out there to make anyone who can read and apply the necessary rules to win on line. That doesn't mean you can win in live action Brick and Mortar poker. There is more to live action. Reading people. My only hope is new players keep coming in to play as the old ones get a little tougher everyday.

[pzhon]

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... poker edge and poker prophecy are datamining almost all hands played.

... you can also draw conclusions from the aggregation of many players relatively smaller sample sizes.

The data in all cases points to the same roughly 40/60 split for ring game players!

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It looks like you simply don't understand the argument invalidating the 40-60 figure in almost everyone's PokerTracker database. If you actually have new evidence from massive datamining (including tens of thousands of hands per player, not 200 hands per player from an even larger collection of players), please cite it specifically.

If players were actually split 40-60, that would not be what everyone would see in their pokerTracker databases. Everyone would see something like 48-52.

[Sniper]

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It looks like you simply don't understand the argument invalidating the 40-60 figure in almost everyone's PokerTracker database.

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I have yet to see a factual argument that can dispute the facts!

Remember that we are talking about ring game play only.
The true amount of overall winners is, as has been quoted by the sites themselves, at 7-8%. This is because the %winners at MTT is extremely low &lt; 5%.

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If you actually have new evidence from massive datamining (including tens of thousands of hands per player, not 200 hands per player from an even larger collection of players), please cite it specifically.


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You will not find 10K hands/player for alot of players simply because most people don't play that much. When you are doing an analysis on all players, you have to account for ALL PLAYERS, whether they play only a little or alot.

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If players were actually split 40-60, that would not be what everyone would see in their pokerTracker databases. Everyone would see something like 48-52.

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Why?

[pzhon]

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It looks like you simply don't understand the argument invalidating the 40-60 figure in almost everyone's PokerTracker database.

If players were actually split 40-60, that would not be what everyone would see in their pokerTracker databases. Everyone would see something like 48-52.

[/ QUOTE ]

Why?

[/ QUOTE ]
This is the point you have been missing. Please take the time to understand this instead of making yet another irrelevant post on this topic.

Suppose 60% of players lose a significant amount on average, and 40% win the same amount on average.

If you had 1 million hands from each player, very close to 40% would be ahead, since it is very likely that each player would be classified correctly by his results.

If you had 10,000 hands from each player, more than 40% would end up ahead. A few winners would be misclassified as losers due to the small sample size. More losers would be misclassified as winners, 3/2 as many, since there are more losers than winners. The result might be that 42% of players would be ahead, including 36% who really win in the long term and 6% losers who got lucky.

If you had 1000 hands from each player, many more players would be misclassified. Again, more losers would be misclassified as winners than winners would end up behind. Maybe the result would be that 46% of the players would win.

If you only had 100 hands on everyone, the signal would almost be lost in the noise. Suppose only 55% of the winners and 55% of the losers are identified correctly by their results. Then you would see 22% out of 40% of the long-term winners win, and 27% out of 60% of the losers end up ahead. In total, 49% of the players would be observed winning. That is what the PokerTracker data would look like if 40% of the players were winners.

That everyone sees about 40% winners from very small sample sizes on each player is a clear indication that the actual number of winners is far smaller than 40%.

Similarly, the number of players averaging over 10 BB/100 is predictably overstated in the PokerTracker databases.

[Pirc Defense]

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Wonder how many of the losing players quoted are people who only played for a day and then quit after failing to get the sign-up bonus.

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See my post above.

Re: Party Poker has the most fish just by the number of players on the site

Maybe they do, but they quite probably have the most sharks by the same argument.

At the end of the day, more people will always lose than will win, no matter what. The rake alone ensures this.

And I don't think the ratio of winners to losers is useful to know.

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Assuming a 5% rake online (??) That means that every dollar wagered pays out .95. So, to beat this, one must be 1.05263 times better than "average".

Where "average" is 1.0, "winner" is (&gt; or =) 1.053.

Let's consider a "crushing" full-ring limit player is a +3BB/100 player. After 100 hands, a break even (or 1.05) player would have to win 7.5BB just to be at even (you pay 7.5BB every 100 hands). A "crusher" would have to earn 10.5BB over this period.

3/7.5 = .4, which means a crusher is 40% better than a break even player.

So, where "X" is average skill (slight loser), and equals 1X. Break-even is 1.05X, crusher is 1.47X

Among 1000 players, if the 1000th player was a 1.47 player and 500th was a 1.0 player, then about 565 would be a 1.05 player, (if it's a direct relationship ??), which means about 435/1000 players are showing a profit*, or 43.5%, while 56.5% are losing.

*This assumes nobody plays more than 1 table at a time. Since we know that the more likely you are to win, the more likely you are to multi-table, we can easily assume that the winners are much more rare than this. Guessing that the "average winner" plays 3 tables at once, I imagine this makes the winners 3 times as rare, which would bring the number down to 14.5%, which would render 85.5% of online players losers.

This is all quite fuzzy math of course, but hey...whatever. I think the number is probably around 90% in all honesty. No way it's lower than 85%.

[/ QUOTE ]

Your math is all wrong. I don't know where the "paying 7.5BB/100 hands" number is coming from, but this number is highly limit dependant. For example, at 5/10 6max, the average player pays a little over 2BB/100 (tight players pay less because they win less pots).

[/ QUOTE ]

At a 10-handed limit table you pay 7.5BB to play 100 hands. That's what I'm talking about. How else is my math "all wrong"?

[2ndGoat]

edit: everyone i said was already said earlier in the thread.

[meow_meow]

Christ.
Did you even think about this after I told you that you were wrong, or did you just assume you were right?

Wasting my time here but what the hell.

First, the amount that a player pays in rake is dependant on her/his style of play. How much rake does a player who folds every hand pay /100 hands? zero, although they will pay 7.5BB in blinds. Maybe this is where you are getting confused.

Second, the rake per hand is capped (usually at $3/hand), and pots that do not reach a set threshold are not raked, so the rake is going to be less than 5%.

Now, lets look at the real world example of full ring (10 handed) 5-10 limit holdem on everyone's favorite poker site.
My extensive database of this game tells me that on average, each player pays 18.1 cents/hand, or $18.10/100 hands, or 1.8 BB/100.

At smaller stakes, the rake will be greater (in BB terms).
At higher stakes, the rake will be less (in BB terms).

Next time someone tells you that you are wrong, think for a sec before assuming that they are. /images/graemlins/tongue.gif

[Sniper]

[ QUOTE ]
This is the point you have been missing. Please take the time to understand this instead of making yet another irrelevant post on this topic.

[/ QUOTE ]

A rather large number of people have commented that they appreciate my posts, sorry if you are not one of them!

[ QUOTE ]
If you had 1 million hands from each player

[/ QUOTE ]

This is the point you are missing... it is entirely irrelevant what the data would look like if everyone played 1 million hands... because 99.9%+ of all players will never play that many hands in their entire lifetime.

I'm not talking about the rake.

I'm saying the difference between a crushing player and a slight loser to the rake is only 40%.

This is due to the fact that you need to win 7.5BB/100 just to lose to the rake, while to be a "crusher", you need to win 10.5BB/100. This goes to show that there is not much difference between a loser and a crusher. Only 40%.

You are misinterpreting my post.

[ZeroPointMachine]

You guys seem to be using two different definitions of "winning player". Is someone who has only played 1000 hands and is up $10 a winning player? We know that the sample is insignificant and there is no way to classify this person as a "winning player". However, at this particular time if you classify everybody as winners/losers this person is a winner.

The statistical arguement for why the PT database reflects a 40/60 ratio when the number is really closer to 10/90 is 100% correct. However, it assumes that all players will eventually play enough hands to narrow the variance and reflects their true long term potential.

At any given moment there will be enough short term players that the stats will always show 40/60 winners/losers an any given time. Which is a very good thing.

[pzhon]

[ QUOTE ]
You guys seem to be using two different definitions of "winning player"... The statistical arguement for why the PT database reflects a 40/60 ratio when the number is really closer to 10/90 is 100% correct.

[/ QUOTE ]
I don't think it is a difference of definitions. I think he really doesn't understand the statistical argument. Sniper said he was talking about "long term players." (http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showthreaded.php?Cat=&amp;Number=3433453&amp;page=&amp;view=&amp;s b=5&amp;o=&amp;vc=1) I think he simply doesn't understand the statistical argument, or else he wouldn't have asked for an explanation of why, if 40% of players were long term winners, every Poker Tracker database would show something like 48% of players observed winning instead. This should be obvious if you understand the logic.

[Sniper]

Hi Pzhon,

[ QUOTE ]
I think he really doesn't understand the statistical argument.

[/ QUOTE ]

I can assure you that I understand the statistical argument. However, you are assuming that everyone plays a large number of hands, when in fact very few people play alot of hands.

[ QUOTE ]
Sniper said he was talking about "long term players."

[/ QUOTE ]

That should read "long term, all players".

Its probably worth linking to the crosspost of this thread (http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showflat.php?Cat=&amp;Number=3421590&amp;page=3&amp;view=colla psed&amp;sb=5&amp;o=14&amp;fpart=1) where among other things Mason said this...

[ QUOTE ]
Also, for what it's worth, my guess is that the 75 percent number is approximately right but for a different statistic. I believe that approximately 75 percent of all regular players are winners.

[/ QUOTE ]

[pzhon]

[ QUOTE ]

I can assure you that I understand the statistical argument. However, you are assuming that everyone plays a large number of hands, when in fact very few people play alot of hands.

[/ QUOTE ]
If you really understood the statistical argument, you would see that all that is required is that people play more hands than just against you, even if you take the unusual, results-oriented definition of winning player. For the estimator to be biased, people don't have to play a million hands (as in the thought experiment), just more than you see in your database. Pretty obviously, that happens. So, my conclusion is that you still don't know what you are talking about.

By the way, you are arguing statistics with a professional mathematician. Your game selection sucks, and your bluff has been exposed.

I can't prove it but my guess is 90+%. I can beat the rake plus some at the limits I play but it's tough. Live play vs. online at the same limits is like 5 times easier. Between the rake and the blinds most people will lose. Online poker was like $4 billion last year. Where does that money come from? THE RAKE! Who is paying the Rake? We all are unless you never win a pot, LOL. Saying 25% of all people are winning doesn't make sense. That is 1 out every 4 poker players so that means the one winning player is getting money from just 3 other players. I doubt it. The winning player is getting the love from at least 9 other players. Basically you might have 1 winning player at each long handed game your in and hopefully that one person is you. /images/graemlins/smile.gif

[KKbluff]

My humble thoughts..

"Most" players play at stakes where they can still lose and show a profit (rakeback, bonuses etc..)

While they are technically a losing player, they are not really losing any money.

I think this fact alone skews the "out of ALL players, only 10% are winners" notion.

correct me if im wrong.

[Sniper]

[ QUOTE ]
By the way, you are arguing statistics with a professional mathematician. Your game selection sucks, and your bluff has been exposed.

[/ QUOTE ]

LOL... Well I certainly wouldn't want to be arguing with you then, but I also certainly would enjoy seeing you add some value to this conversation, other than trying to dispute the 40/60. /images/graemlins/wink.gif

[Sniper]

[ QUOTE ]
"Most" players play at stakes where they can still lose and show a profit (rakeback, bonuses etc..)


[/ QUOTE ]

The Percentage of people playing with Rakeback, is very small (&lt;5%). The percentage taking advantage of bonuses is only slightly larger, but again the percentage taking full advantage of all available bonuses, such that they are always working off a bonus, is also very small.

The vast majority of players, however, neither win or lose an amount of $$ that is significant to them.

[Aytumious]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
By the way, you are arguing statistics with a professional mathematician. Your game selection sucks, and your bluff has been exposed.

[/ QUOTE ]

LOL... Well I certainly wouldn't want to be arguing with you then, but I also certainly would enjoy seeing you add some value to this conversation, other than trying to dispute the 40/60. /images/graemlins/wink.gif

[/ QUOTE ]

It's like you aren't even reading his posts.

[Sniper]

[ QUOTE ]
It's like you aren't even reading his posts.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm reading his posts, but he hasn't told me anything I don't already know! /images/graemlins/smile.gif

I expect better info from a statistician /images/graemlins/wink.gif

[ewashingtons]

when you are asking how many players are winners are you asking
1) taking a snapshot of this moment right now what percentage of people are up and what percentage of people are down $$$?
OR
2) over the long term what percentage of people will be winners (aka what percentage of players are "winning caliber")?

basically, does it matter if you say that you're not going to determine if someone is a winner or loser until they have played X number of hands?

its spelled "losee" not "looser". and yes, everybody's losing but none will admit it.

[ QUOTE ]
its spelled "losee" not "looser". and yes, everybody's losing but none will admit it.

[/ QUOTE ]

Losee is not even a word.

[Komodo]

</font><blockquote><font class="small">Svar till:</font><hr />
</font><blockquote><font class="small">Svar till:</font><hr />
By the way, you are arguing statistics with a professional mathematician. Your game selection sucks, and your bluff has been exposed.

[/ QUOTE ]

LOL... Well I certainly wouldn't want to be arguing with you then, but I also certainly would enjoy seeing you add some value to this conversation, other than trying to dispute the 40/60. /images/graemlins/wink.gif

[/ QUOTE ]

40-60 as sniper says is impossible. Short-term it should be 40-60, but not long term. The 60% who lose short term will not lose everytime they play. Some of the 60% will move over to the winners lounge and some of the 40% will move to the losers lounge. Because of the rake, more of the 40% will be losers long term.

[Sniper]

[ QUOTE ]
40-60 as sniper says is impossible.

[/ QUOTE ]

If you think the factual data available from data mining is inaccurate, then display some proof.

[Aytumious]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
40-60 as sniper says is impossible.

[/ QUOTE ]

If you think the factual data available from data mining is inaccurate, then display some proof.

[/ QUOTE ]

It's not innaccurate, it just isn't indicative of what you think it is. Perhaps if you actually took the time to understand what meow and pzhon posted you would realize that.

[Sniper]

[ QUOTE ]
It's not innaccurate, it just isn't indicative of what you think it is. Perhaps if you actually took the time to understand what meow and pzhon posted you would realize that.

[/ QUOTE ]

My comments are based on extensive review of a large amount of data available... and I fully understand what both meow and phyzon are saying.

If you don't believe that roughly 40% of all online poker players that have played during the boom of the past couple of years are +$1 or better from their online ring game play... then please add value to this thread by posting what you think a more correct number is and explain why.

[Komodo]

</font><blockquote><font class="small">Svar till:</font><hr />
</font><blockquote><font class="small">Svar till:</font><hr />
It's not innaccurate, it just isn't indicative of what you think it is. Perhaps if you actually took the time to understand what meow and pzhon posted you would realize that.

[/ QUOTE ]

My comments are based on extensive review of a large amount of data available... and I fully understand what both meow and phyzon are saying.

If you don't believe that roughly 40% of all online poker players that have played during the boom of the past couple of years are +$1 or better from their online ring game play... then please add value to this thread by posting what you think a more correct number is and explain why.

[/ QUOTE ]

Lets take this example.

10k players are spinning the roulette wheel one time on either red or black. The database will show that 48,5% of the is ahead. Can you conclude that 48,5% of the players are long term winners? No!

Lets spin another 100 times. The database show that 5% of the players are ahead (havent done the math, so its just a guess.) Can you conclude that 5% are long term winners in this game? No!

Lets spin another 10k times and now the database will show a more correct figure.

It is said that people who have a career always promote until they are beyond their capabilities, at which point they just stick in the position they have gained - trying to do a job they are not capable of.

I think this is true also of online poker. Players may win at lower stakes, but will always be tempted by the higher stakes. This will mean they eventually are playing at a level which is beyond their capability, hence they start losing money.

Incidentally, I am in agreement with what was said before - that most players will deposit a small amount, lose it, and not play again. They probably make up the majority.

[Sniper]

[ QUOTE ]
10k players are spinning the roulette wheel one time on either red or black. The database will show that 48,5% of the is ahead. Can you conclude that 48,5% of the players are long term winners? No!

[/ QUOTE ]

But you can conclude and rightly so that at that moment in time, 48.5% ARE winners!

[Komodo]

</font><blockquote><font class="small">Svar till:</font><hr />
</font><blockquote><font class="small">Svar till:</font><hr />
10k players are spinning the roulette wheel one time on either red or black. The database will show that 48,5% of the is ahead. Can you conclude that 48,5% of the players are long term winners? No!

[/ QUOTE ]

But you can conclude and rightly so that at that moment in time, 48.5% ARE winners!

[/ QUOTE ]

Should be, but the problem is that while the pokertracker database may have 500 hands with a particular player, he may actually have played 20 000 hands.

More than 4850 people have seen my spelling mistake...so embarrassing... /images/graemlins/crazy.gif

[Aytumious]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
It's not innaccurate, it just isn't indicative of what you think it is. Perhaps if you actually took the time to understand what meow and pzhon posted you would realize that.

[/ QUOTE ]

My comments are based on extensive review of a large amount of data available... and I fully understand what both meow and phyzon are saying.

If you don't believe that roughly 40% of all online poker players that have played during the boom of the past couple of years are +$1 or better from their online ring game play... then please add value to this thread by posting what you think a more correct number is and explain why.

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't have any idea what the actual percentages are, but I do know that the PT data you are looking at won't provide the answer.

At best, the 40/60 split could show that in any given random session, it is likely that you will have 2 winners for every 3 losers. Over the long term, however, this split has no correlation with how many winners and losers there are, since the number of hands for each player is likely only a fraction of the total they have played online, and therefore not indicative of whether they are winning or losing overall.

[Sniper]

[ QUOTE ]
I don't have any idea what the actual percentages are, but I do know that the PT data you are looking at won't provide the answer.

[/ QUOTE ]

SO let me get this straight... you don't have any idea what a more correct number is, you just think that the extensive analysis done by many people who have reviewed extensive amounts of data is wrong /images/graemlins/wink.gif

[Raven]

I have a theorie behind the 7-8 % of winners by the poker sites managers. The losing players play a lot less hands in a year in average than the winners pro and semi-pro who often play a lot of hands. So in number of players the winners are not much, but I suspect that in the number of hands played, the winners have a lot more than 7-8 %.

So, if the the winner and loser would play the same number of hands in average in a year, I think that the number of winners would be a lot higher that 7-8 %. Maybe I'm off, but the rake itself is not high enough to make so much % of peoples losers.

[Sniper]

[ QUOTE ]
I have a theorie behind the 7-8 % of winners by the poker sites managers. The losing players play a lot less hands in a year in average than the winners pro and semi-pro who often play a lot of hands. So in number of players the winners are not much, but I suspect that in the number of hands played, the winners have a lot more than 7-8 %.

[/ QUOTE ]

The 7-8% is a player count... a count that is highly weighed down by the percentage of players playing MTTs, where the # of overall winners is very small. It has nothing to do with how much the winners are winning, or the losers are losing.

This argument is so screwy.

I feel quite /images/graemlins/confused.gif /images/graemlins/confused.gif /images/graemlins/confused.gif after reading most of this, so ill put my spin on it.

Lets say everybody plays 5+0.5 MTT's, thats the only form of poker known to man, and we have all agreed that for the recreational purpose of using their server that 10% of an entry is very good.

9~% of everybody's money that they deposited is instantly gone, therefore in a basic assumption the first 9% of the people out of the tournament have "paid" the house.

Now also look @ pay out structures, "extremely" top heavy.

1600 People currently in a 5$+0.5 @ Pstars it pays 180 SPOTS!

Thats roughly 11.5%~ of the total field.

So out of the 100%
9% pay the house
11.5% Win a payout of somesort.


So if 11.5% win and 9% of the field pays the house(quite generous of them), 80% of the players are losers by default.

Of those 11.5% Approximately 4% Barely win their entrance fee back(180-100 dont get double back) the next pay scale, the top 7%ish down Have gotten there return x 2, so its safe to assume that, they will enter another tournament with the money they have gotten back, and attempt to keep that pace.

When Lee Jones said approximately 8% of people who play online are winners, I think he may have been talking about MTT's.

As for this Ring game stuff with players being 40/60, I have my doubts about it all, with a 3% rake using the same validation above, 3% of all players are instantly losers, and i hope we can agree on that.

[Aytumious]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I don't have any idea what the actual percentages are, but I do know that the PT data you are looking at won't provide the answer.

[/ QUOTE ]

SO let me get this straight... you don't have any idea what a more correct number is, you just think that the extensive analysis done by many people who have reviewed extensive amounts of data is wrong /images/graemlins/wink.gif

[/ QUOTE ]

That is precisely what I'm saying because you could have the most brilliant mathematicians review the data in question and it wouldn't matter because the correlation between the data and the conclusion you are attempting to draw is obviously quite small.

Although this is blatantly obvious and it has been repeated numerous times in this thread already, unless you have a very large sample of hands on each individual player in question, the data is basically worthless in concluding the percentage of winners and losers overall.

This is my last post on this since the answers to your questions already exist in this thread.

[phish]

The answer is really very simple: people's PT results that show a 40/60 split simply don't have enough hands. And this is because the more hands there are in the database, the more rake would have been charged. And this will lead to the % of winners getting smaller and smaller until it converges to the 5%-10% that can actually beat the game plus rake.
To illustrate: Let's take 100 players, all of whom are equally skilled. Let them play 100 hands. At the end of the 100 hands, the rake collected is relatively small, so that the total amt of money at the table hasn't dropped by much. The result is that you will have close to a 50/50 winner/loser split.
But if they continue to play. 100,000 hands later, the rake would have been so great that they are now probably all losers since the total amt of money left at the table is so small. Many probably would've busted out.

As your PT database gets more and more hands, you will see the winning % drop. (Pooling % numbers from different people's database won't work. )

[arod15]

i thought it be higher than that....

[Sniper]

[ QUOTE ]
But if they continue to play. 100,000 hands later, the rake would have been so great that they are now probably all losers since the total amt of money left at the table is so small. Many probably would've busted out.


[/ QUOTE ]

Phish, the counter argument to 40/60 relies on two factors which don't exist in todays online poker environment... however, will be much more relevant when the poker boom dies down.

I will call the counter argument the Theory of Large Numbers in a Closed System. This theory requires everyone to play a large number of hands.

Taken to the extreme... if a fixed number of people were to play limit ring games until only one was left standing with any money (like a tournament, except with raked hands)... ultimately the rake would be the big winner and the final player left would have a pretty small stack.

The problem with this theoretical argument is that roughly 99% of all ring players play less than 10K hands/yr, and the population of ring game player has increased substantially over the last couple of years.

So at the moment, online poker neither suffers from the effects of large numbers or from the effects of a closed system, to a large degree. (or at least in my opinion, to as large a degree as some in this thread would like to believe)

That's why (at least in my opinion), the 40/60 is sustainable in online poker ring games, at the present time.

However, at some point in the future, as the games get tougher and fewer people add to the player pool the effect of the Theory of Large Numbers in a Closed System will be more pronounced... and the Rake Effect will force the number of winners down!

We are just not there yet!

[Hoss1193]

1. I don't think that's true. Online games are typically tighter, not looser, for a given limit.

2. Even if it WERE true, looser games make it EASIER to win, not harder.

3. Regardless of degree, both online and B&amp;M games at 5/10 and below are way loose enough for a good player to win.

My experience for basing these comments is Party .50/1 - 1/2 - 2/4, Pacific .25/.50 up to 5/10, and B&amp;M cardrooms in western Washington and southern California, if geography makes any difference.

[Hoss1193]

[ QUOTE ]
I don't keep records, and I have been withdrawing money from from my poker account on a monthly basis, and I haven't deposited in a couple years.

[/ QUOTE ]

If that's true, you've got to be in a tiny (i.e., statistically almost insignificant) minority.

Seems to me that anyone not serious enough about their game to keep records is just not going to have the game to be a consistent winner long-term.

Btw, do you use pokertracker, and use the data in it to some degree? If so, then yes you ARE keeping records, so maybe you're not a poster child for the "I don't keep records, but I know I'm a winner" crowd after all.

[Hoss1193]

That's a good point, which had not occurred to me before. I'm a winning player (by a modest amount). But over last two years, Pacific and Party would count me as a winner, while Paradise and Pokerstars would count me as a loser. Why? Simply because I played at the first two sites a lot more.

It would be very interesting to see what the numbers would be if the major sites reported the winning percentage only among folks who had played, say, 100k+ hands over the preceding year. I'd bet the percentages might be closer to the 25-75 split mentioned at the start of the post...maybe even 30-70.

[Sniper]

[ QUOTE ]
It would be very interesting to see what the numbers would be if the major sites reported the winning percentage only among folks who had played, say, 100k+ hands over the preceding year. I'd bet the percentages might be closer to the 25-75 split mentioned at the start of the post...maybe even 30-70.

[/ QUOTE ]

The percentage of all players playing greater than 100K ring game hands/year is very small, and the percentage of those players that are winners is significantly higher than the overall win%. Especially when you factor in that these players are much more likely than the avg poker player to be maximizing bonus and rakeback.

Okay - question then - does skill have anything to do with this?

For example - look at the breakdown of a payout for a chess tournament.

I do not think most of the players really believe they will beat the top Grandmasters...so they play in a class/field C,B,A, Expert, Masters for which they feel they can at least 1) make a little cash back, 2) work on their play with similar players until they place for the cash prizes.

In ring games this would compare to the .50/$1.00, $1/$2, $2/$4 and so on.

Is my assessment off?

Anyone who thinks they are going to be one of the "LUCKY" ones to win - without practice, understanding, analysis ability - IS playing strictly with luck. That compares to hoping a Grandmaster has a splitting headache and drops a Queen within the first 10 moves. Yes?

Respectfully submitted,
Nucleus Project /images/graemlins/cool.gif

[BlackRain]

I can say with 100% certainty that I am a winning player, whatever percentage that may put me in. And I know a few others that can as well. Why? Because I have never deposited a cent of my own money at an online poker site and have cashed out several times. At Pokerstars, I don't know about other sites, it is possible to sell play chips for real money and there is a large amount of this activity going on. Thus, there is a fairly large group of us who have never deposited anything and can only be breakeven at worst.

[Sniper]

[ QUOTE ]
At Pokerstars, I don't know about other sites, it is possible to sell play chips for real money and there is a large amount of this activity going on.

[/ QUOTE ]

Large amount??? Just how many players do you think have sold play money chips for cash?

[BlackRain]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
At Pokerstars, I don't know about other sites, it is possible to sell play chips for real money and there is a large amount of this activity going on.

[/ QUOTE ]

Large amount??? Just how many players do you think have sold play money chips for cash?

[/ QUOTE ]

I know of around 20 people personally, a couple of them having made over 1k. I know of at least 5 websites, in business for at least 6 months, which make profit buying and selling of these fake chips. Pokerstars tries to discourage this activity but there is just too much of it for them to control.

Cool, I will sell a Million in play money for a limited time offer of $10,000 in real money.

Anyone interested just let me know.

[Skipbidder]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I don't keep records, and I have been withdrawing money from from my poker account on a monthly basis, and I haven't deposited in a couple years.

[/ QUOTE ]

If that's true, you've got to be in a tiny (i.e., statistically almost insignificant) minority.

Seems to me that anyone not serious enough about their game to keep records is just not going to have the game to be a consistent winner long-term.

Btw, do you use pokertracker, and use the data in it to some degree? If so, then yes you ARE keeping records, so maybe you're not a poster child for the "I don't keep records, but I know I'm a winner" crowd after all.

[/ QUOTE ]

I used to think the same thing as you...that there aren't really any winners who aren't keeping good track of their sessions.

Since then, I've actually become someone who isn't keeping good track of his sessions. I do have Pokertracker, and used to be obsessive about checking it. I started having a lot less fun playing poker. I would be upset if my ROI dropped by a percentage or two (even if I was still winning).

I know that I'm a winning player because of meticulous stats that I used to keep for years as a B&amp;M player and for a smaller number of years as an internet player.

Recently, I've been playing much more as a limit whore than anything else. I've opened up accounts at many sites. Some (many) of them are not compatible with PT (or I don't know how to set them up). I'm not sure that I SHOULD care too much about what my stats are for $0.50-$1 limit hold em while I'm playing a bonus off if my normal game is (or rather WAS) multitabling the $50s. I still play SNGs at my ******** sites sometimes, but I don't think I have pulled up PT in months.

I know that I continue to be a winning player since stopping real record keeping because I can continue to withdraw money from Neteller and never have to put any more money into it.

[benfranklin]

[ QUOTE ]
At Pokerstars, I don't know about other sites, it is possible to sell play chips for real money and there is a large amount of this activity going on.

[/ QUOTE ]

Why is there a market for play money? Are play chips good for prizes or free rolls or ??????

[Aytumious]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
At Pokerstars, I don't know about other sites, it is possible to sell play chips for real money and there is a large amount of this activity going on.

[/ QUOTE ]

Why is there a market for play money? Are play chips good for prizes or free rolls or ??????

[/ QUOTE ]

Dude, you haven't lived until you've sat down at the table and plopped down a couple mil in play chips. You can feel the fear through your monitor.

[Sniper]

[ QUOTE ]
Cool, I will sell a Million in play money for a limited time offer of $10,000 in real money.

[/ QUOTE ]

The going rate seems to be about $20 real per 1 million play. You can check out some of the auctions on ebay!

[RedeemerKing]

at least im not alone

HOLY CRAP! 2 million chips are going for $63. People are so dumb. Cool, I'm going to play for fake at no cost and sell my chips at 1 million intervals.

Thanks

[BlackRain]

I didn't intend to hijack this thread. Just wanted to point out that at least at stars, there is a certain number of people who can't be losing money playing poker. I don't know the reasons behind why so many people want to buy fake chips. I have my suspicions. Firstly, there are games like "40k or fold" where people bet insane amounts of play money and there is a real community feel around this group. People are addicted to this. Secondly, I believe that many, probably middle aged married guys, have wives who don't want them gambling with real money. So they can justify buying a couple million chips for say 30 bucks, with no chance of a further loss in real money and still get that feeling of gambling it up.

Assuming this is done via looking at the poker site's records, some people like me mess with these numbers. Right now, I'm up big at Party and Pacific, up a little at Empire, and down at Noble, Stars, and Prima (deposited but haven't played Paradise). Thus, I factor in 3/7 times as a winner, 3/7 as a loser, and 1/7 as a break even. This would add some level of percentage to the winning side because there are a smaller number of winners, and I am adding an equal number of players to both sides. I would guess that most winning players (at least significantly winning ones) play at multiple sites, while most losing (i.e. casual) players play at only one site. Thus, the percentage of winners at any given site is much greater than the actual overall percentage of winners.

This could be corrected by studying this based upon polling data, but then we'd show 70% winners and 30% losers.

Will

[Sniper]

[ QUOTE ]
I would guess that most winning players (at least significantly winning ones) play at multiple sites, while most losing (i.e. casual) players play at only one site. Thus, the percentage of winners at any given site is much greater than the actual overall percentage of winners.


[/ QUOTE ]

The impact of this is negligible in the grand scheme of things... though your analysis that this impacts the numbers is correct. The number of casual players is just too high a percentage of the total.

[Sniper]

Link to a good discussion on Rake Effect (http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showflat.php?Cat=&amp;Board=micro&amp;Number=3008696)