How much you can win playing poker?

Introduction

In this article you will learn the answer to a frequently asked question, how much can you actually earn with poker?
But first of all a warning: A final answer to this question is simply not possible, but I will show you

• which aspects you should consider regarding the winning potential,
• how you can determine the potential profit and of course also
• show some scenarios, what is possible in principle and
• where the limits are.

Basic considerations

I would like to start by suggesting some considerations, even if they may seem obvious.

1. Any chip you want to win must be lost by one of the other players at the table. There is no “magical” source through which chips are brought into the game from outside.
2. Not all the chips at the table can be won by you, the casino charges a fee, either after each hand or for example, per hour.

It follows that in order to win, the sum of the chips you win must be greater than the sum of the fees you pay to the casino and the chips you lose to the other players.

From these two simple facts derives a field of tension that affects every poker player.

• If you play too many hands, you’re gonna lose in the long run since every won pot costs you fees.
• The more hands you’re willing to play, the more often you’ll have to face your opponents with potentially weak hands.

Neither has a positive effect on the yield you can achieve.

But if you play too few hands, the blinds will “eat you up”. You pay the small blind and big blind regardless of your hand, and if you play too few hands, you may pay less to the casino, but you will have too little opportunity to win back the blinds from your opponents.

Estimate of possible gains and losses in bb/100

Since it has been proven to calculate the potential win, “the win rate (bb/100)”, in big blinds(bb) per 100 hands, I recommend that you consider how damaging the rake, the fee charged by the casino, is to your profit.

Depending on the limit and the casino, a 5bb fee per player per 100 hands is a realistic assumption for the rake and accordingly these 5bb should serve as a basis for my further considerations. Of course, I recommend that you use the rake structures in place at your casino or poker site for further calculations.

In the following consideration I assume six players at the table, each of whom is sitting in front of a stack of 100bb at the beginning of the first hand. After 100 hands, all players would have contributed 5bb rake to the casino in one way or another, which means that a player who wants to survive the 100 hands without losing at least that 5bb must win back at least that 5bb from his opponents.

I’d like to show you what effect this has on typical tables using three simplified player types:

1. the outstanding player always wins on his limit and expects a potential win of 5bb on 100 hands. In practice, there may be better players or limits where 5bb per 100 hands is unattainable even to the best players, but the fact is that the 5bb can only be won if the rake has been regained before.
2. the standard player masters the game, tries to compete against other players of his playing strength and in the best case to win against weaker players.
3. the weak player considers poker a pure hobby for which it is okay if it costs money. Accordingly, he is used to getting up from the table even with bigger losses.

With these three types of players, of which, let me anticipate, only the outstanding player has a chance to win, I would like to start the further considerations with typical scenarios.

Scenario 1

There is a outstanding player (shown in white) with four normal players (shown in black) and one weak player (shown in grey) sitting together at the table. According to the assumptions made about the strong player, the strong player wins 5bb on 100 hands, and if you assume that the four normal players complete the 100 hands without losses, the one weak player effectively pays all of the rake and the 5bb winnings of the strong player, for a total of 35bb.

Scenario 2

Imagine the weak player leaves the table and a normal player enters the game. Again, you assume that the outstanding player wins 5bb on 100 hands. This means that the five normal players have to share the rake, and in addition to losing 5bb to the outstanding player. As a result, in this scenario each of the normal players will lose approximately 7bb per 100 hands. Even if the strong player leaves the table without a win due to the absence of weak opponents, the normal players will still lose 6bb per 100 hands. This is the aforementioned harmful effect of rake.

Scenario 3

Imagine a comparatively even more unpleasant case for the normal players. One of them has noticed that the table can no longer be played without losses and leaves it. Instead another outstanding player takes a seat. Again, if you assume that the outstanding players dominate the table with a win rate of 0bb to 5bb, the four remaining normal players lose 7.5bb to 10bb per 100 hands.

Scenario 4

Now, due to this unpleasant situation, another normal player leaves the table and a weak player joins. The outstanding players continue to dominate the table at a win rate of 5bb per 100 hands. The weak player loses 35bb per 100 hands, analogous to the first scenario, and may even lose a little more due to the presence of another player, i.e. up to 40bb per 100 hands. Under the assumptions made, this would mean that the normal players would still have only a small chance to leave the table without any losses and can expect a win rate between -1.66bb and 0bb per 100 hands.

Implications on different limits

If you haven’t lost your appetite for the game so far, you’ve realized that only the outstanding players really have a chance to make money with poker. Outstanding is of course not an absolute term, but is to be understood in relation to the opponent at the respective limit.

However, you should accept that, by definition, not all players can be outstanding and therefore you must either spend time studying poker theory and analyzing your sessions, or accept that a hobby costs money. From the scenarios with players of different skill levels, you’ve hopefully noticed that a good table selection is essential for a profitable game. If you do not play significantly stronger than the other players at the table, your hobby will cost you money.

This means that you have to spend a lot of time at the table for significant returns, and as the scenarios have shown, you are also taking a significant risk.

Since I told you at the beginning of the article that there is no clear answer to the question of how much can actually be earned with poker, I would like to show you at least on the basis of the four scenarios what winnings or losses you can expect after every 10000 hands.

Scenario 1

Scenario 1: possible absolute results after 10000 hands

1 Pro + 1 Beginner	NL100	NL200	NL1000
1 outstanding player	$500	$1000	$5000
4 standard players	$0	$0	$0
1 weak player	-$3500	-$7000	-$35000

In the first scenario with an outstanding and a weak player at the table, the win rate of 5bb per 100 hands for the outstanding player after 10000 hands on NL100 means a win of $500 (depending on which country you play in and which currency the winnings are paid in). On NL200 the outstanding player would have earned $1000, on NL1000 $5000.

This compares to 10000 hands with no winnings for the normal player and $3500 loss on NL100, $7000 loss on NL200 and $35000 loss on NL1000 for the weak player.

Scenario 2

Scenario 2: possible absolute results after 10000 hands

1 Pro + 5 standard players	NL100	NL200	NL1000
1 outstanding player	$0 to $ 500	$0 to $1000	$0 to $5000
5 standard players	-$600 to -$700	-$ 1200 to -$1400	-$6000 to -$7000

In the second scenario with one outstanding player and five normal players, the outstanding player would have won up to $500 on NL100, up to $1000 on NL200 and up to $5000 on NL1000, while the normal players would have lost between $600 and $700 on NL100, between $1200 and $1400 on NL200 and between $6000 and $7000 on NL1000 after 10000 hands.

Scenario 3

Scenario 3: possible absolute results after 10000 hands

2 Pros + 4 standard players	NL100	NL200	NL1000
2 outstanding players	$0 to $500	$0 to $1000	$0 to $5000
4 standard players	-$750 to -$1000	-$1500 to -$2000	-$7500 to -$10000

If two outstanding players were to play with four normal players, the outstanding players would win up to $500 on NL100, up to $1000 on NL200 and up to $5000 on NL1000. The normal players would have to bear corresponding losses of between $750 and $10000.

Scenario 4

Scenario 4: possible absolute results after 10000 hands

2 Pros + 1 weak player	NL100	NL200	NL1000
2 outstanding players	$500	$1000	$5000
3 standard players	-$166 bis $0	-$332 bis $0	-$1666 bis $0
1 weak player	-$3500 bis -$4000	-$7000 bis -$8000	-$35000 bis -$40000

In the last scenario with two outstanding players, three normal players and one weak player, the outstanding players would be able to monetize their win rate from 5 bb/100 in $500 on NL100 to $5000 on NL1000. The three normal players would at best leave the table without any losses and could expect losses of up to $1666 on NL1000. The weak player would have to take into account losses of $3500 to $4000 on NL100, up to a loss of $40000 on NL1000.

Summary and prospects

In this article you learned why it is difficult to give a clear answer to the question of the earning potential in poker and what you should look for when setting realistic expectations. Be aware that there must be significantly more losers for every winner and it follows that you can only be successful in the long run if you have enough training and practice. To what extent this effort is worthwhile compared to the corresponding implications to private and professional life can only be decided by yourself. You might want to take a look at the article on the 10 Commandments of the Poker Player. I wish you every success on your way to becoming an outstanding player!