Winning players becoming losers?
 

Short question I have been wondering about:
What percentage of all online players do you think are long term winners before the rake but becomes losers because of the rake collected?
I personally have no idea. 25% perhaps?

Re: Winning players becoming losers?
 

Seems like it'd have to be 50%. It's a zero sum game. Winners/losers probably occupy a bell curve where a few lose really really badly, most either lose or win a little, and the good players win a bunch.

The rake effectively shifts that cutoff point a couple standard deviations, giving us the 10% winners we have now.

Re: Winning players becoming losers?
 

Ah, yes good reasoning. So I guess you mean that there is 40% winners that cannot beat the rake?

Re: Winning players becoming losers?
 

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Seems like it'd have to be 50%. It's a zero sum game. Winners/losers probably occupy a bell curve where a few lose really really badly, most either lose or win a little, and the good players win a bunch.

The rake effectively shifts that cutoff point a couple standard deviations, giving us the 10% winners we have now.

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I'm very skeptical that this is true, that the number would be close to 50 percent because its a zero sum game without the rake. Its a zero sum game with respect to the money in play, but that says nothing about how that money gets distributed.

For example imagine a table with 10 players playing say 5/10 limit hold em. One player is better than the other players. Each player has a huge bankroll, say $1,000,000 dollars but will never bring another dime to the table. They play every day. Because they have so much money relative to the blinds, they will play long enough to likely minimize or elimate the effect of luck. Eventually the worst players will bust out one by one until only the player who is clearly the best will remain and he will have all the money.

A zero sum game yes, a wide distribution of winners, no.

Now if you take that same game and all the players keep bringing more money, its possible that the second best player will win more from the worse players than he loses to the best player and so still be a winning player. heck, Theorectically one player could be so bad that all nine of the other players make more money from him they lose to the better players. You could have all kinds of distributions in a zero sum game.

How many players would be winners sans rake though, is hard to know, and certainly is not addressed by the zero sum concept. And the bell curve simply means there is likely to be a bunch of players bunched together in terms of skill or results, not necessarily that they are bunched around the break even point.

--Zetack

good argument
 

!

Re: Winning players becoming losers?
 

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Now if you take that same game and all the players keep bringing more money, its possible that the second best player will win more from the worse players than he loses to the best player and so still be a winning player.
--Zetack

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Assuming you meant this literally, this is incorrect.

Re: Winning players becoming losers?
 

I would imagine that most long term players are winners or at least break even. We make money from the constant flow of people who start playing and then realize they can't beat the game so they quit. Meanwhile, their money is distributed amongst the winning players.

Re: Winning players becoming losers?
 

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Now if you take that same game and all the players keep bringing more money, its possible that the second best player will win more from the worse players than he loses to the best player and so still be a winning player.
--Zetack

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Assuming you meant this literally, this is incorrect.



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Ok, you've stumped me. I don't see why meaning this literally makes it incorrect. Does it help if I say players who run through their million dollars will bring new money to the game forever instead of quitting? Or are you getting at something else?

Re: Winning players becoming losers?
 

Maybe I am wrong on this one but the fact that there is an ever revolving cast of players - many bad that will lose and never come back - I assume it is not a true bell. The number of good players online will always be less but the influx of new bad players will maintain their posistion as winning players...

maybe i'm way off base

Re: Winning players becoming losers?
 

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Now if you take that same game and all the players keep bringing more money, its possible that the second best player will win more from the worse players than he loses to the best player and so still be a winning player.
--Zetack

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Assuming you meant this literally, this is incorrect.



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Ok, you've stumped me. I don't see why meaning this literally makes it incorrect. Does it help if I say players who run through their million dollars will bring new money to the game forever instead of quitting? Or are you getting at something else?

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He's wrong. You're right.

It's also a case of degrees of play. If the best player is only slightly better than the second best player, but both players are head & shoulders above the other 8, it is not only possibly but extremely likely that both players will leave the game with more money than they sat down with.

This is why it is often profitable to sit in a game with one or more other good players, perhaps better players than you, so long as there are other very bad players involved.