This mathematically isn't really possible. Some may know better, but I don't think these games even run regularly. Plus you'd likely be playing against mostly top pros with some mixed in biz executes. So even assuming you have a 10 BB/hr WR against heavy weighted pro table, which I think most agree is extremely good and assuming you play 40 hours a week every week in a year would get you just over a million, but factoring in Uncle Sam gets you closer to $700k. Realistically, you'll be a small BB winner, like most others at the table, making in the low-6's if your really good.

I thought our Hero would be very happy with 150k+ a year and is not aiming for 1 million a year.

I honestly mean when I say go for it. Crush it. Follow your dreams. But your basing your thoughts around a super super small sample size and some rando youtuber. Before you decide to quite everything, I highly recommend pursing your career, while playing poker on side and think about quiting in your later 20’s. This gives you several important advantages. 1) You will likely be building a decent BR by them through your day job. And 2) You create a natural hedge for yourself. If you get the wrong side of variance, you can dip your toe back in the corporate world for steady money as you build your BR back up and increase your skills.

Late 20’s is not 65 years old. My point is you can afford to be patient. By quitting now with what seems like not a ton of poker experience at the stakes you want to play (beating up your friends at your home game does not count) and little BR to absorb variance, you have an extremely small chance of making it. HOWEVER, following some form of advice I outlined above or others on here I think greatly increases your chance of making it.

You can follow your dreams, but you don’t have to do it recklessly. Take a disciplined, thoughtful, goal-oriented approach and I think you increase your Life BB/hr by a tremendous amount IMO.

idk maybe, but he said this, " want to play 25/50 one day, make millions of dollars, and right now in my life is the perfect time to take an actual shot at this"

There is a 25/50 and 50/100 NL game that runs semi regularly (twice a week?) where I play. I know a couple of the players. Trust me that nobody is winning anywhere near 10BB/hr in that game. Beating that game for 3BB/hr would be incredibly good but that is a game where you will truly never know your actual win rate due to massive variance and the fact that it would take you many years to get 2000+ hrs in.

Turtol,

Are your parents supportive of you pursuing poker for a career? Will you be able to stay there for free while playing poker full time?

If the answer to both questions is yes, then there will probably never be a better time in your life to give it a shot.

Keep in mind though, realistically, you will probably fail. You are getting a lot of well meaning advice in this thread from people who understand that. As long as you are mentally prepared for failure, then I say go for it. Get a job first and build up your bankroll. Don't chase your losses and don't take on debt that you will regret later in your life. There will probably never come another time in your life where you can take a shot where you can fail and not cause a lot of distress to you and/or others.

But if you are going to do it, do it seriously. Keep records. Keep a poker bankroll separate from your life roll. Take notes. Study hands in your down time. Post hands and participate in discussions in this forum. Manage your tilt. Understand when you are not on your A game and understand what causes you to not be on your A game. Work to fix those leaks. Constantly be plugging all of your leaks. Keep a strict budget. Don't spend lavishly when you are on an upswing. Figure out exactly what your monthly cost of living will be and try not to spend more than that. Figure out how much you have to play to cover your monthly nut plus grow your bankroll, but understand that you need to have the bankroll to cover the inevitable variance.

I'd recommend getting a job and saving up $10,000-$15,000 before you start this seriously. If you buckle down, it shouldn't take long since you have no expenses.

Good luck.

Yeah to build up a roll for poker, could take as little as 3 months depending how aggressive you are at making money outside of poker. As well as how much you want to feel good enough to give it a real shot.

I am always a big fan of non full-time and weekend warrior.

This is good advice. If you fail debt free at a young age, all is good. Nh, gg. If you fail at a young age and have racked up a large amount of debt....no buon.

+1 to the "youtube boom!"

Pokeron youtube has absolutely blown up and its getting people hyped about live poker. I think it's having a great effect on the game, despite the fact that a lot of those vids "talk strat" (people are still bad and don't know how to apply it)

Or running marginally good to awful for 2-4 months and getting nowhere. It's great when you go on a run and pick up 20BI in a month. That just doesn't happen all the time.

I *always* leave the poker room/casino muttering to myself and looking pissed off. Less likely they roll the guy that just lost his ass in the parking garage than the grinning idiot.

Remember, you're only as old as the woman you're banging.

In regard to the whole extended BR / going pro / job discussion. I'd suggest getting a low impact job, making some money, and playing part time for a while at peak hours. See how that goes for a year or two and re-evaluate.

Lol because you can grind 5kNL for 40 hrs a week while 10bb/100 wr...

It sounds like you're thinking along decent lines. Having made the poker-for-a-living jump before, here's some post-mortem advice:

I jumped into playing poker for a living wildly under-rolled (~30BI). Do not - do *not* - do this. It worked out for me in the medium-term, but there were periods of absolute misery during downswings that I can't even begin to describe.

If you're playing for a living, you don't want to be playing with your life-roll. You want to be playing with a cushy bankroll that you can withdraw from every 3 months or so to create a modest income.

You shouldn't even consider playing poker full-time for a living until you have a 6 months to a year of living expenses in savings as a life-roll, are a proven, sustainable winner in your games (which is not hard to achieve, but requires time and practice and patience, and frankly there are a lot of people who are not cut out for it), and have a bankroll that can sustain serious variance.

Having gone back to school for a B.S. in computer science after playing poker professionally, I'll say that I enjoy poker a lot more now that I work full-time as a software engineer. it's magical and stable and profitable and not playing a negative-sum game for a living. I've just gotten back into making a modest side income playing live, but the game is *so* much easier and more enjoyable to play when I don't stress about downswings. If I were to do it over, I can't say I'd play it differently, but I'd give a long hard think to investing in a skill.

I don't regret playing poker for a living for a few years. It gave me a lot of freedom. I do regret not setting myself up properly for it before I started.

This is the nut line, imo.

GwellplayedG

This is faulty thinking. In the finance world its called mental accounting. You shouldn't compartmentalize money. Sum LR and BR. They are the same. Money is fungible.

Nothing wrong with compartmentalising money for poker players.

A professional poker player needs a risk-management strategy that will leave them free to pay their basic life expenses (food, rent, tuition, mortgage, insurance, car payment, loan repayments, whatever) and probably find temporary employment outside of poker if they lose their roll. Feel free to suggest alternatives.

What I am saying is this.

When I was an investment consultant a few years ago, we had a client come in that wanted to open an account with us for a quarter million to "gamble". He had another larger account with another firm that was his "safer portfolio" that he needed to rely on for investment income. He wanted to leverage up and take hefty risks with our account. As much as I loved to have his money, I tried to explain to him it was incorrect to think your other account has completely separate and low risk while your taking huge risky bets here. You most look at it as one portfolio and not two because you are taking more risk than you can afford. One expected return and one standard deviation, not two separate. I told him if he wanted to take risky bets here, he would have to lower risk in his other account to keep his risk tolerance aligned to his goals.

Certainly not an apples to apples comparison, but I do believe it apply's here too.

I'm a 40-something white dude, 2 teenagers, married 23 years. I've been in IT for 20 years, and have made over 6 figures for well over half my career and am comfortably heading towards the freedom to retire by 55. I kinda scratch my head an kids (at least in the USA) who have the skill set to crush live poker, but chose to use those skills to eek out a living in what can be a soul-crushing profession. You guys could easily crush IT for 6 figures, especially in today's economy. Technology changes so rapidly, and it's a rare thing among general society to find people with the temperament to not only adapt to the changing landscape, but to thrive in it. The qualities that allow a poker player to adapt to not only situational play, but to general trends in the poker economy at large are the same qualities that would have you rapidly out-pacing your peers.

I'm not against playing as a profession, but it's the cart before the horse, imo. The opportunity cost of putting a potential career on hold to pursue poker is far greater than putting poker on hold (or relegating it to a part time hobby) while you establish your career.

There's a difference between gambling and then playing poker professionally as your main income. The notion of a bankroll is important. Whether you have a 10k bankroll and a 10k liferoll and go from there or a 20k liferoll that doubles as a bankroll, really doesn't matter much.

Are you free for a prop bet in 2018?

Paging Squid.

It's not about money. It's about financial freedom. And they are so very different. I'd take 70k a year as a pro poker player over 100k a year in IT, and that's coming from someone who did 3 years of IT at university. I don't look at poker as a means to "earn a living" but more as a way to escape the rat race and refusing to subscribe to the traditional 9-5 as a lifestyle choice.

You lose this bet so bad it's not even close man .

A good number of people do it that I know personally in Vegas including myself .

I've made 10k in a week before playing 2/5. (1k to 1500 max)

I agree with you that people clearing 80k are <1% absolutely.

But if you put a guy like Alec Torelli or Bart Hanson, Doug Polk, or any low stakes+ NLH player who has successfully transitioned to the live game, i.e. someone who understands NLH on a very deep level, put them in a deep 2/5, tell them to play 50 hours a week, and even with neutral variance, they can clear 100k. I don't think you understand how big standard deviation in terms of $ is for a 2500 hour year for a 2/5 player. Someone who plays 2500 hours a year with a 6bb/hr win rate who simply runs well for 2500 hours can clear 100k v easily.

Note I'm not saying making 100k at 2/5 is v easy. I'm saying it could be for the right person, not gen pop.

I have no interest in a dick swinging contest .

But this guy is definitely wrong about it being impossible . Tough sure but definitely attainable.

Again think what you want makes no difference to me . Fact is there are dozens of people that do it ever year if not more

The variance makes it more likely for people to have a 100k year, not less.