How Come I haven't met anyone who admits they're down?

I've been playing poker for 2 years online and live and whenever I meet poker players and ask them how they are doing, they all say they are up.

I've never met someone who willing admits, yeah I'm down a couple hundred, or I'm down a couple thousand, etc.

Supposedly 95% of Poker Players do not make money, so where are all the losers if I keep meeting the 5% who win all the time?

Vegas Cat

I suppose you know this really, but I'll give the obvious response - people lie sometimes.

www.officialpokerranking.com - you can look people up for MTTs to check (at least since they started the site). You can also browse to losers. Similar tools for SnGs do the same job. I'm not sure about cash games, but someone's probably datamining.

I think part of it is that some people rationalise the losses. "I was drunk", "I was learning" etc so that the losses don't count, while the wins are all remembered.

When I started playing I was adamant that I was going to track every penny. First to make sure I didn't develop a problem, and secondly in the event that I made money, I wanted to be able to prove it to my family and friends.

Well I'm not ashamed to admit it, I'm not a winning player yet, but since I joined this forum, my deposits in my poker site have been less, not in size but frequency.
I use to deposit every two weeks, but as of late I have been depositing every four weeks.

And well, since your talking to poker players, they lie probably even at a higher frequency.

Last year was my first year ahead, thanks to a $2000 win in a MTT. The two years before that I lost at least a few hundred each year though...

I don't really keep track that much. I play all types of games, buyins, freerolls and play chips. And I play at a lot of sites. I play for fun. So I really don't keep track too much. I would say I lean a little to the loss side though.

I'm actually superstitious about talking about my status. I even posted about it recently in my blog. Yeah, it's stupid. I know.

Overall, I'm down some.

I carefully log all my games on an excel spreadsheet. I am certain that is a good part of the reason I am a winning player. I know precisely on which sites, at which buy-ins, and even at what time of day I am most consistently successful.

By using that information and having the self-discipline to grind away at my most successful games (which are not always the ones I most enjoy), I make sure that I win reasonably steadily.

my bankroll says that i'm a winning player due to 5-6 recent very deep finishes in 4k+ person mtt's, but i know in the grand scheme of things i have a lot to learn before i will consider myself a 'winning player'. i want to be a better sng player before i decide that i'm a winning player.

ive been keeping a record, it goes like this,i've put about 700 dollars on the line on a holdem table, i have nothing to show for it right now, therefore, i'm not a winning player

i can tell i was trying to be friendly when i asked what you had last night, just so i could tell if i had any sort of read on you at all and you wouldnt say anything. im not there to win your money, (i usually purposely play badly in cc tourneys just for fun) im trying to make myself better & learn how to play different styles.

right now, i am a losing player because i have just recently started playing. i plan on learning the different playing styles, and the odds on different hands. i have made it to the FT in a couple of 1500+ person tournys, but thats where the really good players knock me out.

hey charlie, good to see you signed up.

I envy your patience, joose.


I myself am so far a 'winning player', though I play very sporadically, often above my BR limits and have made some good dough on a few lucky MTTs, and I'm sure that if I were to play say 5 SnGs a day consistently, I'd be about a break-even player.

such a good question

i guess, you win then u wanna tell someone, you lose you don't

human nature

Why in the world would I tell you? Why in the world would you believe me if I did?

Sorry, dude. I have a policy of only revealing my hand if it serves a purpose for me. Hope you understand. And I AM there to take everyone's money. Besides, no one hardly ever chats with me at those things anyway, unless it's about a hand (or punk rock. LOL). So I might as well concentrate on winning. Sorry again.

im here for the community. like, playing poker with my grandma. if you want to take my money that badly, then go for it i guess.

I'm normally always willing ot admit I'm down, I haven't been playing online that much, made 2 minimum buy-ins at pokerstars ($25) first one at the end of last summer... it only lasted about a week. Then I made another deposit in mid Sept of last year and I've been floating up and down between about $50 and $10... but I hit a tough streak lately that I couldn't win anything no matter what and the result is the following:

My goal now is to use my FPP for Pokerstars "freerolls" and see if I can get back up

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i am up in high blind no limit live action but I am down on pokerstars and the prima poker networks.

In my lifetime at Titan poker I am down... was the first place I played so I was bad. At Absolute I'm way up. At Party I'm up. At Full Tilt I'm up, but not by that much yet.

Well, I track every penny in a spreadsheet for both tourney and ring games. I know exactly where how much is, where it went, etc. So I can state my long term position with certainty. It isn't gut feeling or forgeting about some loses. Nope, but that's me.

Ill fully admit tht i am down bout 150$ over 1 half yrs but i am dr jekyll mr hyde it all depends on when i play but then who cares bout te money its all bout the thrill of the big wins sod roi n bb per hr but thn thts just me

People only brag when they are ahead. Over all I'm ahead since $20 is the only money that has come out of my bank account. Now if you ask about my winnings in 2007 I'll wait until I'm ahead again to answer you

I have always admitted I was down - but have wondered who the other 94% were lol. Just as you say everybody else always claimed to be up.

However - I used to put money in every month. Since I joined CC in October I have added no money except what I put in at the 2 new sites I joined through the link.

So something is going a bit better lol.

I started playing poker about this time last year and wasn't taking it seriously, not even knowing about pot odds etc, i.e fish! I started taking it more seriously and at the start of November I decided to use Excel and I would say this has helped as i'm in profit for the last 2.5 months. So overall I would say I'm breaking even but the future looks good!

I do the same. I do not win cash every month, but most month I do. I have been playing for 13 months now and I know I am exactly $6,440.90 ahead in that time. And that was starting with $200!!! I did get lucky - in the first month I played I won a MTT that paid $3,600 for a $25 stake.

I also play based on month on month success. So, Jan 07 (now), so far this month I am $144.90 in profit. I have staked $418.15 in MTT/ SNG`s and won £456.20. I have made this money up by playing limit cash games, so I have won $106.85 playing limit cash games.

I will now play a few MTT in the hope that I can catch a decent payout. When I drop to about $50 I will go back to SNG`s and cash.

Hope this makes sense, I`ve confused myself now!!!

The bottom line is, I think, that a lot of the people who say they are `up a bit` or whatever they say probably don`t realy know because they don`t keep records!!!

I know I was down on pokerstars, then I was up on bodog, and up on ultimatebet... something thats slightly ahead probably.

My first 6 months i was up & down and all over the place - then i read some books, started playing with the cardschat people and since August that year i have not had a losing month.

In fact most months i have increased little by little (not every time of course ) but when i compare even daily figures to 18 months ago it seems a different world.

ps. Im a 95% cash game player

Hi! My name is Talkpkr2me,most people just call me "Talk".....Now,you can say that you have met someone who IS down... I sadly am not one of the elite 5%....Like Ian,I play mostly cash tables,and if I left it at that,I MIGHT be a little up,but because I do throw some tournies in now and then,I seem to be perpetually down...

LOL

I'm looking at the current poll results here and 60% of player's are either up or at break even, with 40% in the negative.

This still doesn't match the 95% poker players that lose.

Theory One:
Many are still lying or don't realize they are down

Theory Two:
People who actually spend the time reading a poker forum may be further educated in their play than someone who just strictly plays.

So maybe we are surrounded by a greater number of more "intelligent" smarter poker players because we are on this forum.

I look forward to seeing more poll votes.

Cheers
Vegas Cat

I deposited 100$, lost it down to 5$ (in a couple of days), now its back to 130$, and i have freeroll wins other places for about 100$, so technically im winning but not enough 2 judge on till now

I submit to theory two. And also, I have a theory three which is that the "95% of poker players losing" number initially stated is very far off. On Sharkscope, only ~67% of all players are losing players.

It took me two years to learn the ropes the hard way. I started playing poker in 1999 before the internet became huge. It took me 2 years to finally start making money. It took me another 2 years to earn back what my schooling cost. I don't think most will add the school part of thier education to how they are doing.

If 95% of people lose money, who would want to play?
I can see that in MTT and S&G more because only 10-20% get paid on any one tournament. You have to be very consistant to make it there often enough to turn a profit.
Cash games eat your purse through the rake. You have to win over the 5-10% rake the house takes just to make a penny.

As for the results of your poll. It is like going to congress and asking who like politics. You are going to get skewed numbers because you are in the den of thieves and liars.