The $700 in my pocket is a literally accurate statement, yes. We closed on our house in July and we moved into it empty of anything--no furniture, no dishes, nothing, because all our stuff was back in Virginia and we could not afford to go back there. It was a few months before I was able to win enough at the tables for us to go back to Virginia and haul our stuff here.

I didn't make a thread about it, because all I did was play. Eventually, I think it was after about two years, my wife found a job. But for the first two years, all we lived on came from the winnings I was able to make (and that was also during some of the worst run bad ). So, yeah, it has been a struggle.

But that was my whole point of mentioning what a struggle it was. We slept on the floor for a month before we had a spare $200 to go buy a cheap ass bed. We ate Ramen and comped pastrami sandwiches. And we both agree that we'd do the last 4 years all over again rather than be miserable with 8 times as much money, like we were back in Virginia.

Which is why I would never presume to tell another person "don't go pro." There are tons of ways to be happy, and ime, they dont include "making as much money as possible." For us, for example, there has been enormous satisfaction in surviving absurd levels of adversity and managing to avoid touching that retirement nest egg.

Nobody knows better than Johnny buzz what will give him satisfaction in life. So if he thinks happiness is taking a huge pay cut to grind, then that's what he should do. But, like everything else, I think he should be smart about it.

One thing I should mention that I haven't is that my wife and I first started talking about moving here in 2005, I quit practicing law in 2008 and we didn't move here until 2011. Some of the reasons for the delay were a daughter in college, looking after my dad in Virginia, we recognized the real estate bubble here in Vegas and waited for it to burst, and stuff like that. So we did exercise the patience I am encouraging buzz to exercise.

If I learned anything from this post it is to never pay your taxes early. Black Friday was April 15th, 2011. The tax deadline that year was Monday April 18th. Eeeeeek

So, don't pay it and face back taxes or prosecution?


Also, mpethy, were you not in the service long enough to receive a pension?

Nah, I only did one tour as an enlisted guy back in the day.

The fact that the money was seized (confiscated w/e you want to call it) had no relevance to the fact that it was still due by 4/15. Paying it "later" or not paying it at all would have simply brought forth interest and penalties in addition to the tax.

Remember the tax was generated based on income earned in calendar 2010. Just so happened that the event occurred so close to Tax Day.

Very cool attitude and story mpethy

Hi guys!

I play $2/$3 live at a local casino where they rake 10% capped at $10 with a $5 "time charge" once every hour. I am generally top 2 or 3 player at a 9 handed table, playing a very straight forward ABC style with minimal bluffs and max aggression. I'm winning $50 p/h over a lol sample of 200 hours. I am considering playing full time 5 days a week 10 hours per day. Given the skill level plus rake what is a realistic win rate for said game? FYI I have played a lot more in this casino and other venues that's just my logged hours over the past 2 months. Thanks in advance!

I highly doubt he is actually making six figures. The average starting salary in finance is $40-50K and a Financial Analyst II only makes on average $65K. Unless he is an investment banker living in New York, which is highly unlikely, or somehow more successful than 95% of the population of mid-twenties people in finance, his claim of having a six figure job with great benefits sounds a lot like those my winrate is 25 BB/hr brags.

That is a tough rake to beat. You did not mention anything about the buy-in structure, but I am going to assume it is 100bb. I would guess that for a top 2 or 3 player your winrate would be something like 10$ an hour. A player who is one of the best in the player pool (aka almost always best player at any table) could probably make something like 20 or 25, but that is for a very good player (who at that point should be playing 2/5 or higher)

Does anyone here think Phil Galfond or Ivey could make a nice living in this game with the rake vs. the top 8 players on 2+2 at the table with them all the time?

I highly doubt it. But I don't know how to crunch the numbers.

I'm a conservative tipper & due to variance, I've thrown ~15% of winnings to the dealers.

But then I don't play deep stack poker, as I get up once my stack gets to $800 & several players at the table can hurt me in one hand.

There's a lot of variables you'd have to define here to give anyone a reasonable chance of answering this. I'll assume by Phil Galfond or Ivey you mean a player who will play with world class skill in the game, and by the top 8 players on 2+2 you mean players who will be thinly edged out by the world class player. Let's assume a living is $20/hour. They'd have no chance of getting there. Profits in live poker come from massive mistakes due to the lack of volume. Even though the player is world class, if his edges are thin it would be difficult for him to make much at all with such low volume at such low stakes. With that rake though a world class player may not even be a winner under those conditions.

Just to clarify competition is very soft & as said I definitely have an edge on 75% of any given table. Also there is no tipping (Australia). $100-$300 Cap can play deep depending on night/dynamic but average stack is usually around the 90-150 BB.

The top 8 players on 2p2 all make 10-25 BB/hour, Galfond and Ivey would need to be the fish.

Yes of course, but it seems he could have really used that money after Black Friday. I would much rather have paid penalties and interest and dealt with the IRS when I got back on my feet rather than trying to grind poker on a $700 life roll.

Ok. However, if it takes playing 50 hrs a week to make the wage you want, how healthly will you be in 2 years?

How are you going to eat right & get the exercise? Do you live close by?

I know a grinder ~28 yrs old, who, when he was playing in the house games 10 years ago, weighed at least 50lbs less than he does today.

I know another grinder, who has never had a job, quit college, played poker in house games since he was 14 & now, 10 years later, in the local casinos, he wears nothing but oversized sweatshirts of some kind to hide his excess weight.

I'd rather get a p/t job that requires physical activity & play poker p/t. At least that way, I'd get some exercise on a daily basis.

But then, for me, after 100 weeks of playing poker * 50 hrs pr week, I'd be sick of poker. And that's with 2 weeks vacation a year.

Plus, where's the time to continually work on your game away from the table?

Plus, how large a pool of players do you have? I ran really good the 1st 10 weeks [avg 25 hrs per week] I started playing in the local casino. Really freakin' good. And not because I was getting hit over the head with the deck. Then they figured me out.

You will become their target. They will work together as a team, discussing how you play and play cautiously until they've got you pegged. The regulars will anyways.
1 or 2 will try & establish a rapport. Invite you to dinner & then steer the conversation towards poker strat after talking sports, etc.
Then they'll share the info with their real friends.

They aren't going to roll over & hand their money over to you 50 hours a week. If nothing else, they just won't sit at your table.

Yeah, no one beats a live low stakes game for long before the regulars organize a committee to put a stop to it.

THIS! LOL... Appreciate the advice but please don't digress on your conspiracy theory's.

I know you were being facetious, but my poker room has a small pool of Regs & some real degens that stick together. Avg # of tables during the weekday b4 5pm is five. That may increase to 8 tables by 9pm.

So, once you've become a Reg & they have history on you, you've got to be at a table with a number of Recs/Fish/Loose players who don't know what they're doing. Then you've usually got 3 Regs trying to feed off of them along with you & you've got to angle around them.

It's a tough world in a small fish bowl............especially when your game is average.

I don't think the Star $2/$3 game is beatable for more then about $15 per hour. Yes no one knows how to play but the rake is just to large and way to many short stacks to get a larger winrate then this.
I would put in way more hours before you decide to go pro in this game. Yes its awesome to crush for 200 hours and I did the same thing but then came a 300 hour stretch where I flopped a set twice out of 82 pocket pairs and the hourly rate took a huge hit.

The game is 10 handed and the pots are so multiway that its hard to do anything except wait for premium hands, and trust me at 50 hours a week the amount of card dead times will really mess with your mind.

Why would you discuss strat with anyone in your pool you don't trust?

Of course the regs will stop paying you off if you play like a nit. But now you adjust and use your image to run them over. Exploit their limp/folds pf, barrel the turn if they give you too much credit, float them IP, bluff and bluff raise them, play your draws more aggressively, make more cheap stabs at pots, make more ''squeeze'' raises pf to buy the pot.

I don't know, but they do. They fall into an unexpected trap. I watched one of the scummy regs at my room, who couldn't win against 1 guy whom I'd never seen, move to the seat to his left just so he could chum up to him.

The guy was watching some sport that I know this scum reg has no interest in, yet he acted interested & tried to strike up a conversation with him. It didn't work, but the guy he was trying to angle was in his 40s.

Pipedreamer101 sounds like a youngster, since he's talking about taking on poker f/t 50 hrs a week after 200 hours of results. I was just giving him a heads up. Maybe I'm wrong & he's 45 yrs old, been playing 25+ years & just moved into the area & found a sweet poker room.

Nits are easy to figure out. They are tight-passive players who prefers to avoid confrontations. They prefer to avoid big pots without having the nutz and do not like to gamble with creativity.

A Reg doesn't need to trade notes with a few of his buddies to figure him out.

Wow, I had no idea things were so tight. Glad you haven't had to touch your nestegg.

Gcan'timaginethestressofdependingonthisgameforaliv ingG

Solid poast mpethy. I can remember details of your transition from other threads but didn't realize the challenge of the last four years. Good to hear you're in a better place now.

Shouldn't come as a surprise that regs prefer to win off strangers than each other.

They will do little things like getting out of way, not squeezing, checking down with nutted hands, and so forth.

It is very hard to beat a group of regs.

People posting an hourly followed by "I know, I know lol sample size," is ridiculous. If it's an lol sample size then don't post it and expect us to give you guidance based on it.