Your most likely on a heater since your sample size is too small. But it doesn't mean your not skilled enough. I would put some 100,000 hands online before making such a decision.

Naw, man, don't listen to these guys; do it. Everyone should gain the experience of taking their shot, missing, and going broke.

6 months+ sample size playing atleast 20 hours a week before you play full time w/o a real paycheck.. you will hit road bumps and times were you just cannot win whether you are good or not. Prepare to wake up and not have a schedule that you have to actually follow.. getting out of bed to go play poker will be harder than you think, especially when running bad. Prepare to have 6 months of living reserves, plus bankroll, plus good work ethic, plus 6 months of all winning months that allow you to cover all your bills and be able to save. I say all winning months because even with downswings you shouldnt ever have a "live" losing month if you are ready to "go pro"

Like most have already said. Dont do this. You need to be playing for longer in order to have a better idea if playing for a living is a good idea. Right now, I'm assuming you have a job. Keep working and playing as often as you can. Dont even think about playing for a living until you have a very large sample size to base this off of. Also, when you play for a living, its a must to have a very large bankroll. You will need a lot of money to cover your downswings (because you wont have any other sources of income). Not only this, but enough money to cover living expenses (rent, food, bills, etc.) so when that downswing hits you, you wont have to dip into your poker money to cover this.

this statement is absurd.

"You don't hear much about guys who take their shot and miss, but I'll tell you what happens to them. They end up humping crappy jobs and graveyard shifts trying to figure out how they came up short."

Appreciate the reference, but if that's a barely-acceptable alternative to living the high-life of a professional live poker player (hint: it's sweet), then i say go for it as well.

I say if someone has the roll to sustain it and make their attempt feasible, take the shot. I passed up a few opportunities (non poker) that I regret to this day.

+1

I guess if you're REALLY good, you can some how avoid variance.

FYP

Especially with the deep stacks and low volume of live play, where one sick beat can wipe out weeks of grinding.

Take the shot. What's the worst that will happen?

what sort of job do you have. this matters cos if its siht or you are work in an area where work is easy to come by then do it.

I wonder what other people think about playing online to "prepare" for playing live. I practice online as seeing more hands and getting in difficult situations more often helps keep me ready for live play, but I practice at much lower levels than 1/2 2/5 that I play live. I almost believe that some styles of play that are effective online can be a losing style in some live games I play in or atleast not as profitable at the same limits. I have seen a friend who won online at 1/2 over 20,000 hands then took that same style to 1/2 live and was really struggling to win consistantly because I feel he did not adjust to getting called down lighter in the live game. If you can beat 1/2 online though you definitely have the ability to beat the live version, you just have to adjust some IMO...

Any other opinions on this?

I practice cbetting and analyzing board textures online...

I open 2 tables of 10nl (6 max) and cover my cards. When ever it's folded to me in LP I open for 3bb (I often iso limpers as well.) When called, I analyze the flop to see if it hits my 'perceived' range and then if it does, I cbet. If my bet is called I then see if the turn brings a good barrel card and often 'try again.' When u look over the session afterwards it's pretty funny to see the times u check a set, straight or flush to showdown but for a small expense it's greatly improved one area of my game. TY 'Improva' (he's a coach at DC)

I personally think that saying, "I do good online over 2 gazillion hands, therefore I will do good at teh live pokerz" is like saying that because I am good at NLHE, I will therefore be good at PLO.

Poker is poker, sure. But you have a HUGE amount of information available to you immediately upon sitting down at a live table. The downside to the plethora of information available is the processing of it. It's a skill that is unknown to online-only players.

Also each hand means more to your bottom line because you get so many fewer of them. You need to take patience to a whole new level playing live. You also need to quickly figure out correct plays against specific people at your table because they could be gone in less than an hour, never to be seen again.

These are just a couple things that make a big difference. I could go on all day.

Love this. Thanks for sharing.

I wonder if I should try it at the live $20 max at HG? Should I play the hands obviously blind or make the table think I looked?

They're not paying any attention; there's no need for deception. Just cap your cards as soon as you get 'em and act when its your turn. I wouldn't do it every hand though. And it works best in LP, which will be giving up your most profitable spots to a lesson, so be sure to have an education budget.

It won't work if they know ur playing blind and I'm not sure if ur deep enough for this to work.

There are very few people who are good online who have never played live. Even playing with your buddies once a week in some low limit cash game or SNG type thing will make you so much more comfortable live. Since your skillset as a winning 200NL online player or whatever makes you almost certainly the best player at the table at similar stakes live it should not be a problem. Whatever adjustments required will be made much more quickly than the other way around (live player adjusting to online because he lacks many fundamentals). In fact the live player may never adjust.

The biggest problem online players have when they play 'live' is realizing how bad the 'bad' players really are (but they tend to adjust rather quickly.)

At 20BBs deep, definitely probably not really.

But! I think it will tell me a lot because of all the super weak play that goes on there. As for educational budget? I'm not against dropping 100-200 bucks to get better at this. I think it would make a 10x improvement in playing live at HG. It's just something that's been on my mind lately. Maybe doing it at the $40 game would be better though.

The blinds are still 1-2 at the $40 game?

OK here is a question:

I was making around $25/hr playing 1/2 for a living but it after 5 months I just found it too boring and stressful for it to be worth that amount but rather than move up I just quit poker and started looking for a job since my hourly rate in a real job is around $30/hour and it's less stressful

So if I want to go back to poker I'm def gonna play 2/5 but i'm wondering what kind of bankroll you should have before you even attempt to do it...the live game has much more variance obv than online so i imagine you can go thru some major downswings and you always have to have living expenses so what is a good br to start?

I would have to be earning more than double the amount in poker than live to take the plunge. Earning less than I do with a real job? No way would I even have vaguely entertained the thought of playing professionally.

well it only took me a year to find a real job and the economy is shaky, yeah i was happy to make a little more workin than playin, i was actually only playin out of necessity, but just in case...just wonderin what 2/5 players generally have behind when they take the plunge...how much should i bring to vegas with me?