I'm not sure if that would have been enough to take me out. It may have been close with expenses coming out at the same time. I would have moved down to 1|2 and put more hours in to make up for the lower win-rate(I actually almost did). Quitting poker is a desperate last resort for me as I find most traditional jobs abhorrent.

I definitely disagree that I'd be happier. I am currently very happy with my lifestyle, and I'm in a much better financial situation and deal with less stress than most of my close friends and family. My life has improved dramatically since I started playing poker seriously in August 2015.

It is possible to make a living for oneself playing 2|5 and be happy doing it. The achievable win-rate is plenty to support oneself without even playing full-time hours. I make more money with less stress than both of my parents together and I'm only 23. This is not meant to be a brag. I just get annoyed by the huge number of posts against professional poker.

I hope this is on topic enough for the thread.

What's the longest break even streak u already have? Mine was around one week +, playing mtts n cash games on side. Currently have around $245...hope playing satellites to climb bigger games unfortunately I may cash in/won tickets like 2/10...

Tips?

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Thank you browni for writing this post, and by that giving this debate some much needed nuances.

FYP.

A lot of people ITT are profitable or hope to be soon and are taking the steps to improve. A very noble endeavor IMO.

What I find interesting is that I am friends with several pros (all 10bb/hr winners in $2/5) who currently or are looking for other avenues for supplemental income. It's not because they have pit problems or they're on a cold run. Nor do they want to give up their significant freedom they enjoy as their own boss. To a person, they come to a realization that grinding in a casino is not very fulfilling, can be toxic, and still be stressful all at once.

While not a 10bb winner, I am a profitable player and enjoy poker as a profitable hobby while making good money in the square world. I never feel soul crushed when I go to the casino; in fact, I'm excited to go! To a person, these pros all go through that soul-crushing feeling of walking into a casino sometimes (some more than others).

My advice would be to be open to having several sources of income, poker being one. You'll still have freedom and you will minimize your burnout.

You dont need to step into the life teacher role, neither do you need to change my post from my original form to try and make stupid/simple points to get across your assumptions about me and my situation. I already know i have what i takes "to make it", and a single post from a winning 2-5 player at these forums doesent change that.

I ment exactly what i said about brownis post: its nice to see some nuances in these debates, and not just exclusively pessimistic negative posts from burned out players speaking from a dark place of mind.

It appears that playing poker professionally leads someone down one of two paths:

1) the happy go lucky player whose opinions are that of sunshine and rainbows

2) the burned out player whose opinions are from dark places

Planning for 2 and hoping for 1 is probably the best thing someone could do, but it appears people rarely plan for 2 and assume 1 will last forever.

It just seems like there is no middle ground in this debate.

Good post, and you are totally correct in my opinion. Playing poker fulltime is infact quite similar to the smoking cigarettes debate, where the ex-smokers are the worst of everybody when it comes to polarization and negativity towards the debate.

Like, people who have never smoked a single cigarette is just casual about it and wont do it- but the ex-smokers that have quit after being fulltime smokers for many years are on there toes to a laughable exctent. They just cant manage to state how awful it is to smoke, how horrible it smells, how bad of a person you are if you do choose to smoke-and so on and so on. They seem to have developed a strong unexplainable desire (need) to decide for everybody that they cant smoke anymore. Like, they have seen the light in person, so now theyre suddenly a genius and want to enlighten everybody else of how to live their lifes. How noble.

And no- i am not a smoker myself.

Based on your response, I'm guessing you DON'T have what it takes to be a successful pro. You continually show yourself to have thin skin and are unwilling to consider alternative viewpoints. All the people I know who crush as pro poker players are 100% the opposite. These are the tools that give a player longevity in the gambling world, not how to play AK in a 3 bet pot OOP.

Then again, what do I know? I'm not a 10bb crusher like you. I am but a man with simple and stupid ideas who reports what he sees: the vast majority of poker pros look for ways to make other sources of income, and eventually most burn out and get out of the business entirely. Many have told me they feel trapped and start conversations along the lines of "if I had to do it all over again..."

I hope you do prove me and the standard wrong and become the Norwegian crusher of poker. I just wouldn't give up your day job just yet if I were you.

Strange anology


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This is a Live Cash forum. I'd try the Small Stakes MTT forum. We don't really look into returns/BR requirements for MTTs. When you ask, please indicate your ABI and your volume, as "a week" could mean just about anything in terms of number of tourneys played.

I think this is probably because the barrier of entry into more mainstream professions, especially ones that make equal to or more than poker players can make, is probably extremely difficult once someone is above a certain age. Not to mention that many pro poker players either forgo higher education altogether or quit mid-way through, that most higher paying professions require.

Unfortunately though, as many people get older, their expenses increase. Families are expensive. Many people don't have that in their early/mid 20s, many people do have that in their early/mid 30s

I can very easily imagine a 30ish y/o grinder who got married and just had their first kid now feeling the pressure of having to produce day in and day out and the stress level just sky rocketing. The joys and freedoms that poker used to have fade away as life away from the tables becomes more difficult.

Don't get me wrong, there are obv people who can do it, but like things like professional sports, how many people try to do it and how many people actually succeed?

I'm an ex-smoker and from my perspective you're 100% wrong. I don't preach at all.

Not sure what you're driving at here buddy.

By my count there are less than 10 actual pros that I recognize in my room that have been around since I started playing cash games seriously in 2010. And that's being generous.

My room is one of the largest in the US and is consistently the busiest in the country in terms of active to actual tables so it stands to reason there would be more who have survived the last 7 or so years. And yet, pros come and go like clockwork. Weird.

Hey pettrucci - how about a post from a dude that has made 7 figures gamboolin

who has never had a losing year

who has raised a family

who knows more pros that he can count who have also made 7 figures

most of em are out of the biz and are on to bigger and better things - those that are in the biz are doing insanely creative interesting stuff that is beyond my comprehension

Of all my gamboolin partners/buddies who I have known since the mid 90's I am by far the least successful. B/C I did NOT move on. Poker aint getting any easier. Going into those dumps day in and day out year in and year out is soul crushing - I do not care how much you like people...blah blah blah. Playing poker for a living is NOT fulfilling.

That being said - doing it as a part time money making hobby is fukken A ossum

Should be stickied imo

FWIW, Nate Silver made ends meet playing poker before he moved into sport/political analytics.

Also, Richard Nixon financed his first election campaign with the money he won in poker during the army.

Yeah, kinda look like we've come to the same "tight is right and even tighter is better" conclusions.

GI'llletyouknowhowitgoesinanothermeaningless1000ho ursG

I think this is key. If you truly are a winner and declare taxes you can invest a big part of your income into stuff like real estate or the local small business owner you play poker agaisnt. You can build a website or sell a product, whatever. There is a lot of stuff you can do for ''variance'' free income but it takes dedication and knowledge. If you fill your mind with only poker it will only get harder as time goes on imo.

I burnout out, I have played around 8 hours in 2017 and these were all in the last 3 weeks because I felt the urge to play again reading hand history here. What have I discovered? The main room I played in are raking more and are now charging for drinks (even water), my edge has gotten a lot thinner and it will keep getting thinner... but poker gave me a few things like a rent free life for the rest of my life if I so desire.

Given your humble beginnings you probably didn't view your ceiling for success as being all that high. I'm sure you have exceeded your goals already. However, if you are talented enough to make a living playing 2/5 then your ceiling is much much higher than what you can possibly make playing poker for a living.

BTW, i think this is a great game for young people as long as they have a long term plan. I've played with lots of 18 to 22 year old grinders over the years and there is no way these kids can make this sort of money outside of poker. For them it makes sense: grind poker, go to school, and live like a young baller, but eventually if they make good decisions they will move on to bigger and better things.

(i would be remiss if I didn't mention virtually every 18 year old I have played with has developed serious gambling issues in the pits or sports betting but that's a bit off topic).

I find #1 to be very rare. They do exist but I think most longterm pros are more #2 than #1 but just feel trapped in the profession.

If I turned pro I think overall it would be nice having the freedom, but it would generally be as simple as run good = feel great and run bad = everything is terrible. Overall though I think it would be pretty cool. Highest game we have here is 1/2 unfortunately so def not my best option

I don't think a lot of successful pros have that mindset. I think they key is having a balanced life. If poker is the only thing going on in your life, then obviously running bad is gonna feel bad.

June 2017 1/3 results:

Best month in a long time.. Almost broke even in first half surprisingly..

That's a lot of hours

heres mine its almost 5k hours

its a mix of 1/3, 2/5, 5/10 - mostly 2/5



my observation would be that it is can be challenging to maintain 10bb/hr for most people over thousands of hours. a lot of people i see have tons of bad habits including major tilt. but i think if you can manage to play smart 100% of the time its definitely attainable.

i had kind of a bad 600-1k hour stretch recently, at the 4k hour point i was at 11.5 bb/hr. this thread has a lot of fellows who post like 700 hour samples and its not very meaningful. but what can any of us say? when i played my first 700 hours i had many inaccurate assumptions about variance and sample size too.

That volume...

Did you mix in some 2/5? Cause it should be 13 bb/hr.

Sick graph! Looks really clean with no 10k downswings even over that huge sample.