Caro Article

[Mason Malmuth]

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the fact that at least 90% of all poker players are still losing

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Hi Timmer:

I don't agree with this statement. I'm constantly in games where at most only one or two players are losing. It's my experience that a small number of people lose very badly and they pay the rake for everyone else. My guest is that at least 70 percent of the regular players do win.

Best wishes,
Mason

[HatesLosing]

An often cited statistic (people who use Poker Tracker without filtering the number of hands in their preferences know this one from their "Summary" tab) is that about 60% of the players are losers and 40% are winners when it comes to online NL cash games.

This statistic, however, is not talking about "regular" players. This statistic includes *all* players, so someone who only played 10 hands in the past 6 months and basically just sat down at his computer completely hammered and moved all-in on every hand until he was broke is counted in these stats. [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

If anyone is interested, I can pull up the breakdown when it comes to *regular* players (again, only for online NL cash games in mid-stakes: $200 - $1k buy-ins) when I get back home.

Of course, there are some other interesting problems with these stats when it comes to online play... some players get counted multiple times if they are allowed to switch their login names. Also, we really should have three categories: Winning, Losing, Break-even. I don't think it's really right to count someone as a "losing" or "winning" player if they have lost/won $50 in their last 15,000 hands playing NL $600.

[George Rice]

[ QUOTE ]
I don't agree with this statement. I'm constantly in games where at most only one or two players are losing. It's my experience that a small number of people lose very badly and they pay the rake for everyone else. My guest is that at least 70 percent of the regular players do win.

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Mason,

You're currently in games with good players who have moved up during the years. Also, it's possible for the vast majority of players to be losers AND for 70% of the regulars to be winners. I personally woould expect over 90% of the regular players to be winners, because they're making their money at the lower limits when not in your game, and are just taking a shot at the higher game when you're playing with them. After all, they are by definition "regular" players which suggests they're not going broke (Do the same bad players consistantly feed the larger games? I wouldn't think so. Posslbly just a small percentage.).

If you count the smaller games (which account for maybe 95% or more of all games) where the players are less talented and more players take shots, including the casual players, then its my opinion that 90% of all players being losers is probably close.

David wrote an article about this topic a while back. I don't remember if he addressed this exactly, but I seem to remember him coming to the conclusion that most players were losers.

In any event, most losing players are not bottomless pits. And most losing players catch on after a while that they're losing money and go away. Other losing players take their place. All that money the winners win comes from somewhere, as well as the money the cardrooms drop.