If having a 6 figure job can't lead to financial independence, you're doing something wrong. Especially if you're single w/o children.

1000 hours logged? Dude that's only half a year of full time. Put in 10,000 hours (or equivalent #hands online) and you'll start to approach enough experience to know if poker as a life is right for you.

My man, please do not quit your job to play poker. It would be a huge mistake. Poker is not going anywhere. Put it on the back burner and focus on your job plus real estate. Once real estate is humming then quit yer job and then refocus on poker.

What I am saying is rely on poker as a last choice. I have said this a million times - poker is a great part time gig but as a full time deal I am positive you can do better

Def think if you're a winner in all lineups more variance with short stacking. With short stacking there are just so few ways to win. Your hands just have to hold. Deeper allows you more ways to take down money's with less volatility.

Again. This assumes you are beating all lineups.

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Why the F would you play 2000 hours/year?!? Part of the appeal of poker is working less than working stiffs. If you're gonna work the same amount as a normal job, take the normal variance free job unless you make significantly more from poker, like 2-3x

I played 2150 last year.

Why?

19 yo daughter freshman in college
my personal lifestyle
paying my ex's mortgage

all of these combined kind of motivated me to work my ass off. The ex is selling the house in fact she put it on the market today so next year my motivation to crank out hours has plummeted

Financial independence = passive income. Yah I could stay at my company and retire at 62 with a $3 million 401k but that seems like a waste of a life to me.

Damn.. this is what everyone always says. Even a guy that left his corporate job to play told me the same thing. Is it really like crossing over a threshold from part time enthusiast to full-time player?

I would be taking a somewhat significant pay cut initially, but is freedom, flexibility and general happiness and well being worth the pay cut?

Yah the general idea would be not to quit my job just to log the same number of hours at the casino. It would be to work less hours, while having more time to devote to passive income streams.

When 2015 is all said and done I will have logged ~2500 hours at my real job and ~850 hours at the poker table. That's 3350 hours of labor "work" with no time devoted to passive income. Just a lot of saving and building up my nut. The pace is unsustainable though - I often go into work getting only 2-3 hours of sleep a night.

I have some investments in play right now and I think if I get to 200k in liquid assets it would make me feel comfortable enough to cut the cord. I wouldn't necessarily be playing to put food on the table, it would still be my side hustle while I am doing my real "work" during the day with real estate.

If ever there is a time to do something like this it's when you're young and single right? I probably couldn't get my exact job back if needed, but I could find another finance gig.

Completely, certifiably insane. What is the inflection point?

Werd to all of this

A sustained winrate > my hourly at my job

Poker confidence is at an all-time high, but I think more importantly I've really worked on my game/table selection and situational awareness over the last 3-4 months whereas the first half of the year was focused mainly on leaks, decision making, etc.

Your winrate and hourly aren't valid because of your small a sample size.

Like I said earlier ~1000 hours is not enough time or hands to get a real idea of your hourly or winrate.

For all we know the last 1000 hours you've been a fish on a massive heater/upswing and you're about to regress to the mean or even worse take an even greater downswing than your heater.

Basing life decisions off 1000 hours of poker is just foolish and naive man

What are you doing with all of the 6 figures you're getting paid through the year?? if you can't build financial independence with a 6 figure job, no spouse, no kids, you have some major life leaks. Playing poker will not change that, it might only exasperate the situation.

You are incredibly new and playing part time hours is not the same thing as full time hours.

don't quit your job

I'm not sure if you are trolling or just being ignorant but I am saving most of it. Like I said, between 2500 hours at my job and 850 hours in the poker room, my time to "build" financial independence is extremely limited.

From many of your hands you've posted, I don't think there's a huge chance you'd make it right now as a full time pro.

Yeah because it's impossible to work and have a fulfilling life? lol.

Man, wonder how much you might achieve if you actually were awake enough to excel at your job?

Opportunity costs tho?

JohnnyOnTheSpot I was only using full time work as a reference point to suggest that 1000 hours live poker isn't nearly as big of a number as it may look

But whats the solution, do you think some pros have become too complacent to the point that they never move up in stakes where they wouldnt have to spend so much time in the casino? if you go from 1-2 to 2-5 you d only have to spend half the time in the casino as you did when playing 1-2...BTW spending all day in a casino sounds like a dream to me

Without getting all existential here, I just know the corporate world does not suit me for the long-term. Sitting in front of a computer for 10-12 hours a day does not suit my personality and I see work is a means to an end.

I know there are people that enjoy that type of life/grind/whatever but I cannot say I am one of them. Always envisioned taking the entrepreneurial route so I'm just waiting until the right opportunity presents itself. There are a few items on my checklist I would have to cross off first before feeling comfortable with the decision, so realistically it's at least 6-12 months off still.

Will keep thinking on it and putting in the hours.

Whatcha mean?

Fyp?

It seems to me a lot of people here have never been fired or experienced poor work environments. The casino is Amazing. People literally give you their money just to see that you have a better hand than them. There is AC. I am free to leave as much as I would like and sometime I even get a free lunch or free drinks. I don't even have a supervisor. How great is that?

Maybe the 850 hours spent playing poker might have been more productively spent? You know, "opportunity cost?"

Every 25 year old ever has thought that working in an office means selling their soul to THE MAN, btw.

Poker can be soul crushing too. What do you want to do in real estate?

Poker does not lead to financial independence any more than your job does. Money leads to financial independence. Poker could provide you more independence and flexibility overall.

What business?

Those players exist.

You want him to wait another 10 years before making his decision?


I agree with this. If you want to start focusing on investments or a business take a break from poker a bit. Heck, you could probably even start slacking a bit at work to focus on that stuff. I'm just saying, the worst they can do is fire you anyways and that shouldn't be much of a threat if your alternative is to quit anyways.

One may play 2000 hrs a year because they want to become financially independent, or want to buy stuff, or they've been running bad and need to get out of the red, or maybe just maybe they are playing 2000 hours a year because it's their job.

Not sure what kind of work you are talking about in real estate but it sounds like you are potentially going to be balancing two high risk professions, neither of which you have a proven record in, when you would be better off balancing a stable job with a risky side gig...until eventually you have grown the side gig to be more like a full time gig.


I doubt your current real winrate is higher than your hourly, but when you consider job benefits it most certainly is not. Plus it's riskier.

Based on what I have read, I think he could make it but it's just not worth it IMO. If he was making under $50k/yr at his job I'd be more on board.

There's also just a weird stigma against going pro on twoplustwo. I remember one thread where this was particularly evident in he midstakes forum. People were giving their normal arguments against going full time, but we're taking it even further, saying things like "At least in other rough jobs (like serving as an example) you get the joy of knowing you improved someone's day." And other nonsense of that ilk, when no one who served ever has thought that. Buz if you want to go pro, make your own decision on it. Almost everyone here has a negative opinion on it, many of them invalid (like the guy who wants you to have a million hours before you even consider going pro). The only person whose opinion I might take into consideration is squid face, but even then he's just one man whose experience, goals and outlook is different from yours. Don't make a decision based off the pessimistic views of a bunch of people you don't know on a forum.

NLAP and the other dude who mentioned it - the 10,000 hours thing was an Outliers reference on the opposite extreme end to show that 1000 hours of live poker isn't a sufficient sample size. I think 2500 hours live is probably sufficient to get a good estimation of what your longterm hourly and winrate can be expected to be an equivalent number of hands played online