Played 2/3 for about 6 months in my last semester; final (senior) year at university. I broke my ass in a ski injury and was unable to work either of my 2 jobs. I was under-rolled for pretty much the entire time but managed to go on a sick heater throughout. I was floating around 15 BI the entire 6 months through ongoing expenses of ~150 a month not including partying and drinking. I would not advocate less than 20 BI for a roll even with student expenses, after witnessing the terrible variance of other players (and the variance I experienced just after my degree finished, busto gg, but I'm grateful it lasted till I graduated).

I'm sure over 50% of the posters ITT can provide way better info and advice but that was just my scenario and my two cents. 1 BI (Buy In) is always worth a shot to see where it can take you, but remember to play optimally and don't let the thought of the value of money influence your poker decisions (BRM, ldo). I'm in a bit of debt atm and can't wait to get back on the felt to take another shot.

You can add the Bay Area (San Jose / San Francisco) to the list. There are several casinos within a 45 minute (or shorter) radius and there is tons of dot.com money and disposable income in this area. Obviously there are tons of decent players but the fish outnumber the sharks 10:1 here imo so there is plenty to go around. Then there is the matter of many of the so-called sharks and solid regs are terrible.

Imo, I guess it depends how good you are. If you are in the top 5% - 10% of "decent players" in your area then I do not believe this to be true. When you are the biggest shark at the table everyone else looks like fish.

And I think being part of the top 5% - 10% of the "decent" players in your area is a very achievable goal. IN fact, I would say it is almost a prerequisite if you want to be a pro and make a living with poker.

Imo, there are two different kinds of "pros".

Type #1 Specialize in bumhunting and Donk Crushing. To be clear, there is nothing wrong with that. Unfortunately these are the pros that are going to have problems when the table isn't a donkfest.

Type #2 Specialize in just adjusting to whatever the situation is, particularly outplaying other decent players.

Imo, you can be a winning player being type #1, but if you want to make a living with poker, you have got to be Type #2. Whenever you sit down at ANY table in your area, you need to be either the best or second best player at that table almost every single time. And if not, you better have enough tables in your area to table select such that you are.

What about someone who is finishing up college, and has dreams of going pro now that he has a degree (i.e. backup plan)? Would you consider this a terrible decision? This is my situation, I'm 24 now, building a pretty nice roll, while finishing up school here in December. No family, no kids, no real responsibility, so I figure now is better than never...

Also, in making efforts to doing this, I am trying to having 5-6 months of life expenses + a BR, which equates to ~$40K life roll, 15-18K poker roll to begin. Would you say this is sufficient to play $2/5 fulltime for a consistent winning player?

1) How much would you estimate a players winrate would drop off assuming they went full time? Or is this player dependant? For example, say this said player makes $45/hour at $2/5, playing 15 hours a week as a serious hobby. Would this winrate likely drop? If so, how much?

A counterargument can be said for someone who doesn't study as much. I'd imagine more volume and more studying away from the table would help this player offset some of the wear and tear of beating the same regs and playing long hours. I don't put in as much time studying as much as I would like, because, well, life happens (full time job and school) and I feel I don't play as optimally as I should on occasion.

What is your degree in and how much debt do you have?

I mean worse comes to worse spend 6 months "traveling" and play professionally and see how you like it.

Finance Degree ~40k school debt. I told my friend if I move to Vegas next year its a 1 year gig, and if I love it and love being a pro I will continue indefinitely. If I get sick of it, its back to work in 2015.

Do you graduate in the Spring of 2014?

Graduate at the end of December '13

Just a comment from someone who does hiring: a big gap AFTER you graduate with little/no employment looks worse than delaying your grad date. You'll still have the hiring gap but you have the obvious story of "I was finishing up school"

Something to think about.

^^ I would think that a year gap between graduation / first entry level job after college wouldn't be too bad. Maybe I'm wrong though. I don't want to get this beneficial thread off on a new tangent though.

I think its great that you have already identified the difference between 15 hours a week, and maybe 40+ hours per week. Generally speaking your hourly win rate will drop, however there are other factors. The biggest one being the game size you're playing. Saying you're a $2/5 player in Vegas has difference's, for example the Bell offers the smallest game in town which is capped at $500, other places (A&V) are $1,000, the Wynn is $1,500, and Ceasars $2/5 game is un-capped.
As a practical matter its easy to correlate the % difference between the different size games and make an equal comparision to your win rate.

Having good work ethic is very important. Making and keeping a decent schedule of when to work, what game you wanna play in, and how many hours per week you'll log at the table makes a huge difference.

I have seen your post before and IMO I think its a great idea for YOU to go ck out Vegas for a year. You may like it, you might not,....but rest assured you'll have an experience that you'll always remember. No regrets. Best wishes sir...

I think the topic of the gap in ones resume if they pursue poker post college is pretty interesting. Thanks Rumor for the inside scoop on what I may one day encounter.

I was always curious as to why there isn't more discussion revolving around investing ones profits made from playing poker full time into something profitable that can offer steady cash flow either while they play full time, or if they choose a new direction after a few years.

I don't know if this makes complete sense, but I thought it was always interesting the majority are more concerned about finding a job if poker doesn't work out, or if they don't wish to pursue it any longer, rather than possibly doing something independent with the profits they made.

Pretty sure most ppl do have some sort of interest in a field that would direct them to some sort of job, but for me personally, a lot of the appeal of poker is the independence it offers, so why not take that interest post-poker?

obviously this is not as easy as snapping your fingers and all of a sudden you got a successful bizzz going, but what do people think about playing poker with future ambitions of using your profits to make smart investments/and or start a business?

I just graduated this past spring, and was wondering this myself for a little while now.

it's a great idea, but in practice you're not going to get a huge amount of the learning, confidence, contacts/network/role models, funding etc etc etc you'll need for setting up a business inside a poker room.

same goes for investments. it's lol easy to say 'I will invest my poker profits in stocks' but even if you make enough and have the discipline to save/invest instead of buying nice cars and expensive Scotch with your profits, remember that banks, investment houses etc etc employ vast swathes of very smart people with lots of experience, researchers and investment tools working 70 hours a week to buy stocks etc and many of these guys fail to beat the market each year so again, what makes you think you will?

Huge tangent, but you don't need to "beat the market" just index your winnings and you will free roll retirement.

feel - in the US, a lot of times when people talk about investing profits off of something like this they're also talking about doing things other than just buying stocks, like buying houses/apartments that they then rent for steady monthly income. Food for thought.

I would be interested to hear what most pro poker players long term passive income plan is though.

C======fin analyst

You don't need to beat the market at all. In fact you can underperform the market (as most do by actively investing) and still do quite well. Or just index and ride the gravy train as 11t says.

This and real estate would by my plans if I were to go pro, which I am highly considering.

Poker to me would never be a source of income, it would be a source of cash flow for other financial endeavors, which luckily I am quite familiar with.

thats pretty much exactly what I was thinking.

but, unfortunately, I am very unfamiliar with this and have zero experiece

Medical school?

Although rental properties is what I've heard a lot of.

Pros / potential Pros: I wouldn't worry too much about "going on a tangent."

Issues such as the resume gap; passive income strategies; general investment strategies; etc. are all very important and relevant.

Much better than asking questions like, "What is a good win-rate for a $1/2 Pro?"

when you go on a loosing streak, do you top up your roll from savings or other sources of income or do you play on a reduced roll?

well medical school/being a doctor would be much more ~active income than passive.

The resume gap is the only thing deterring me from diving right into being a live pro in 2014. I played for my sole income in 2011 but had no bills except car / gas / school tuition. (Living in momma's basement, don't think it counts). The resume gap is a risk, yolo though...

Any former pros - If you were in this spot, what was your reasoning behind the resume gap? Do you just flat out state you were a professional poker player, and try to explain more about what it was you did? I'd imagine some (OPEN MINDED) employers in a more analytical field would be intrigued / impressed with being able to be a professional poker player. Maybe that last comment is incorrect, though.

I can't speak to the resume gap personally because I have not tried to re-enter the work force. I do have poker friends who have tried to get back into the jobs market after doing a stint of pro poker, and they tell me that it is really hard to get a job after the resume gap of playing pro poker.

The only thing I could think of is that if you did it right after college you could claim you were traveling and maybe you could do a bunch of volunteer work at charities or something.