lol +1

You're suggesting that only 4 people can make a living playing poker in the Seattle area?

I have no idea how many people can make it as a poker pro in Seattle, but I am certain the number of poker players in the area is way more than 80. So I took his numbers as an analogy, not as what he thought were actual totals.

100% true.

Well that would make sense.

It's possible he meant to type 800 instead of 80.

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Bah, I guess I will have to be more specific.

Full-time to me is someone who put up volume and win, not weekend warrior. So he has to be playing significant amount of time during weekdays.

During weekdays, there are at most 3 tables of 3/5 in Muck or Tulalip, and they are far enough apart that player pool does not mix.

3 x 9 = 27, and I used that number and multiplied it by 3 to reach 80.

If anything, 80 is above a realistic number of active players that would frequent Muck or Tulalip during weekdays.

Even though most of them are losing players swapping chips, the pool is so small that there just isn't room for more than handful of players that can win on a consistent full-time basis.

I believe poker is a form of zero-sum game. So if you want to play full-time in Seattle, you basically have to either replace someone who moved away or be really really good (relative to playing in Commerce) to take a piece of the pie.

Whatever the number is, it is small.

A while back between jobs I played poker full time for 9 months. Something like 50 hours a week full-time, primarily 3/5 at Tulalip and similar games at Snoqualmie and the Muck. In doing so I learned who the full-time players were. And the number isn't very large.

Learned a couple of other things. For me playing poker full-time was a job, not near the fun I enjoy as a recreational player. Another, poker is a tough business. You got to be very good at your craft and hard as nails. It is tougher emotionally when you are grinding it out full-time when the drunk gets the runner runner to steal a big pot.

To those who have the chops to make a living playing poker, you have my respect.

we need to define what "playing for a living" means as it means different things for different people. Trying to pay the bills with Poker in Seattle if you share a room in Renton, are in your early 20s, have no debt and no aspiration for a career in any field outside of Poker and have no plans to build a retirement then yes, it's possible. If you need to bridge a gap between life situations and you have savings, also possible but then you are not really playing for a living. If any parameters of the above change, then it's a pretty terrible idea. Now this assumes you are only playing NL. If you jump into the the 5-5 PLO game at Tulalip every time it runs in addition then maybe you can make a median US household income (which doesn't get you very far in Seattle).

Of course, if your goal is to play&crush the 5-10-25 at Tulalip then you can seriously make some bank but these games run sporadically and have super-high variance as they are, in essence, a $500 limit game. They also frequently have bad lineups. It does happen that someone sits down and dumps 10K but you can't build a livelihood around this of course. Since they run so rarely, what happens if you run bad and then have to wait 5-6 days being 10K in the hole and have to grind super nitty 2-5 or 3-5 games until then? It's not a viable option as it has a high RoR. My guess is that only 1-2 people in this game are playing full time for a living without having other significant income.

The good news about the "pseudo-NL" games in Seattle is, that there are almost no Pros so it's actually quite hard to say if it's possible to play for a living because no one in his right mind would give it a try for some period of time to build up a high enough confidence interval. I've played the NL games for 250 hours in the past 2 months and a few times I have run into a competent guy in his 20s who plays for a living only to find out that he will move soon because he realized that he can make alot more somewhere else. If you play Poker for a living in your early 20s that usually means you have no one to answer to so you can move around quite freely. Seattle is probably one of the worst places for an aspiring professional because of the $500 max bet. You will never cooler someone for thousands, you will never get value for 3-4K on the river with your higher flush vs smaller flush, you will never pick up a bluff on the river for thousands, you will never take a drunk guy's money who got lucky and ran his stack up sky-high. These things happen in Vegas frequently, they never happen in Seattle. These pots make up an enormous portion of the winrate. The $500 max bet also protects the player pool so Seattle is actually a great place to play on the side and there are a few competent players that do this.

There is also the often left-out factor of opportunity cost. Even if you make an ok winrate in Seattle in the 2-5 games, if you are smart enough to do this, you are smart enough to visit a coding bootcamp and work in the tech industry in Seattle, probably making at least twice with an entry level job than what the best 2-5 player in Seattle is making. But this topic has been discussed in other threads ad nauseam.

using my 250 hours of play in the NL games (Tulalip/Muck/Sno) I have a really hard time identifying more than 4 individuals who are playing full time making an amount of money that comes close to the median household income (in the US, not in Seattle)

I guess if you count the guys in sweatpants with poor hygiene and poor social skills who are happy to be able to barely pay rent, then yeah, you can increase that number by maybe another 5.

As I said above, it's not that it's not possible, it's that it's way more lucrative and easier to do this somewhere else.

MarkMcKay: excellent posts!

250 hours in 2 months seems like a lot. Were you always able to consistently find games going? Even on weekdays and other slower times?

I agree with this. I am a pretty regular player at Tulalip and Muckleshoot (log approx. 15-20 hrs/week) but I have a full time job so I play when I can on weeknights and weekends. I know 2 people who I can truly say have what it takes to play full time. And one of those players is moving to Vegas because it is more profitable than this area. In my mind, there are 5 or 6 wannabees but don't have the discipline and mental toughness it takes to grind full time.

I am talking about NLHE only as I don't log many hours playing PLO. 1 of them is a reg at Tulalip and 1 at Muckleshoot (who started at Tulalip but switched to the Muck because it's more profitable imo)

A thoughtful and quality contribution, makes sense to me.

I have a really hard time imagining that a decent player can't make ~$40 an hour at Muckleshoot.

I recently moved back to the area after living in Las Vegas for a few years. I didn't play full time, but I made ~$22/hr in the super nitty 1/2 games. Playing mostly ABC.

I played at Muck quite a few times in 2010-2011, and those games were always much better than the average Vegas game.

Also, I don't know how smart you have to be for the coding job or whatever, but you definitely don't have to have a high IQ to beat live low stakes NL.

I wish there are more players around Seattle who think like you do...

Daddy needs a new car.

You wish there were more players that think a high intellect is not required to win a live low stakes poker, as that is somehow lucrative to you?

You funny, ha ha ha.

Troll level expert.

250h in 2 months is only about 31h/week so not even a normal work week. I was disappointed by that number as I wanted to play every single free minute but underestimated stuff like mental fatigue and being able to play my A-C game for long hours.

There were only a few times I didn't find a game (3/5&above) going, Monday&Tuesday early morning, most weekday graveyards etc. It is mostly knowing where to go really and plan ahead. I went to Tulalip a few times on a Sunday and the 3/5 game broke relatively early and I found myself stuck. Also the daytimes games on Monday and Tuesday at Tulalip weren't good. But overall I waited more often for a seat than I was waiting for a game to get going.

The biggest problem was really planning ahead due to traffic. If I would move to Seattle permanently, I would find a place that is strategically located to equal distance from the 3 indian casinos and I would plan my playing schedule ahead of time.

One thing which I did very poorly at was adjusting for these stupid high hand/monte carlo/jackpot promotions, especially at Muck where they pay some sizeable amount if someone makes Quads but they could pay $80 for the first time someone hit it, then $400 for the 2nd time and $600 for the third time but sometimes it would pay $400 for the first time and $80 for the second. I don't know but it did throw me off the first few times and I had to set a new goal in my app: "pay attention to people slowplaying due to promotions". I lost alot of $ due to people flopping top set and then check/calling twice even on super wet boards only to bomb river and I paid them off when the board bricked thinking they missed their draws. They were trying to catch their quads. Stupid me.

Is it worth going to Tulalip after work on wednesdays for their high hand promotion?
(arrive around 5-6). I only play 3-5 No-Limit (okay I know its Spread Limit), but can play 1-2 while waiting for a 3-5 seat.

Will I have to wait a long time for a seat?

Yes it is definitely worth going. I go after work almost every Wednesday and they have been getting 3 3-5 tables going from 6-10 pm the last few weeks. It usually hasn't taken too long to get a seat for me but I have had to play 1-3 for up to an hour before. Good action but the game dies promptly at 10 when the promotion ends and last Wednesday all 3 tables broke within 15 minutes.

Muckleshoot and Tulalip are quite a drive from each other. I'm guessing that in general, Muckleshoot gets slightly more action from what I've heard. Is this true?

Does Snoqualmie get any significant action with numerous games going?

The two are something like 60 miles apart.
IMO Muck poker, in general, has more action, more "gamble gamble."