How Much Do Poker Players Make? It Might Shock You

How much do poker players make?
Being a professional poker player is kind of like being an astronaut or a rock star to most people. It is such an out of this world idea to them that they are naturally fascinated by those who do it.

And with that of course they want to know how much money is involved. People will simply ask you point blank how much money poker players make.

So here is the quick answer:

Good poker players in small stakes online games like 1c/2c to 50c/$1 will make between $600 and $5000 a month. Good poker players in live games like $1/$2 to $25/$50 will make between $1000 and $10000 per month. Good high stakes poker players will make 100k per month or more.


People Want to Know How Much Money Poker Players Make


I have to be honest though, this question used to annoy the crap out of me! It would always happen at a social event or a party where I was talking with somebody who I had just met or barely knew.

Once they got light of the fact that I played poker on the internet for a living, a slew of ridiculous questions would spasmodically begin spewing out of their mouth such as:

"Wow, you can actually make money doing that?"

"So uh...like what's your biggest win?"

And this line of interrogation would always end in the unabashedly blunt:

"So uh...like how much do you make bro?"

Seriously?

In what other alternate universe is it cool to just walk up to a near complete stranger and ask them what their income is? It's not in any of them of course! 

I would never ask any of my friends (let alone a complete stranger) how much money they make in their jobs as doctors, factory workers, small business owners or social workers.

Why? Because nobody asks this question! It is considered taboo in our society. But because I am a "poker player" it is ok in their mind for some bizarre reason.

Alright, deep breath.


How Much Do Poker Players Make?

So Like Seriously Though Bro, How Much Money Do Poker Players Make?


I learned to eventually just get over it though after being asked this question countless times. I would either find a way to mess with them or just avoid the subject altogether. Usually the latter nowadays.

Them: "So, like what do you do?"

Me: "Uh...I work on the internet."

Them: "Oh yeah? Cool! Like in what way?"

Me: "Uh...like affiliate marketing, stuff like that. Hey did you see that hockey game last night? Was that something else or what?"

Anyways, all kidding aside, I understand the fascination that most people have with a career like a professional poker player. 

After all, it's an exceedingly rare vocational path and most people still consider the game to be straight up gambling (or luck) anyways.

Even though it is perfectly normal for poker pros to make $5000 a month (or much more in some cases), as I discuss in this week's new video.


Never miss my new poker videos, join 100,000+ who are already subscribed.

So I know that they don't mean any harm with their ridiculous line of questioning. It's just a genuine intrigue with something that is incredibly foreign to them.

This question isn't going to go away any time soon so I am going to do my best in this article to explain exactly how much money poker players make.


How Much Money Do Online Poker Players Make?


Alright, so let's get right into it. I am going to talk about what I know best which is online poker and cash games in particular.

If you play SNGs or MTTs then this article is probably not going to be overly useful for you. There are certainly plenty of professional grinders in these formats that do quite well for themselves. I am no expert though so I don't want to speculate.

I am not going to say very much about live poker either. Obviously the incredibly slow pace of the game and the fact that you can only play one table really sucks for an online player like me.

However, this is mitigated by the fact that the worst players on earth love to play live poker in casinos. There are many live pros out there who do quite well for themselves I am sure.


Quick Stats: How Much Money Do Poker Players Make? ($USD)

  • The average professional poker player salary in the United States is $43,000 per year.
  • The average professional poker player salary in the United States is $21 per hour.
  • The average poker player salary is -$1200 a year.
  • The average poker player salary is -$12 an hour.
  • Less than 10% of all poker players ever make more than $1000 in their entire career.
  • Less than 2% of all poker players ever make more than $10,000 in their entire career.


How Much Do Poker Players Make Per Hour? (Biggest Winners)

  • 1c/2c Online: $2 per hour
  • 2c/5c Online: $5 per hour
  • 5c/10c Online: $10 per hour
  • 10c/25c Online: $20 per hour
  • 25c/50c Online: $40 per hour
  • 50c/$1 Online: $65 per hour
  • $1/$2 Online: $110 per hour
  • $1/$2 Live Cash: $20 per hour
  • $2/$5 Live Cash: $40 per hour
  • $5/$10 Live Cash: $65 per hour


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The Winners


As I have mentioned before the first thing that you need to understand is that most poker players actually lose money.

Yes, you heard that right. And even at the micros which are the very lowest stakes! Most people still lose.

Here by the way are my top two "keys to success" for beating the micros:


Learn these two cardinal rules so you don't end up losing like the rest of them!

Anyways, even after rakeback in the long run as much as 75% of poker players lose money. This is mostly due to the rake kicking in and a lot of bad play.

So only something like 25% of the people who play poker are actually making any money from it in the long run. Further to this, only 10% of people are really crushing the games. These are the people who are mostly likely to "go pro" so I will be focusing on them in this article.

These estimates are partly why I have tried to preach the reality of professional poker on here before. 

Poker for a living (or a good side income) works great for some people. However, for most people this game ends up being a hobby that doesn't exactly pay so well.

But let's suppose that you are in that roughly 10% of serious winners in this game. 

And keep in mind that while 10% is a small number in relative terms, when you consider the sheer volume of people who play poker online and in casinos around the world, this is actually a huge number of people. 

I have met dozens of professional online poker players here in Thailand for instance.



So How Much Do Poker Players Make Already Bro!


Hang on a sec bro! It's not that simple.

We will have to run through some calculations with rakeback added in. I will use a typical volume level for a full-time professional online multi-tabling grinder of around 100k hands a month. If you are playing a moderate amount of tables (8-16) for 4-6 hours each day it should not be too hard to hit this number.

Say you play 12 tables for instance 5 hours a day. If you are playing full ring you can probably expect to get about 70 hands per hour at each table and therefore 840 hands per hour.

70 hands per table x 12 tables = 840 hands per hour.

And this would be 4200 hands per day.

840 hands per hour x 5 hours = 4200 hands per day.

If you play 24 days in a month (so that you have a day or two off every week) then you will still hit your 100k hands a month just fine.

4200 hands x 24 days = 100800 hands per month.

Now what does this actually mean in terms of actual dollar amounts though? Well, we will need to plug in some win rates to go along with these volume numbers. Since we are assuming that you are a serious winner (in the top 10% of the player pool) I will be using the best win rate possible (in my opinion) at each stake with a mid volume approach.

All of these win rate numbers were in fact taken from an article that I wrote a few months back on win rates at the micros.

I will also be calculating the hourly by simply dividing the total winnings (table and rakeback) by 120. This is the workload of a full-time grinder playing 5 hours a day, 24 days a month (5 x 24 = 120 hours).

I will also factor in some rakeback. These will be rough estimates based off of my experience with the Pokerstars rakeback program. I will use them as the example here simply because they are the largest online poker room in the world.

Pokerstars has a yearly based, volume incentive rakeback program which greatly benefits heavy grinders who play decent stakes. However, it leaves a fair bit to be desired for people who plug away at the very lowest limits. Keep in mind that not all online card rooms operate in this way.

By the way, if you are curious how I am able to play 20+ tables of online poker for many hours a day and still keep track of all my opponents (and keep my sanity), yes I do use several software aids and tools.

For the complete list of all the poker software tools that I use as a pro, click here.

Alright, to the numbers already!


NL2 Poker Winnings


Win rate = 30bb/100

[I will run through the math in this example only so that you can see how I calculate the table winnings]

When we talk about a win rate of "30bb/100" this means that you make 30 big blinds for every 100 hands that you play. Since the big blind at NL2 is 2 cents:

30 x 2 cents = 60 cents

So in this example (with this win rate) you are making 60 cents for every 100 hands that you play at NL2. Since we are assuming that you play 100k hands a month though, we need to know how much this equates to given that level of volume. To do this you simply take 100k and divide it by 100:

100k / 100 = 1000

We can now just multiply this number by our bb/100:

1000 x 60 cents = $600


So let's see the totals now.

Table Winnings = $600 per month

Rakeback = $50


Grand Total Monthly = $650

Grand Total Yearly = $7800

Hourly = $5.42


Our new inquisitive friend will probably be a bit underwhelmed by these numbers. After all, the hourly is quite a bit below the minimum wage in the United States which is $7.25 at the time of this writing. However, let's not be too bummed out by these figures.

After all this is a reasonable living for many people in parts of the world such as Eastern Europe, South East Asia and Central America. If you happen to live in a hut in an African village you would probably be ballin' out of control by grinding NL2 all day! Let's move up the stakes a bit though and see what happens.


NL5 Poker Winnings


Win rate = 17bb/100

Table Winnings: $850

Rakeback: $100


Grand Total Monthly = $950

Grand Total Yearly = $11400

Hourly = $7.92


The NL5 grinder (with this win rate) has managed to surpass the minimum wage in the US! Given the fact that he doesn't have to waste any time or money commuting either, grinding NL5 all day is easily superior to flipping burgers!


NL10 Poker Winnings


Win rate = 12bb/100

Table Winnings: $1200

Rakeback: $150


Grand Total Monthly = $1350

Grand Total Yearly = $16200

Hourly = $11.25


This is still a poverty line income in nearly all Western countries and this is why it is not recommended that you even think about quitting your day job even if you happen to be the very best NL10 player in the world.


NL25 Poker Winnings


Win rate = 8bb/100

Table Winnings: $2000

Rakeback: $500


Grand Total Monthly = $2500

Grand Total Yearly = $30000

Hourly = $20.83


Let me please remind you again that these numbers are based off of what the absolute best NL25 grinders on earth would make in a typical month. The vast majority of people who play NL25 (and win) do not make anywhere close to this amount.

However, it should be noted that our prolific NL25 superstar here does make more per year than the average yearly gross income in the following countries: Israel, Greece, Portugal, Poland, Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia and Estonia.


NL50 Poker Winnings


Win rate = 6bb/100

Table Winnings: $3000

Rakeback: $750


Grand Total Monthly = $3750

Grand Total Yearly = $45000

Hourly = $31.25


You can see that by the time you become one of the best NL50 players you can finally brag to your friends that you are earning a typical Western income.

Your gross yearly income is now higher than the average gross yearly income in the following countries: the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Sweden and Spain.

Personally though, you will find me grinding NL50 from somewhere much cheaper and warmer than most of these countries, such as Vietnam!


It should also be noted that NL50 is the first limit where it is realistically possible to achieve milestone bonuses on Pokerstars. Therefore, this rakeback figure could be a fair bit higher.


NL100 Poker Winnings


Win rate = 4bb/100

Table Winnings: $4000

Rakeback: $1000


Grand Total Monthly = $5000

Grand Total Yearly = $60000

Hourly = $41.67


If you are among the best NL100 players then your friends will probably be impressed because it is pretty likely that you make more money than they do.

Our NL100 superstar here takes home more per year than the average gross salary in the richest countries on earth including the United States, Switzerland, Australia, the Netherlands and Canada.

Rakeback could also climb significantly higher at this limit due to the ability to gain more and more milestone bonuses on Pokerstars.

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How Much Money Do Mid Stakes and High Stakes Poker Player Make?


Since I have not actively played at NL200 or higher in several years I do not want to speculate any further on the win rates. Clearly though you can see that the best mid stakes grinders in the world will likely take home well over 6 figures per year.

The money is a lot bigger at these stakes and if you put in good volume and even have a small winrate, your winnings will be large.

What about high stakes?

It depends how high you are talking about but clearly volume will become somewhat of a problem as these games just don't run that often. 

Also, at this level there are many non-poker playing endorsements such as getting signed by poker sites, training sites and guest appearances as well.

Who knows what these could be worth. You can go check out HighstakesDB.com for all of the latest carnage at the nosebleeds.

With a little over two months left to go in the year, they currently list 5 players who have over 1 million dollars in earnings since Jan 1.

poker player income



Conclusion


So what is the conclusion here? Play like jungleman12 obviously.

Ok seriously though, the conclusion here is: Yes there is still good money to be made in poker.

However, how much money poker players make depends heavily on being among the best at the stakes that they play and they need to be playing somewhat decent stakes as well.

Something that I didn't even mention as well is that it would really help if you played at a soft poker site, you know one with lots of bad players.

If you choose to play against other good players all day on tough sites it will be much, much harder to make any kind of decent money.

I would also highly recommend that you start studying some advanced poker training especially once you start moving up the stakes.

It is really important that you learn the game theory and exploitative strategies to beat good poker players if you really want to crush the games!

There are some other considerations as well though.


1. It depends where you live, your lifestyle etc.

If by good money we are talking "going pro" then this would mean probably at least NL50 if you are living in any Western country.

If you live in a country with a lower cost of living like Thailand, Romania, Hungary, Columbia, Mexico or the Philippines then perhaps you could get by at NL25 or even NL10.

If you are reading this from your hut in Africa and you crush souls every day at NL2, then I would consider going pro immediately.


2. It depends on your volume, level of commitment.

It should also be noted that I assumed a fairly light level of volume for some in this article. If you want to play 8 hours a day and put in 200k hands a month then you could easily make 6 figures at NL100 as a top player for instance and make much more at the lower stakes as well.

Your brain might start to melt after a few years of this though. Mass multi-tabling online poker is an extremely demanding job and this is why many pros do not even come close to putting in just a standard 40 hour work week.


3. Taxes and the real Western income

Lastly, (as pointed out by Rosh in the comments below) in some countries you are not required to pay taxes on poker winnings. This can obviously be a massive boost to your bottom line when most people are shipping 30-40% of their yearly earnings from their regular jobs to the government in many Western countries.

Also please note that in the comparisons to regular salaries in this post I used the "average income" in all of these countries. Average incomes are always skewed heavily upwards by the ultra rich.

If I had instead used "median incomes" (the point at which half the population make below and half make above) poker would do much, much better versus the salaries in many of these countries. I couldn't find any recent data on these numbers unfortunately.

That's all I got!

Please note that several parts of this article were certainly meant to be taken as tongue in cheek. Please don't send me hate mail. I do think that all of the numbers that I speculated about are pretty accurate though.

That's how much poker players make bro!

Lastly, if you want to know how I make $1000+ per month from low stakes poker as a 10 year pro, make sure you grab a copy of my free poker cheat sheet.


Let me know in the comments what you think of these numbers. Do you think there is still good money to be made in poker today?

how much money do poker players make?

42 comments:

  1. Good stuff Rain! Now if I can just find a good hut in Africa I will go pro :p

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  2. Nice article Nathan! Good piece of information for all of us who really want Poker as a important part of our income. Now all we need to do is get to NL50 ;)

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    1. Thanks Jorge. You can make some pretty good money as a side income at NL25 as well. It's pretty tough at NL10 and below though unless you put in a ton of hours.

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  3. Great Read very eye opening many Thank$, now all I gotta do is play like Jungleman got it . . . . .Easy Game l0l

    -D1G1TALFOX

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    1. I wish I could see the game like he does :)

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  4. Hello, Nathan. Nice article and good sense of humor:))) Btw 500$ rake on 25nl is with supernova status or without it? Because everything looks quite attractive and may be I will start to play there. Thanks.

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    1. Thanks Keks!

      $500 RB at NL25 is with Supernova. Actually it might even be a bit on the low side. Last time I checked you can get about 1 VPP per 10 hands at NL25. Over 100k hands this is 10k VPP. Times by 3.5 for the Supernova multiplier and you have 35k FPPs.

      If you buy the $1600 cash bonus for 100k then you get 0.016 cents per FPP. So if you times your 35k FPPs by 0.016 cents you get $560. Add in some stellar rewards and this is easily over $600.

      Sorry if this is a bit confusing to you. I think I will actually write an article soon explaining the Pokerstars rakeback system since I have never done that. But to answer your question, yes SN for sure and it's probably more like $600 per 100k hands. Without SN it will be considerably lower.

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  5. Thank you. I like to learn from you:) Your books and blog are great source of information, what I really like is that you don't try to overcomplicate things not for yourself not for people who follow you:) All the best.
    Keks.

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    1. Thanks Keks, I really appreciate that! I try :)

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  6. Nice article. I think you've done pretty well with the getting close to accurate numbers for the top winners. Without being one of the top winners I did around $35k iirc last year playing mainly NL50. You can definitely hit $45k there.

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    1. Also if you made poker dollars in a country where you're not required to pay tax on those winnings I think it is quite interesting to 'gross up' the figure to get a comparative number to others who work 'normal' jobs

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    2. Great point about the taxes. I actually added it to the article :) I also added that I used "average incomes" when comparing to various countries in this post. Average incomes are always skewed upwards heavily by the ultra rich. It would be a lot different story if I used median incomes instead. With these two points in mind (and also the lack of commute time) poker actually does pretty damn well versus a regular job if you have the talent of someone like yourself.

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  7. The average salary in Brazil is something like $400, the minimum allowed by the government is something like $230.......I could play NL25 and still have a good life here in Brazil! haha
    Thanks for the article! I watched all your videos, at dragthebar, and i also read your books! You are a great guy, keep up the good work!

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    1. Thank you William! And ya, I agree. You can still live a good life at the micros if you live in a country where the cost of living or average wage is lower.

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  8. Awesome article! Have a good day sir! :D

    Greetings from Sweden.

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  9. Great to see someone helping us beginners with training info for free for a change.
    Keep i coming. Thank you

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  10. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  11. I hope you get notifications when new comments are added, regardless of how old the original article is, because this one is two years old (give or take), but I like it a lot. I agree, everyone wants to know how much one makes. Bro.

    Before I forget, can you link me to an article you may have written regarding rakeback? I always hear you need to sign up for it before you start your account, or you're screwed? I imagine most people don't even know about rakeback before they start playing. Is there a way to maybe re-download the poker software, start a new account, and get rakeback, if you missed out originally?

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    1. Hi Gabriel, glad you enjoyed this article. You don't really need to sign up for rakeback before you start an account. All poker rooms offer it.

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  12. I thikn that you have change yr stats at 0.1-0.2cents..30bb isnt possible..
    dont deceive the players

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  13. Why u think it is impossible? Only cause u can*t? Start table selecting and don*t play 20tables . I got 23bb/100h at NL2 and im not a great Player. I play 9-12 tables at NL2 and it works for me.

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    1. Hi Arthouros,

      You say you got 23bb/100 .....how many hands in your sample to make up this winrate?

      I love your website and your posts Blackrain; huge fan --- but I am scepticle about that 30bb/100 win rate..

      I challenge anyone to show a graph, including dates, with a decent sample size of 100k + with a winrate of 30bb/100

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    2. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  14. Awesome article justo want to point out that where i live minimum wage is close to 200 a month. Flew to florida to play a 1500 buy in tourney. Got 3 placer and cash out 495k:) i feel i can playa poner 1/2 2/5 and never worry about it but when i was short on money all hand scare me . does that make sense.

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    1. Thanks Manny and awesome job on that tourney score!

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  15. Hi BlackRain,

    I'm really inspired by your posts and would like to be able to acheive the highest possible winrate by improving my game.

    Therefore, with all due respect, may I enquire about the 30bb/100 reference for NL2....

    > What was the sample size to acheive this winrate?
    > What was the date range for this winrate (i.e. Jan 2004 - Dec 2004)
    > May you publish a graph?


    Many thanks and GL at the tables
    Seb

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    1. Hi Seb,

      My sample size is over 2 million hands. Is that enough? Haha.

      I published all these results right here

      You can see that my winrate at NL2 is 14.57. However this is in big bets/100, not big blinds/100 which is what we use today. In bb/100 it is double which is roughly 29bb/100...almost 30.

      Now yes these hands were mostly played about 5 years ago when the games were quite a bit easier. However, all of these hands were also played while playing 24 tables at once.

      I am very confident that if I was only to play 4 or even 8 tables in today's games that I could achieve these same results. I hope this helps answer your questions :)

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    2. Hi Nathan, thanks for taking the time to answer that for me. Ok so not quite 30bb/100 for the #1 player at micros as your title suggests, but who's complaining at 29bb/100 right ;)

      All jokes aside, that's pretty boss for that many hands. Congratulations!

      I just wanted to appreciate the variables that made that winrate possible so as to not beat myself up for underacheiving but also to regulate expectation for myself and other players....and I guess there are a ton of variable to take into account that will affect winrate such as

      6max or FR?
      which poker room you play?
      How many tables at once?
      What year it is?
      And so on...

      Thanks for clarifying, Nathan. Much appreciated :)

      BTW I always wondered why you played soooooooooooooo many hands at the micros... is it because you live in Thailand and make a good living vs living costs?

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    3. Most of these hands were played years ago while I was living in Canada. I would literally just 24 table these games in my sleep while watching movies or listening to podcasts. The variance was also basically non-existent with a winrate this high. I certainly don't advise anyone to play 2 million hands at these stakes haha, but those are some reasons why I did it.

      I did 35bb/100 last year in the video series I put out for NL2 while 4 tabling. Although the sample size was minimal, I was playing at the worst times and not table selecting at all. So I do believe it is sustainable. However, for most people starting out they should just aim for 5bb/100 or 10bb/100. I have played more hands than probably anyone in history at these limits so my winrates are well beyond what would be considered "normal."

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  16. In Greece playing 0.2/0.5 and having 950/month income is huge . The average monthly income is below 500€

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    1. Ya for sure. It is definitely possible to make a good income at the micros in many countries around the world.

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  17. You lie to people when you answer the question what do you for a living,i use to do that too, but right now i'm actually not lying to them ..i tell them i work in statistics industry :) which is not a lie right?every1 who uses a HUD works with statistics :) : .Great article btw.

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    1. Haha I like it. Thanks glad you enjoyed!

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  18. Even if you are mainly a NLH player,would you be able to show win rate @ micros up to .25-.50 in PLO ZOOM format. Hard to get any information on this. BTW i really enjoy your detailed letters

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    1. Thanks. I am glad that my poker articles help you!

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  19. I have a good win rate at NL10, around 20bb, but i ant play more than 3 tables and concentrate, how the hell do you play 12 plus? i find there is not that much time to make decisions! Are you literately playing just top 8-10% of your range, top pair type hands and set mining?

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    1. Hey AnneML,

      Nice winrate good job!

      Playing 12+ tables definitely reduces the quality of my play. I do play tighter and cannot make as good of poker decisions. However, multi-tabling like this can increase your overall winnings even though your winrate (bb/100) will be reduced.

      As for how to actually play 12+ tables, I wrote an article on that which might help you:

      Here is the link to it:

      https://www.blackrain79.com/2015/12/how-to-play-more-online-poker-tables.html

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  20. I respect your opinion, but I only half jokingly say that if the top 10% of players in 1/2 NL can get a 30bb/100 I will eat my hat. You would have to be .1% of players to achieve that win rate IMO.

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