I am so serious at this point in my life. I want to give it a try before Im old and grey. live life with no regrets.

If you borrow money to play poker, you'll live life with lots of regrets, trust me. On the other hand, save up that $50 a month, you can put together a live 5c/10c $10 buy-in game at least once a week with that money while you're still learning. Once you can beat a 5c/10c live game start building your bankroll and then either put your bankroll online or build it up enough to go to a casino and play $1/$2. And to add, like others have said, this won't take too long if you work hard at increasing your skill. You could feasibly be playing 1/2 by the end of the year.

I meant that every bank I ever dealt with wants to know the reason you want $10k before they give it to you. Poker in Vegas is unlikely to be one they approve of and you would therefore need to lie to get the money.

If that isn't how it works or that wasn't your plan then my apologies.

While I respect the sentiment, you're misunderstanding something important about poker. It's not just a case of "giving it a try" and getting lucky. If you go play poker with 10k you will lose it.

Nobody is born with poker talent. Every so-called "overnight success" in poker is someone who has played and studied the game for years. You are not going to sit down with your 10k and suddenly find you are a poker genius who is outplaying everyone. Sure, you might go on a lucky heater for a while, but then you will just continue and lose everything you gained. Pros love fish on a heater - they know all the chips are eventually coming straight back to them with piles of interest.

Really, give up this idea.

If you can put aside $50 a month for your roll, then instead spend that $50 a month playing poker - micro stakes online or small home games, or even low buy-in live tourneys if that's what you want. That way you will be getting a much better poker education than you will by saving up for higher stakes games. And at the end of 3 years you should be turning a profit, so you should have built your bankroll to the same amount as if you saved it AND have more skills for success. THEN you can think about spending a couple of K going on HOLIDAY to Vegas to see how well you play there.

You want to have no regrets? Then don't saddle yourself with 10k of debt for nothing.

Get a better job.

Stop playing roulette/house games and save your wages.

Get a bankroll and stick to poker.

Here's a crazy idea. Start saving some money. As soon as you have $200 socked away, go play 200NL at the casino. If you lose it all, start over. If you win some, add it to your poker bankroll. You don't need a 3K bankroll to play live poker as a hobby, ffs. But do not quit your job. Good lord.

Even if you borrowed 10K, went to vegas and somehow ran that into 50K with luck, chances are you would soon be right where you are now. Long term poker winning takes quite a bit of practice to say the least and even then most cannot sustain a winning lifestyle. And then there is that little bankroll management thing....maybe the toughest part of the game to learn. Neither can be just accomplished by 'taking a shot', only hard work and experience will get you there.

Do give it a try, but not with other people's money. If you're really serious you'll find a way. Home games, sites other than Pokerstars, etc.

If you loan $10K, that will automaticly become "scared-money" - because who wants to loose 10K they are borrowing? Just my opinion..
Get home-games up

If you know that your skill level isnt great then why would you take out a big loan to move to somewhere and play poker?

Maybe the best thing to do is to go to your GP and get some psychiatric help.

Then...play the lowest possible stakes until you get good at it. If you can't beat 2NL then you'll have no chance anywhere else with £10k...online or in Vegas.

I'm probably posting in the wrong thread so my apologies in advance.

I have a quick question regarding staking. (total newbie as far as staking goes).

I have a private investor looking to stake me in an upcoming live $1100 MTT.

It's a 1 shot deal. Does he pay the entire $1100 buy-in and we split 50/50 on any winnings?

Is that the industry standard? Or am I way off? (Again, total noob, so if I'm way off, please don't laugh)

Sorry for the derail and thank you in advance.

That's a gift not a stake

You might want to ask in the staking forum. Maybe it's even answered in the FAQ thread. But you probably won't like the answer you get.

[spoiler]My personal opinion is that it's impossible to make this kind of one off stake profitable for your backer. There's no fair price unless you've played many hundreds of tournaments like this before and have a good idea of your expected winnings.[/spoiler]

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/13...stions-166284/

Play small tournaments - sit n gos at pubs etc for small buyins.

I can't believe you're contemplating taking a loan out and trying to go pro when you admit your skill level isn't great, do you not see how arrogant that is?