[Zetack]

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i know this is probably a dumb question, but how can pokertracker be so wrong about this? i have a pretty sizeable database, and from all limits, PT says that 42.4% are winners, and 57.6% are losers. now, i know that i don't have a huge amount of hands from a single player, but it still seems like the number should be a lot closer to what you are all saying (that 20% or less are winners).

having said that, i do have a player in my database who i know for a fact is a winning player, as a loser over 1800+ hands. so, i know the numbers can be misleading, but i just wouldn't think they would be THAT misleading.

cheers!

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Its because of the huge amount of short term luck involved and the bitch-god Variance.

If you watched any given table for, say, 100 hands you would almost certainly see anywhere from 2-5 winners at the table, even accounting for the rake. But then you don't follow those same players from table to table over time to see how they do. Its possible that some, or even all of those players are long term losers. But over the short term, even with the rake, some number of people at almost every table will be winners.

Multiply that affect out over many observed tables of different players and you will see a lot of apparent winners who simply are not winners over the long term. But because it would be very surprising to see very many tables that nobody beat the rake over a small number of hands, you see a lot more apparent winners than there actually are.

Pokertraker, for the most part, is a serious of these short term snapshots. If you could get the complete hand history for those winning players, many many of them would turn out to be losers. You've just recorded a small sample of their hands win they were winning due to the short term luck involved.

--Zetack