Also you should be factoring in your $1 to $2 "rakeback" that could cover your lunches. Using these comps could add up to say $200 to $300 per month.

nice hand. would be interested in reading your story if you get some time to write it up!

I have a feeling OP is actually break-even poker player. Otherwise, decision to get a job makes no sense.

Playing poker for a living at the lower stakes is a GRIND. The reason it is a grind, is the amount of hours that you need to put into it, especially when you are at the SUPER low stakes: $1/2nl. I haven't read the entire thread, just skimming so far but will go back to read the thread over the next week, but it seems like you are not cut out to be a poker player (*as of right now). Maybe you can change over time?

The reason that so many people fail at playing poker for a living is their work ethic/discipline. It's just like starting a business. In the beginning, you are learning a lot, working tons of hours to make up for you learning curve/inexperience, and experiencing lots of failure, rejection, and low results for the amount of time you put in. You fight through this, learn from your actions, your successes (how few they may be), and your mistakes, and you build your knowledge and your bank account (bankroll in this case.)

As an employee, you are told when to be at work and when to leave. You also have a manager overseeing you to make sure you are doing your work and reaching you targets. In poker, and in your own business, you are your own manager. Most people can't handle this and abuse it. They work less hours, they f__k around at work, and they don't come close to their targets because there is no police to enforce rules on them. That is why they fail.

YOU NEED TO PUT IN THE HOURS IN POKER!

When I play poker, I put a minimum 40 hour requirement on myself. I actually play between 50-60 hours a week depending on the week and average 54 hours a week. This is a full time job and I do quite well at it. When I was working in a "Wall Street" environment (sales environment to boot) I was required to work 40 hours but was putting in over 50 hours a week.

By getting a job which sounds like it will pay LESS than your poker hourly, you are moving in the WRONG direction. Bunker down and focus on poker. If you play 50 hours a week and in 2 or 3 months see that you can not make money or that you HATE the job, then let the dream go and move on to a different dream. Don't delay this decision since it is putting your whole life on pause.

Sorry for the rant but I wish you good luck in whatever you do but whatever it is, do it 100% and don't half-a_s your way through it.

Just no FPS imo

The guy is a bad player. His wife got fed up with his losing and said get a job or I'm leaving and taking the kids. Eventually she will leave him and he will stay. Just a typical Vegas story.

Posts,

This is strong advise. Don't get a job unless you absolutely have too, or you lose you're Passion to grind it out. The latter seems like a strong possibility. You need to honestly analyze why you only managed to play 20 hrs a week. Why you're expenses were so much more than you estimated. I know the job market in this town. I'm not sure about you're skill set. But with an average sales job. You will put in 50 hrs and clear somewhere around $500 a week. You are much better off with poker. Unless, you are not as good as you thought you were. Or you can not play 40+ hrs a week.

The emotional stress that comes with that much poker is not for everyone. I for one have found that I am much better off with a real job. Keeping poker as a serious hobby that actually puts money in my pocket month in month out. Unlike golf, drinking, weed, my other favored past times. That do nothing but take monies. Plus its awesome knowing that if I continue to take tourney shots with my cash profit. Eventually I am going to bink a huge score. That keeps my going everyday. Getting up to go bust ass in the hot Vegas summer for $18 bucks an hour.My two cents.


Gl whatever you choose to do,
Ledout

One other observation I have made. You tend to lag it up a little to much. At the average 1-2 Vegas game. I think this is a mistake. Frankly, with you're look. The dyed fro hawk, or whatever you got going on. You can play like a bordrline nit, and still get action. This approach obv is going to reduce variance and still be good for $20 an hour. With an occasional move here and there.

OP dont pay attention to the haters. "You cant rise if you have never fallen"; its a baller quote.

Every hand should be a learning experience and as far as your strategy in a 1/2 no limit game it should be all about betting for value. Usually in the 1/2 games bluffing is a pretty bad idea. Once you move up in stakes and play against players who actually understand hand ranges you can mix it up and get value out of some FPS. Good luck and tell jew to give you back your run good.

I was going to leave this thread alone but I guess a response from me is needed based on the most recent posts. I didn't want to get into personal life stuff too much because it's no one's business but what evs.

First off I am fully aware I haven't been putting in the hours required that are needed to be successful. A bit of this was me not being diligent enough other was just my life schedule being to tiring. When I propped in Sacramento I worked 11pl-7am and then got to sleep until my wife went to work at 2pm. She only worked a couple days a week so even that wasn't a every
day thing. Out here my wife is working five days a week 8am to 530pm so I am with the kids for 9 1/2 hours a day. I'm not sure if anybody that frequents this thread has kids but watching a 3 and 1 1/2, year old can be full out exhausting some days. Wife gets home at 530 so even if I were to go strait to work that has me sitting down at 630. 8 hours later I'm getting home at 3ish taking a half hour to fall asleep waking up 4 hours later. rinse repeat. This process was just way to tiring on days I did in and the next day I would be crap when it came to giving my kids the attention they needed. Thus why my sessions were be cut short. Well just put in a ton of hours on the weekend you say we'll you got me there. That was something I could have done a better job at that. I guess I valued the little time I got with my wife a little to much.

Another major factor that has contributed to this decision is my wife wanting to be home with the kids more. Working 8-530 and the kids bed time being 9 she doesn't get to see them that often during the week. Staying home with them during the day is something she desperately wants again. And I got a agree with her. Honestly I'm just not cut out for daddy day care. I love my girls to death but man to they push the little patience I have every day. She is much better suited for the daily duty of raising 2 hyper little girls. In a perfect world I could play cards during the day while she is at home but it's just not going to be possible to make enough money at 1,2 to do that. And she isn't about to start doing the jobs in city that are available at night.

In response to the can't make more doing a sales job then I am currently at poker. Well that may be true about some sales jobs but the reason why I choose to stop playing right now is because I have enough cash to pay bills while I try and find the type of job that will payxthe same or better. I have 10 years of sales experience and have always excelled at it. So honestly I feel that shouldn't be an issue. With money ill be able to save with a guaranteed income I should be able to make a run at poker again. Also my wife's work is going to let her work part time from home so 2 guaranteed incomes will be great.

Why are my life expenses more then I predicted? 2 reasons Because I hadn't lived in Vegas before and miss judged before I moved here and we have been spending to much on certain things. Something we are the process of fixing.

To everyone who said at the begining of the thread that my bankroll wasn't big enough to make this work I humbly think I have to agree. I first got out here and was murdering things it was no big deal but with the last 2 months being about break even my expenses have just drained my roll and watching my roll dwindle while having a family to take care of is just something I don't want to deal with. Although my wife is and has always been supportive I can see In her eyes she is stressed out when we talk about finances and I just don't want to do that to her.

So until I have saved up 15k to 20k from working and playing on the side consider me a working man.

1. your right it hasn't happened

2. I fully agree at 1,2 should be getting 160+ hours a month minimum.
3. I agree with you in a sense but just be clear this isn't something I would bee thinking about on a daily basis
4. When I play online its just me having fun. I had 50$ I put on there and have built up to $250 by playing a couple small tourneys a week.
5. We will see. I think I have to disagree with you on this one
6. I have and am In the process of fixing
7. Spot on
8. Mixed game was played 2 times and I booked a solid win one of them and PL Badugi fell into the having fun online category.

6.

Bro feel free to voice your opinion but please keep it in my thread and don't spew about it in Jews. Thanks

Sent you PM.

F'ck the haters. You are doing what you gotta do to be a good dad, spend time with the wifey/kids and put food on the table. It ain't easy being a PIMP.

Cheers,

S

Can you honestly say you gave this 100% I'm sure you sold your family on the fact that you would take it serious just like a real job.

This is what people think Vegas is going to be like -


This is what Vegas is really like - (from hcclubhoppers thread)

the difference is he can't have a losing week when he has a full-time job. getting a job allows him to play on weekends part-time and also have a consistent paycheck coming in.

Well if he had a decent liferoll (6 months of living expenses) and decent bankroll, he could take a few losing weeks and still not be down to the last $100 to spend at the grocery store.

I don't mean to talk down to him or you in this case, but you need to have a backup fund in today's day and age. Even with a sales job, you can be cut anytime and then you are scraping for cash again without a job.

Oh Christ, how many Americans have 6 months of living expenses?

Most bank accounts have less than $1000 in them.

If you start working a full time job, you will still want/need to spend time with your girls and your wife. So the hours situation will not change. In fact, it will get worse because you will be working a full time job, balancing your kids and wife, and then trying to find a few hours to play poker as a hobby. good luck with that.

If you start working full-time, what do you do with the girls? Daycare? Well, just put them in the same daycare right now and put in the hours at poker.

If you find a sales job that pays THE SAME as poker, what is the difference between playing poker and doing the sales job? Does this sales job have any element of commission? Isn't having a rough week at the poker tables similar to a slow week in sales? I worked in sales and I used that experience of managing my emotions, staying focused, and motivating myself through the dry times to get myself through my dry times in poker. Same skill set!

Since you have enough cash to pay bills while looking for a job, can't you use that to create a poker cushion to get you through the rough weeks you might have due to poker variance?

How long do you think it will take you to find a job that pays at least as much as poker? During that time, you could be playing poker and making that income already! In this economy, it seems that a job search can take a few months (even in sales, if you have some standards and won't take first all commission based offer you get) and that will eat through your current bill paying money.

You are just procrastinating and when you do save $15K or $20K (how long do you expect this to take?), you will be committed to a job already and it will be that much harder to leave your job and start poker again. And won't you face the same problems you have now that caused poker not to work out?

I don't mean to be a d__k to you but I have had some people be 100% straight with me (even when it was tough) and it ended up helping me out. Maybe you just don't want to do poker full-time? That's okay too. It's not as glamorous as people think (especially in the beginning.)

Good luck with wife and kids. In the end, that is #1 so f__k poker if it is ruining #1. Poker is just a game/job.

That is a different story. If he has less than $1000 in bank accounts with a wife and kids, he should be taking any job right now and looking for a better job at the same time. What about playing poker at the same time as looking for a job? With poker, you schedule is super flexible so when someone comes back with an interview or something, you re-arrange poker schedule about that interview.

This whole thing is assuming that he is good enough to make money playing poker. But by that logic, he can get fired from a job if he isn't good enough for that job as well.

People can ALWAYS find excuses for NOT DOING something but it takes a successful person to first look for reasons to DO something.

100%agree with this. For many people by the time they save up 6 months expenses inflation has cut into their buying power and they really have more like 4 months.

I think why people are so hung up on months of expenses being saved is because they think many players will crack under the pressure of having to earn their monthly nut ESP when they are running down. That's prob true for most people but certainly not all. Working a job is pressure as well and not everyone is cut our for it. It's also not guaranteed as you could be let go, fired, laid off, business close at a moments notice. There are no guarantees in any career.

If OP wants to quit for awhile and refocus he should. If his mind and heart are not in the game his results will surely suffer. He has many people depending on him so whatever he does he needs to give it his best. Poker may not be that for him right now.

GL OP and hope you make it back to the tables one day.

PM sent

I fall on the opposite side of a lot of people giving advice lately. I think getting a "real job" in your situation is absolutely the way to go. If you are playing poker with your "life roll" vs. "bank roll", you are not going to play your best. Without going into more detail (similar situation), when I got my "life roll" squared away and I started playing with a real "bank roll", my results improved dramatically.

YMMV

Most Americans couldn't make it as professional poker players. Most Americans are f'ing morons.

The risk involved in poker is much higher than an average steady job, and as such it is wise to live a lower risk lifestyle than one would otherwise live and that includes having a larger emergency fund.

LoL. Me thinks you don't understand inflation. You aren't by chance from Zimbabwe are you...or perhaps 1923 Germany? Or does it just take you many years to save up 6 months of expenses?

Let's assume you are a single person with minimal spending habits and needs. So maybe your income needs are $1500 per month. A paltry amount for sure but a single person with no kids living very minimally could make it on such spending if they are frugal.

So you would need to save up $9000 to have six months expenses.

Let's assume a salary of $30k a year for said single person. That's about 10-12 k below the median salary.

If this person is making 30k they are prob bringing home about 70% of this or $21 k a year.

That's $1750 per month. They spend $1500 per month leaving $250 per month for savings.

Saving up $9000 will take exactly 36 months or 3 years. Inflation will eat into that purchasing power over three years and maybe add a few months more to save. All of this assumes no break in income nor any emergencies.

So will it take many years? No but it will take a few years even to save up a minimal amount of savings and inflation and other life events will eat into that total.

I think OP's decision to find a real job and not play with life roll (family roll in this case) is a good one. It can be incredibly stressful playing with money you really can't afford to lose. Yes there are going to be complications either way, but it's not like getting back into poker is difficult if he wants to eventually. Smart move OP - Best of luck!