Good win rate - $1/$2 $20 more than average? Rigged or unfair?

[dogmeat]

This is really aimed at those of you that don't understand how you can have a losing streak, that think you are getting drawn-out on, or that think poker is rigged:

If I told you that a good player will win more than $20 per hour on a single $1/$2 online game of 60-hands per hour, would you be happy with that amount? Would you stop thinking the games are rigged? Read on:

Rules are: 60 hands per hour, $1/$2 game, average pot of $20. You contribute $6 to each pot you play. You are fairly tight and play 20% of all starting hands. You win 40% of all hands you play. Do you like this game?

Well, you contend for the pot 12 times (20%) putting $72 into action. You win 4.8 times (40%) for $96. Surely that is a good win rate, right?

Well, take out your blinds of $9 and that leaves $87. Oops, take out the rake on twelve pots of $12 and that leaves you $75, or a $3 win. Sucks. You won but you lost, really. But this is how it works at poker. You won 1.5 big bets per hour........

If you are able to get just one more bet called, or call one less bet per hour, then your win is $5 and jumps to 2.5BB - much more respectable. If the game is just 10% better (pots of $22), then you win an additional $9.60 per hour - a huge difference. You have to be very good to win in games where there are less than 30% going to the flop!

If you still think the games are rigged, think about this. Lets say you win $19 once and lose $6 three times for each of those 60 hands, that gives you a $3 edge per 60 hands. This represents your hourly. However, since we all call bets when we are not a favorite (draws), our overall win rate is lower. My win rate is usualy about 8%. Lets say for 50 hands per hour you win 4 pots. Since each winning pot is $20, you win $80 total. You losses on the other 46 should be $77, but to make this easy, lets do the following:

Place 50 cards on your floor, face down. Leave all four aces in the 50, and every time you pick one, you get $25. Every time you don't pick one, it costs $2 ($92 total). This actually gets you a total of $8 per 50 hands (picks) - or about the 2.5BB we all shoot for. You have a bankroll of $600 for this $1/$2 game. Start picking.

If you always replace the card you picked, and actually keep track with a couple stacks of chips, you will have some real large swings - both ways. You might even go broke.

Now image you are not quite as good as you think, and only break even! Now you only get $18 per win. How fast do you go broke?

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

[BugSplatt]

Good post.

Bug