Hi all,

My first post in this forum. I wanted to start this blog to document my journey of playing poker professionally.

A Little About Me and My Story
I'm a 25yo male, living in NYC. Up to this point in my life, I have had a very traditional upbringing. My family and I moved to the States from South Korea when I was 10 with the American Dream; we believed that with hard work, anything is possible. So I did. And I ultimately got recruited to play Division I soccer at an Ivy League Institution. Post college, I had various roles in strategy & finance for a Fortune 50 company and up until a few weeks ago, led operations for a startup that raised ~$13 million in seed.

I don't share all this to brag about myself. I share all this because I recognize that these are pretty solid accomplishments. Yet, ever since I stopped playing soccer seriously after college, I’ve felt lost and pretty unhappy. I've felt very little motivation and passion in my life. After thinking about this for a while, I've decided to drop it all and go all-in on poker. It’s the one thing in my life that I’m very passionate about and want to give this a go before it's too late. I realize the rigor and the difficulty of doing this full time. I know that I’m looking for my 1 outer on the river. But if there is any chance that I can do this full time, I decided I'd rather go for it than shy away from the fear of not getting there.

Current state as a poker player
Okay, at this point, you may be wondering whether I’ve even played poker. Starting around covid time, I’ve started to play MTTs semi-regularly on the side, mainly on ACR. I had a couple lucky binks and have been overall pretty profitable.



Recently, I joined BBZ Academy and started w/ lower in buy-ins (~$11-22) and my volume has been mostly coming from Global. Extremely small sample size, but it’s been a good start. This is my chart after a full week of grind.



Long term goals

• Be the goat. Sounds very cringe (even to myself) but if I’m going to do this, why not be the best.
• Bring poker to the mass. I believe that poker is one of the most beautiful games invented. For most, poker is simply gambling. I want poker to be brought to the mass and be appreciated globally. There is so much to learn about life from poker imo. I want poker players to be viewed as artists (I promise I'm done being cringe).

Short term goals

• Survive. I'm unfortunately stuck in this NYC lease until September (~2.2k/month). I want to be able to make enough to meet my expenses. I expect this to be brutal and would not be surprised if I don’t make nearly enough.
• Get better at the game quickly. Master the craft. I will be using lots of materials at BBZ to study and fixing leaks in my game. Formula will likely be:

Play a lot -> Observe strengths and weaknesses -> Get better by practicing leaks -> Iterate

• Produce content and build a community. I’m thinking about how to best approach this. On top of what I will be posting here, I want to document more about the journey and again, try to bring poker to the masses.

If you’re still here, I appreciate you. I know that I have a tough journey ahead, so I will take any advice or thoughts that people have.

I will do my best to document and share anything notable along the way. If there is one thing that I hope to do, I simply want to inspire others around me to believe that it is possible to live your dream and there’s never a better time than now.

just know
poker as a day job is brutal
donkaments even more so
variance is evil

well you're young & rich so why not,~

I fully expect this to be brutal. Have you done this full-time before? Would you recommend cash?

I am very grateful that I have the opportunity / luxury to do this. With that said, I will also say that if I don't make any money here, I will blow through pretty much all my savings by the end of this lease.

I've been full time for close to a year now
getting harder and harder every damn month
winrate is fine-ish, it's just the freaking stress, most days I want to bang my head against every wall
I play tough zoom cash games and find the variance impactful, with tournies it can really crush you because you can easily have 3-4 losing months in a row even if you're a decent winner. It's not super uncommon for solid T regs to have a losing year, think about how shitty that is. You go to work every day, do your thing well, stay positive and not only is there no paycheck at the end of the month, but you're down some. And then next month same **** happens.
Have you seen the variance calculator on prime dope? Google it and take a look. Don't want to bring you down or anything, just really know what you're getting into before throwing away a 6 figure/y job... at least decide what format you want to pursue first, study, get better, play for a while and then think again if you want to be full time. 1-2h a day is fun, having to constantly put in 5-6+ is tough.

This, AINEC.

I looked up an ACR MTT grinder whose ABI was well over $200 with net profits of over 250k. I forget his name but right in the middle of his graph was a year long downswing of 130k or so. I can’t imagine playing for a year, LOSING 130k and having the drive to climb out of it.

He did recover and had an upswing just as drastic as his down but my god the mental stress.

Important to keep in mind that it's not a one size fits all kind of thing. Playing tough games with a $200 ABI in big fields is going to be absolutely insane variance as mentioned. But someone playing full time volume at a low abi with a hopefully high roi will have way less variance. And then along with that if playing mostly global these are pretty small field mtt which again is way less variance. Full time volume at a low abi on global if you have a decent roi you shouldn't even have that many losing months tbh.

oh and research proper bankroll management for the format you want to play
for cash, it's at least 50 buy-ins to feel somewhat comfortable unless you briefly shot take higher with 20-30.
wouldn't be surprised if for mtts it's ~200 buy-ins , should prob be double that if you're relatively new to the game
not to mention you need to set some separate money aside that allows you to live for at least the first 6 months of going pro, so that you don't depend on winnings that might not be there
make no mistake, downswings are coming
GL

How hard will it be to reenter your field if you fail? That would be the most important thing to consider before quitting a good, high paying, job that you enjoyed.


If you truly want to make a living then live cash is the way to go. Much lower variance than MTTs and plenty of recs to make your money from. A good player can easily avg $50 an hr at 2/5nl, but it will require moving to an area with a thriving live poker scene (Texas, Florida, LA, Vegas, etc). You can still play some tourneys looking for the big score, but consistent winnings come from cash.


Personally, in your shoes, I would wait until your lease is up to quit your job, then move somewhere with a live scene. (Maybe that ship has sailed though) In the meantime, keep studying and improving and playing online in the evenings/weekends. You may even find that part time poker satisfies your competitive itch.

I cant imagine beating Global MTTs for enough to live in NYC. There just isnt enough volume available. The top MTT player I know on the site has 240k profit over 3 years, so thats barely enough.

if you second guessing at this point. I don't think its a good idea

My guess is that 0xslickric aspires to be a Jwin, Rampage hybrid.

I think your brand name with which to bring poker to the masses and spread the word of this most noble game, should be JayRamp.

Appreciate everyone's feedback. It seems like to summarize, everyone thinks I'm insane and that this isn't very smart. I see where you all are coming from and as I said in my initial post, I'm looking for my 1 outer on the river.

This is something I love doing and want to spend 24/7 on, so it's something that I will pursue until I can't. I'm not looking to or expect to make any significant amount of money for a while. My only focus is on dedicating time to this craft and getting better. I really appreciate everyone's feedback and will be taking everything to heart.

Will also be producing content around this so hopefully, that brings some sort of side income at some point. We will see.

Thank you guys again and will keep you all posted. Please keep the suggestions coming.

not second guessing just looking to hear about people's experiences and learnings

Those two are definitely my models I look up to. Hopefully, I can get there. JayRamp... that's not bad

First update on this forum

Today's +/-: -$169.59
2023: +$1,354.96

Look forward to the Thursday grind tomorrow. Will likely be studying a bit of toy games and BB play in the morning.

some real advice: do like 5k hands in gto wiz before hitting the tables..

Its seem to be like I' m talking to a friend is looking to a groceri store and after readings ome redit post he decide to open a restaurant.
Maybe you are a little bit too quick about it
I played SNG for a living 13-14 years ago and the best decision I took is having a plan B. If everything go wrong I could survive without taking poker money for a few months.
Also watching at the graph you showed, you know 1750 games you still have a chance to be a loosing players and didn't figure it out yet ? I'm not saying your are a loosing players, you have a very high chance to be one but you may run really hot. What I see is a breakeven players with 2 really great results.

I would suggest to make a side incoming (10-20 hours from something else, if you were making 100000K+ a year im pretty sure you can freelance something on the side) along with poker

I try to do 200-500 hands / day on GTOWizard. Thanks for the great advice

That graph is me just firing $215s and $109s on ACR when I was playing poker on the side for fun. I definitely see your point though and I 100% agree.

With that said, as I've stated, I rather just focus on this full time and see where it takes me. I'd rather fail fast than try to do things half way.

1/19/22 Update

• Another losing day. Frustrating one but I'm sure I will have a lot more of these
• Been focusing on BvB. Will be the focus for the rest of the week and weekend

Today +/-: -$206.97
2023: +$1,147.99

in your 20s the idea of playing poker for a living carries a lot of romanticism, but when you're into your 30s and beyond the realism sets in. if you're making like $100,000 a month then you're a champion of poker and it will all be worth it. but if you're grinding away in your underwear everyday for some average income, the disadvantages start to look bigger and bigger.

what are you gonna tell people in social situations when people ask "what kind of work do you do?"

also think about your parents and their social situations. if their friends ask them what their son does for work, what would they say?

and what about dating? girls are looking for someone with a stable job and income. most will lose all interest the moment they see "play poker for a living"

The point is, if you're cunning enough to make money with cash games then you would make more with something else. However, if you just have a huge nut for poker then try it, suffer the grind of cash games and forget tournies. If playing poker full time is so enjoyable that it ends up making up for lost wages, then could be worth it

Being young and screwing up your life is a right of passage, don't let these old jaded rubes discourage you from messing up your situation, and ending up like a turtle on its back bc life lessons or whatever

I played cash non stop for 4 years but then they closed my casino, I was really pissed off. But now I'm making way more money and play when I feel like which really takes the edge off

So if you're smart enough to win then have fun with that. You'll figure it out. If you lose then go thru the never ending graveyard of blogs here and laugh

good luck!