Cash Game The Velocity of (Poker) Money (1 Viewer)

[Taghkanic]

At the last 2/5 game I hosted, I got to thinking about what I would call the Velocity of Poker Money: How many times in the course of a cash game do the chips get into a pot?

From Investopedia:

My guesstimate for this particular session was that over six hours, the roughly $10K total in play made its way into 250 pots averaging $160, and totalling about $40K — making its “velocity” about 4x.

I arrived at that 4x figure pretty unscientifically, and will have to collect more and better data next time.

Presumably in tighter games, this 4x number is smaller, and in looser games it gets bigger.

I believe the typical pot size was smaller than the $160 average (more like $75-$100). But the occasional huge pots drive the average up.

What do you think the velocity is in your games?

 

[Taghkanic]

Googling around and searching on Two Plus Two, I didn’t really find much info on this topic. That suggests that either it is novel and interesting, or else it has been considered long ago and determined to be useless...

 

[Taghkanic]

Note: I was thinking about factors which could skew the velocity in ways not apparent from aggregate numbers.

For example, if one player gets up early, and seldom has to dip into his/her initial buy-in to make a bet or call, then his starting stack has a very low velocity. A maniac who is constantly bloating pots and getting it all in may compensate for the other player’s chips not moving much. (At this game, there were only two out of 9 total players over the course of the evening who never rebought or topped off.)

Also if players arrive late, as opposed to playing all night, then the later arrivals’ chips presumably have less velocity than the others.

 

[Taghkanic]

What surprised me was the realization that there is actually a lot more in play than meets the eye. The value of chips getting in and out of pots is a lot more than the total on the table, because they are each being used multiple times.

Considering the total value in play in the pots, it is also a little surprising to me that there aren’t more big winners and big losers. On this night there was a pretty even distribution of results — one player who cashed out for over 600BB, two for about 400BB, two for about 200BB, one small loser, one more moderate loser, two big losers who left after they busted.

 

[Kentucky]

This sounds like an interesting, empirical way to say how nitty vs. splashy a game is - to measure average pot vs average stack. In some respects you might also end up describe how deep a game is - if people have 1000BB stacks I don’t think you often see 2000BB pots which would lower the velocity vs. say with 20BB stacks people should be shoving all the time, raising the velocity.

 

[Taghkanic]

OTOH a single 2000BB pot makes up for fifty 40BB pots… So maybe the metric can only tell us so much.

 

[Taghkanic]

Now that I’ve started down this road, my chip OCD requires that I consciously try to get my barrels into play in a steady manner that ensures they will get evenly worn down

 

[ekricket]

You haven’t even considered momentum. Velocity is a good measurement, but momentum rules, literally.

 

[Poker Zombie]

In some heads-up games (especially Open-Face Chinese Poker) with Mrs Zombie, we each start with a predetermined number of chips, but chips won are set aside and are not combined with your betting chips unless you need them to call (if you are all-in for less, the chips won are used to make up the difference). Once you are out of betting chips, you can rebuy for the starting stack again.

We haven't kept records on these games, so no stats per se, but I can see how this would tie into the velocity concept. Not sure if we kept stats if the info would be of any use to anybody though.

 

[sup_squidy]

I asked chat gbt about this and it came up with this:
My group is slow with shuffling, dealing, and playing, yet its not abnormal for someone to bust within the first rotation of the button and rebuy. High velocity game yet slow to actually play. My guess would be High velocity game = low skill likely or circus games, splashy (large bet sizing's), over betting play. Low velocity = higher skilled, "nitty" or more GTO style poker playing and correct bet sizing where the only swings of velocity are expected volatility.
My opinion would be higher velocity game seems more fun and profitable.
Will try to count pots next game and calculate how "fun" *Cough* bad.. I mean high velocity! my friends and I are.
I think this economic measurement used on a poker game is a great way to determine how fun/degen vs serious it is.

 

[Poker Zombie]

I asked chat gbt about this and it came up with this:
My group is slow with shuffling, dealing, and playing, yet its not abnormal for someone to bust within the first rotation of the button and rebuy. High velocity game yet slow to actually play. My guess would be High velocity game = low skill likely or circus games, splashy (large bet sizing's), over betting play. Low velocity = higher skilled, "nitty" or more GTO style poker playing and correct bet sizing where the only swings of velocity are expected volatility.
My opinion would be higher velocity game seems more fun and profitable.
Will try to count pots next game and calculate how "fun" *Cough* bad.. I mean high velocity! my friends and I are.
I think this economic measurement used on a poker game is a great way to determine how fun/degen vs serious it is.

I would lean in a slightly different direction.

If the game is High Velocity, you should be playing at higher stakes. If the game is Low Velocity, you might want to consider lowering the stakes. The problem is, nobody knows what the median velocity should be, or if there even is a median.

I could see a diligent cash game host tracking the velocity of their game. If the velocity starts getting higher, it might be a good time to ask players about raising the stakes, especially with hard data to back up the request.

 

[Taghkanic]

IDG ChatGBT’s formula. I think it fails to capture the actual velocity.
The raw number of pots seems less important than the sizes of pots.

Consider two (exaggerated) examples:

8-handed 2/5 game, max buyin $1,000. The table plays 1,000 hands… but on every hand it folds around to the blinds and they chop. At the end of the night there is still the same amount of money on the table as at the start. They’ve played a ton of hands, but the money has barely moved.

8-handed 2/5 game, max buyin $1,000. The players only play 50 hands, but the whole table goes all-in blind preflop every hand. There are rebuys almost every hand, often multiple rebuys, and the players never stop reloading until the host calls a stop. All the chips get in play every hand, and more chips keep getting added. There might be $250K in play by the end even though they played relatively few hands, and every chip moved into the pot during 100% of the hands.

 

[horseshoez]

The first thought I had when reading the OP wasn't really related to velocity. It was more along the lines of...

 

[GreekRedEye]

I would lean in a slightly different direction.

If the game is High Velocity, you should be playing at higher stakes. If the game is Low Velocity, you might want to consider lowering the stakes. The problem is, nobody knows what the median velocity should be, or if there even is a median.

I could see a diligent cash game host tracking the velocity of their game. If the velocity starts getting higher, it might be a good time to ask players about raising the stakes, especially with hard data to back up the request.

I disagree. I think higher value chips would be equivalent to greater mass. And velocity would be how quickly/often chips are put into a pot.

Momentum = Mass x Velocity.

So, to get back to @ekricket 's comment about momentum, a micro stakes (low mass) game might have high velocity (lots of betting) and thus moderate momentum. And a high mass game (high stakes) can have low velocity and still achieve high momentum.

Personally, I prefer my games to be high velocity, low mass and with just enough momentum to make it interesting but not enough to piss off anyone's spouse.

 

[GreekRedEye]

Maybe we finally figured out what happened to these chips. They may have achieved a higher velocity than their manufacturer's rating:

Thread 'Horrible $2.50 Majestic Star Chips For Sale'

Mar 22, 2023

$20 a rack with shipping included. Several racks available.
Condition Horrible.

• Apache
• Replies: 33
• Forum: Apache Poker Chips

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