Winning % of online players ?

[tenbob]

Acording to my PT stats 35% of players are losing players, and the rest are minor winners, with the small majority <10% winning. Now thats at the mico limits.

Poker "should" be an evenly distributed game over time(rake discounted). With over an infinite amount of time everyone getting exactly the same hands, suffering the same beats and catching the same miricale cards.

According to "popular" theory the vast majority of players are losers. They play out of position, lose a lot, and this isnt just the micro-limit games that the majority of players at CC play (I mean by micro <2/4 N/L)

So what keeps these players playing in the vast numbers that we see logged in every day, are they pure gamblers ?, or think that the game is based on luck ?. How many long term losers are willing to continue to lose ?

Opnions ?

 

[Four Dogs]

I don't believe for one minute that 35% of online players are actually winning in the long run. That's probably the number that think they are. I consider myself a strong player. I try not to play out of position, I study my odds, I pay attention to what's happening at the table. I am at best a break even player. Please don't tell me that all these knuckelheads that keep rivering me with 3 outs are winners. Why keep playing? Well, why keep drinking or smoking or eating HoHo's? I'm addicted.

 

[bubbasbestbabe]

Why should poker be an evenly distributed game? The cards may even out over time but the players do not. A player is the one factor that is a wild card in play. I can take a hand that's crap, present it as gold and win with it. That is something you cannot factor in to any equation.

The players who are losers are the ones who learned how to play over the TV. They are not the ones who take time to learn from resources that will help them become winners.

As for why they keep playing, part of it is what fourdogs said and part of it is the chase; that YES! I won that big one.
The little shiver that goes up your spine when someone calls your allin when they have a full house and you have 4 of a kind. That's what keeps them coming back.

 

[Kenzie 96]

Look at the number of people who don't know the name of their U.S. Senators, the name of the Vice President, how to keep their checkbook balanced, yada, yada, yada. I think a very significant portion of online players play strictly for entertainment, & one winning sesion in a ring game or placing in a S&G causes them to pay no attention to all the S&G's they are out of the money or they don't count their losses in ring games cause somebody laid a bad beat on them. Relaively speaking it can be a relatively inexpensive, easily accesible form of entertainment & I don't believe most people realize how fast games move,{ever play a game where people complained that it was moving too fast instead of too slow}? They just say ah well I would have spent more than that at the ballgame, movie, bar, or whatever & don't keep track of what they are actually losing, or winning for that matter. Besides in the back of their heads they are thinking, Chris MoneyMaker, Greg Raymer, with a little luck I could do that. It just means that those of us who pay attention and work at it can make money off them. Oh excuse me I have to go redeposit at Titan so I can play tomorrow tonight. Probably shouldn't have had those drinks while I was playing, but it was a hard day & besides I usually come out ahead. LOL

 

[holduplaya]

What keeps this loser depositing and winning and then losing is the wins. Why I have to deposit is because after about 3 days of winning I always always get the big guy who talks alot of trash and gets me to play out of revenge and not pay attention to the skills I'am practicing on these $0.25/$0.50 to $0.50/$1 limit tables. It seems these guys put me on tilt for the amount of time it takes me to lose all.

why losers keep playing?

addicting - 50%

practice - 20%

win a dollar want to win a million - 20%

comfort of the home - 10%

comfort of the home must be the winners. When I say winners I mean the only players who just play for easy money.

This is my opinion not a fact.

 

[Alon Ipser]

This is an interesting question. I was going to suggest doing a poll on how many of us are winners but it would be askewed. We as a group are attepting to improve our games as evident by being members here so we should have a much higher winning percentage than the average Joes who logs on and plays every once in while for something to do.

 

[ChuckTs]

I don't believe for one minute that 35% of online players are actually winning in the long run.

TB said that %35 are losers in the long run
this means %65 are winners ???
that sounds ridiculous

as for TBs comment that everything should even out in the long run as cards are dealt randomly, luck of the draw is part of the game, but skill is what gives you the edge to be a winning player
someone who studies and practices religiously will have a nice edge over some guy who plays weekly

 

[F Paulsson]

My PT stats show about ~40% being winners. Of course, the only semi-long-run stats I have on anybody is myself.

But I don't think it's inconceivable that as many as 4 out of 10 players at the lower limits are winning players. Remember that it's not just the best player at the table who wins money. You don't need to be better than everyone, just the people who you play against in this particular hand.

I think 40% winners sounds about on-the-spot. I'm guessing that if you looked at how many can win with any kind of margin (>1BB/100 or so, maybe?) then the number would probably go down quite a bit. I haven't been able to figure out how to do such a search in PT, though.

 

[kidkrunk]

some people have the money to throw away whick allows them to gamble with bad cards and some people have no skill and have to depend on luck.

 

[Jocksrock]

What is a real definition of a winning player to all of you?

I play on a monthly budget like people would spend on any hobby. This usually fritters away over the month but no because i am losing all the time
I have set a target of one day cashing out about 5 thousand dollars and then keep using my money to achieve this. trouble is that i have never topped 1200 dollars before (i cashed that out then set my new current limit). So in the long run i am probably a losing player and may be classed as a gambler. This does work for me though as i enjoy playing and trying to make that goal. I know that some players play this game for profit but not me as i work full time(more than full time in my profession sometimes) and play for fun. In the long run this is quite cheap as my budget is less than a Boys night out. I do however win most of my live games against friends and local pub tourneys so i know that my game is adequate and improving all the time.

This is not to say that i disapprove of the long haul couple of dollars an hour profit kind of player. It is just not for me thats all. Surely there must be many more like me among the cardschat community.

 

[gordo30]

Yeah i think majority of players play for the love of the game but i guess it helps to have a little ambition i am definitely one of those who is a minor winner only every deposited enough to get me going on a site but never had to reload and have cashed out of two site for an overall profit, i would still consider over 700 dollars as a good bankroll and it goes up and down but never enough to bother me as i,m playing with my winnings.

 

[JAMILE1]

Good question TB, after reading this last night I went and did some calculating lol, and looked at all my deposits over the last year and what I actually withdrew from sites and I show a little profit, but I can say this my winnings have been coming only as of maybe the last 3-4 months and I accredit that to this forum. when I initially deposited it was strictly for CC events and a minimum deposit at a few sites to bide time between events and I never and I say never won diddly, but I started reading and reading from this forum and I started making a little money, now does this make me a winning player? I don't think so. maybe a player who's making better choices and it's paying off a little and I am also addicted to this crazy game that's what keeps me coming back for more.

 

[jd164]

I'm actually in the negatives for profit on line and off-line :-(.I'd say it's because I've grown over the years since first playing. I used to jus keep putting more money as i lost in bad beats,or get 7th out of 15 at a persons house for $40 a week.Now,as you can see from last nite's entry...I am winning,jus not knowing when to cash out ^_^;; So human addiction also plays a role in not making profile....we thrive for more,and some of us just don't know when to quit :-(

 

[Crock65]

If I had to guess I would say there are about 80% winners and 20% losers when it comes to poker. The online poker sites and casinos make up about 60% of the winners.

For me playing poker has become a new hobby. I am disabled and use my computer as my entertainment. I used to play the lottery a lot. I am a gambler at heart. I dream of the big win and enjoy the excitement. I know the odds are bad at winning the lottery, but I still used to play it all the time. The first time I played I won $582 on a $4 investment. Wow that was easy money. I was hooked. As time increased so did my amount and frequency of wagers. Hey it wasn't all bad though. Imagine my suprise when I scratched off an instant lottery ticket and found out I had won $50,000. Now that was a great payday. Did I stop. Heck no, I did it once who knows it could happen again. Well I am still waiting for it to happen again.
With the online poker, I feel that I have a little more control over the game of chance. I am no professional and still continue to lose more than I win. With time however, I will probably be bankrupt. Until then I am ALL IN.

 

[tenbob]

Hmmm some interesting replies, especially from Jock and Crock (lol). Ive always wondered what keeps losing players playing, as you guys have pointed out its a hobby for some and a hobby that costs money just like every other one.

Some interseting replies to this thread, just a discussion point really. As FP pointed out even though my stats say 35% are winners, (its actually closer to 37% on closer inspection, and thats on N/L ring only) if we actually examined closer we would probably find a huge % of players skirting the mean (+-5%) with the rest big long term losers and big long term winners.

 

[~~Shelynn~~]

I to play on line for entertainment fun improving game and meeting new people. CC has given me all of the above. I have won money and I think when it all adds up I'm ahead a bit in winning. I'm on a limited budget so I can't make big deposits but I can say one thing for sure that my game has improved with having a heck of a lot of fun doing it.

 

[gord962]

A lot of players that I play with during home games think they are good poker players. That being said, none of them besides me and one other have walked out with at least the money we started with everytime. The two of us play basic textbook poker, the rest are either fishers or chasers. Everyone gets their share of winning hands through out the night, but the secret to winning in the long run in poker is limiting the amount of losing hands you are in.

 

[Threesixes]

I think FP's numbers are probably pretty close. If your play is above average you should be able to be a winner as long as it is enough above average to cover the rake right? 40% sounds right.

 

[Four Dogs]

I would be very interested to know where these stats come from. And VERY depressed of it turned out that 40% number were true, or even close. I have only been tracking my ring games for a couple of months. I am down about $150 with over 3000 hands played. My burn rate is about $.04 per hand. Based on my transactions over the past 8 months or so, I'm slightely ahead, but before January I never seperated my ring games from my tournaments. My impression (for what that's worth) is that the number of true winners is more like 10%. The number who LIE about it is 50% and the number who just THINK they're winners is about 40%. I think people have a tendency to discount bad beats as statistical anomalies. They then compound this error by defining a bad beat as anytime they lose a big hand.
A poll would be meaningless for all the above reasons and that losers would have a greater tendency to sit it out, thus skewing the results.

 

[F Paulsson]

My numbers come from my gathered statistics in PokerTracker. 40% of the people I've played against have left the tables with more money than they joined with, essentially.

Bear in mind that this is not in anyway a long term poll, and it's especially important to consider the fact that in any given session, the great players only outplay the lousy players by a few big bets on average. So most sessions end just about +/- 0, meaning that for short term, virtually half of the players will finish "up" and 50% down. Add in some skill to that, and you have a slight lean towards 40% winners and 60% losers.

 

[quazar66]

winners

I would have to say in the span of a week maybe 40% of the players are winners in the short run because they only play alittle and get lucky. In the long run like a year or so in any limit there are around 15% winners and maybe 5% break even. The rest of the players may lose some money but most lose alot. That is why we are members of cardschat. The people here are here for a reason they ether want to play the freerolls or they really want to up their game and be in the 15% of the winners. If anyone here takes book they know who the losing players are and take full advantage.

 

[sid]

i doubt 35% of players are winners... the chances are that 35% of people would like to think they are winning but in reality they are losing slowly and not really noticing it! Online poker is easy to win if you play sensibly...problem being that most of us have a drink or whatever your crutch is and then play like an idiot....normally someone will talk rubbish throughout the game and you make silly bets.

The trick is not to get wound up and dont play beyond your means!

BTW unfortunatly i dont think i am part of this 35%!!!!!!

 

[joosebuck]

i would be a winning player if i could quit playing roulette.

 

[gospadine]

Since i worked with many back rooms as a consultant i can tell you that 5% long term are winning players. By "winning player" it means someone who is ahead in cash after the rack. About 10% are winning players before the rack. Another 15% play about even but lose to the rake.

Gospadine
www.worldpokershowdown.com