Hi! I'm living in Romania, have no college degree since I dropped out of college because hated it and after that had a lot of **** jobs. My current job, which I hate, pays around 400$ a month and I can almost make that much by playing poker part-time. So my question is: should I quit my job and have no insurnance but make more money or just play it safe?

Don't quit your job until you can make 1.5 or 2x more than that playing part time.

I reckon that if you can look into your bank account and see a six figure sum an you can honestly say that poker and your skill at it put that there then yea go for it, take a couple of years out of work and follow your dream,

What information are you basing that statement on? Or is it just your own feeling/estimate?

I had the same question but only trading the stockmarket instead of online poker.

I found that when you depend on your income only on online poker it's mentally really hard to keep making the right decissions. The pressure that you HAVE TO make money for your income in order to keep doing this, even when you have savings to last like 6 months for example without income.
For me the best solution was a part-time job. That would be just enough to pay the rent and my food. So now there is no pressure and i can keep relaxed and (try to) make the right calls.

i live in the Netherlands, so insurance is no problem even without a normal job.
(but living costs are much higher obviously)

Thanks for the answersm guys!

@TheAfterman

Yes, it's an estimation. I made this year around $700 by playing 100K hands NL5-NL10 and a few MTTs. It just feels that I could make much more by playing full-time than at my current job.

Maybe it's not a good plan to go YOLO and try to make a living by grinding microstakes though. Maybe I will start a blog or something and will try to move up to a stake where I can make 4 figures every month.

fellow romanian here, 400$ is way too small if you also have bills to pay. there`s also need for some financial cushion for the not so successful months.

and i have to strongly agree with dreddie, the mental pressure that comes with the thought that the quality of your decisions will have an impact of your overall well-being is huge. It was at least for my case

best of luck man !

My advice would be don't rely on "feels like" to make a big life decision like this. You can easily work out how many hours you would have to put in per day to make the amount of money you want.

e.g. 100k hands / (hands per hour * number of tables you can play at once * number of "working" days in a month) = hours per day of play required.

If you haven't already done this, I suspect you might get a much higher number than you hoped.

Then factor in other things like variance (can you handle a couple of losing months?), whether you honestly think you can put that many hours in consistently without wanting to kill yourself, how easy it is to get another job if it doesn't work out, whether your wife/girlfriend will leave you etc etc.

There are some other threads on this site you can search for ... basics ...

1) Have at least 6 months (probably more) expenses saved up separate from your poker bankroll.

2) Have at least 20-50 buy-ins in your poker bankroll to cover swings. Some will say up to 80 BIs.

3) Keep/find a part time job so your mind can take a break from poker. Just like your 'part time' poker income now, it's nice to have something extra outside your normal budget coming in and it keeps you 'out there' in the world. GL

20 is definitely not enough, unless he's perfectly ok with dropping down to lower stakes quite often.

Grunch - I have only read the thread title. No.

ETA - I have now read the thread to this point. The answer is still no.

I hate my job and every job I have worked. I hate studying. I have no work ethic. I hate working for the man. I hear Ronaldo makes lots of money, should I quit my job and take up professional football?

Ronaldo plays soccer for a living, not football.

OP, the answer is: it depends.

We know very little about you so we can not say anything about a huge change like this. You may be able to take the risk.....and fail but still land on your feet somehow.

One thing to always look at when making career choices is to always have a planned exit strategy if you fail. What will you do next (B) if poker (A) doesn't work out? What will be the best direction to go to achieve (B)....and will failing at (A) hinder that direction?

Lastly (and said before), have a bunch of money behind that you will not use for poker. AKA - Safety Net. If you haven't got a safety net...then I totally advise against trying poker no matter what your personal life at the moment.

You dropped out of college because you hated it. Every job you've had since them is a "****" job including your current job. Do you see a pattern?

I'd give you the standard warnings, but honestly the odds are extremely high that you won't be playing poker full time for a living a year from now.

Once thought I'd try poker full-time during the Summer. Everything pointed to that I could pull it off. Then I realized, ****, I don't make that much when it isn't Friday or Saturday night.

If you are still young, why not.

Emigrate to Spain like nearly a million of your fellow Romanians have.

do it

Thanks for the replies. I think the soccer analogy isn't quite fitting but most of you are right, it was a stupid idea to begin with.

With that said I'd still like to improve and will probably start a blog in the near future. See ya!

There's a good "should I become a poker pro" thread here. Find it. Read about the advice given to people like you. It isn't a stupid idea, however it is a tough plan.

Most people I know who succeeded as a poker pros started playing poker for fun, or some other reason not equal to "make a living or starve". They enjoyed the game and got good at it. At some point, they realized that they made more money than their day job. Then, a lot more. At some point, the thread was "Is my day job worth it any more?"

Starting out in the lowest micros you have no ability to move down, you're already playing low micros and even if you could you need every $ of income for food. You're basically taking poker risk of ruin and making it life risk of ruin. If you want to play poker for side income, make it more of a priority and play more. If that results in making money and moving up, that's great.

Poker is really hard as a living. The people who pull it off tend to have immense follow-through and patience. (Or they ran like GOD early). Look at your own life story through uni and job... do you strike yourself as someone who is going to grind through a mentally taxing and tough career? If not. Can you work on that aspect of yourself?

yes

hell no

If you have to ask here: No.

you need at least 75% rakeback deal, without that I don't think it is worth it....
its is a business designed to get ur money....

newbies are the fishes...

its a billion dollar industry showing the dream and feeding on dreams