Hi. I've been playing poker for over 10 years. I have a winning record at the following formats: HU SNGs, 9 man SNGs, MTTs, HU Cash (50nl - 200nl), 6max cash (mostly 100nl and 200nl). I haven't played a 9man SNG in quite some time, however. I'm also beating the game live (in California) at the 2-3-5 stakes, as well as at a weekly home game (which actually has decent players--the average player at my home game is better than the average player at the casino where I play, but the best guys at the 2-3-5 game are better than the best players at the home game).

I recently lost my job (office manager). The company was sold. I don't have any motivation to reboot another career in office management. One of the things I'm considering is poker. There have been many times over the best 10 years when things were a little slow and I was able to play 20-25 hours of poker a week (mostly online). So I have an idea of what it's like to play many hours/week. Not my favorite way to pass time, but I like it plenty. Beats many jobs that I've had!

I have an account with Ignition but I've read about the recent policy changes, particularly with HU cash games. That's really unfortunate.

Obviously online is much harder these days--better players, better and more available software for players to exploit your leaks, bots, etc, etc. BUT there were still whales last time I played there (which was a couple of months ago).

Which format is probably the best one to focus on at this time, given all the challenges as described above? All things being equal I vastly prefer online to live casino poker. It's not that I don't like live poker. I do. Home games rock! But casino poker makes me depressed. It's also too slow for me.

Curious to get some thoughts from current pros that are on top of the latest state of poker.

Cheers

I'm the opposite of you in many ways re poker. I far prefer live vs online. I don't use any software and live off of live reads. Not that any of that matters to the point of your main question, just throwing it out there.

If you can afford the downswing and support yourself for around a year, assuming no winnings, it is worth a shot. If you have three months of bills covered and you are using a real percentage of your savings....save yourself the grief. You could be the best player on the planet and run into a long run of brutal beats. You have to be able to afford that down swing. If you can afford it, give it a go.

Playing for income is different than playing for hobby, fun, or semi-serious. If you have a monthly goal of $9,000, you break that down into your expected work week. Say you plan on playing 5 days a week, that is 260 days a year and 9k a month is 108K a year. Divide that by the days and your daily goal is $415 a playing day in earnings. What level do you reasonably expect to make that happen? While you can certainly double up plus sitting at a 1/2 $200 cap buyin, is it realistic to think you are going to triple that daily? I play 5/10, in Los Angeles usually, and take between 3-5K from the window. It is far easier to make the $500 a day I shoot for when it comes down to needing to win 3-4 decent pots vs doubling and tripling up my buyin. If it happens quick, I play for a while to bs with the other regs but I will not fall back under +400 for the day. I could leave in 30 minutes if the cards hit quick. Sometimes you will far exceed the daily goal. Still, stay very discipline in not drifting back more than 20%. That covers the days you are card dead for 6 hours and fine tuning your mucking skills.

'Grinding' is an online thing. If you are playing for daily income, you would far prefer to crush the pots early and enjoy the beach. I've seen someone sit for $200 and run it up to just under 5K and end up leaving with less than a grand. Have to really keep the monthly/weekly/daily requirement and goal in focus then leave when you are satisfied with the effort.

I'm not sure the best way to go about it multi-tabling online ring games, but would assume there is a similar formula to go by. I prefer the focus of the live game and seeing your table mates vs the online game. The live game I have the cash in front of me, online it sometimes seems like play money to me and I don't act in the strongest way possible.

As long as your goals and bankroll are in alignment with the necessary security of financial responsibilities covered, it is worth a shot. It is far far from glorious or expectations of millions of dollars being made next month, but not too difficult to live off of when you plan it out correctly.

Not a pro, but I will give you some advice anyway
If you can beat cash games, go with cash games. The toughest players, but also the leasst amount of variance. Mtts and sngs have softer fields but more variance.

I would also advice you to learn another game besides nl hold'em, to protect you from one game going out of fashion. Doing something else, like studying, or working a part time job is good for your resume, if it turns out to be more difficult than expected being a poker pro

I would start with this thread.

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/32...hread-1323281/

That thread will give you plenty to contemplate. You could help us by telling us what your winrate/ROI is in those following formats for the last 3-4 years. Overall, I'll tell you that it is a world of difference between playing for fun and playing to put food on the table and make the rent payment. Even if the game doesn't get harder for you, it becomes harder to drag yourself to the computer or table to play, especially when no one is telling you that you need to.

Good luck. You're going to need a lot of it.

Thanks for the insights guys. My cash stats at 6max 200nl are 3.2bb/100, and 9.6bb/100 at HU 200nl. I've logged more hours at 200nl than any other stake or form of poker.

Ima perfessional. I'll tell you what I tell everyone. It is a long lonely never ending road. It is a really negative environment that is an energy suck (live poker). It takes a ton of work to get good at it to make a living. If that energy is placed doing something meaningful...you can prolly do something that you can be proud of

Don't get me wrong - gamboolin gave me a nice little life. I raised a kid and sent her off to college. I was able to take my time away from the felt to pursue other interests. However, the glory days are long gone...and the game aint getting any easier.

People ask all the time about being a pro. It seems to me they want to hear that its totally ossum. No boss. My own hours. Baller lifestyle. Blah blah blah. Fact is you have to be highly highly motivated. Cranking out in the neighborhood of 2k hours year in and year out is HARD work that takes not only discipline but an insane amt of focus. Its not like a real job where you can show up and collect a check. If you just show up at the table and are playing C- poker, you are going to get C- results. I tell everyone that asks that it is a horrible career choice (which it is)...very few actually listen

Check out Cushlash in vegas. He is a 20 something pro who has been on the scene for around 5 years. His thread is in las vegas lifestyle. He is very smart, and is over it.

come over to the live low stakes no limit chat thread. Post up some questions for rob farha. He is another 20 something vegas pro.

I believe both of these guys will tell you the same things as I am...and they are both strong winners

Understand what you're talking about Squidface. Those negative aspects are my biggest trepidation of going pro. I'm old enough now that I'm more inclined to choose a career over satisfaction/happiness than for the money. Thanks for sharing your perspectives. Invaluable info!

To go pro, or not to go pro: that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The bad beats and suckouts of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of multitabling regs,
And by opposing beat them. To make money: to study poker;
No more; and by studying to say we end
The losing mentality, and the thousand seating scripters
That flesh is heir to, 'tis a grind
Devoutly to be taken on. To make money, to study poker;
To study poker: perchance to dream: aye, there's the big tournament win;
For in that studying what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this inability to win,
Must give us pause: there's the respect
That makes poker playing of so long grind;
For who would bear the beats and coolers of time,
The oppressor's wrong, the poker man's contumely,


Cba to do the rest of it

Anyway, not much more to say that hasn't already been said in this thread and the other threads on the subject. Going pro is a pretty terrible choice in the current environment. Most pros are looking to get out of the game, which should tell you something about the state of the game and where it is heading.

Welcome to the forum. You've seen the 'standard' advice line here. I do find it interesting the number of Pros who advise not following them 'into the light'. Here is what I will add ...

1) Would you like to travel a bit .. and be able to try to support yourself along the way?
2) "Not my favorite way to pass the time" is a red-flag statement but it's actually better that you can admit that to yourself now rather than later.

3) If you played more (especially at casinos) do you think that others would catch onto your style of play? Normally Pros 'should' have 2-4 options for games .. are those home games reliable to put on your 'schedule'?
4) Poker has been your hobby .. what will your new hobby be? You need one.

5) If your 'normal' work skills wont diminish and a 'hole' in your resume wont look that bad then that's a good thing.
6) What aspects of your life will change now that you will need to 'change shifts' ... assuming you 'need' to play at night most of the time.

From a Pros perspective you are joining an already crowed ranks of players. I don't doubt their sincerity but 'the pie' isn't getting any bigger and there are only so many forks to go around.

From a regs perspective they are envious that you may take up the torch.

From a fish's perspective ... "HELL YEAH, Let's do it!!" GL

I will voluntarily fold three big blinds in the dark to 'Hamlet'. As a member of a Shakespeare group, I am duly impressed sir.

I think a lot of the issues re playing for income is the expectations. Like squidface said, there is no glamour in it and many undesirable conditions. Playing 1/2 means a rotating bevy of table mates, play higher stakes and you get the same 15-20 regs every day. There will be deadbeats and people you just inherently do not like.

Televised poker and ol Norm have made the game out to be a fun and glitzy way of making a living. In reality, you got the stinky guy, mouth breather, chain smoker, and dude that cannot stop picking at their teeth, ears, and nose prior to tossing his chips into the pot to deal with.

Seriously though, Hamlet's soliloquy put to poker...fantastic, truly.

Yes, the soliloquy was awesome! If there are any Ignition pros on here, in your opinion what format do you rely on the most, i.e. 6max NLHE, HU, PLO,...?

Would you consider this option if you could only play live and online was not an option? If the answer is no, then do your due diligence in researching the future of online poker. It's complex enough that it is possible for two intelligent people to walk away from doing that with one feeling optimistic and one feeling pessimistic.

No if the live games were like the 2-3-5 games I'm familiar with at CA casinos. I get depressed after spending a few hours there and I don't care for the irony of people acting friendly yet wanting to take your moneys. It's weird when you just meet someone and have a nice conversation with them for an hour, then you're in a spot where check raising them all in for their stack is the correct play. It just feels dirty and I hate it. Oddly it doesn't feel weird doing that to friends at home games, but then again the home game stakes are much lower, and we all have history together. We talk trash, etc, and it's all good.

HELL YES if I could find a live game that resembled anything like my home games, and I don't mean because of the +EV, but rather because the table talk is so much more fun and relaxed with people you know and know will shake your hand at the end of the night even if you stack them 3 times.

My order of enjoyment goes like this:

Home games >>> Online >>>>>>>>>>>> Live (Casino)

Maybe there are better live games at casinos that I haven't discovered, like higher stakes. I'm sure there are more interesting people at those games, but I imagine those "interesting people" are also highly skilled. So it's like a careful what you wish for kinda deal. The BEST is interesting, respectable people with money, but are fish at poker. Kind of like those businessmen that would play against Durrrr, Ivey, and Antonius on high stakes poker.

If you think it sucks playing with people that act nicely, wait until you start playing with pricks that think the world revolves around them. Live poker would be terrible for you.

Online is your only option. I suppose you could do it until you find a new job or figure out what you want to do in life. However, in general you shouldn't look at poker as a long-term career option. Aside from the fact that it really isn't all that enjoyable and players tend to get burnt out after a few years, the income ceiling in poker is quite low relative to other businesses one can start.

Where in Cali are you?

I think you are mistaken. There are dregs at every level. I play 5/10+ NLHE, 10/20 PLO8 with side bets, and 30/60 fixed limit games. Do not think for a second that because someone sits with 7500+they are any better than the stinky guy at a micro table. There really are some people that will think it is bad karma to shower when they are on a good run.

All the things you have said you do not like about the game are prevalent when you play for a means of income. The level of glamour is around the zilch bracket.

You wanna play pro, but preselect your fish on some sort of "nice people I don't mind stacking" scale.

Man, that some of the most messed up thinking I've read. Poker is the ultimate zero sum game, chief. As a pro your job is to find fish and stack them (whatever they smell like ) as frequently as possible. The more they spew, the better for you.

If you are uncomfortable with that (and many people are, which is just fine) play as a hobby.

Morally, what is the difference stacking a degenerate gambling whale online and stacking one sitting next to you? I don't get it

And this...

...pretty much nails it.

Good points.

Moving into the future, the only way professional poker survives is through mixed limit and mixed PL games. NL is a dead game because fish lose too fast and dont win frequently enough- and bad regs and nits can't be exploited enough to make a living (unless its highstakes), and FLHE is dying because it's boring to play.

So if you're not interested in becoming really good at roughly 14 other formats then I suggest don't go pro.

The willingness to learn other variants of poker is there, but getting the opportunity to apply that skill is not. At least not in the US. With the exception of PLO, there just aren't enough games available on sites like Ignition for other non hold em games.

I believe the bigger problem for FLHE isn't the boringness factor, but rather the bots. FLHE is more "solvable" than NLHE.

Full time job with a poker hobby = best choice for most folks.
Part Time Job-part time pro = less financial security and less poker fun, totally doable for some folks , dead end for most folks who return to the first example usually.
Full time pro= very difficult, especially in 2017, especially in the USA if online. Certainly not impossible, but very stressfull and only for a very limited few.
Choose wisely and good luck!

^^ Solid