meh you also have to factor gas and tolls.

I see alot of new/online players asking these kind of questions. What I don't see mentioned alot is the transition and life involved in going pro. I've seen so many people that had a "good grasp" on things slowly get destroyed. You also need to remember, that grinding your way through school online or making good money while living in your parents basement for the most part will not prepare you for going pro. Its a whole lot different when your running bad and your roll is disapearing. You are playing for survival, not for fun.

You also have to consider your suroundings. you are surounding yourself with few if any poeple you can trust, surounded with basicly the scum of the earth everyday of your life. It can be a huge mental drain. This life, for most of the grinders out there, is not a glamorous life.

That being said, playing poker for a living can and is being done by many. I myself do not, and prob never will concider myself a pro poker player. I do however, make a meager living playing low stakes poker.

This is my second attempt at playing poker for a living. The first attempt, about 7 years ago was amazing, but not profitable. For a lack of a better term, the shiny lights got to me. My dumb ass from smalltown usa was not even close to being prepared for what I was going to be surounded by. Long story short, a year and a half of parties, booze, gambling(not poker), and the ladies, I was down 30k and felted. I would like to say I would do it differently, but I'm not shure I would change anything. What a blast. lol

The second attemt, is going much better. It came about out of necessity more than desire. I was layed off, had no real skills, and I needed a way of making some money. less than Ideal situation, I went to ac with pretty much everything I owned in my car and a $3500 roll. yea, I know. no comment. man, I talk to much. long story short, a year of living on nothing, grinding short stacks at 1/2 got me to the point where I was rolled well to hit 2/5. I have spent the last two years playing 30 -40 hours a week mainly 2/5, with a little 5/5, 5/10 mixed in there. The year I played 1/2, I averaged about $24/hr. Last year, playing almost all 2/5 i averaged $31/hr. This year is ending up around $37/hr.

Am I rich, no where close. I live a comfortable living playing poker. I have got to know alot of people over the few years that are doing the same. not playing 2/5 for a living, but playing it to work up to the next step. I know two poeple in this range that make more than $40/hr, most don't. I would say low to mid $30's is a fair average.

Hey OP, after reading thru this thread I have to comment........
PAY ATTENTION TO ...COCOBOLO, DUCKYLUCKY, AND CHIPMAGNET

I played 2/5 5/10 for a living on a 30k br for around 4 years.....I spent more than I made and went back to work 2 years ago. BR Management is huge....

I think 25-50/hr will be your varient winrate at 2/5 depending on how you run and how you handle variance.

Despite all the people you will meet, and it IS a great way to meet a lot of very cool people, it isn't all degens......it IS a lonely game, when you are running tough you won't want to whine to your other poker friends, nor will they want to hear it....you have to bear this your self. It can be soul crushing, and it IS POSSIBLE to lose 22 sessions in a row.

If you are a good player, a studying player who uses game selection and gets up when playing badly, etc......you should be fine.

I'd start with no less than 20k and 6 mos living expenses.....I cannot overstate the importance of being financially comfortable when you play and being ok with 10 bi downswings without stressing.

I folded middle set on a Q96 two spade board to a 4500 all in with 1400 in the pot because I had my whole bankroll on the table......I back to work 2 mos later..............BANKROLL AND SELF MANAGEMENT

Good Luck

In my hometown, where the blinds are $2/3/5, I used to average $60/hr last year, but have improved my game and now average $80/hr. In Vegas, on the $2/5, where the stacks are deeper, I average $110/hr.

This is probably not a normal hourly rate since it is safe to say that I should be playing higher limits. I continue to stay on the $2/3/5 simply because I continue to learn and I would prefer to gain more experience in live play. Once I've learned enough, I'll move up.

I'm an internet player who has recently transitioned to live play 4months ago. My hourly winrate has been steadily increasing and is now at $80/hour for the last 5 weeks.
Like everyone else, I've had many bad sessions where I've lost with 6 sets in a row, or all my QQ+ for a week, ect...but these don't bother me very much because I make up the losses in other ways.
Personally, I don't think anyone should go around quitting their job and taking shots at playing poker for a living. I know dozens of players who have talent, yet can't make longterm profits. This is because to be a good poker player takes more than just talent. There are 1000 issues that go beyond poker that each person needs to attack head-on and conquer. I am often told that I am the nicest poker player around...and this is because I can take a beat with a smile on my face. A few days ago, as the out-of-position 3-better headsup, I bet an Ah10h3x flop. Turn is the Jh. I shove all-in for $500 in a $330 pot and my opponent calls with QJ, no heart. I was bluffing and I got caught. Instead of being upset, I lit up...I was so impressed and intrigued by this amazing call. After some probing, and thinking, and some more probing, I realized that my opponent, whom I thought to be a higher level thinker, actually interpreted the situation in an overly simplistic way. He thought that I either have the flush or I have nothing. But what I expected him to think was that because this was a 3-bet flop, that it was understood that neither of us could have the flush, that I in no way was ever even pretending to have the flush, and that my all-in shove was supposed to represent two pair or better, KK with K of hearts, or AK with K of hearts. What a mind-flick! Poker fascinates me.
Anyway, I discourage anyone from taking a shot at being a pro. Just keep your day job, play as much as you can, keep good data, continue to experiement and learn, have a plan for how you intend to improve yourself, and when you are ready you will know it.

An hourly rate of $110 at 2/5? Congratulations, that makes you the greatest poker player of all time.

To be fair I'm playing in the same game since BF and I am at $74.80hr out of 247hrs 21min($18,503).
To tell you the truth I don't know what to think. I've been remaining cautiously objective regarding my results as I've been taught but I'd have to admit I'd be lying if I said I wasn't starting to get excited about the possible implications of having access to this game.

doubt anyone can maintain over 50/hr over a reasonable sample(1k+ hours)

So you are saying $66/hr impossible, right?

I've logged 675 hours since I came out of poker retirement, and have averaged the same--$80/hr. At the rate in which I am learning, I hope to increase that number.

Last year I logged thousands of hours in live play and averaged $60/hour at the $2/3/5 NL table. Does this mean that my competition are the loosest, worst players in the world? Perhaps it does.

i have been playing poker fulltime for 4 years now both live and online. Post black friday $64/hr at 2/5NLH over 265 hours. I know this is a small sample but i had similar numbers on a larger sample in 08/09. i lost this data on old computer and playing 95% online in 2010.

I dont understand how anyone can possibly average ~$65, ~$80, ~$70 playing 2/5 NL live over a big sample size.

Everyone on this site says they make $25/hour playing 1/2 and $65/ hour playing 2/5 and over $150/hour playing 5/10 I don't buy it for one second.

These results probably come from people playing the game for a couple sessions or maybe even something like ~300 hours and they are running extremely well and don't realize it because they haven't hit a big downswing yet.

I have played a total of 107 hours of 2/5 NL live this year and I am averaging $82/hour, and I know my actual winrate is not even close to that.

No one makes $75/hour playing 2/5!!!

I would say $25-$40/ hour is more reasonable.

with the right games you can definitely achieve 70+ hr imo, and i have.

you said you started your transition to live play 4 months ago, but your posting you had a $60 average last year implying you played last year, this doesn't really make sense.

Stfu no one makes $75/hour playing 2/5 live. I will never believe this unless I see proof

Seems like a big difference in all these averages are amount of hours played....

Play 40 hours a month at 2/5 averaging +70/hr is possible...
Play 40 hours a week at 2/5 averaging +30/hr is more reasonable....

I Logged 132 hours in July at 2/5 and finished the month at 58/hr but that was thanks to a silly 9 session up streak at the end of the month....

I don't hate on anyone else's average and if your making +70 thats a sick run... for me it has its ups and down.. (August I am averaging less than 20/hr thanks to bad playing and a tilt session...)

Threads like this make me lol. All the regs say 70 to a 100/hour winrate is not possible,bs. It depends on your drive and how long you can play on a daily.

People in the last page of this thread are delusional with their 65 dollar an hour winrates

The thing is that we're not talking about the same game. You may be right that no one makes $75/hour playing 2/5 live IN THE GAME YOU PLAY... but games vary. You would absolutely not believe the low level of play out there in some games... I've seen blind straddles to $100, people shoving all-in blind repeatedly because they are on tilt or too rich to care, all ins on gutshots despite a flush draw and a paired board on the flop, people that just like trying to win with 72o so they always play it, people that raise to 10BB every single hand for an hour, people that raise big and never fold everytime they straddle, etc. etc.

I made a lot of money playing online poker, especially playing tournaments before everyone got so darn good. As of March, 2010, I considered myself retired. Despite being retired, I went to various casinos and played $2/3/5 off an on, for recreation, and out of habit, continued to log my data. I only played about 400 hours of live play the entire year and averaged $60/hr.
Four months ago, perhaps out of boredom, perhaps because I missed the competition, I decided to start my poker career all over again, this time taking it very seriously and with the intention of earning my way up the ranks, starting at $2/3/5 NL. I've logged about 675 hours so far and have made $80/hour.
This is the last time I respond in this post. I don't care who believes me or not. I only care about hearing from those who have similar results or greater, so we can learn from each other.

what game is that? maybe i'll move out there :P

I have the best of both worlds. I do 3-d modeling in the construction industry as my real job (so I go to work and play) making over 100k putting in 40 hours per week. I then go out on weekends that I chose and play poker for fun money (vacations and so forth). I also continue to grind online.

I was self employed/stay at home dad for almost 15 years. I couldn't imagine doing it as a poker player supporting a family.

Once you earn a degree they can never take that away from you.

all these hourly win rates appear to be based on small sample sizes, someone show me an 60-80$ hr winrate with 2500 plus hours over a typical year of poker play. this would be based on a quite conservative average of 50 hours of play each week for a year

I think the big issue when discussing live winrates, that is often overlooked, is that the blind structures (1/2, 2/5, etc.) do not determine the size of the game, or, consequently, what is a realistic sustainable winrate. What is far more important is the typical buy-in, stack size, and bet sizing. A 2/5 game with a $500 max buy-in and lots of shortstackers will play far different than an uncapped game with lots of big spending regs.

In my local game, for example, the max buy-in is $1000 or 100% of the largest stack. Also, the player pool is not really large enough to support both regular 2/5 and 5/10 games. Thus, several wealthy business men and retirees, who could easily afford to play much higher, are instead 2/5 regs. What's more, b/c the regs (for the most part) don't care, most of the dealers are extremely lenient with the max buy-in rule. Essentially, unless some nit complains, the game plays uncapped. It is extremely common for the average stack size in this game to exceed 400bb. And while a 500-600bb average doesn't happen every night, this would not be extremely unusual.

Given these conditions, extremely high winrates are indeed very possible. Though I don't consider myself an especially strong player, my winrate over a modest sample size exceeds what some are touting as the absolute upper limit at these stakes. I'm confident that that top two or three regulars in my room exceed $75/hour.

On the other hand, if your local room plays (what I assume is) a more traditional 2/5, with average stacks around 100bb and rarely exceeding 200bb, some of the exceptional winrates claimed in this thread are likely unattainable (as many have pointed out).