To specify the previous post, I mean cash game players and MTT players have different games. They should specialize and can diversify but not when they r making 30k-40k a year to pay the rent/expenses.

I totally disagree with needing to make 10k+ a month in order to have a normal lifestyle.

We're talking a poker career though, where you can also LOSE money in your job. Most people get regular paychecks, only in poker can your income suddenly turn negative for awhile. Obviously if you worked some cushy desk job whereby you are paid 10k/month then you are living well above the average American lifestyle. But in order to keep that 50k in your bank account year round you need to be able to tolerate huge losses as well, hence the need for a 10k income to balance it all out. Dont forget, your living expenses will continue to reduce your bankroll whether you win or not.

wow ...this thread worries me... It has always been my dream to move to vegas and grind out a poker living....but what you guys are saying it seems next to impossible.....I know I have some leaks in my games but I study every day to correct them. My biggest Leak is bankroll management, However, I feel that once I am able to save up a big enough bankroll I will be able to mange it well. I just cant seem to get over the 1500 dollar mark with out eventually running into a bad run at 1/2 It doesn't help buying in short stack to keep a good number of buy ins because that takes away from my edge..... so I usually end up going broke...

I feel that If i can just get a bankroll of around 4k to be able to handle a some swings at 1/2 as well as be able to have full buy ins, Ill be able to start saving more and making profit. My problem is that I keep taking shots when I only have 100-300 dollars buying in like 80 dollars at a time at a 1/2.

I figure im going to keep doing what im doing for the next like month and a half and see if one time i can go on a good run and just not have to look back.. If I fail at this, come around mid December I will quit playing poker all together for a XX amount of time unill my bankroll is at around around 2.5k so i have 20 buyins at around $120. and go from there.

I am a waiter at a restaurant right now making around 16 bucks an hour. I am also in college and about to graduate in 5-6 months. I plan on saving for the next year and a half to 2 years and than taking 25k to vegas to make my dream a reality. I'm going to save by working and staying with my parents once im out of college. I hope to be playing 2/5 by summer at the horseshoe in Hammond illinois as well as poker charity events around chicago.


Srry for the long rant and I may have possibly made my own thread for this post but I never meant to write this long in the first place and kinda WENT OFF!!!!!!!

^man, I don't see that ending well.
Basically, if I'm reading that right, you are a lifetime loser at live 1-2, correct?
Don't even think about poker as a career until you are crushing those games.

Sounds like he can't beat the $1/2nl game so I totally encourage him to brig as much money as possible to Vegas and juice up the $1/2nl games as much as possible.

Games have been tougher to find this past month and I could use some action at the tables.

They did a study recently and it showed that there is a pretty steep curve in relation to income and happiness up until about 80k, and then the curve drastically flattens out. (ie. After 80k, the incremental amount of happiness brought by incremental income decreases sharply). Of course, you need to adjust that for cost of living depending on where you are.

Think about it, why is that?

It's because at that level of income, you can make most small or even medium financial decisions w/o too much hassle. Ie) If you like Colgate tooth paste, you just buy it.... you don't have to buy Crest b/c it's $0.25 cheaper because of some coupon you got. Life is just much better when you are not constantly clipping coupons to save a nickel.

Now, that number is based on a steady paycheck, so to reach the same level of mental comfort via poker, you need to add a buffer, for those negative income months you will inevitably have. ie) Making 80k a year total on a steady paycheck is way less stressful than making 80k a yr on unpredictable income. ....so that probably brings the number to 100k for you to hit that "low stress" point?

Listen, we all try to optimize our life for something. For people who chose poker, they are usually getting auxiliary benefits from the game.... ie) the freedom of getting to basically wear whatever you want..... no one (other than your BR) will reprimand you for being late or missing a day..... that's why you are doing it. Now, those things sound awesome when you are 22..... but as you get older..... that freedom vs extra money probably doesn't seem like nearly as good a trade-off anymore.

Cheers,

S

I am sorry to quote this from the first page but i was wondering if its worth it to sacrifice a real career for being a poker professional given that a person has an ambition to make it in life and is not a lazy slob, or if he is a slob but has a good job that he hates. Can poker be a dignified profession and not something that almost every person you say what you do will just laugh at your face. Should we even care about that? Is having a real job and making 5k/month and playing poker for fun a better deal then grinding poker and making that same amount and no boss and no one telling you what to do and be a master of your own time and life. I wonder what would most of you choose, to be a life whale that really made it and i am talking 200mil minimum, everything that comes with that in terms of hard work and sacrifices, or be a successful poker pro that makes say 20k/month and has no real responsibilities can travel and do what he wants and enjoys playing poker as his job??

Personally, i have a really good job and i feel i am chalking up already and want to quit just to have freedom. I am not that young, i am 33, but i feel like playing poker for living will make me more happy, would that be a mistake?

Ahh, so many difficult life decisions on the line! I feel like we can sit here and contemplate all we want; obviously the opinions on this thread are polarized. My point is that without putting our plans together and executing them, there will be no way of knowing what could have been. I just hope it doesn't take too much of my young adulthood to find out I can't excel in poker/meet my goals. Btw, I know my goals seemed modest but I actually plan on moving up the ranks and playing higher, not just playing 1/2 and 2/5. Also, is it a good plan to take vegas trips for 2-3 weeks at a time rather than trying to move out there? And does anybody know how the games are in Tunica, MS? If post college living plans pan out, I'll be 4 hours away from there and that would be the closest driving b&m location to play

I would do the 2-3 week thing, until you want to move out there.

YOLO

what's your experience in poker? everybody talks about the making 10$ per hour like buying a coke but in reality winning at poker isn't that easy. even after a lot of hours of play, study and hard effort you can sometimes struggle.
10k isn't very very low as a bankroll for Vegas? How much is the rent in Vegas?

Well think about it. You live in an apartment @ 1k/month. Your food and other bills total to about 1k/month. You have a 10k bankroll and go on 2 losing months whereby you make -$3000. Add to that your rent/bills for the last 2 months and you're already down 7k. Now you have 3k left for a bankroll AND all your bills. You're basically broke and getting a job delivering pizzas now.

That is why you work up a "life roll", right? Maybe like $5k... Gotta keep a chunk separate from your poker bankroll so it doesn't have to take too much heat at one time. 1k a month rent? Psh, I'd cram a bunch of room mates into a place and sign a 6 month lease or something, and pay $400/month

it can definitely be a great life experience if you make a lot of money to live decent and don't eat rice 3 times a day and you won't lose your head with drugs, hang out with shady peoples and stuff like that. Vegas is probably great but if you can get it in touch with the world from there. If you stay 12 hours per day to play and be depressed watching others have fun and **** then it sucks

Yeah sure, if you can get some roommates and live cheap, you'll obviously be able to live on less of a bankroll. I think your best bet is to just play poker part time and work up a bankroll continuously until you are satisfied you are a winning player and that your job is only taking time away from the tables. I would never save up X amount of dollars and then just move to vegas and hope for the best. Instead I'd try to land a job in vegas, a real job that can pay the bills all by itself, and then play poker on the side until you feel confident you can walk up to your boss, hand him your 2 weeks notice, and say cya with no fear or regrets.

I've lived in Vegas for nearly 20 years. I received my Psychology degree from UNLV and been working the same job for 15 years. I played 3-6 at the Mirage way back and before there were many no-limit games, 15-30 at Bellagio. Now I play about about 10-15 a hours a week at either the 1-2 games or 2-5. I'm in my mid 40's and I am worn out with working, family and playing a measly few hours that i do play. I'll be honest, I'm only a break even player due to the hours needed to play, but I do have some advice for you,

If you are truely dedicated, play the 1-2 games until you can show about 8 out of 10 wins, this will prepare you for the 2-5 games. You will never win enough at the 1-2 games in the long run to make a living. If you play you're AAA++++ game every time you sit down and limit your losses, it is possible to make a decent living, but you also need to play upwards of 70 hours a week to do it. You need to do a lot of walking or driving from casino to casino and get in a couple of sessions a night.

Best advice I've heard yet

There is not a game on the planet where you can win 80% of your sessions when average session length is <300 hands. Because math.

Would you consider that not everyone uses the same score board as you?

Don't forget no medical insurance, 401K plan, savings account.

These are things that have value that 'typical' jobs can help with. Poker you are without a net in every aspect of your life.

I agree with the previous posts about completing college with your degree. It will be like a spare tire in the trunk, hope you don't need it but it's there if you do. One never knows when an opportunity will pop up and you would need a degree to take advantage of it.

Try going out for a week or two during school breaks and see how you do. Stay over the summer and find out if you can live the life or not.

Very important to keep honest records so you can accurately judge your performance.

BTW I tried working, more than full time, with a family and playing more than I should at the lower limits. Made $20k one month then EV kicked in and I couldn't even beat the rake.

Everyone likes money, and most aspiring poker players drastically underestimate the effects of the variance on their day-to-day psyche (as well as its more practical side-effects, i.e. you can't just not pay your landlord because you had a bad month), as well as the ease with which poker players can (and all-too-often do) cut corners that come implicitly with day jobs, including 401k's, insurance, etc.

As someone that lived for three years doing the online grind but is back doing engineering work and just making overly-long TR's on Vegas grind trips, both the work-to-poker and poker-to-work decisions felt right. At my job before poker I was miserable (I once had the conscious thought of "If I killed myself, I wouldn't have to come into work today. Wait, that's stupid, I could just quit"), and as a grinder, it wasn't that I wasn't paying the bills - I was - it was that my earnings were stagnant and that I wasn't accruing anything that could reasonably lead to a retirement fund. I was happy enough in the moment, but the thought of continuing to 9-table 1-2 on Stars when I was 75 and needed dialysis was almost too depressing to contemplate. I also cut corners w/insurance and the like and was not prepared should some grossly negative spike occur to my health or various other aspects of my life (I got very lucky in that regard). That all kind of manifested into a realization that it was time to **** or get off the pot.

So transitioning back to a regular job for me was the right move, for me it mostly mattered that this was the right job that wasn't going to drive me insane. Now, it was a bit lucky for me that this was an option at all. My degree (electrical engineering) is in high demand and my work experience (PLC/HMI programming) even more so. I still get emails and phone calls based on a monster.com resume that hasn't been updated with my current job and that has no relevant engineering experience since 2008. Most people don't have that luxury, so a large gap in one's resume spent effing around in Vegas trying to grind out 2-5 for a living is more of a permanent stain (whereas for someone with high-demand credentials, it's more of a personality quirk).

I don't regret my years spent grinding and am a far better person for having done it, but don't believe it's easy. There's definitely something to be said for grinding out the 9-5. As a poker player I had the same broke-ass CRT TV I used in college. I like my flatscreens almost as much as the solvency they signify.