Why is it not sustainable?

Even if you were to play like 20 hours a week max of say 2/5 i still think you can make 1500-2k usd a week that's if you crush which isn't that hard if you beat ssnl/like 25nl

you wanna do that with a gf? With kids? You wanna get another job after doing that ever?

Do you think you'll stay ahead of the curve for 40 years?

Plastic elephant is the only one who gets it imo

i feel like people in this thread are just assuming the online 'pros' that make 30k a year are content with that and aren't trying to improve and move up for a better salary. like sure if you're hard stuck making min wage for years then poker is not for you but i think a lot of people have bigger ambitions

also if you are crushing 200zone online (even though it is down syndrome ignition) u are basically guaranteed 100-150k a year live imo

guaranteed 100-150k a year live? Most places these days run very few games above 2/5nl and when they do run they usually are either not that soft or they are private games which are very hard to get into. A solid live pro that is actually putting in the hours is prob on avg making 50-60k ev. There are obv some making more but generally they are getting in these soft bigger games or living in a place that has a decently soft and regularly occurring 5/10-10/20 game. Which there aren't even many of those places left.

fmp

soft is relative. to somebody crushing 200nl online, most live lineups are going to be soft

also if you are a 'solid live pro' and you don't want to relocate to a place that actually hosts stakes/games you want to play for a massive ev increase then you are embarrassing. one of the perks of playing live poker full time is the freedom it provides to do whatever you want. unless you have kids or something you should not keep yourself stuck in low ev 2/5 games because of where u live

live and online is not the same game gents, online guys might be fundamentally better at 100bb stacks but live winrate is made up of straddles,loose vpip and deep stack play. you have to be personable to get action or be invited into random private games that will also make up part of your yearly income and you will have to adapt to the slowness of the game and the infinite amount of other useful information you have to make decisions.

many online guys struggle with all of the above because they are just more analytical and introverted. successful live pros are disciplined hustlers. infact, id back a good live pro over a good online pro for money earnt in a year. its is not a binary equation based on how well you play 100bb stacks, that will probably help with about 10% of what makes you 100k+ in a year playing live.

personality will dictate if you will enjoy it, this is basically all online players giving opinions on the lifestyle of a live pro so you can figure the amount of bias going on here.

That's not really how it works. Even at 2/5 the games aren't going to be THAT great on weekdays. And sure being able to crush 200nl on a tough site like stars or something means you are prob pretty good at poker and you'll likely be one of the bigger winners live once you get accustomed to it and properly adjust. But the idea that anyone halfway decent at poker is gonna go make $50+/hr at 2/5 live grinding 40 hours a week isn't true or realistic. Only the best few are gonna be making that much and those are the types who are usually moving up to bigger games successfully.

And I do agree with you that if you are committed to being a live pro it's silly if you don't move for better games. But moving isn't super easy for most people. People have friends and lives and in some cases families. And there's no promise that games stay great where you move to. So unless you are the type to be happy moving around a bunch that's probably gonna get old pretty fast.

Here is my Dec. Essentially all 200z
Volume was great esp since I worked 240+ hrs this month. Gameplay was OK, but definitely keep making mistakes. Ran like aids entire month with pre, flop distributions/runouts and EV (all of it). Looking forward to 2018. Will do a year recap and goals later on. Going to have some fun with some friends from work tomorrow for new years so should be good.

as someone who has played both live and online i don't understand why people always say live and online 'is not the same game'. it is the same game, you are just playing against much worse players. obviously online players need to adjust their strategy to maximise ev and exploit the significantly worse players and all the extras like live reads, table selection, experience etc but once that is all sorted the online reg is just much better than the live reg at the game they are both playing

live pros should be prioritizing most of their grind hours thu-sun anyway. $50+/hr at 2/5 is very achievable for top 5-10% of the pool. it seems rarer than it is because like you said a lot of them move up and a lot of the big winners don't want others to know they are big winners. it REALLY is not that hard

great so has a majority of players.. i have also and still do play both fulltime.


right, so it is the same game but you have to change everything about your game to do well in that same game

no doubt online regs will be stronger if they did adapt to everything that i mentioned. the purpose of my post was that online players thinking about switching to live wont be as successful as what they expect because of skills they arent even considering.

I still honestly dont get how someone can make 40bb-50bb/100 at any nlh game, I cant imagine doing that at 2nl even before rake

yes, 'everything' just like the 200nl crusher would have to change 'everything' if he decided to start grinding 2nl online

someone transitioning from online to live have no doubt thought a lot about it and have done their research, they know what they are getting in to. they are definitely considering the skills they may not have yet to be successful live.

stop pretending that the extra skills required to be good live are difficult to learn and therefore making live and online 'a different game'

It's kind of surprising how many 'live pros' in my area have not figured this out.

In one of my most recent sessions, after I won a nice pot vs a rec, he said that if he was going to lose vs a runner runner straight he was glad it was vs me. I called a raise and floated 97o otb on a 664r flop. I played that hand against him because it was his favorite hand and he had nothing but joy and laughter after he called my bet on the river and saw what I flipped over. He invited me to play at his local casino and plays in one of the bigger private games near me. He always asks if i'm going to be playing before he goes.

It's pretty sustainable imo, the rest I agree with tho.

The live online debate is silly wrt poker skills but as for soft skills this is spot on and soft skills are way more important bc bolded is a very real thing. Thanks for fighting the good fight.

Actually there are a few strat spots that good online players might struggle with also, a game where 5x opens go 6 ways has certain adaptations that aren't immediately obvious.

adjusting to different online pools is not even close to the same as switching to live.

research what exactly? how to hustle? how to be a personality? cmon man your talking nonsense now. the delusion of thinking its okay to sit and play 20/14/8 online fr strategy and think your going to get action all year round is laughable.

the biggest winners i know would struggle at nl25/plo25 yet are making 500k+ a year because they are experts at soft skills and fish love playing with them.

Can confirm live is a compleeeetely different game to online.

i know the type of person you are describing. the outgoing 25-35 year old guys that have been crushing live for a long time. these guys make a lot but i know for a fact, at least in my city, that the guys with an online background are making more

^ +1. Im an online midstakes guy, and I know for a fact me/2 friends like me who also play live occasionally, all have higher winrates in my local 5/T games then the meh live pros who also play in the same games. (disclaimer only played 400 hours live this year, and this is just my experiences in my city)

Almost all of the live pros play awful vs other regs. Heres a bunch of reasons why I think it is this way

- They play bigger vpip/pfr/3b etc to get in more hands vs fish but this costs them a ton vs good players playing proper preflop ranges.
- suck at postflop play compared to online players because they play vs 5-6 fish everyday
- being really deep all the time amplifies pre mistakes a ton
- there default betsize is about 60-70% of pot in every situation, when cbetting 1/3 flop is just way higher EV vs competent opponents + better MW.
-Suck at overbetting and knowing which situations to overbet
- PASSIVE. Give up on too many pots specifically bigger ones, and just seem to avoid reg vs reg pots which is godawful and missing out on enormous value

Im not doubting guys are making 6figs live that would not beat small stakes online. ik for a fact the handful of players im thinking about when I type this post are making low 6figs or close too it. All of these ^^ are totally okay vs fish and thats why live is so easy. Im just saying they arent very good and online guys are 100% making more.

Also adjusting to 5x+ opens and mw pots is really easy. You literally can just play nitty and thats fine, because they are risking so much pre. MW pots are pretty similar you have to be tight af when you are 4+ ways.

nah bro hustling some whale into folding because you're vpiping 50% and all the mistakes you've made in previous streets are compounding make live poker very hard. forget the fact that the online background guy is not only stacking the fish like the hustler is, but he's also stacking the hustler

Maybe it's more applicable at 5/10+ where the quality of play is generally higher, but certainly at 1/2-2/5, 95% of your strategy is about exploiting really terrible players.

I agree though that guys who play live who've never played a lot of online poker are generally going to be pretty bad vs other regs and at higher limits.

I'm impressed with the volume for the month, Broken, especially considering you did so many hours of real work in the meat world. Let's hope you get some rungood soon.

I did 134bb/100 last night.
Sample size: 289 hands, which translates to about 6 months of live play imo.

This is the obvious approach. There are much less obvious adjustments that are only realized after significant study or real world experience.