Those are some very interesting numbers but you never factored in how much an average player wins... On the surface the $14,000 figures seems like a startling number to overcome but I feel this number is incomplete since you never add back in how much that player would win in those 4 pots per hour that your example player would win in your last assumption. As a result, I feel this number is skewed to sound a little scary...

In your example, this player wins 4 pots per hour and the player plays 10 hours per week, then this player would win 40 pots over the given week. If that player plays for 50 weeks then this player would win 2000 pots over the given year.

I have no idea what a fair pot size would be for a typical $4/$8 game. I hear in California they play a pretty loose game over there. I know in Kansas City the pots can be huge. Let's just say the avg pot size is only $72. If we assume $72 over 2000 pots, then that player would win a whopping $144,000!

Of course this number does not take into account the house rake and how much additional chips the player would have had to put into the pot in order to win the pot. But as you can see by withholding some key information, you can spin the numbers to look very bad or very good.

Paul asked: "Now for the last step. Ask anyone on this board to give you a truthful answer that keeps accurate records if any one of them is making any money."

I'll answer this one... I used to keep very detailed records on every single poker session with a piece of software called StatKing. This program was great at summarizing your win rates by hour by game over any period of time that you wanted to analyze. I highly recommend it for the player who wants to keep tabs on their play. I will have to admit that I have not keep very goods records the past couple of years. Not because the numbers were bad. I have just gotten lazy.

As far as making money.... I plead the 5th on that one. I really don't want to post that answer in a public forum. I'd be happy to discuss it with you in Vegas at that convention though. Let's just say that poker has been a very good hobby for me to spend my free time doing.