Quote:
Originally Posted by Turtol
I really want to take a big shot at playing live poker. My main problem is lack of a bankroll, I'm nearly done a year of travelling and when I get home I want to build a bankroll ($4,000) and take a shot at playing full time. Does anyone have tips for someone who is 23 years old to build up a bankroll? I have the luxury of living with my parents rent free as long as I'm pursuing something.
I was thinking some sort of job not at home for a few months to make tons of money to support my living expenses aswell as have a $4,000 br to play 1/2 (I wouldn't mind working a weekend job for living expenses with $4,000 to play with.
Here are a few skills I have, card dealer (croupier) can deal most table games and very high limit baccarat, cocktail bartender, currently with the Canadian armed forces aswell on a year off.
Someone suggest being a croupier on a cruise ship which actually sounds pretty good, are there any other jobs that anyone can think of to just grind out a bunch of money? Some jobs out of the ordinary where money is the only goal.
Or would people advocate a full time job near a casino and just take 2 buyin shots every other week?
Sorry if this is the wrong forum to put this!
I really want to build up a bankroll as I think my skill level would be sufficient to play 2/5 with a decent win rate (basing this off that one young youtuber that plays 2/5 for a living and his hands all seem quite poorly played, yet still turns a profit.)
E/ the YouTube I meant is Brad Owen
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.