Results For May
I have converted sterling into dollars at $1.86. I know that this is an arbitrary sum, slightly higher than spot rate.
| SITE/GAME |
MTT |
$2-$4 |
$5-$10 |
PLO |
BONUS |
TOTAL |
| STAN JAMES |
($52) |
|
|
|
|
($52) |
| BETFAIR |
$800 |
$33 |
|
|
|
$833 |
| ULTIMATE |
|
|
|
$240 |
$400 |
$640 |
| PARADISE |
|
$21 |
($78) |
$15 |
|
($42) |
| STARS |
($5) |
|
$63 |
$9 |
$120 |
$187 |
| PARTY |
|
|
$583 |
|
$200 |
$783 |
| TOTAL |
$743 |
$54 |
$568 |
$264 |
$720 |
$2,349 |
All-in-all, it is a very satisfactory result. But before I start planning on taking up my new career as a professional poker player, I would be wise to look at some telling facts (and these are why things like this are useful for people thinking "this is an easy game".)
1) Of this $2,350, $750 was an unusual tournament win, and $720 were bonuses.
2) And the $264 win at PLO was, I am happy to admit, on the plus side of swingy. It could easily have gone the other way by, say, $300.
So, stripping out the good fortune, you are just looking at a figure of about +$600. Now, this in itself is quite good, givem that at one point I was $800 down at $5-$10, and I finished nearly $600 up. Indeed, it was that "core performance" that has pleased me most.
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peterbirks
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Per hour?
Date: 2005-05-31 07:15 pm (UTC)Jonathan, near Barcelona
Re: Per hour?
Date: 2005-05-31 07:33 pm (UTC)If this were my job, then the number of hours would be significant. Indeed, I did consider putting in the hours, but decided that (a) it would make the table a bit too fussy and that (b) it was hard enough getting the figures to match up and to add up as it was, so I couldn't really be bothered.
And you make a valid point, in that unless you know how many hours I was spending relatively on each game or at each site, then you can't tell how well I am doing at each particular game.
The number of hours per month tends to be fairly constant at about 100, although the time allocated to each game varies.
The "earn" has to be tempered with the rider that, if this were considered a hobby, then even a result of +$0 could claim the merit of being a bloody cheap hobby. That said, $2,349 profit at $23.49 an hour is an even cheaper hobby.
To actually extract the hours spent on each game at each site would require me to set up a new pivot table on one of my spreadsheets (well, a new addition to an existing pivot table) and I didn't think that this would add a lot. Most people who are more than passing interested will probably be aware that most of my time has been spent on $5-$10, (in fact, probably 60 of the 100 hours) with the rest about evenly split.
This would clearly seem to indicate that my earnings of $80 an hour or thereabouts at multi-table-tournaments (and about $30 an hour at pot limit omaha) are better than my $10 an hour earnings at $5-$10, whereas in fact these are just statistically anomalous. In that sense, putting the hours in could be positively misleading. As a long-term trend I could see $15-$20 an hour coming in (on average) at $5-$10 (assuming that I multi-table when the situation merits it) while the tournaments would never average a profit of more than five bucks an hour. As for pot-limit omaha, well, I really don't know.
But, I say once again, if it took me 400 hours to "earn" the above, which I could have got for a mere 400 hours in McDonald's, that would not make the two "occupations" much of a muchness. In this sense, any positive figure can be seen as earnings that are "high" :-)
Re: Per hour?
Date: 2005-05-31 07:54 pm (UTC)The one reassuring thought about ever having to rely on this for income is that rather than having to up my houly rate, I could simply put 10, 20, 30 hours extra (or whatever it takes)in to earn my target if that's what it took one particular month. I get the impression talking to various players that lots of people see poker as a shirker's route to life whereas I prefer to see it as tremendously flexible way to generate (additional) income on demand. With as many tea breaks as you like, beats flipping those burgers too.
Geoff C - Hourly Rates
Date: 2005-06-01 08:20 am (UTC)This isn't universal at all. Let's face it, we have several hundred clients who make a living out of playing music or making idiots of themselves, which (some of) the rest of us might do for fun. They just get paid for it. For the majority of them, they can reflect on what they do and think they're incredibly lucky (so long as they're in work). But there is a sizeable minority for whom the very act of making a profession out of a hobby turns into something unpleasant, who don't want to hear a single note outside of work and who will get to retirement very happy not to lift a violin bow in anger again.
What's the track record for poker players? I don't know how many of your circle are pros, but I would have thought it was an odd life that detached you from the real world for two reasons. Because of the chance element you can't make a direct relation between work and pay. If you do a day's 'proper' work you get a day's pay, but poker-wise you can work your balls off all day and lose money. And of course there is the detachment from the real values of money which you've mentioned before. Because you are playing with something onstensibly important it ceases to make as much sense.
And - let's be honest here - you have an easily-addicted personality that can happily enjoy playing because it is a pastime pursued to great lengths. But as a day job it would cease to have the same lure. You don't get many professional drinkers, do you?
At least while you have a
Re: Geoff C - Hourly Rates
Date: 2005-06-01 09:26 am (UTC)The basic problem is how you treat your game. If you are having fun, it's a hobby, and if it's not fun, then it's work. But things are not so black and white. Some things are more fun than others. That's why we are willing to pay more for some things than we are for others. They have a greater "value" to us in our life.
So you enter a whole world of the marginal value of extra money, trying to measure enjoyment, and the like. For most people, this isn't a problem. Or, if it is, it's of an unconscious kind "Shall I stay in and watch TV (spending nothing) or shall I go our (spending something)?" Things are not considered at that level. You just do what you want to do, unless you are broke, in which case, you can't.
But what if you like playing poker? What if (like me), you tend to do things to excess anyway? Here you enter a whole new ballpark of the need to exercise self-control and to make less money, by spending less time at something profitable (which you enjoy) and more time at something loss-making (which you enjoy more).
Andy Bellin approached the point in Poker Nation and it has not been expressed better. A pro spoke to him and said that, the problem was, it gets to the stage where everything you do, you are telling yourself "I could be enjoying myself playing cards and making $50 an hour at the moment".
This is a dangerous state to get into, and I am doing my level best to avoid it!
Now, the "become a pro" problem. Does it become unpleasurable the second that you "have" to do it? I think that, for some people, it does. Certainly a lot of poker pros seem to be fairly miserable, while a few seem to be genuinely happy in what they do. I think that I would hate being a pro. Absolutely hate it. The great plus of playing cards at the moment is that I can afford to stop. And if I break even over a month, I have broken even. if you are playing as a pro, then you have to win a certain amount, just to break even. And, even if you hate what you are doing all of a sudden, you have to carry on.
More later, perhaps. Got a newsletter to produce!
Re: Geoff C - Hourly Rates
Date: 2005-06-01 11:53 am (UTC)This is a situation that a number of good players find themselves in. They suddenly have a good month, earning, say, $150 an hour. So they spend more time playing poker, even though they would (marginally) rather be doing something else which would cost them money rather than make them $150 an hour.
But then, a couple of months down the line, WHAM! They have a bad month, which brings their average earn for the previous three months down to, say, $15 an hour. Now, all those things which they could have done (and wanted to do), but didn't, because they were looking at a marginal cost of $150 an hour, look very attractive in hindsight, because the marginal cost turns out to have been $15 an hour. Net result, they feel that the playing of poker has been "wasted" time. Note that they have still won money. They are still in front. But decisions have been made which in retrospect would have been made differently.
There is also a myth that there is a "freedom" attached to poker. But in reality you are often as tied to the clock as any worker (and the hours are even more anti-social). This gets worse as you move up in stakes and is particularly the case if you play high-stakes tournaments. You can't just play when you feel like it. The "good" games are only around at certain times of the week.
On the plus side, you are your own boss. And genuinely your own boss. No "clients" that you need to keep on the right side of. No employees that you are petrified will go sick. The only stress is not knowing what your wage packet will be at the end of the month.
Re: Per hour?
Date: 2005-06-01 12:11 pm (UTC)And one of those telling facts would have to be the rate per hour. Because I assume you'd want more than $2350 a month to live on, and you'd want to know how many hours you'd have to do in order to earn your target income.
$23.50 a hour is a very nice rate to pull in from a hobby; but, for instance, I currently earn over $55 an hour and still find it hard to save money (I have a small family to support).
When you earn money from a hobby there's no absolute dividing line between play and work. They shade into each other. But the more of your income comes from something, and the more of your time is spent on something, the more it makes sense to regard it as work.
If you can enjoy your work, great! That's worth money in itself, though it's intangible.
Re: Per hour?
Date: 2005-06-01 01:54 pm (UTC)No, the comment "before I start planning on taking up my new career as a professional poker player..." was not serious, in any way shape or form. Kind of along the lines of "before you tear up your wage slip and tell the boss where to put his new company plan... consider the following". Since the comment was entirely jocular, consideration of rate per hour was not relevant. Obviously, were such matter being seriously considered, I would look at RPH very carefully. Indeed, I DO look at RPH very carefully. I have a spreadsheet thaty calculates the liely "true" rate per hour, for heach game, to 70% and 95% degrees of certainty. Most serious poker players use the calculations provided by Mason Malmuth in "Gambling Theory And other Topics" -- a book which, I am glad to say, most poker players put to one side as "too boring. Let's play some cards!"
Pete
Re: Geoff C - Hourly Rates
Date: 2005-06-01 10:26 pm (UTC)$125k doesn't sound like it would be impossible to put by any savings? If it is, why not just add an extra hour a day to that and call that your savings plan?
Re: Geoff C - Hourly Rates
Date: 2005-06-01 11:07 pm (UTC)The other main problem is that the vast bulk of players are losing players. The internet boom is an anomaly which, over time, will surely contract. Then, a lot of folks that thought going pro was a great idea will find that for them, it wasn't so great after all.
gl
bdd
Re: Geoff C - Hourly Rates
Date: 2005-06-01 11:42 pm (UTC)I have clocked up over 50 hours a week for a very long time. That's not including a couple of hours travel a day which could make 60+ hours a week. A few hours poker in the morning, a couple of hours in the afternoon and a few more in the evening with 2 hour breaks in between doesn't sound like too much?
I have to disagree with your other points too - this wasn't about losing players it was about someone posting a rate of $50+ an hour. I have to assume that's their long term rate and not their rate based on the last 2 hours, so they aren't a losing player. And winning players don't mind bad streaks, because it is only a "streak" after all. Admitedly your bad streak is far worse than mine, but your good streaks are far better too.
When you have a sensible approach to the game and your finances a bad month should be a concern rather tha a problem.
I agree that many will fall on their a**e in the not too distant future, but for anyone that doesn't have a well paid job, $50 an hour is not to be sniffed at. People that can't save on that need a financial review!
Re: Geoff C - Hourly Rates
Date: 2005-06-02 01:23 am (UTC)Also, my comment on bad runs wasnt mired in my own personal circumstances, rather just everyday fact. Aksu, who I am sure you have seen around, is a winning limit player and he has had runs that would make even my eyes bleed. Just because you havent had one yet doesnt mean "something wicked this way comes" is not going to happen. As it happens, I've been genuinely agnostic to the streak this time, but many long term good players get broke, or financialy crippled, when theirs hit. Imagine playing through a 300-400 BB bad run in limit holdem. It could be an insane death of a thousand cuts.
My point on losing players perhaps wasnt well spelled out. Many players simply dont have a clue what their longterm win rate is. Two years of the most insane poker boom in history is not really the long run. Their +$50 might actually be -$5 under different, more genuinely long term conditions. One of the things that keeps me sane in my darker moments is that I know I was a winning player, pre Internet. If needs be, I probably could be again.
Re:The $50 an hour
Date: 2005-06-02 06:20 am (UTC)Re: The $50 an hour
Date: 2005-06-02 12:33 pm (UTC)To Dave, I guess the above has invalidated any argument anyway, but I should point out one fundamental flaw in anything I say about playing as a pro - I have only been solely reliant on poker income in the past for a brief period of time and was largely insulated from the true feeling this brings because I had a fat redundancy cheque covering all my action. So, in fairness I have no idea what it is truly like.
The 50+ hours was a reference to jobs I have had since leaving college - all largely far less enjoyable than playing poker. Over time, this has led me to the view that 10 hour days are straightforward enough - I realise not everyone shares that view. Regardless, even when putting in 60 hours at work I usually mangage 15-20 hours playing poker on top - I am fortunate that I don't need a lot of sleep so there are enough waking hours to fit this in without (hopefully) heading for a divorce.
That's probably still more than some so-called pros put in! If they tell me that's because they want quality of life - fine. But when they claim things are tight I just see so many hours available that they could use to put it right that I don't want to hear a sob story.
Finally, I still play at 5/10 or 10/20 limit as my staple. As such, a 400BB swing would be irritating, but my bankroll has plenty of leverage at these levels. In fact, earlier this year I pulled the plug on myself after 200BB bad run and ground it out at lower levels to replenish the role to be able to play 10/20 again. 400BB may not be a problem, but when you get there, you start to wonder what happens if you get to 600BB etc, sooner or later you wonder if it is a run or something fundamental underpinning your ability to perform has gone missing without you realising.
Re: The $50 an hour
Date: 2005-06-02 04:14 pm (UTC)I find it difficult to save money basically because (a) I have a family and the Spanish government to support, and (b) the supply of work is finite and there are occasional periods of little or no work.
Nor would I be up for working 50-hour weeks all year even if the opportunity existed. I know some people can do it, but I'd be worn out.
-- Jonathan, near Barcelona