Hey all:

I'm seriously considering becoming a "pro" player later this year.

I've been playing poker for about 15 years now. I've played seriously in casinos for almost that same amount of time. As time has progressed, I've been getting better & better as I've read many books and have a couple of simulators that I've trained on. I've played a few tournaments and have cashed several times. I prefer cash games.

I used to exclusively play 2/5, or 5/10...but now I mainly play 1/2 as my life circumstances have changed for the worse...

I used to have a thriving business, but circumstances changed and it has shrunk 80%+. I still run it part time and make a couple of hundred a week part time. I can run it anywhere where I have high speed internet and access to a post office & Fed-Ex.

I'm also an attorney. For years I never practiced as I busy running my business. I've got the degree and the license, so I figured "why not"? I've been working as a contract attorney for the better part of year. The work STINKS. The pay is LOW, and the work conditions are not that good. I've got a 45 minute commute each way. Some of the people I work with are pretty good. The actual work is actually not that difficult, but it is grunt work. There is no future in this job. I don't believe there is any future in this industry either. I get no satisfaction from work and can't do it long term.

The law profession was bad 15 years ago. It is gutted now, simply unbelievable. Over half the skewls should shut down. A lot of people from the skewls need to face criminal charges...but that is a topic for another board & thread...

I've been trying to scale my business back up, but it seems that I can't make more than a few hundred a week. I had an opportunity to scale it up significantly, but I could not get financing.

I've got a few small investments and some residual income, a few hundred a month.

I own my residence and have very few bills other than my student loan payments.

I get no satisfaction from my job. There is no future in it either.

I've moved back to my home town in the Midwest. It has changed significantly for the worse in the time since I left. I have no desire to stay here. What good is cheap place to live if you are not making forward progress in your life.

SO I FIGURE WHY NOT TAKE A SHOT LATER IN THE YEAR?

In the in between time, I'm going to prepare for taking the shot. Here is an abbreviated summary of my plan of action.

A). Work & save & invest between now and September. I want to have close to $25k in my poker bankroll, ready to go.

B). Set aside about $5k in my "life roll".

C). Lose 20 lbs and get back into shape. This equates to just under 1 lbs. a week.

D). Play every weekend and sharpen up my game.

E). Evaluate and visit all the poker rooms within a 1 day drive of my home base

F). Visit Vegas several times and evaluate potential for a change of home base.

G). Keep accurate records and address any leaks that I have.

So here I go...I'll attempt to update this thread weekly.

Hey all:

Sorry to have not have updated this thread in a very long time!

I have made some progress but still have a way to go. I have indeed left the practice of law...but have greatly expanded my side business and have actually bought some commercial buildings to move it into! I have a CRAZY story to tell about the purchase of the real estate, but that is a topic for a different thread...

I have indeed improved my game. The single biggest factor in this has been tightening up on opening hands. Second biggest improvement has really been working position. Third biggest improvement has been table/game selection.

I have made numerous other improvements and have plugged a lot of leaks...still have a few left, but there is no doubt that I am a much better player than I was when I started this thread.

In 2016 I wound up making just under $14/hour playing mainly 1/2, but a few 2/5 and a few 1/3 PLO games. I had some very good winning streaks, but also had a few sessions where I was stupid & lost 2 buy ins. I only wound up playing just over 400 hours for the year...Not enough hours...was still kind of goofing around and "finding my way".

Fast forward to 2017. My game has improved. My playing time has improved also. I am still way below the number of hours that I want. HOWEVER, I have the following stats for 1/2 in 2017:

Total win: $4,785
Hours played: 134.5
Hourly rate: $35.57

I am not counting comps...which works out to about $1.50 hour.

Winning sessions: 30
Losing sessions: 5

Biggest win: $762
Biggest loss:- -$486

I have made some small progress on my life goals, but to be honest I have fallen short on those.

I will be posting more and will even have hands that I played well and some that I didn't do so well on.

Comments welcome...

Hey all:

Forgot to mention previously that one of the things that I think has really improved my game is watching & observation of opponents. Even if I am not in a hand, I still try to watch & observe the action. Who is betting? How much? What do I think their range of cards could be? What ultimately happened?

That sometimes comes in very useful to decide whether or not to call in a future hand.
Do the other players fold? Can I possibly bluff against them in a future hand?

Of course, I very rarely bluff, but once or twice a night it can come in handy. Sometimes, it can even make the difference between a winning or losing session.

I am also surprised at how many other players, even "pros" or "grinders" simply check out if they are not in a hand. They are glued to their phone or tablet or watching TV. They have earphones in and don't even hear conversations...Some guys even read books or newspapers. I refrain from giving these guys action unless I've got a GREAT hand.

The other thing I've really started to notice is how many players have one style of playing and stick with it. This seems to be especially true with aggressive players. Continuation betting is great..but almost every time? Eventually a lot of these guys get trapped in a hand and get busted. All of their small pick ups are wiped out...

Hi mate nice thread. I'd advise playing a little online, even if it's only for a day or 2 per week, there's many benefits to doing so. First of all, it's great for improving your game. You can play 20x times as many hands per hour so you get yourself into a lot more spots which is great for working on your game. The competition is also a lot tougher so 25nl online runs similar to 1/2 live. This means you can study and improve vs similar opponents for a lot less $. It'll also give you a much better idea of variance. Just to put it in perspective, you get around 30-40 hands per hour live. That means so far this year you've played around 4-5k hands. Most online pros play close to double that in a day, and can still have losing weeks, and sometimes even losing months. I'd say you need at least 100k hands to know if you're beating a game, and obviously this can take a long time playing live. Of course if you've got a really high winrate over say a 20-30k sample then it's highly probably you are, but it's still massively influenced by variance over such a small sample.

Just my 2 cents, best of luck to ya

Flawz01:

Thanks for the advice...

You've got a good point about the number of hands that you can play online...

Unfortunately, I live in a jurisdiction in the USA which does not allow online poker.

I use a simulator (not real $ & playing bots) to brush up on stuff & keep my skills sharp and have played over 100K hands in the last year & half. Of course, that is a far cry from playing humans online, but it is better than nothing...

I put in 4 hours last night, and quit about 2:30 in the AM. I probably should not have quit at that time, but I was getting fatigued. The table I started at I almost moved away from, as there was NO ACTION. However, some of the nits moved away as time progressed...till it got to the point where it was a very wild table.

For example, a 2/5 regular, waiting for a 2/5 seat, bets $125 blind, gets one caller, I fold, guy next to me goes all in ($165) with 89 there is another caller...So you've got close to a $500 pot pre-flop.

End result is that a pair of tens wins a $500+ pot. That was the biggest/"best" hand, but for about 90 minutes all sorts of goofiness like this was going on. I got my share of it in the very beginning, but then went card dead.

So I cashed out up $250 for the night.

So it is good that I was there, and got a piece of it. Bad that I was not more prepared to stay as late as it took to get a really big slice of it. That is one thing that I really need to work on this year.

Hey all:

Had a good session last night and was generally happy with my play...however, I left relatively early, while the table was still "wild"...but I was getting tired as it was past 2:30 AM.

That is one area that I really need to work on. I've got to be able to stay and put in the hours. I also have a habit of coming in later in the night, even on weekends. I've heard that afternoon action is actually quite good at my "home" casino.

So that is one area that I really need to focus on. GOT TO PUT IN MORE HOURS. I am good about getting into the room, but need to get more/better hours.

NEEDED AREAS OF IMPROVEMENT:

MORE & BETTER HOURS, especially weekend!

Better life/work/poker balance
-need better organization in life!

get in better shape/endurance

better diet, (less soda & pizza, more water, tea, salads!)

better selection of rooms/promotion chasing
-Some local casinos have hourly high hands & other promotions that I rarely play at

play in 2/5, 1/3 PLO games as soon as bankroll allows

travel more, good games in Chicago? Good games in PA?

open up just a bit more against deep stacks when bankroll permits

quit playing video poker (not a huge leak, but still a leak)

post more frequently

post some questionable hands/history

network with fellow players more

plug a few remaining leaks. I figure that if I could reasonably do this, my hourly rate would be $3-4 higher. I also definitely would have turned a losing session into a winning session. I've done a pretty good job of this as compared to last year. Of course, it will almost impossible to plug EVERY leak, but I've still got some. If I can get rid of 2/3 of those, I will be very happy with my play.

For $40/yr you can get a proxy isp and play. It'll be tough getting your money out but it's just an investment anyway. Throw $50 on and play 2NL. The lowest possible stakes are actually tougher than live 1/2. Whoever said 25NL is like live 1/2 is either a 25NL fish or an online savant.

I thought it was common knowledge that live games played similar to games 1/10th of their size online. As such, 25nl would be the closest to 1/2 live, but maybe every poker pro I've ever heard say that's wrong. It's of course largely dependent on the standard of players frequenting your live games too. 1/2 players at The Vic in London for example are on average much better than those at Aspers, much like 25nl zoom on Stars runs very different to 25nl on Bovada. I'd imagine the live games are a lot softer in the US anyway because you know, they're full of Americans :P.

Sorry for the derail OP. I also wasn't aware you'd played as much as you had or I wouldn't have given you the whole variance speech. I read it as though you were just getting started with poker

I have never played in a game higher than 5NL that was even close to as bad as a standard 1/2 live table. It doesn't matter though. We agree online play would help OP.

I've also never seen anyone open shove 100bb playing 1/2 but you see it every 100 hands or so <10nl. And sure, it's just when you say "anyone who says...is a fish" directly after me saying it, then it reads as a personal attack. It's all good though, and I do envy you though if 5nl is not "even close to as bad" as the live games where you play. It's certainly not the case anywhere else in the world.

How long has it been since you played 5NL or less?

Am I reading this right? First post is from 2015...... second post is 2 years later???


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Hey all:

Thank you much for the responses....

Yes, my first post was from a couple of years ago. I got sidetracked and did not follow up for over a year.

I have been playing poker, in one form or another, for a very long time. I had played at penny ante & extremely low limit home games since high school. I also played some in college, slowly moving into more "serious" (haha) games. When poker exploded on the scene in 2003, I started playing in the casino. Got started at 3-6 limit. Played that for a year or so.

My personal situation changed and my life improved somewhere around 2005. I started playing 2-5 NLHE and lower limit PLO. I also started playing in some fairly serious "home" games that were 5-10 and deep stacked. I sometimes did very, very well, but sometimes lost. Overall, I was a slightly winning player, but was really not that good. My "winning" was simply that some of the people I played were so bad. At this point in time, I was part owner of a very successful business. I met some very good people this way and made some good friends.

It was during this time that I actually met people who made a good bit of money playing poker full time. One of these contacts eventually became a good friend of mine. He "opened his books" and showed me what was what. He had losing nights, he had losing weeks, but he never had a losing month. He had ups & downs, but every month consistently won money. Many months he was making $10k+. He played mainly home games, but also played in casino rooms. He would travel around a bit, following and getting into "good" games. Sometimes we would play in the same games and travel together, discussing games/strategy while going from game to game. He was a very, very smart man and the best player that I have had the privilege of knowing. A true "son of Texas", Rest in Peace my friend...

A year or so after my friend passed, my business took a turn for the worse. I struggled to keep it open for a couple of years but simply could not do it in the end. I then left Texas and came back to my home town. I started working in a "regular", "legal" job. It was a drag, but a regular pay check that I needed so badly. I also started to try and get my business built back up by working out of my dining room/spare room.

I did OK at the regular job, and built up the business when I was not at work. I also played poker on the weekends.

Fast forward to now. I've built the business to the point where I make almost as much as the "regular" job I worked at. I've got some investments/passive income. I also own some commercial properties (one is rehab), I've been playing poker at 1/2 and was a winning player in 2016.

In 2017 I am trying to do:

A). continue to build the business. Expand upon established contacts. I've also got a new product line that I am about to launch. I am several months behind on that, but have to handle it properly. Better to be late and do it right, than to launch it improperly.

I have two main product lines that are totally different. Both of them can be expanded with time, energy, organization & capital. I'm working on the 3rd and should have that launched & up & running by the end of March.

B). Continue working in real estate. I bought two small commercial properties. One of them really needs to be rehabbed & re-purposed. Need more capital to do that...but should be able to accomplish that in the next 6 months. Critical to get that done by August.

C). Continue to work on my investments/passive income. In 2015 I lost more money in my investments than I did working as an attorney. NEVER AGAIN! 2016 was a great year. 2017 is starting off good. Hope to continue the good results.

D). poker, Poker, POKER. Now that I am not working a "9-5" I can stay out till 2-3-4 AM on a Tuesday night. I have worked hard to improve my game. Reading & study (thanks twoplustwo!), working simulators, and of course playing & tracking live 1/2. My game is now the best it's been. I have room to improve and expand of course! Need to put in more/better hours and move back into 2/5 and PLO. Once I've done that, need to start traveling to other games. I am simply amazed at how many games I can reach within 1 day of hard driving.

There is not a doubt in my mind that I can also combine poker traveling with my business. I have suppliers in cities that have good games. Instead of visiting those suppliers 1 or 2 times a year, I need to visit on a monthly basis! BUSINESS DURING DAY/POKER AT NIGHT!

E). Almost forgot, left the legal field. I still have contacts and might even have one project...but that field is simply a ruined disaster. So many stories and ruined lives..but that is a story for a different time.

So I will be posting more frequently on this thread and may chime in on others.

Thanks for the comments, and good luck to all!

A good few years to be fair. However I still watch streams where guys do challenges and I see it happens just as frequently as when I was there last. I'm also doing a challenge myself starting from 10nl and see plenty of open shoving going down still. The same is true for 16nl where I'm at now. Plenty of 60-100bb 3bets vs ~3x opens too. PM me if there's anything further mate I think we've derailed OP's thread enough!

Hey all:

Time to update the thread...I ran into a bit of bad luck and also made a couple of stupid mistakes and wound up having a three session losing streak. Two of those losses were on back to back nights. With the bad results, I decided to take a couple of weeks as a break to catch myself and regroup.

One of the losses I don't think I could have avoided and I don't think I did anything wrong. 2nd hand in I had pockets aces, raised it way up before the flop, and they got cracked...$150 vaporized in a few minutes....

Later that session, K,K gets cracked, same as the A,A...raised it way up, actually went all in for just over $100, everybody folds except for one guy who just barely has me covered. His A,rag hits the ace on the flop and I'm done for the night. So that session was simply bad luck...

The next session, I run a stupid bluff early in the night...losing about $75. There was simply no reason to do that. To compound the stupidity, I was up slightly before running the bad bluff. So I got off on the "wrong foot" and it just went downhill from there...I had a run of being card dead and just tried to press my luck on marginal plays. Those marginal plays frequently did not work out. So I lost another buy in after a 4 hour session.

The third losing session I refrained from making too many BIG stupid bluffs, but was still guilty of some small ones. Had a streak of poor cards, and once again pressed my luck, and came up on the wrong end.

For this year, I never had more than one losing session in a row...and I had several stretches of 8-9-10 winning sessions in a row. Three in a row made me crazy, and I decided to take a break and regroup.

One other thing I've noticed is how important exercise, diet, and sleep is. Losing certainly pisses me off, but staying up to 4 AM, then not getting back home and to sleep until 5:30-6 AM screws up the whole next day. It really sets things back when I lose a buy in and THEN my productivity goes down 75%+ the following day.

So I've gotten my personal schedule a bit more on a better track.

My hourly rate is now down to $28.65/hour after these 3 sessions. I'm rested, relaxed and recharged and will be hitting the tables on SAT. PM.

So I hope to post positive results here soon.

Hey all:

I'm putting two updates into one post...

I played the night after the previous post....Worst session EVER.

I played 3 hands that night, and lost almost everything, -$290.

The 3rd hand I flopped top two....went up against guy who hit his open ended straight on the river. Close to a wipe out for the night.

I stormed out fuming...After losing that much 5 minutes I could not play my best, or even anywhere close, so I just left.

Took some time off and went back to playing last night. The session started off badly, was down over $100. I caught a bit of good luck and won some small pots, came back to close to even. Things leveled off for a while, then I hit a big hand. Was up about $250. The table broke, so I decided to play some PLO. Started up a bit...but backed off some. The PLO games seem to be really loose. People are there to gamble. They have no hesitation to put $50, $100, or even $200 into the pot. Played for about an hour till that table broke, wound up winning $35. So back to 1/2 I go.

After 10 minutes at the new table, I hit trips with J,J. Won about $300 on that hand. I played another 90 minutes and just kind of staying even. Win a little, lose a little.

Anyhow, played a 7 hour session and booked close to a $600 win. That makes up for a couple of losing sessions. Hourly rate is still below $30/hour, but getting very, very close.

My sleep, exercise, and diet is slowly improving. I am feeling a bit better overall, and hope to continue the progress.

Interesting thread, glad you came back

Question for OP: What do you think your image is at the table? I saw where you are a lawyer (by training) and business owner, and talking about how other players don't pay attention at the table-- do you ever feel like other people at the table see you as "smart", are they on guard against you more than the average player? I sometimes feel that way in my own games. Thanks.

Pro poker player...seriously? So much fail in this thread. My advice (you won't like it, and probably won't follow it, but it's honest advice nevertheless).

Quit poker.

Put all that emotional and physical energy into making a success of your life and business ventures.

Once you've built a successful life, go back and play as a rec if you want, but FFS read one of Jared Tendlers books before you do that.

No way this story has a happy ending if you carry on they way you are going now.

Maybe this story does not have a happy ending...but so far for the year I am up after about 175 hours of play. After 175 hours I am at just over $29.80/hour. I've had 9 losing sessions and 32 winning. I've also won some jackets and have had many a comped meal. At least 3 of those losing sessions I went on tilt or was not playing at the level I should.

I am definitely putting time into my business and investing. I am playing poker mainly on the weekends...but sometimes during the week. Of course, the game selection is usually the best on the weekend.

I am trying to get my time management and productivity up. Need to put more hours into business...and more hours into poker. I would like to try and get about 1,000 hours in poker this year. I won't be able to make it at the rate I'm going...but if I can put in about 30% more hours I should be able to make it or come very close.

If I can maintain the $29/hour rate...that is not a living, but it is a very good supplement and should allow me to move up to $2/5.

So we'll see....maybe it ends in catastrophe....but I think I've got a good shot.

Hey all:

I have had a couple of sessions since I last updated.

I am going to try and play one weeknight every week. An "off" night. Have a free dinner at the casino and play for a couple of hours. Goal is to have a "quick hit"...

1st attempt was up $42 in 2 hours. Below my hourly rate, but had a good dinner, and a win is a win.

Played Friday night after work for just an hour. I was simply too tired after working all day. Fortunately, was up $206 for the session. I had a great stroke of luck and had a pocket pair UTG+1 in a straddled pot. So I just smooth called on the hope that the straddler would raise...no raise though. That is OK, because I hit my trips on a rainbow flop. Check raised my opponent and managed to get his stack...

Off to a good start. Did not really hit too much else for the night, but did get one other hand where K,10 help up winning a modest pot. I try not to play K,10 unless I've got good position and can see the flop cheap.

The composition of the table I was at changed at the hour that I was there. When I started, it was a moderately tight table. Over the hour, the loosest players went busto...to be replaced by tight regulars. So at the hour mark, the table went from tight to VERY tight...

Left after just 1 hour, too tired, modest win. Why put in time at a tight table?

Win/Loss ratio is now at 34 wins, 9 losses.

Hourly rate is now just over $30/hour.

Mate, since you didn't take the hint last time, learn the difference between a set and trips. It might make your posts a little more credible if you know the names of the hands. (Esp since you read all those books).

Wishing you luck at the tables. Keeping track of a hourly rate is fine, however, I wouldn't give it too weight with so few hours. For example, I was crushing 1/3 and then ran into a -$1200 and -$500 session fairly close to one another. The other night, I ran PLO up ~+1300, which again drastically effects the numbers. With so few hours, I'd personally just focus on what lessons you are learning at the table and what you are doing at home during your post game reviews. Cheers to both of us succeeding at 2/5 and above.

Yes, you make a good point. The number of hours is still low, along with the number of sessions. Could just be that I've been running good and having better than average luck.

One thing I am doing is trying to limit losses. If I lose a buy in, I will rarely buy back in UNLESS the table is has very loose players & action AND I'm still playing my "A" game.

My 4 session loss kind of rattled me...but I've managed to come back and had a good session last night.

Went to my "regular" room and played about 4 hours winding up +230. I also got a good comped meal. I called it quits a bit after 3 AM. I hated to leave the table, as there were several loose players, but I was getting exhausted and have things to do today.

I did not get very many good hands...but managed to get a straight that was well disguised and won a nice bit of money off that ($120). I also had K,K once and managed to get all my opponent all in PF (his stack was $85). My kings held up. So these two hands represented most of my win.

One problem I had was that several times I gave my opponents too much credit and they managed to get me to fold marginal hand which would have held up (just barely). I didn't have an accurate read on these opponents early in the session when I folded the winners. With my bankroll so small at this time, I am willing to fold marginal situations where I am just marginally ahead, or 50/50 situations.

I might play Easter PM after dinner with family & friends. It will be interesting to see how much action the casino has. I am going to guess it is going to be dead, OR will have very good action. One extreme or the other.

By summer time I want to be playing 1/3 PLO and also getting into 2/5 NLHE.

So glad to report another winning session and a small boost to my hourly rate.