Vegas local and blackjack pit boss for 20 years, just getting in to poker.

I don’t plan on going pro but I know I can beat at least 1/2 and maybe another couple levels, but I know I can beat drunk tourists for a couple bucks.

If I’m going to play for four hours a day would you go more like 10p-2am or midnight to 4 am? Or even later?

A few hours after you wake up when you are fresh.

^This

Over a 7 day week, evenings are best. The problem with late night is that things are dead early in the week and for every drunk spewing money, you have one falling asleep at the table slowing things down.

When are the good times for your blackjack pit? Those are going to be the good times for poker.

I play in California, where there is a different dynamic, what with the bar closing at 2 AM and a magic witching hour around 3 or 4 AM when the drunks start to get twitchy.

My sense of the best time to play poker most places is when the after-dinner crowd starts coming in, say, around 9 PM or so, and it stays good well into the early morning hours. Of the two choices you give, I would pick 10PM-2AM.

For my own part, though, if home life were not a consideration, I would try to come in around 9PM and stay past 3AM. (I tend to play 6-hour shifts.)

As for days of the week, Friday and Saturday nights are the best in my own experience, and Mondays and Tuesdays are the worst. Sundays are better than Wednesdays, but not by much.

10-2

When you are mentally with it.

I've attempted to play poker for my sole lane of income multiple times before when I was younger. Half the time I would show up and just feel like King ****. When in fact, I never was focused, in bad health, and just expected things to go my way. I was truthfully a **** player even though I wasn't a losing player.

If you are able to go play and feel like you can really focus. You will win in experience/knowledge almost every session even if you aren't at first consistently winning in the games.

If you are considering playing but have a lot running through your mind. Go clear some of that off your plate before you attempt the next session.

Best of luck

Money management > mental game > game selection> technical poker skill

Depends on your game and what you are good at exploiting / bad at avoiding. As you get better pay attention to hear things.

Until then, largely agree you’ll be at weekends and evenings. Other criteria:

1. When people are likely to be drinking
2. When there’s another event to draw non-poker specialist crowd (Eg football Sunday, March madness)
3. When there’s a big tournament and a bunch of people will come to the cash games tilted after busting out

7pm-whenever. Catch the fish after they've had dinner and kissed the wife goodnight while they still have money. The only people who have fat stacks after midnight are the one's who cleaned out the fish, and at least some of them wont be bad themselves.

Sorta silly question here, but since ive been fulltime playing live ive been testing days and times to see which seem the most profitable.

question is when do you guys think is the most profitable time to be playing live? I assume the unanimous answer is late on friday and saturday night but just curious others inputs.

Late swing into grave AINEC

I have played a shitload of hrs on all shifts. Something magical happens in the wee hrs. Normally sane people can suddenly snap and have a massive party. It doesnt happen every night - but it happens significantly more often that it does during any other time period.

Speaking as someone who had for some years made my living by playing graveyard shift (midnight to 6 AM), this is bullshit. You simply do not know what you are talking about.

It's an especially silly question, given that it is the question that the OP asked, and has gotten several detailed answers. Read the thread.

Oh ok then, i didnt know that I was full of ****, thanks for pointing that out. So tell me, from a purely logical standpoint, who are these 4am players still donating money? Where did that money come from?

I've had plenty of good late night runs too, but it usually came from 1 of 2 things. Either some fish on a massive heater who's destined to go busto or the planets align and i just cooler the living **** out of another reg. The rest of the competition is usually just people on burnout hoping to hit their miracle. Maybe 1 crusher in the entire room who knows what he's doing. But all that money had to come from somewhere, and fish arent exactly known for rebuying a dozen times and lasting all night doing it.

It's all trickle down, and I prefer to start at the source, as the money walks in the door. The fish are happy. They just ate a steak, had some wine and got laid. Some fish play worse on tilt, some nit it up, but for that first 3 hours or so is a golden window of opportunity where they're feeling good and willing to splash around. I still remember this janitor at 1am rolling up in overalls and looking like what you might expect a janitor to look like, buying in for $300 @ 2/5 and sitting on 6k within 3 hours by just getting it allin repeatedly and binking. It happens.

But I also remember when I walk in the door at 7pm and see all the guys wearing business attire, the polos with the branding of whatever company they work for, the hawaiin shirt guys with the fancy watch and necklace with some milf sitting behind him, the chad with this big tiddy goth gf surfing on her phone trying to show off with his other chadbro who doesnt play poker and keeps checking in on him from the pit. The calm armenian guy who's pockets are bursting at the seams with wads of cash and who's smile grows in proportion to the size of the pots he loses.

You want to sit there and grind it out with all the other players *just like you* then so be it, but dont act like "YoU dOnT kNoW wHaT yOuRe TaLkiNg AbOoOt!!1" when i dare suggest that the evening hour after most businesses close on the weekend is somehow an idiotic and bad time to play.

appreciate all the input dudes!

Depends if your home place is a true casino 24/7 than definitely dinner time til'-? If it's strictly a card room then won't be too big of a difference as you won't get some degen stragglers coming from the pit etc.

Kind of an intersection between the time they play worst and you play best. Like lets say your room has drunks donating Thursday to Sunday 10pm -> 4am. Well that's great but if you are half-asleep after midnight and can't focus, you may be better off playing during the day when you are at your best.

I find playing earlier is usually a little better too. The main reason is the opportunoty to table change. Earlier means way more tables. Of course this only works in a larger poker room. If you get a bad table late st night, you can het stuck there for a while.

Best times to play are weekends and evenings/nights hands down.

Have your regular job be a night shift and play midnight to 6am on your days off.

No one is saying that evening hours are "bad". We (and I include myself in this) are saying that the graveyard shift is better.

Like squid and AB, I have spent significant time having my primary income from poker. They are 100% right that the very early hours of the morning are the best. Your challenge to them to show the logic behind this is backwards. They ARE the best, from experience; it's up to us to figure out why, if we care.

I didnt even disagree, he selectively quotes me when I specifically said "7pm-whenever" meaning you stay as late as the games are good, but starting early evening is usually a good start. If you think removing the 7pm-12am block is better and focusing exclusively on the graveyard shift well then so be it.