Seems like it is becoming more and more common for young people not wanting to have a 9-5 job. Not just between poker players, but as a whole.

EDIT: OP's SN??

this

not sure what you're trying to achieve with this post

inorite

No matter what you do, you must have health insurance. At OP's age, it's only like $90 for good coverage and he could get catastrophic coverage for like $50 or less. There is no excuse.

The things you bring up are valid. I've been self-employed my whole life and you must treat yourself as the employee of your business - no matter what the endeavor - give to yourself what you'd expect a good employer to give to you. There are various packages he could set up, but that's his main problem - with his roll on life-support it's kind of tough to do things the right way.

run for your life kid

3bb/100 for 25nl kinda sucks lol

sup OP,

I have several tens of times more of a roll than you and am probably much better at poker than you as well, and I still wouldn't even think about doing this. Jobs suck, but the games are dead, and poker will be worse than a job if you have to grind for 60 hours a week.

Either way you would be better off working, getting better at poker, and using your job money for your roll than having to grind the micros just to pay the rent.

GL tho

good luck man, its a hard road but success its up to you

Nothing wrong with trying to go pro - esp when you have nothing to lose but time.

I doubt you'll play more than 4-6 hours a day though, so factor that in.

Even at 100nl, you can earn a decent living.

gogogo

Good luck with it! I'm trying to improve my game at cash as I used to play sit and gos. I've got a full time job that I start in a month as I've just finished university. I'm going to try and play a lot but I didn't want to risk everything so I want to work whilst playing a lot of poker. Having an income not based on my poker results will help me become a better player as I won't just be results!

I hope all goes well for you!

Good luck with this.

This.

Think people are just being honest. Only the top percentile make a decent living playing online poker.

On another note, don't forget that if you've earned $2k for 12 months straight you will owe taxes on it. In the 15% bracket that's $3,600. And, if you file as a pro you need to pay SE taxes.

blogspot is cool

You only got a 20% chance so the odds are you cant do it.
I read a book recently "winning secrets of poker". On page 33 in the sklansky interview he shockingly says that the average player will never be a winning player. He goes on to say that Even if you study and are industrious and do everything right you have a 20% chance v the 1% chance for other non studious players of being a winning player. Not enough memory, IQ etc.., he then goes on to compare it to playing golf and trying to get to being a 77 player. It made me realise hes right even if you are booked up, play mechanically excetra you can still fail due to more psycholical factors:

Bankroll (Too little) so variance knocks you out
Memory, can you remember spocific players and how they play thier hands (Even years later like TJ Cloutier).
Do you have the killer instinct to make your oppoenents "pay" (Maximise your value)
Money management, so you dont move up too fast etc
Stamina (WIll to win) I remembr going down $350 in 4/8 at orleans in 6 hours and continuing to play for the next 18 hours straight and ending up $60.
Table and opponent choice (soft tables, weak opponents)
DICIPLINE I once saw one of the best poker pros play maybe 6-10 hands in 5 hours, fold 4 of those post flop, go down to the river twice lose one hand and split one pot in 10/20 Omaha hilo. He was just running cold , but showed incrediuble discipline in spite of losing 8/10 hands he played.
And we could go on, Advanced strategy, and book knowledge is just the start.....

Last example, Ive seen several WSOP final table players (Frankie o dell, PLO European players, Razz master (WHo started with K up and beat two other players showing A and 3 and gave a running commentry about how he was going to win the hand), Shifty (Horse wsop finalist) and none of them were playing according to the book so there appears to be knowledge out there thats not in the books yet, sort of NL tourney knowledge pre Harringtons books. Makes me realise Sklansky is proably right.

the move of honor, baby

if you really want it, then just do it, dude

OP hasn't posted in a while, hopefully all of the negativity didn't scare him off. Dude you are only 20, maybe 21 by now, do whatever you want. Live at home as long as you want and get a job when you have to. You are bright enough to make plans and chart your progress, etc all of that. What I would suggest is to wipe off all of that data, stop all of that crazy multi-tabling and find a casino, start grinding in live 1/2 cash games and some tourneys. Do this for as long as you can, and you will assess whether you want to go pro or not and then you can build up your bankroll and take a crack at it, right now consider this time, 'learning'. Then try to figure out where your strength really is, live cash games, or live tourneys, or online play, and your stakes, etc. and don't be too eager to move up in stakes, once you dominate a level, stay there and dominate and dominate, stay under the radar, building your bankroll, the biggest mistake anyone makes is moving up too fast, or at all even, you eventually have to move up to see bigger returns, but if you are dominating, dominate. You don't want to play against better players, if you can make a living by becoming a better player than your competition. And if you are hungry for competition or recognition, get in big tourneys.

Keep us posted on your progress & GL

there is now a section for this kind of thread !

+1 to this.

Like he said ignore everyone telling you its impossible its not yes its going to be rough and you will have to take your hits lick your wounds and learn from your mistakes thats how life works and thats how poker works. You have to try and fail before you try and succeed there are few people who can jump into poker and just dominate it everyone has a period of learning.

Gl to you sir and i hope you make it

Live the dream OP. You will have a hard time. You will probably never succeed. It does not matter. You will at least gain experience.
GL to you!

Yes, this might be a good thread for Poker Goals & Challenges.

Shrug, I'll throw in my $.02:

First off, rethink your goals. Playing poker professionally isn't something you really aspire to do, it's something that you kind of fall into. It's such a sick lifestyle/mindset that very few "normal" people can handle it. Most of the pros I know are people who just....can't not do it. Not in a compulsive way, but in a way that playing poker is the only thing that makes sense to them, and they give it a passion and drive that they just can't muster for any other job.

Yes, that was super corny and hackney and I kinda hate myself for writing it, but it's true.

If it is something you want to pursue, then you should probably ditch the long term (and most of the short term) goals. It's a good idea, but when putting it into practice it's going to **** you up more often then not. Just the basics of poker lend themselves to such unimaginable variance that even month long 100k+ hand goals can easily be skewed off of what your true win rate is. Often what happens is, you set a goal for yourself ($x in y days), and you work hard at it and you don't get there. Then you get frustrated because you put in the time and you feel you should be there. So you either start getting a negative mindset, which makes you play worse, or you try to push yourself and end up playing more tables, more hours, higher limits, which also makes you play worse.

Your goal should be that you want to play as much as you can while still playing optimally. At the end of whatever period you allot yourself to try it out, look at your stats. See if your bankroll is where you want it to be. Analyze your allin EV to see how that is affecting your bottom line. Look at your win rates in different games and see if you feel you can make a reasonable rate to live off of for the future.

16-20 tables seems like a lot. When you try moving up to a new limit, maybe start off with less to try to judge how the new level plays differently from the level you were used to.

If you have the time in this experimental period, consider trying out grinding different game types. Some people just acclimate themselves better to different games, and you prob won't know unless you try it. If you've always played cash, maybe try out MTTs for a few days, and then SNGs for a few days. See if it makes you feel better/worse/the same. See if your results are better/worse/the same. Obviously you won't be able to get an accurate big picture/long term view from a few days of playing, but you'll be able to get a good feel for if a new game is something you'd like to pursue. At the very least, it'll allow you to add some variation to your day-to-day schedule, which is always good.

Don't play every waking hour. You'll want to, especially once you start making good money. Fight that feeling. You'll burn out super fast and poker will be the last thing you'll want to do. Is it better to play 14 hours a day for 3 months or 6 hours a day for 3 years? Set reasonable time constraints for yourself and plan those around the other things in your life. The longer you have poker as "the fun thing you look forward to doing", the better. Also, when scheduling out how long you want to play every day, set aside some time in there to study. It doesn't have to be indepth, but it should be planned out so you have structure. It could be looking over your PT/HEM stats and looking for leaks in your game or making notes on how regs play, it could be watching someone else's game to see what they are doing, it could be finding a poker buddy at your level to talk over hands with, or participating in hand/strat discussion on here. Even if it's just going over hands/situations in your head, thinking about poker while you aren't playing poker is going to help you.

^Great post. Thanks for that.

I want to be the next Phil Ivey. No I don't. I don't want to travel circuits, engage in tournaments with a rep to keep, and bust out the first day.

I want to be Chris Ferguson. No I don't, no interest at this point in time in investing in Website (but he is one of my favorite pros - but he's not keeping up on changes to improve his game).

I want to be Tom Durr. No I don't. Mega tabling millions of hands to play at nosebleed stakes is not my goal. I don't need a sponsorship with tons of commitments.

I want to be me. Yes I do. Build my tolerance and game to my level, get a few bennies, make a little money - and MAYBE a WSOP type thing MIGHT be in my future. I also want repeal of the UIGEA.

That's all.

honestly, that is a pretty sick graph for 16 tabling. if you can do that at NL25 you will be on your way. you should be thinking abc abc abc. almost no bluffing, only 3bet premium hands, dont get fancy. if everyone is floating your cbets, dont cbet without the goods. players at this level will not figure it out.