+1

Why is that funny?

Outside of Silicon Valley and NYC, Boston is one of the most expensive places to live in the US.

I expect the situation to be the same at the Encore as the MGM in Springfield. The players will be coming from Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun and have already been jaded.

That's great info. Thanks. Yeah free gas is very worth it.

Oh sorry I thought you were joking.

Ok cool. Good luck with your 1/2 career

Friend of mine plays at the MGM in Maryland and cleared 110k at 2/5 last year with pokerlogs to prove it. Then again he also pays 2k/month in rent and has to deal with snow and a 60/40 male/female population so personal life blows.

I'd take Tampa any day just for the quality of life and availability of women.

I know this isn't what you are asking but here is my 2c. The way I see it the best poker games are Friday and Saturday night. I think it works best to have a normal job and then just put in hours on the weekends.

Playing poker on weekday mornings is just asking for trouble as most people playing then are decent.

Also if it was me I would move to Florida. I love Vegas as a holiday destination but it is a weird place to live.

take care and good luck!

Thanks man.

Thanks for the thoughts. I agree I'm leaning towards FL because quality of life is something that matters to me. Yeah I agree about the playing time. I'd be looking to play some weekday afternoon/evenings and then the weekends. Not looking for weekday morning action. It is also a possiblity I may be able to do some freelance work remotely for my current employer. I'm not counting on that now because it's far from a guarantee but it's definitely a possibility so I'm hoping that I will have some income from that to go along with poker.

The 2/5 game at MGM in MD is reg-infested and hard to beat. Also, cost of living as you note is high and thus not good for someone living off poker earnings. And traffic sucks. (Plus, OP asked FL versus NV, not MD.)

Wouldn't move here for 2/5. Would need another good reason.

LOL

He’s a reg who doesn’t want more good players coming to his game obviously. Trying to protect his good game

Dude, yes, they're cute in Tampa

All great info guys! I am kicking around this very idea right now. (Vegas vs. Tampa at 2/5 NL). I have a relative living in Tampa and can keep costs down.

From what I am reading, I feel like $40k should be enough to play 2/5 full-time and have approx. 4 months of living expenses covered. My game plan is still a year out and I admittedly do not have a solid data set yet at these stakes but there are some 2/5 games that I can play approx. 2.5 hours from where I live now which will allow me to get in . Other threads/players have suggested that 2/5 is not extremely different than 1/3 and is beatable for a TAG player. I do feel confident that I am playing winning poker at 1/3... but again, can't back it up with a solid data set.

I can objectively say my TAG game is solid, but I am in the infancy/beginning stages of finding opportunities to switch gears and adopt a more advanced/winning style of play. I think within the next year, I can get approx. 185 hours in at the closest casino (13 weekends at 14 hours Sat/Sun) which is a small dataset but should give me a decent indication of win-rate.

Sanity check... does the above sound rational or am I sounding like a lunatic? lol

It all sounds fine except that 185 hours will not give you an indication of win rate. If you have 1000+ hours of 1/2 or 1/3 then you have a good amount of live experience and you should be able to tell after 185 hours of 2/5 whether or not you are comfortable playing it and give you a good idea if you are good enough to beat it or not....but whatever your win rate after 185 hours is, will likely not be your actual win rate.

For sure.. ugh I wish there were more places to play close to Middle TN! Thanks for the reply.

You sound like you're approaching it the right way. Good luck.

this
185 hours doesn't tell you anything