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If a losing player is better than most losing players, and he mostly plays with other losing players, his mistakes should offset by other players' worse mistakes, so that he doesn't lose money in the long run.

So I wonder if 95% is too high. 95% of players might play -EV strategies, so that they'd lose money to winning players, but they can't ALL lose money when they play against each other unless they're of equal skill and the rake is what kills them.

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I'm not going to pretend I understood one word you said, but the rake is indeed what kills everybody.

If you have a hypothetical 10-20 game where four "regular" players are making $20 an hour, or $3200 per month each, then the other six players must lose approximately $4800 a month apiece. How long can this go on?

Just for fun let's say that all 10 players are winning players. Now what happens. The same ~$16,000 gets raked off the table over the course of the month, and since all of the players are of equal skill they will have each lost $1600 apiece. Oh sure in a given month one or two guys might win big, but the next month it's somebody elses turn, etc., etc., and on and on.

I agree with the 95% numbers. The math shows it can't be much better than that.