The most common questions I get asked from non-poker players:
“How much do you make?”
“How much can I make if I start playing poker?”
This is your answer.
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The Variables
Bankroll (BR) - Bankroll is the money you have to play poker. Note that this is not your whole life bankroll, it is neither wise nor is it advisable.
Hours (H) - Number of hours you can play per day
Days (D) - Number of days you can play in a month
Tables (T) - Number of tables you can play at a time. Range 1-12 (or more). If you are a beginner, this number will be low, and it’ll be high for a pro.
Stakes (BB) - Stakes you want to play in terms of the Big Blind
Win-rate (WR in BB/100) - The amount of money you can win calculated in big blinds won per hundred hands.
What is a good win-rate?
Anything greater than 0 is good. It means you are making money. Most people lose playing poker. So a non-negative win-rate is a good start.
A win-rate of 2-4 bb/100 gives you a good side income. If that’s your goal, you are doing great.
5-7 bb/100 is great and what most pros would be happy with.
7+ win-rate and we are entering crusher territory. Either you are an absolute beast at the game, or you are playing too low and need to move up the stakes. Why? Because you can then potentially make more money in a lesser amount of time.
How much does a decent player make?
Assumptions
Hands per hour per table - 50. High on a zoom/rapid table. Low on slow software.
H - 6
D - 25
T - 6
WR - 6
Winnings = 1*2*3*4*5*BB/100 = 2700BB or 27 buy-ins if 1 buy-in (BI) =100BB
How much can YOU make?
The first thing to answer is what stakes you can play. For cash games, I recommend that you should have 100 buy-ins to play a particular stake. So if you want to play 1/2, you should have 20000 as your BR. You can go aggressive and choose a smaller BR of say 80 BI. But anything smaller would be too risky for factors that we’ll discuss in some other article.
With 100BI, the stakes you play would be BB = BR/10000. And we’ll continue to assume 50 hands per hour per table.
The Formula: 50*H*D*T*WR*(BB/100)
i.e. Possible Monthly Winnings = H*D*T*WR*BB/2
Key Takeaways
The more time you invest, the more you can make — assuming no drop in WR.
The faster you get comfortable with playing more tables, the more profitable it is - assuming no drop in WR.
When you move up the stakes, the games get tougher and WR drops. But you can still make more money. Just ensure that the multiple of WR*BB is higher. So if someone plays on BB = 2 with a WR = 6, and the other person plays on BB = 4 with a WR = 4, the second person still makes more money in the same amount of time.
In the next article, we’ll get to Part 2 of how to make money in poker. Read Part 1 here.
About Me:
I am Mayank Jain, a professional poker player and coach. Interested in getting better at poker? Check out details about my Poker coaching.