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$1.26 an hour

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  1. #1

    Default $1.26 an hour

    Actually, EV adjusted HEM2 says it's really $.43 an hour, or in other words, probably below sweatshop wages. Hell prisoners working for practically free in a supermax prison rival my hourly if it's EV adjusted.

    I always wanted to be a professional poker player, but I'm not entirely sure I'm cut out for it, at least the way I'm going about the game at this point in life.

    Since February 15th I have played 208,906 hands, averaged 2.6bb/100, net won I've won $1,114.08, adjusted for EV I would have made $2153.19, and am averaging $1.26 an hour

    RIght now, given how much I'm making, I'll be honest, the game, after 4 years of playing it since April of 2012, when an event in my life happened that severely diminished the economic value of the college degree I had spent the then 9 years prior, earning, my interest in poker is diminishing from what it had been from that day.

    I had to find some kind of way to make money, that didn't require a background check into my arrest record, particularly since the degree I had pursued had also required a clean background check as well as the degree itself.

    I'm autistic, I've been fired from most every job I've held, given the fact I have an arrest record I wouldn't disagree with someone saying I have a difficult time following rules, including the rules (laws) of society). I have extremely weird sleeping hours, I would say I've easily had a very difficult life, even coming from an upper-middle class family where money wasn't a huge factor. (When I was 5 years old they diagnosed I had a disability and would have to be in a special classroom for kids with disabilities, the ironic thing was, I was the only kid in that class who wasn't impoverished) and basically I would categorize myself as an adult with a disability.

    The job I held for 5.5 years, I had my brother as my direct supervisor over me at the job, and when asked what it was like working with me as an employee he told my parents "With James, everyday, is like his first day, on the job".

    Anyways, clearly $1.26 an hour, I probably shouldn't even play, now you could argue I'm running so far below EV that my real wage is perhaps over $2.50 an hour, and a lot my losses stem from tilt purely due to running so incredibly bad and then making extremely bad plays later on in the game. Basically for the past 4 months, I've been running bad in poker. Last night I lost 8.5 buy ins.

    My W$WSF is 40.6, when someone saw my redline they said "That redline hurts my soul to look at" (I've won roughly $12,000 in showdown winnings and lost roughly $11,000 in hands that didn't go to show down). My EV line is about $1,000 above where my net winnings line is, I mean I do tend to get sucked out on a lot more than I suck out on other people.

    VPIP is 23.7, PFR is 17.0, 3bet is 5.41, WTSD% is 24.4, W$SD% is 53.5, Agg is 3.07


    Basically I'd say I'm a break even player. If you look at my graph, today, over the past 7 months, you could easily conclude that I'm not "enjoying myself" when I play poker. It's almost like torture now, or a chore, it just enrages me how often they do massive suckouts on me, but the double sided axe of suckouts rarely ever seems to swing my way.


    I've tried hard to move up to 50nl, and even took a few shots at 100nl, at $100nl, I lost -$71.56, but generated $76.53 in EV over 1,075 hands. In 50nl I ran horrible as well, I generated $294.20 in EV but in results, I lost -$377.90.


    If I feel doomed to win only $1.26 an hour, and be stuck playing 25nl even 6 years from now, I don't know, maybe I'm not cut out for this game as I had long hoped for.

    SO whats the solution? I got plenty of tools at my disposal to work on my game, read an hour out of some poker book before each session? Looking for some ideas here, I really want to make it in this game, but it is a very frustrating game when over 208,000 hands, your winnings is roughly less than half of your EV.
    Last edited by JimmyS1985; 09-11-2016 at 03:11 PM.
  2. #2
    You're not a break even player you're a winning player. Most people don't make anywhere near that much playing poker.

    That being said you probably never will make any real money from poker & it's definitely not a long term answer to how you earn a living. Truthfully if you aren't enjoying it it's a complete waste of your time. Do something else.

    208k hands is absolutely tiny also.
  3. #3
    Well I only play 4 tables at a time at the most, this doesn't include SNG's and times I play zone poker from my phone, but when I'm sitting at my PC playing I see roughly 250 hands per hour. So even though 208,000 hands seems like a small sample, in terms of hours I've put into the game, that translates to 832 hours over the course of 7 months, and to me that's a lot of time to have spent playing poker. Practically like a job really.
  4. #4
    Cash games have become noticeably tougher in the past 2-3 years and being a winning player before rakeback is something to be celebrated. The harsh reality is it's difficult to profit $15+ per hour, and those that do would almost certainly be better off financially and mentally pursuing a professional career (ignoring the freedom of playing poker).

    Getting a good rakeback deal is key in the first instance. Then work on your game and take good notes. It doesn't take much to become better than the majority (I recommend Janda's book) and most people are bad at poker and don't fundamentally study or change their strategy, so you can abuse that e.g. they one and done ace high boards, they bet 50% pot on wet flops when they miss, they bet chk bet top pair type of hands, etc.

    I'd also have a look at the Tilt Breaker software to avoid donking off 5-15 buy ins in a session and eradicating your hard earned profits.

    Finally, you have got to table and site select. That can make the difference between breakeven and winning at 5bb/100. You may also want to think about throwing some $3-$11 mtts in there too - the standard in those is atrocious relative to micro cash games.
  5. #5
    You are exactly what online poker sites are looking for. A player that generates rake, the more playing you do, the more rake you generate.
    All I can see you do to improve your game is get rid of the middle man. Play where there is no rake and you would see more of your money returning to you. This would be a game you play at home or a friends house. I seem to play for a dollar an hour profit myself when all is said and done. This may not be much, but if you put in 700 hours, it may be $700 you would not have available for spending otherwise. Good luck in whatever you decide to continue doing.
    It takes 2 years to learn to talk, but a lifetime to learn when to shut up.
  6. #6
    You have a big enough hand sample that you can run some pretty decent filters to see where you are losing money. Have you done that?

    View the reports by position so you can view your winnings at all positions separately.
    1) are you a winner in ALL non-blind positions? If NOT then you have a leak, cause every position should be net positive except blinds (every $ you put in outside of blinds is voluntary)
    2) if you filter for 3b = true, are you gaining everywhere?
    3) if you filter for cold call = true, are you losing in some spots? I bet you are. You're probably cold calling too wide.
    3b) filter for low pocket pairs only and cold call = true. filter for SC's and CC = true etc to narrow down the type of hands you're losing with.
    4) With cold call = true, are you doing better than 50bb/100 in SB and 100bb/100 in BB? If not you're better off folding some hands. Are you doing SIGNIFICANTLY better than these rates? if so you may be CC too strong of a range and could be better off defending more hands in blinds.

    etc etc...
    Quote Originally Posted by Jay-Z
    I'm a couple hands down and I'm tryin' to get back
    I gave the other grip, I lost a flip for five stacks
  7. #7
    Hey, so this post got long, but I think it's worth your while to read, and it's no longer than your OP which I myself read, so I guess now we're even :P

    Your hourly


    My PT3 database says I made something like $6.50/hr lifetime online, and it was over a much larger number of hands (stopped playing online after Black Friday). You'd have to isolate my winnings for a certain time period and/or at certain stakes before you stopped wondering, "Why the fuck did you even bother."

    Honestly, 2.6bb/100 seems fine in today's climate; the problem is that you can't make a living wage off of 25nl.

    You need to make a plan for how you can move up the stakes, and what you'll find is that, unfortunately, poker can't be the solution to your life problems--it'll probably closer to the exact other way around. You need to meet expenses without withdrawing from your BR, or you will just be on the poker hamster wheel, endlessly spinning away without going anywhere. Since poker isn't the solution to your problem, this unfortunately means that I am not qualified to help you really. I can give vague, half-assed answers like wondering if anyone in your family has any connections at all to land you a job to bring in some consistent funds. I'm sorry to hear that you have obstacles to deal with in social and maybe learning aspects of getting by in this world, but hopefully you can shamelessly leverage some advantages of growing up in an upper-middle class environment to offset it.

    The good news for your poker career is that you have so few constraints. With no power comes no responsibility, and poker careers thrive in the otherwise disorienting life with no walls, ceiling and floors. If you're not married, don't have kids, etc, then you can grind whenever--even if you do have a job--and this is especially true online.

    Mental Game Issues

    I've always found that studying the game helps a *ton* of my issues surrounding tilt, confidence, etc. And I mean proper study with math and theory and reads and stuff. We fear what we don't understand.

    For years and years, I spent all day and night on this forum looking at HH after HH and arguing my impressions of a hand, and then when I was downswinging and feeling down on myself, I'd look at my post history and realize I was always grasping at straws looking for reasons to click call or fold and that I was almost trying to balance my ranges in these posts so I didn't seem like too much of a nit or too much of a maniac instead of, you know, knowing what I'm talking about, and then I'd go on a hissy fit in IRC and be like "bbickes is such a gaybo, he always says fold in all the HHs" while really having no idea if that is even right or wrong to complain about. I realize this is a stupidly specific and personal rant that may not be helpful to you, but my point is that it wasn't until I had a solid fundamental basis to my game and a sound theoretical construct to my understanding of poker that I grew a healthy confidence in my game that lasted through the tougher times we poker players go through.

    For what it's worth, it took me over 4 years of on-and-off recreational play at lol1/2NL between Black Friday and me properly relaunching my career, so I wouldn't follow my own lazy path toward eventual maturity as a model to live by. My point is that tilt is significantly alleviated when you have a confidence and understanding of why you're doing what you're doing, and properly understand how this translates into winning money in the longterm. Sure, tilt piles up when you miss 5 straight combo draws and all that, but I can tell from the tone of your post that suckouts are more of an annoyance, and you're more worried that your game as a whole is flawed. I'm telling you, it feels sooooo refreshing to know exactly what your own range looks like for opening from the HJ, to recognize a spot where you should be floating lighter than usual but recognize that the particular hand you have doesn't make the cut and throw it in the muck, to get snapped off when you triple barrel but have a strong enough understanding in what your strategy overall looks that you understand how it wins against your opponent's overall strategy, etcetcetc. You get tilted when you don't have the theoretical construct in place to see the game through a logical lens; you get confused and you doubt your winnings when you win and lash out at your losses when you lose. I say "you" here but obviously I'm projecting like crazy.

    You could probably monitor your emotions the next time you play, and once you start to feel depressed and feel like this game sucks and you never want to play it again, you could quit and go back through your last several hands. It's painful to do, but assuming stress and dread and denial don't shut down your logical faculties, you'll probably quickly recognize that a lot of your last several hands had you uncertain one way or another. Confronting these uncertainties isn't nearly as bad as you think it's going to be once you drop the ego and buy into the motto that "no question is too stupid to ask." That example I used of opening certain hands from the HJ is a real example from my recent past. You can ask Griffey about this; I was literally asking people on Skype just a few months ago, "Stupid question, but what does your guys' HJ opening ranges look like?" IT DOES NOT GET MORE FUNDAMENTAL THAN THAT AND YET I AM STILL ASKING SHIT LIKE THAT 7.5 FUCKING YEARS INTO MY POKER CAREER.

    Literally two days ago I was trying to plug a spot into a solver and I was like, "You know what? I don't know WTF a standard BU r/c range should look like. I know which button I've tended to mash with which hands, but I better run this one by the Skype guyz." And--this part might sound crazy to a tilt-addled, ego-fragile mind--I'm pretty sure Griffey (or any of my other Skype poker bros) doesn't think any less of me for it. Because this is what poker is; from the mind-numbingly mundane to the super-rare marginal spots, the name of the game is strategy. It's not about momentum or how hard you yell "one time" to the dealer or (imho) even all that much about your emotional relationship with cards on a given day.

    Again, I'm projecting like crazy, but I could go on and on about the wonderful miracle healing powers of studying poker.
    Last edited by surviva316; 09-21-2016 at 11:43 PM.
  8. #8
    Also, if you manage to get a plan going for bringing in income, that can go hand-in-hand with a short hiatus from PLAYING poker. People underestimate how stressful it can be to learn poker while playing it, especially in today's online games where you practically need an associate's degree in the damn game before you can beat 25nl. It's like you're cramming for a test every morning and getting thrown to the fire every night, and there's almost no way to have any confidence in a damn thing you're doing when you're applying shit on the fly.

    I can't say my time off from poker is when I learned the most quantity wise. I mean, I forgot much more than I learned when it comes to equities and plays and ranges and all that. But it's where a lot of my most productive learning took place. The things I did learn, I really ingested and it stuck with me through thick and thin. EG: This is when I got my first look at Janda math and while I totally forgot all the specific numbers and ranges I wrote down on the back of the envelope, the process really stuck with me. I guess I finally started to get a good understanding of how I should think.

    It's really hard to do that when you're staring down the barrel every day and clicking F5 on your bankroll and constantly beating yourself up for whatever you inevitably did wrong on a given day. It's nice to live in theoryland for a bit and approach some HHs with nothing on the line and where you can do no wrong because you have an hour, a day, a week to unknot the damn HH if that's what you want to do.

    Anyway, more projection, more advice that is so specific and personal that it's probably only useful to me from 5 years ago, but it's the only advice I know how to give, so ... at least I'm self-aware enough to realize it's probably not helpful?

    ...

  9. #9
    Razvan729's Avatar
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    ABC poker w/ 4 zoom tables 25nl for 4-5 hours a day should give you a decent 1000 $ / month. Crom your post, i conclude your problem is mostly post flop play. After ABC poker, next level still 25nl should and will boost You up to 2000$. Post hands and study, with the time You have, you'll get there If serious in 2-3 months.
    All posts are just my own opinion about a hand or a general situation... not advices on how you should play...
  10. #10
    Quote Originally Posted by Razvan729 View Post
    ABC poker w/ 4 zoom tables 25nl for 4-5 hours a day should give you a decent 1000 $ / month. Crom your post, i conclude your problem is mostly post flop play. After ABC poker, next level still 25nl should and will boost You up to 2000$. Post hands and study, with the time You have, you'll get there If serious in 2-3 months.
    4 tabling zoom for 4-5 hour every day is hard work, to assume you can go from 4 tabling normal 25nl (much weaker games) and being a slight winner to playing in much tougher games and increasing your volume 4 fold is ridiculous. Especially with the mental game issues he has I imagine he'd be a big loser in those games factoring in tilt.

    26 days a week for 4 hours a day is 104 hours, let's up that to 125 hours a month which is a lot but if we're talking full time job hours it's reasonable and leaves study time.

    So to make $1k we'd need to make $8 an hour which btw if we could straight up extrapolate his hourly win rate (we can't tougher games, worse play due to increased #hands) we come very short just over $5. So we're already unreasonable target.

    Let's say 1000 hands an hour that means we need a 3.2bb/100 win rate, I'm pretty sure that over any reasonable sample no one is beating 25nl zoom anywhere close to that*. Even if we double the amount of hours (300 hours a month is riduclous) a 1.6bb/100 win rate over any reasonable sample is highly highly unlikely.

    *I saw some data on 2+2 on biggest win rates in zoom for the regs at each stake & I don't recall the best win rates at this level being much higher than 1bb/100, this was 2 years ago and I imagine the games have only got tougher so..... Arguments like best players just move up though so never get a sample don't really factor in here because he's not & pretty much no one grinds up a roll from micro stakes anymore.
    Last edited by Savy; 09-22-2016 at 12:26 PM.
  11. #11
    Razvan729's Avatar
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    If in 4-5 hours play time a day you cant average 1-1.5 buyns profit / a day at any stake then you need to improve your game for that stake or drop down and move up when you manage this profit. IT is possible for 25nl and 50nl for sure. Cant say for higher stakes , but should be ok for those also. Hope our veterans can Back this up
    All posts are just my own opinion about a hand or a general situation... not advices on how you should play...
  12. #12
    You say it's possible I look at the actual figures that happen and tell you that no one does. Not a tiny % of people do, literally no one. This was as I say about two years ago and since then rake has got worse and games have got tougher*.

    The funny thing is higher stakes actually have higher shown winrates over large sample sizes, a lot of that being down to the rake structure some of it being down to the quality of player.

    *This is an assumption due to the past trend.

    Inb4 loads of 50k hand samples where people win at like 6bb/100 at 25nl zoom.
    Last edited by Savy; 09-22-2016 at 04:15 PM.
  13. #13
    Razvan729's Avatar
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    that should mean i must be really good ))))) i am not , trust me.

    you see the winning rate of the most players, but most players are not good. 25nl/ 50nl pool is 50% bad players, 40% surviving, 7 % going around 2-3bb/100 and the rest are simply jamming the stakes. i know 50nl players that are making over 50k/ year for the last 2-3 years + rakeback

    stats we see on net are for those 90%. being in the rest 10% takes just time and some study. to do that 50k/year guess it takes some talent, born nature for poker (ex: micro2macro. btw, you are my hero )

    it is not easy ,but it is possible. ( took me 5 damn years to be a little above average )
    All posts are just my own opinion about a hand or a general situation... not advices on how you should play...
  14. #14
    No I'm talking about data mining everyone's hands looking at the biggest winners over relevant samples and literally no one wins at anywhere close to that.

    I struggle to think you know 50nl players that makes loads of money because otherwise they wouldn't be 50nl players. I'd love to see some graphs of 50nl zoom players making 50k a year over a 3 year period from 2012 onward & an explanation as to why they don't play 100nl where the player pool doesn't improve THAT much and the rake is much better.

    As I said in my original post OPs results are actually very decent, if they are actually close to being his real stats he's already in a very high percentile of poker player (still very much room to improve).

    Anyway we're getting off topic my point was that your suggestion was ridiculous and it is, it isn't even close to being a good way for him to improve his $$$. I don't think I know (m)any vets on here who would suggest playing zoom in the first place.
    Last edited by Savy; 09-22-2016 at 04:39 PM.
  15. #15
    I'll add that I'm not a good poker player and Razvan is very highly likely much better than I am and I haven't even played poker in probably around two years now so obviously just disregard anything I say about anything poker related.
  16. #16
    Razvan729's Avatar
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    for the same reason why winning 100nl dont move to 200nl or why 2/4 players dont play 5/10.
    cant give you graphs, they are not mine,but i know some. we even have here on ftr some super players that can manage better than this. ask them this questions, maybe they can asnwer.

    for me its easy. i am just a recreational player and dont have the time to invest in 100nl and i am very happy w/ my 25nl/50nl results. anyway, 50nl is probably my limit i know when to say stop,dont wanna hurt myself
    All posts are just my own opinion about a hand or a general situation... not advices on how you should play...
  17. #17
    i would imagine many eastern european players can make a living at 25/50nl and don't want to break even at 100nl
  18. #18
    Razvan729's Avatar
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    That is also a valid reason. East Europe has an average income of 400-500$/month. A job + poker = over 1000$, which for East europe is above medium living condition while for UK/ West Europe/ USA is probably the minimum for sustaining a living
    All posts are just my own opinion about a hand or a general situation... not advices on how you should play...
  19. #19
    Sounds like the solution to Jimmy's problems is to get his passport sorted and buy Rosetta Stone.
  20. #20
    Razvan729's Avatar
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    I think he would Be moree then fine If he just stop chasing draws so much ,learn what flops and vs who to cbet and stop calling pre w/ marginal hand ( even though they are profitabile) untul he sharpens up his post flop skills. This alone would increase w/ 1bb/ 100 his winning rate
    All posts are just my own opinion about a hand or a general situation... not advices on how you should play...
  21. #21
    Quote Originally Posted by Razvan729 View Post
    I think he would Be moree then fine If he just stop chasing draws so much ,learn what flops and vs who to cbet and stop calling pre w/ marginal hand ( even though they are profitabile) untul he sharpens up his post flop skills. This alone would increase w/ 1bb/ 100 his winning rate
    The point is that improving 1bb/100 isn't going to solve his problems. We as poker players like to pretend poker is a perfect meritocracy and anyone who's struggling to move up the stakes only has their leaks to blame. It's not here. He could double his winrate, and he'd still just be running a little more furiously on a hamster wheel.

    He needs another source of income or he needs his expenses to become essentially nil (hence the move to Eastern Europe joke; maybe Jimmy's parents are offering free rent with all groceries paid?). The only way poker is going to solve his problems is if he fires ten bullets at a medium stakes MTT and binks one of them, and no one here is going to suggest that.

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