You're not making 200 an hr long term at any stakes you mentioned
You're not getting on 2000 hrs a year in great games at high stakes where this is remotely possible

And yes I realize 5/5 plo is usually really 5/5/10 and that people are really bad.but you also don't get that many hands an hour,if the places you play allow running it twice that slows the game down a lot

Your sample size is a joke and means nothing

The fact a 70/30 even registers as a bad beat to you is funny

Lose 80 PCT of your all ins for six months with close to 70 PCT equity on average and see how much you win

PLO variance is sick and you're running hot in every possible way right now
You have a job so you're also most likely playing when the games are at their best while running hotter than the sun.

If this is some home game filled w low rake and true horror shows then ignore everything I said

Gl

When you're self employed you pay 15% since you are both the employer and employee.

One thing, which would be somewhat minor with the win rates you are looking at, is that you can now deduct your poker expenses. But some expenses can be tricky. Like you will need to pick a 'home' casino and none of the travel to or from there is deductible. If audited you will have to deal with your comps too if they go that deep.

Oh yeah, you will have to pay for your own medical insurance, not as your employer is doing right now.

You no longer have paid vacation either ..


All good stuff here .. and I'm sure you can see that most of the posts are very sincere. Here's a couple more ...

1) Can you get your old job back if you fail at poker in the next 18 months? Is there any promotions at work or transfers to a different department available to you ... management?
2) Can you get another job with less hours and maybe less responsibility while you test the poker 'market'.

3) You are basically hit'n'running right now, don't discount the other players ability to adjust to you over a more regular schedule. And yes, are there enough hours available to make the good money .. or are you hitting the casino/game at 'prime time'.
4) It is very often suggested that a real Pro have 'a few' places to play. Is that available to you?

I'm certainly not gong to tell you to 'never' do this, but just make sure that you try to consider all aspects of your life before making such a drastic change ... and I think you are in that process better than some who come here for advice. GL

What kind of job do you currently have?

Will you be able to get a similar job after a 1-2 year hiatus if poker doesnt work out? Leave yourself some outs.

If possible, i'd try to look into taking a diminished role with fewer hours so you can have consistent income and have enough flexibility to play poker when the better games are running. Personally, having to go through 1 month+ periods of breaking even or losing was kinda rough for me mentally.

Note: this is kinda based on my own experience if I were to do things over again. I started playing full time before finishing my college degree. Played 2/5-5/10 for 2 years then started day trading at a prop firm. Finished my degree afterwards and i'm doing accounting now.

Are you kidding? This tells me you're not really serious about your poker. That's 20 hours a week. I know guys with full time jobs, and FAMILIES, that put in 3+ hours a night on weekdays.

This is true but misleading. Winrates are really difficult to nail down but so long as you play the same game, results converge.

So let's say one block you make $60/hr, the next $20/hr, and the next $40/hr. There are upper and lower bounds for what is reasonable for your long term winrate. Based on the size of the blocks, it could be outside the $20-60 range, but decreasingly likely the further you get from it, and decreasingly likely the more blocks or the larger the blocks.

This is why it's essential to take risk into account when planning. If you estimate your winrate to be $10-70, you better have a realistic plan for surviving on $10/hr. But poker players often do the exact opposite - given a range of $10-70, they'll argue that their real winrate is $60-70 and everything below that is bad luck. Then they spend like they're making $60, and in the worst case scenario actually make $60 for the first block, then when a few blocks in the $10-40 range hit, they end up complaining bitterly about how nobody runs as bad as they do.

This isn't quite fair. 1000 hours/year is a ton of poker, especially on top of a full time job. I'm always surprised how few hours people who play poker "full time" actually put in, but it seems like it's rarely more than 1500 hours/year.

+1

past performances are not a guarantee of future results.

Playing professional poker is not a job. It's a business.

True, but so what? Statistics is math. Projections have error bars and confidence intervals.

Also true, and infinitely more interesting, but I'm not following the point you're trying to make.

you can't expect to walk into the poker room and say "I make "$X/hr". Yes you can see what you've made in the past, but you never know what the future holds.

You could also walk into work and get fired that day. Having that job in the past doesnt guarantee a future job.

A long track record of good performance at work gives you a pretty good idea that your job is safe.
A long track record of poker results gives you a pretty good indication of future results.

gotta keep your job and play poker on the side like you have been.

If you are consistently winning at 25/50 PLO I think you are more qualified to answer your question then 98% of 2+2'ers. Just be honest with yourself, and avoid making quick decisions after things like a break-up with a gf. GL

True, but < 110 hrs of 25/250 PLO =/= "consistently".

I've posted this before but people are overly concerned with their hourly which is stupid becusse it's so easily manipulated.

Hourly x hours played is far more important. Or rather than looking at $ earned per hour try a different arbitrary # like $ earned per year

I walk into the casino and say what game can I make the most money in and play it. Sometimes that game is worth $20 hour and sometimes it's $300 an hour. If my main goal was to have the highest hourly possible st he end of the year I would have significantly less money than playing with the goal of winning as much total money as possible.

It's good to know what your winrste is to get an idea of what game you should play and tomapproximate ROR scenarios, but once you can look st a game and know what you expect to win trying to maximize your hourly is often a pointless approach

I've played about about 500 hours of PLO and if someone asked me my hourly for 1/2 PLO and 5/5 PLO I'd probably say it's between $0-$40/hour for 1/2 and between $10-$100/ hour for 5/5. The reason the range is so big is cause that's how dramatically my hourly has swung back and forth. It's not just that you can be up or down a lot in 1 session it's that the upswings and downswings can last for a long long time. And keep in mind I'm one of the tightest PLO players around so my variance is much less than most people. My advice would be either:

1) Get a bigger sample size

or

2) Save up more money so if things go bad you aren't broke before you find a new job.

Also I've found over time some of the PLO games get tougher cause some of the fish lose too much money and quit playing.

It is fair. He wants to be a pro but doesn't even know how the games play other than the very short times he's been there. If you're going to be a pro you have to put in the hours, and often you don't get to choose when those hours are.

From what I read in PG&Cs and the like, it seems like a lot of people who actually play for a living don't get close to 2,000 hours, and a lot of them are a closer to 1,000 than 2,000. As someone with a "real" job, a family and a poker habit, I'm always surprised how few hours are put in, but it seems to hold true among a lot of people who post here. Don't know why, but I suspect it's much, much harder to get in that type of volume than I or others would suspect.

You don't have to lock up all of your weekends and evenings, nor do you have to devote every one to her. If your girlfriend is reasonable at all you should be able to find a balance. Anyway, daytime weekday games are really not that bad. In my room they tend to be tighter, but also very soft and don't require much effort.

My schedule is extremely flexible. My poker schedule is dictated completely by my life schedule, not the other way around. My girlfriend knows she is a priority over poker, but also respects that making money is important and doesn't draw too much of my time away from it. She has much less free time than me anyway with full time work and school. I see schedule restrictions as a negative quite often in these discussions, which I find silly. A poker professional can play at any time they want for a small sacrifice in qame quality. A standard work schedule is pretty rigid.

You don't have to play 2000 hours a year. It seems that most pros don't. I did 1200 last year and while I am a little disappointed in myself for not doing more, it was plenty to support myself and I had a decent year. That is not counting things like blackjack, online bonus whoring and poker tournaments which I made some money from as well and probably add up to a few hundred more hours of "work." I hope to play more this year.

I have been playing poker as my primary source of income for 14 months, and as a secondary source of income for 5 additional months prior to that. I never played recreationally, although I took a shot with a very tiny bankroll a couple years prior to playing for a living and failed. I wouldn't say I enjoy it any less than when I started.

So pay your taxes correctly? It's not that hard.

I don't know what you mean by the lifestyle? Like I said I have a very flexible schedule. I don't have any degenerate friends. Why would I want to hang out with degenerates?

I always get the feeling that posts like yours blow up all of the negative things about playing poker as a living in order to persuade people that are not suited for it not to try. I have never related to or understood very well how playing for a living is the nightmare you describe, although it's possible I am just better suited for this than most people or haven't played long enough to hate it yet.

I would put my bets on a little of both, but also put a decent chunk on "you went in with realistic expectations."

It's hard to put in 2,000 hours per year of play. Some games don't run 2,000 hours period, and sometimes you get blocked out of games. Concentrating for 8 hours a day is tough.

The majority of expectations that people post in this forum revolve around taking a cherry picked (inflated) winrate, wildly extrapolating to an absurd yearly, and still barely making the minimum. It's often a big Jenga tower that comes crashing down at the first misstep.

You (and OP, to his credit) are playing big enough that it's actually feasible to put in 1,000-1,500 hours and maintain a normal lifestyle. And the fact that you played very seriously for months before quitting your job is a good sign.

Like someone said in this thread or another recent thread, poker is a business. It's like starting your own business, or a consultantcy, and some people really thrive (typically independent, self-motovated types) while others crash and burn. But one thing us sure - people who go in with really piss poor business plans tend to fail, no matter how suited they are personality-wise.

I'm going to disagree with most people in here. Playing 2000 hours a year is literally the easiest thing in the world.

Playing 2000+ hours and supporting a family is tougher but still doable if you have a little work ethic and are willing to make some sacrifices ( I only get to sleep 5 hours a day on average for example, but I'm quite happy). Most people are lazy and hate working which is why they turned to poker in the first place.

It can't be, because playing 1000 hours a year is literally easier than playing 2000.

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By only sleeping 5 hours/night, you're getting an extra 700-1000 hours that the average human being doesn't have.

Sure, I know you work really hard as well, but your personal ability to put in 3,000 hours with a family is primarily a combination of sleeping less, having a wife who is supportive, and being able to play multiple games (so your work to at-work ratio is high). Not everyone who puts in sub-2000 hours of poker is just lazy - I suspect some people who didn't play as many online hands as you did also need to take a significant chunk of (unlogged) time to study as well.

****, I sleep 9 hours a night. extra 28 hours a week of being awake is pretty nuts

The key factor is no wife, no kids. Do whatever your heart tells you. You probably won't do as well as your day job, but who knows, maybe you will do better. Good luck.