What percentage of players truthfully make money in poker?

[leotran]

(Couldn't find a good search string for this topic, I'm sure its been discussed.)

Every poker player I know tells me that they make a profit in the long run, yet I don't, but these same players turn to me for poker advice (live home games) thinking I'm the best player in the group (an image I let them keep of me). But its obvious they can't ALL be making money.

On top of that, I know very few people personally who profit online. Pretty much everyone I know says they win live and lose online. Although I am a winner at $10NL over 9k hands ($60!!! yess!!!).

Anyway I don't care about my own winrate I just didn't want the replies to be about me losing or whining. My question is simply How many/What percent of poker players actually win in the long run? Is there a huge difference between online and live? Is it the top 10% of players? Top 20%? Educated guesses or links to previous discussions are fine :P

[PlayToWin]

i used Google to find this:

What fraction of online poker players are winners? | SharkScopers

[bigred]

60% of the time, they win every time

[daven]

YouTube - Scribe - Not Many

[kiwiMark]

YouTube - Scribe - Not Many

bam

If there was no rake, roughly 50% of players should make money.

whut

[kidsoldja]

60% of the time, they win every time

uhhhh that doesnt make any sense..

[Imthenewfish]

uhhhh that doesnt make any sense..

its a level

[kiwiMark]

its a level

whats a level

[rong]

whats a level

bufu

[Imthenewfish]

whats a level

i have yet to figure that out.

[Penneywize]

uhhhh that doesnt make any sense..

l2 bigred

[Outlaw]

Kind of irrelevant but probably 5-10% beat the rake for a substantial amount.

[Imthenewfish]

Very few players do play their "A" game all the time, and most players that know how to beat the game don't practice enough discipline and end up spewing off everything they win or more.

Unrelated to the firsts sentence, I think spoon told me that a higher % of players win at full ring than 6 max, but the players at 6 max that do win will usually have a higher winrate

[StarlightCoast]

First off, i have heard only 5% of poker players make money over the long run. Secondly, if an online poker player tells you they are a winner it is so easy to chack these days. If they play cash games you can check Poker Table Ratings, for SNG below 36 players Sharkscope or another one called fairly new called Player Scope. If it is MTTs then OPR is the place to go. It is hard to hide from the truth, there are so many "big brothers" watching.

[donkfish]

How accurate is PTR? My HEM stats don't matchup with any of my sn's.

[spoonitnow]

How accurate is PTR? My HEM stats don't matchup with any of my sn's.

Not particularly.

[daven]

Not particularly.

disagree, ptr is pretty close to on the money, at least since late 2009

not sure how much this varies between sites and stakes tho
it's pretty comprehensive on FTP full ring 25nl-200nl, stars 25nl+ fr, and stars plo 10-50

[spoonitnow]

disagree, ptr is pretty close to on the money, at least since late 2009

not sure how much this varies between sites and stakes tho
it's pretty comprehensive on FTP full ring 25nl-200nl, stars 25nl+ fr, and stars plo 10-50

Sorry, I could have been much clearer. I was talking about 2nl-10nlish.

[Dan Abnormal]

Win money, hmmmm!! If I play the deepstack 500GTD tournies I can usually get my buy in back + at least an extra .14 to boot. Now if I get out of line and actually try to make advances in tournies to the big money, I usually lose my buy in money. But my play is so out of whack that it baffles me.

Ring Games, my biggest win to date was $1.56 but for the most part I play low stakes and take it as a learning experience.

Now the weird thing is, I go to my local card room and can do pretty well and have won more money there than I have ever won online. But the beer is cheaper at the house LOL

[Outlaw]

Its dead on as far as winrate, assuming the sample size is adequate. They do miss a few pots here and there. I have made 1k at 25NL this month and it shows me at like 900ish last I checked. Looks like it misses about 6-8% of hands.

[Imthenewfish]

this thread wasn't made to discuss how accurate ptr is..

[Kijjo]

To answer the original question, the % of people you'd consider real winners would be tiny. You have a larger segment that we'd consider break-even that beat the rake or leak a tiny bit depending on how they're playing or variance to some extent and basically don't need to deposit and they might fluctuate up and down the stakes some. The vaste vaste majority of folks are losing losing losing. These sites are pulling down some wicked rake and that money is not just coming from a few fish, it's coming from a large majority.

[Jason]

I think 40% of players make money @ poker. I base this on a couple of things. If there was no rake, roughly 50% of players should make money. Because there is a rake, it's less. Next, I have sorted all the players in my HEM database after several hundred thousand hands a few times and it's usually very close to 40% of the total players in the green as winning and the other 60% in the red as losing. "Winning" simply means a profit of 1 cent or greater.

However, the more a player or players have a skill edge over other players, the more these numbers can be skewed so that there are less winners.

Very few players keep detailed records and most players have selective memory, so that's why everyone says they are a winner when in all likelihood, most of them are probably not. But, that's a good thing and why poker exists. Everyone thinks they are winners and keeps playing. The real winners keep cleaning up while the losers proclaim they are winners and keep donating.

[Fnord]

I think 40% of players make money @ poker. I base this on a couple of things. If there was no rake, roughly 50% of players should make money. Because there is a rake, it's less. Next, I have sorted all the players in my HEM database after several hundred thousand hands a few times and it's usually very close to 40% of the total players in the green as winning and the other 60% in the red as losing. "Winning" simply means a profit of 1 cent or greater.

I disagree with a lot of this.

Anyway my guess is:
A very small % crush it
A fair % beat it
A pretty large % are break even
Another large % are small losers
A fair clip are uber-donators.

As a rule, people tend to think they're one rung higher on that ladder than they actually are.

As rake goes up, the break even folks turn into fair losers and the winners turn to break-evenish.

[Outlaw]

I think Fnord's post is right on the money..

It really all depends on if you are talking about the current player pool or a player pool over an extended amount of time. Because over say 10 years, probably 90% of the people who have played online poker lost money.

[M_Keown]

Players making money in poker = WIN money by playing poker?

There are thousands of players out there that simply grind the tables whoring bonuses and rakeback MAKING money but not WINNING money. I have several friends that break even or even LOSE money every month but MAKE thousands of USD from rakeback and bonuses.

The amount WINNING players I would guess is just a few 3-4%.

[Micro2Macro]

of course your database will say about 40% win because the sample size is irrelevant i.e. you'll have samples of donks who have played 50 hands in there up 3 buyins and shit