How many hands till you can gauge your skill or expectation?

[Warik]

I have about 1,500 hands loaded in PokerTracker for the past two weeks with a good hourly rate, but I keep hearing guys talking about their thousands of hands and how that doesn't mean anything YET.

At what point does my BB/hr in PokerTracker start to mean "something." 5,000 hands? 10,000 hands? 100,000 hands (please don't say 100,000 /images/graemlins/smile.gif)

Also at what point can I curse pocket kings? I've played them 8 times and they have me down 20 BB, LOL. /images/graemlins/smile.gif Maybe the 100th time I can post some earth-shattering poker news about how pocket kings is the worst starting hand in hold'em? (j/k)

[Eihli]

I hear 10,000 will tell you if your a winner or loser, 30,000 will give you a rough estimate of your rates, 100,000 will give you a good estimate of your rates.

[Ed Miller]

Also at what point can I curse pocket kings? I've played them 8 times and they have me down 20 BB, LOL.

If you are down 20 BB with KK, then you are most certainly not in the long run. /images/graemlins/smile.gif

Honestly whether you want to hear it or not, 100k hands is right about where you start being able to narrow down your win rate to a reasonable range. That's about 2500 hours of live poker...

[Warik]

[ QUOTE ]
[i]100k hands is right about where you start being able to narrow down your win rate to a reasonable range. That's about 2500 hours of live poker...

[/ QUOTE ]

Yep... almost 2 years of part-time play.

Well, at least I know that if I still have my original BR by the time I hit 10,000 hands, then there's a strong chance I can consider myself a winning player... at least at micro limits. /images/graemlins/smile.gif