This quote blows my mind to the point that I question whether this thread is real. You may lack the aptitude to be a poker pro. Have you taken an IQ test? Did you score well on standardized tests (ex SAT, ACT, GMAT, LSAT, etc)? How good of a student were you in school? Are you a college graduate? What successes have you achieved professionally and in what lines of work?

BTW, all of you poker pros supporting families are crazy IMO.

LOL, wtf is this baloney?

Tom Dwan is how old? 25? And you want to be his son? Says a lot about your aptitude.

Lmao at IQ, takes more then IQ to play holdem, hahaahhaha. Toms son, yeah buddy your like a 2+2 3 year old.

re: first bolded statement

you show a lot of immaturity in that statement. yes, teachers have the summer off. the average american does not. we go to work and get two weeks vacation. after 3-5 years, we get a 3rd week. after 5-10 years we might get a 4th week.

i am 49 and have 4 weeks vacation.

re: second bolded statement

i have started listening to these as well. i really like when he dedicates an episode to 'live hand histories.' really, really, really beneficial.

You know that your risk of ruin is 100% when you spend all your profits above your initial bankroll, right? This is mathematically proven to be true.

I would not have spent any of that money. At all.

While it takes more then just a raw IQ to play poker, I doubt anyone with an IQ of less then 100 would be able to play at a level to sustain a living playing poker.

OP, I really hope you make it life-wise, but doing anything other the getting a job ASAP will leave you in deep trouble overall.

I also wouldnt play online, either as purely for profit, learning etc... since OL play is a whole different best and because of smaller expected winrates in terms of bb/hr will take longer in terms of hands to get a rough gauge of your true winrate/lossrate.

Use that time to do theoretical study or a second job. While its not what you want to hear, trying to play your way out of it is destined for trouble.

Also, Texas HoldEm Bonus, or at least the variant I have seen organised, is not profitable

http://wizardofodds.com/games/texas-hold-em-bonus/

Subscribe to Deuce Plays Premium. Subscribe to Crush Live Poker. Buy "The Mental Game of Poker."

Those are the 3 best ways to improve your game.

You should have a very detailed spreadsheet covering your wins and losses as well as your thoughts on how well you played during each session and whether you ran hot, cold or relatively even. After a few hundred hours you'll get a sense of whether you're good or not, although a few hundred hours live is like a week or less online so it's subject to a ton of variance.

Gotta agree with the field though that with a wife and kid, this was a huge mistake. Going pro at 1/2 is really not possible even if you're one of the best at your limit, which you don't seem to be.

Get a job - any job that pays the bills. Play poker part time if you want. When you get like 400 hours at 1/2, if you're doing great then think about testing 2/5. If you're doing great at 2/5, then think about MAYBE going semi-pro.

Yeah I wouldn't doubt this is correct. You need at least the average intelligence and then the work ethic most importantly. After that, you need the ability to learn from your mistakes and not repeat history.

So its better to jump into the live game cold???

Online poker is a great tool to learn the mathematics of poker and a helluva lot cheaper to learn online vs live, by a factor of 20 cheaper. Not to mention that bankroll management is possible at any level and money is money. OP can work a job, play online for a few months, and then use that online money in combination with what he squirrels away as a bankroll when he is ready to play live again. Similarly, studying will have more of an impact if he can study and play simultaneously.

Poker is about "adjusting", if you can become a winning player online, those skills will transfer to live play once you learn how to adjust to live play (and OP does have some live experience).

Basically, is it your argument that becoming a winning player online will "hurt" your live poker game?

Poker is poker and becoming a winning player in ANY poker discipline will indirectly help any other poker discipline. Once you internalize the key principles of poker, they apply across the board.

This holds for online and live play and vice versa. If you are a good live player then you should also play online. Why not? Money is money. Yes, they have their differences their pros and cons but they are not mutually exclusive to the point where one hurts the other. Once you learn to adjust to each medium, then you have another poker revenue stream.

I would much rather hop in a 1/2 game then deposit online in the matter that its in right now.

Online players are far superior then live players. Live players don't even know what a HUD is. No understanding of player types and how to adjust. Let alone what lines to take vs each villain.

On top of that, they just play their 2 cards to match the board.

Learning: live over online all day. Unless you need to learn the rules, use a phone poker app.

You have to have emotional intelligence and mental and psychological fortitude as well.

You have to be able to not let tilt, fear, fatigue, etc influence your decisions and this is something that VAST majority of players are not able to get over.

Here is a perfect example, a poker friend of mine was in the WPT and she let fear get the best of her with an aggro player who she "knew" was aggro and FOS

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W14BQHXTZKM

its 3 minutes and its hilarious and highlights the other aspects of poker that we need to have as winning players. Simply "knowing" the correct play isn't enough, there is more to poker than just that...

Typo in my post.

I meant that I would only do it as a function learning a game, rather then as a serious source of income.

i would rather have 28 buyins at 25nl with $700 than 3.5 at 1/2 live

but with only $700 you might aswell play some online donkaments and hope to bink enough for a live roll those are always really soft

you do realize that there are many players that make serious money from online play?

Granted, online poker is spotty in the US now since Poker Stars has left us and FT has f---ed us...

Lmao, I should have listened to my son!

Omg that was the funniest thing ever. Just like a fish she showed her hand to let the table know she folded. Guy was nice just showed her the K we all know the other card was a K. But he didn't want the table to see how he played an over pair.

No, look again, he showed the Q so he probably had AQ and whiffed

board K 6 3 T 2

Yes, but I also realise that people who make "sustaining a family" money from online play in the States on Merge or whichever network for the most part won't justify the results in the same way that OP has, particularly in the other thread about Texas Hold Em Bonus being beatable for $150+ph as well as a few other things he has mentioned.

Just because one person can do something doesnt mean everyone else because in lots of cases they will lack the required skillsets.

Oops my bad, I thought it was k. The flop all I seen was hearts and one face card.

In a perfect world yes online is good. 28 buyins sounds great if you can cash out less then 3 weeks. Putting your last 700 on an online website is crazy to even think of it.

Online players are just better I would take 700$ live over online any day.

I think OP is better off depositing $200 online, suspending his live play, putting his $500 towards expenses, getting a job, studying poker while grinding online...

Fast forward six months

Hes improved his game, built up a $2k roll online, saved $5k or so from his job and is now ready to give this another shot.

Based on what I've read and my general feeling with OP and the current state of his game (plus the pressure of being underrolled) if OP plays live now w his remaining $700, he might as well just set it on fire

Depositing money on online is the worst thing you could do right now.

I too have a short bankroll ($1000) for 1/2. I bring 1 buy-in and play no more than 6 hours. I take a short break every hour and a longer break mid-session. I practice mindful breathing and basically try to avoid tilt. Also, and this is HUGE, I usually pass on the minor +ev spots. At 1/2 there are plenty of spots where I will be a huge favorite. I may have to wait awhile, but if I don't have chips because I lost a coin flip, then I will miss out on that fat value.

+1

I agree with this, especially at the lower stakes. Yes, there are some that say you should never pass up any +EV spot, no matter how thin. But for people with marginal bankrolls for live play, or people like myself still building a roll, I don't mind passing up small +EV plays in return for less variance - mainly because there are times when villains will do just the stupidest things that makes my play massively +EV. As I think was in HOH: 'don't swing at pitches just out of the strike zone when if you're patient villains will lob one right down the heart of the plate for you to crush'.

I'm a competitive tennis player, and there is one golden universal truth for tennis at all levels: the vast majority of points are won by someone making a mistake. The screaming forehand down the line that passes the guy at the net looks cool, but 7 out of 10 points end when someone dumps the ball into the net etc. For the majority of my wins I just need to be consistent, with good footwork, keep the ball in play, and wait for my opponent to make a mistake. They always do.

In poker terms, that means staying active and alert, maintaning a full stack, playing good hands in position, and waiting for a villain to make a mistake. They always do. Most mistakes come from people making bad decisions out of 'boredom' etc ('I play TAG but was card dead so decided to play J8o from UTG' etc etc). Don't be that guy. Being a winning poker player doesn't mean winning every hand or winning every pot you're in.

This is the brutal and honest truth. Might sound like you are getting torn to shreds here, but I couldn't agree more with everything that is said!

+1000

Man, that is an incredibly depressing OP.

King Hubbard, there have been many more words written in response than I'd have expected. The forum has been generous in that respect and hopefully the other posters have helped you to really understand how far behind the 8-ball you are.

Here's the lowdown though: You will never make a living out of poker. The faster you release that dream and find another path for yourself the better.

this is your best bet right here