Hourly rate
Your hourly rate is profit divided by hours played, after rake, tips and travel. It is what poker actually pays you per hour in the seat.
In short: Your profit per hour, in money.
- Category
- Metric
- Best use
- Session review and bankroll decisions
- Related page
- Hourly rate calculator
Why Hourly rate matters
Your hourly rate is profit divided by hours played, after rake, tips and travel. It is what poker actually pays you per hour in the seat. Metrics matter because stake decisions need a unit that survives a change of game size. Cash profit tells you what happened. A rate tells you whether the session belongs in the long-term picture, and whether a bigger game, a different room, or a different schedule is actually paying you.
Worked example
Winning £12,000 over 600 hours is £20/hr gross; once £2/hr of tips and travel comes off, the true rate is £18/hr. The useful part is not the label itself; it is the decision it changes. If the example changes your stake, stop-loss, review queue or next study block, write it cleanly in the log.
How to apply it
Write the raw session first, then convert it into the rate. For live cash, that usually means hours, net result and big blind size. For online or tournament work, use the hand count or total buy-ins when the format gives you a cleaner denominator. For Hourly rate, the practical question is whether the label changes a bankroll, session or study decision. If it does not change a decision, it belongs in a note, not in the headline read.
In Overshove, log the raw result, stake, hours and any cost fields before you judge the rate. The dashboard can then show the number by stake, venue, day and sample size, so you are reading a filtered metric rather than a headline graph. Use the same spelling every time, then link it back to hourly rate calculator so the page, calculator or guide beside the term does useful work.
Common mistakes
- +Reading a rate without checking the sample behind it.
- +Comparing raw money across different stakes.
- +Ignoring rake, tips, travel or buy-in volume when the metric depends on them.
Questions players actually ask
How should I use Hourly rate in a session log?
Use Hourly rate as a decision label, not decoration. Log the raw session first, then attach the term only where it explains a stake, bankroll, variance or study choice you can review later.
What is the common mistake with Hourly rate?
The common mistake is reading the term without the sample and context behind it. In live cash, a clean label still needs stake, hours, stack depth, cost and result data before it tells you anything reliable.