Re: Money Plays

LAS VEGAS–Ray in Chicago writes in because Pokerati\’s circuitry currently forces him to (the internet elves should have us fully rewired by Thursday Friday):

Hi Dan Presented by Milwaukee\’s Best Light,

I wanted to comment about your financial situation but comments still not working. So here goes.

1) You\’ve only played 5 cash games in over 2 weeks?
2) Let\’s do the math. $32 / $2400 buy-ins or 1.33% profit. Is that good? $32 / 16 hours or $2 per hour profit. Actually, the question is how does your buy-in affect your expectation?

Do you base your profit expectation as a player on table limits and time played or buy-in and time played or something else?

Uncle Ray.

Thanks for writing in, Uncle Ray. Yes, five cash games. It\’s a long World Series. And #2 kinda answers #1. While 16 hours is hardly an adequate sample set, for a break-even player (or even slightly-winning) in low-stakes games, playing poker is not necessarily a great investment of time. The buy-in stat may be a little misleading, because I did not include (for public viewing) info about any rebuys. I am very comfortable losing my first standard buy-in in any game — mostly confident I\’ll get it back — less comfortable after two. As to \”profit expectation\” … I don\’t know these terms you talk about. That\’s kinda what I\’m trying to figure out.