Dochrohan makes some good points. While I wouldn't say that someone needed to be a sicko skillswise, it does help a lot.

Where in the world, outside of the US, can you get regular 5/10+ action? Is it London? Or only in Macau? Elsewhere?

And I don't mean like 50/100+, I mean 5/10, 10/25 mainly.

Great job! Is this in California?

If it's PLO then there are bigger games than that in Sydney every day often 25/50 and bigger

We have 2/5/10 Holdem running every day and 5/10/20 often on weekends albeit that disappeared

Not really intertested in PLO. Where is the 2/5/10 and 5/T/20 game you mention? Star? Know if any run at Crown?

Most major cities in Europe.

Naw, Philly, pretty much all Sugarhouse. Just 10 or so hours of 2/2 5card PLO at Horseshoe Baltimore

In the 512 hours I've put in at 1/3 NL in my room this year, I've not once seen a 2/5 NL game run. I've heard of these mystical 5/10 NL games; are they like unicorns?

Gevenifunicornsdoexist,I'massumingthey'llgoextinct fastonceyouslaughterthefirstoneG

$1/3 starts getting close to $2/5 in terms of stack and sizes and action level, particularly if it has a $400 or $500 BI cap. So it can be really hard to run both $1/3 and $2/5 in the same room with smaller player pools as they're so similar. The difference between $1/2 and $2/5 seems more pronounced and you can get them both to run a *little* easier.

Changing our lowstakes game from 1/2 NL $200 BI to a 1/3 NL $300 BI effectively killed the 2/5 NL game. It still runs sporadically once in a blue moon.

More the point I was trying to make is that if you're banking on a 5/T game to be available, my guess is that might be a lot rarer than you think. Course, I have zero experience in other poker climates, so I might be talking out my ass, but everyone else can chime in with how often 5/T games go in their local part of the world if they think otherwise.

GcluelessbigstakesnoobG

Gobbledeygeek, I am assuming you have never been to Vegas or LA.

During certain times of year, 5/10 isn't even close to the biggest game running in rooms like Aria or Bellagio.

LA probably has 15 or more 5/10 tables running at any time of day if you include all of the games running at Commerce, Bike, Hollywood Park.

Have you ever used the Bravo app?

You've named 2 spots on the planet.

Any others I'm missing?

The basic point is that someone brought up the assertion that "all" you have to do have a shot at ~$200K a year is sit down in a 5/T game regularly. My guess is that there's not exactly a lotta places on the planet that have those stakes running all the time.

But, I'll admit ignorance on this as I'm basing this on my very closeted experience in my market. Maybe everyone else's market is completely different than mine.

GcluelesshighstakesnoobG

There is 5/10 in the east coast in Philly and DC (Parx, Maryland Live) as well as Florida (Hard Rock Tampa, Hollywood Florida, Isle Casino)

Of course 5/10 wont run in less populated areas of the country.

Just as an aspiring actor or singer wont want to live in Iowa, the same holds true for a professional poker player.

5T hardly ever runs at Tampa hard rock fwiw.

FWIW, the notion was that if you're an aspiring actor, you can make it if you work hard.

People are pointing out the fact that there are only few spots in the world where that could even come true.

And your response that people should check out LA or NYC is kind of obvious but totally besides the point.

I don't mean to take the winrates discussion off on a tangent, and I certainly don't claim anyone can make anywhere close to 200k a year in live poker.

But, it should be common knowledge for any aspiring pro poker player to want to make a respectable living, he/she should move to a big market city.

There's nothing wrong with playing 2/5 in Pittsburgh or some mid tier city, but the game wont run frequently enough or be sustainable, so you might as well just move somewhere where the action is constant. If you stay somewhere small, you can only really bank on playing 1/3 as a profitable hobby with no potential to move up in stakes.

Also, another side note, making a living off of rich whales or well-off recreational players doesn't feel nearly as bad as grinding down broke degens that buy in for $100 in a 1-2 game.

+infinity

This is what I have right now. I get to play 10-15 hours of poker/week and I work 40 hours/week at my job that I enjoy (I went to school for 2 years to get this job). I find that I play much better in those 10-15 hours than any 10-15 hour stretch when I was playing 40+ hours a week of poker, and I actually enjoy the poker hours I put in!

10/10, would recommend.

I play in a room where 2/5 is the minimum stakes, and 5/10 runs 3-4 times a week, often starting on Friday and wrapping until Sunday. During big events, like tournaments or something similar, there will be a few 10/25 games, and one 25/50 game but I'm talking like once or twice a year.

This is in Niagara Falls, ON, Canada. FWIW it's probably the worst run/worst for treating poker players room in NA, but the action is really good sometimes.

Would love to see the "real life WR thread" ... some much needed perspective @"200k jobs" in the real world.

This.

We would have at least two and probably here games 3-4 times a week with buy ins over 2k. Same in our other major city

Then there are private games running all over the place that you just wouldn't know about if you weren't in the scene - they will exist in your market.

And....to play mid stakes poker, you need to be prepared to be a small business owner...move to follow games and even players - change cities, follow tournament series, cultivate action create home games etc. the bigger games are way more organic than just 'show up at local room and put your money down at the biggest available game'

Two high stakes pros here rented a private restaurant room for three weeks in a casino in another city during a tournament series and hosted whales and built games for them. He provided all the food and the dealers and they had full time waitresses providing free drinka

I don't disagree with this. Although, like other posters have mentioned, landing 200k a year jobs ain't exactly the easiest thing to do in the real world.

I am probably one of the minority of people out in the real world where being a professional poker player is actually a +EV life move compared to working in a job. I belong to the millennial generation and I really didn't start to get my act together in life until I had already graduated with a worthless degree.

Agree that playing 40+ hours a week ain't all that fun, but options are somewhat limited.

Ironically, the discipline involved with being a successful pro has probably put me leaps and bounds ahead of my peers in terms of emotional intelligence, hard work, understanding of probabilities and opportunity cost, dealing with adversity, etc. Sadly, it's pretty hard to convey this to respectable employers on a CV.

Do you guys think it's possible for a full time player to log 2500 hours in a year?

Of course it is. Most people would probably autopilot for 1000 of it though

With a short commute, games that run every day with decent action, and eating meals in the casino? Yes. Maybe.

That's 50 hours per week for 50 weeks a year. So if you were putting in 8 hour sessions 6 days a week you'd only need a little more to hit it. I don't think that would be easy, or too much fun. And I think the lack of time away from the game to recharge, and away from the table to read/study would hurt your performance at the table.

I doubt that playing 2500 hours would really net you that much more than 2000 hours with a little more time working off table.