Preamble:
I think most poker players have a competitive streak (!) and it would be good if had some objective idea of how we were doing v our fellow players. Now, many individual benchmarks exist (ROI, BB per 100 hands, £ per hour of play etc.) and an individual can use them to compare performance over time, between levels or across different forms of the game. Two (or more) consenting adults can compare stats to see who is better - but none of this lets us know how well we are doing vs players as a whole.
There is of course a single measure which would appear to tell us whether we are doing well or badly - Does our bankroll go up or down? Each (sane) player knows the answer to that. However, it would be completely wrong to assume that someone is better/worse than most other players just because their bankroll moves up/down ... for two reasons.
1. As in all other fields of competitive behaviour, many must part will a little for a few to gain a lot - so break-even will be a much better performance than the median player.
2. Poker (except when played at home) is not a zero-sum game. Fees and rake are needed to fund investment, expenses and operating profit and therefore greatly exceed freerolls, bonuses etc. Again, therefore break-even will be a much better performance than both the median and average player.
I imagine that anyone breaking even must be well into the upper quartile, probably in the top 10% and perhaps significantly higher.
Request to SkyPoker
Would you be prepared to reply with a single figure of what percentage of players increase as opposed to decrease their bankroll in a single month? (ignoring only deposits and withdrawals).
I believe this single figure will not be significantly different from one site to another and IMO the pyramid effect of 1 above will both dwarf and disguise any minor difference between Sky's net rake v other sites - so this would not be commercially sensitive information.
I believe that it would be a great boost for break-even players to see that they are actually up in the top few percent and others making small regular losses could then deduce that they too are well above average.
(I am not asking for any more detailed analysis (e.g. over game types or levels) because any meaningful breakdown would require apportionment of bonuses etc, could be burdensome to produce and is likely to be rejected as coming too close to commercially sensitive. I just want a balloon - not the moon on a stick!!)
Request to Forum Members
If anyone else would find this useful - please add your voice here.
If anyone has any good benchmarking information (as opposed to personal performance) please share it here.
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Comments
Hi metraraptor,the answer is simple ......there are 6 players who make a profit every month....the remaining 14994 make a loss...
hope that helps..
toby
http://www.sharkscopers.com/blog/thestatistician/what-fraction-online-poker-players-are-winners
http://www.learn-texas-holdem.com/questions/percentage-of-winning-players.htm
Here's a couple of answers googled for you. 20-30% seems like a reasonable guess to me.