For those that are asking about income levels and variance
 

For those of you that are asking about income levels and variance, here are my Party Poker stats from last year (2004). These do not include any Party skins, and all my $5/$10 play was at Pacific, but this gives you an idea of how much fluctuation you might see (yes, the games are a little tougher now in 2005 - but not too much).

Note how few hands at $15/$30 and $10/$20 I have - that explains the high BB/100 hand win rate - with a higher sample these numbers come down (unfortunately).

(sorry, can't get the screen shot to work, but here it is)

Game Level - hands - VP$IP - WtSD - Won@SD - PFR% - BB/100
$15/$30 - - 534 - - 23.22 - -37.50 - 59.98 - --11.99 -6.38
$10/$20 - - 1216 - 19.33 - --36.00 - 50.51 - --10.28 -4.21
$3/$6 - - -5036 - --14.02 - - 29.75 - 54.87 - --6.77 -1.85
$2/$4 - - - 4753 - -17.08 - - -30.76 - 54.43 - --8.21 -1.09
$1/$2 - - - 4764 - -17.82 - -30.60 - 56.18 - --8.00 - 2.60
.50/$1 - - 2218 - --20.20 -- 31.61 - 59.02 - --8.70 - 8.48
NL $100 - - 1373 - -18.28 - -20.77 - 54.24 - --9.61 - 7.00
NL (1) - - -1333 - --21.76 - -18.62 - 46.77 - --7.65 - 6.93
Total hands 21,227 -17.5 - -29.65 - -29.65 - ---8.14 - 3.38

Does this tell you anything? Maybe not, but it certainly shows a lot of variance for a single player at different levels - and obviously for a small sample size.

If you don't know what these stand for, VP$IP is voluntarily put money in pot, then Won $ without seeing flop, then Went to Show Down, then Won $ at Show Down, and preflop raise - then big bets won per 100 hands (multiply this by .6 to get an hourly rate).

[img]/images/graemlins/blush.gif[/img] Obviously these are just my numbers, and every player is different - your results WILL vary.

Dogmeat [img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img]

Re: For those that are asking about income levels and variance
 

I dont think any of your samples are nearly big enough to be meaningful.

I have about 15,000 hands spread out in 3 diffrent areas myself and I hesitate to even consider the actual stats since it's too small a sample. (on party 2/4 for example, Im clearing 4.3 BB/100 but only have around 5100 hands)

Someone who plays a lot even part time would have probally have well over 60,000 hands total if not more. I only tend to play one table at a time and Im playing at least 5000 a month.

This is a good idea though, although it would be cooler to see this from someone with a much larger sample.

There is an average reasonable win rate for whatever level you are playing so if you take multiple good players they will all show about the same numbers in the long term. It definately will not be anywhere near the same when you only show 5000 hands beacause too tiny of a sample.

Re: For those that are asking about income levels and variance
 

Dogmeat -
So the games are getting tougher as the years go on? So potentially poker WILL DIE or become full of PRO Vs Pro and TAG Vs TAG?

You mean tougher = Better players i assume?

Insitefull post, Cheers.

Re: For those that are asking about income levels and variance
 

this is like 20k total hands for the entire year.

I don't think you have enough hands here.

Re: For those that are asking about income levels and variance
 

damn. i play this many hands in a couple weeks sometimes. Point taken but if you plan arse load of hands each month the swings will be less dramatic month to month.