On a side note I think a lot of the poker books/training are pretty bad. Many of these aspiring pros play only one way in every game, super aggro. At 2/5 and 5/10 it's my opinion most will lose playing this style. Actually let me rephrase. These people think they can play this way but can't . Shoving weak hands to get people to fold in spots tney clearly aren't folding, trying to make hero calls , over valuing top pair. If your gonna play this way you better be extremely good at reading situations and ur opponents strength . Many people play this strategy blindly and just give away money

Thanks for the posts, Jersey. Poker is my lifelong pipe dream as a side income, and if it takes me the next 20 years, I will be able to supplement my income with it. I have a very long way to go, but I'm glad to see a few people are still making it work these days.

Of course you can make a living playing live poker in casinos. if you're lucky and live in Vegas then for sure you can make a living at the table. You got to play very well and have lots of patience.

I know Las Vegas locals that make a living in 1-2 NL. They make on average $300/day and play 5 day per week. Bur they are true monster grinders and they don't deviate from theirs game plan.

AK

I don't think I would call $300/day making a living but I guess you could scrape by.

Really? A 100k a year job nets 1500$ a week. I believe that is I the top 15% for income. You may make more and wouldn't do it for 300$ a day, but to most people tnats a good income

Lets see: $300 a day 5 days a week at 50 weeks a year (2 week vacation) is $300*5*50= $75,000 and not $100k. He will be self employed, so out of the $75,000 he will have to pay (100%), health insurance, Dental, life insurance, and self-employment tax. To me this does not look like a decent living.

Depending on costs that is better than the median US income ($45,000).

I think the more critical assumption to question is $300/day. That's an unreasonable 20 bb/hr times a reasonable 7.5 hr/day or a reasonable 10 bb/hr times an unreasonable 15 hr/day.

Combo, I am fine with you making that statement as long as you are clear that
a. any answer to the question is highly subjective, for people with 5 kids, lux tastes, or poor money management, that isn't that much money.
b. it's your opinion, and not even a particularly tenable point at that. The average FAMILY makes something like 50kish, the average person is around $28k or less I believe

People, I don't fault some of you for wanting more out of life and that's grand. The reality is, even with college degrees (sometimes advanced ones at that), $75k jobs are NOT easy to come by.
Then factor in ****ty bosses, long hours, commutes, complete lack of autonomy, questionable stability, and a host of other factors I am not even adding. It's not so lopsided in the favor of ye olde 9-5.

I fully agree that only 1-3% (whatever, a very slim number) of poker players are capable of sustaining the necessary win rate to make a comfortable living, just so long as you agree that for some of us, being able to come and go as you please and throwing off the yoke would be a godsend.

I said a 100k a year NETS 1500 a week, maybe 1600. Taxes and sometimes contributions to benefits are taken out before you get your check. So lets say a person with a 100k a year job gets a 1600$ check a week. I can almost garuntee those grinders aren't paying a dime in taxes. You can argue and say its not fair to compare the two but facts are facts, the poker winnings are tax free. About health insursnce a good plan for a Single person is 350$ a month. And for life insursnce most companies only offer 1 years salary. Anything for free is good, but thsts not a big deal. A million dollar 30 year term life insursnce policy for me is 84$ a month, my wife's is even cheaper. I'm 28 and very healthy. 75k a year cash is very close to being worth a 100k a year salary job. Some jobs will have more bonuses like 401k contributions etc. also the tax free Money you have no lending power or credit due to no income.

Interesting thread, some really good points made.

Really, the answer to the main question (Can you make a living playing live poker?) is that it depends on who the "you" is. Not everyone is cut out for it. It is also unwise to go pro unless you have a somewhat large edge in the games you regularly play.

This is kind of one of those "If you need to ask, the answer is no" brand of questions. To have long-term professional success, you can't just be a person who knows what a good hand looks like and knows enough to play kinda tight/aggressive. Discipline, work ethic, mental toughness, and a firm grasp on poker theory are all necessary. You can get by with a deficiency in maybe one of those categories, but any deficiencies will be very detrimental to your results.

So, when someone said earlier in the thread that "if you can make it playing poker, you can also probably make it in other fields", he was very right. But the guy who responded with all the benefits of being a self-employed poker pro was correct as well.

The poker road is littered with the bodies of failed professionals. The odds are heavily against anyone who hopes to become a successful professional. But it can be done.

Very good post.
But I would reverse the emphasis in the last two sentences. "It can be done. But the odds are heavily against anyone who hopes to become a successful professional."
This seems pretty ironic in a field where knowing and playing the odds well is so fundamental.

The idea that a good number of people believe there is such a thing as a $75k-$100k/year live 1/2 pro astounds me. It gets thrown out and taken at face value? Seriously, there exists such a beast who is a favorite to grind 1/2NL live, year after year? I'd refer you to the classic "what's a good WR at 10/20 NL" thread where people are offering to prop bet the don't side of not making $100/hour at 10/20 NL. That's 10x the stakes and only double the WR. I'm sure there are people who ran hot (maybe a 5/T shot mixed in) or who over-reported their best month as standard. Still, we're having a discussion of what $100k/year at 1/2NL is relative to a day job? How about $100K/year as a live pro vs. unicorn wrangler?

I know a good number of pros. boc4life is a long-time pro. Sure it can be done. The ones who are remotely happy don't grind small stakes. Most people have no idea how good someone like that actually is at poker. I know plenty of amazing players who aren't still in action. Most people don't have any idea how bad the bad stretches are for pros. Like if you have any remote question about your own mental make-up, don't consider it at all.

Anyone play live plo for a living? Any tips for someone trying to beat those games, coming from an online background?

There were a large number of games at the Venetian for the last few weeks-- I was there last week and assume they went on the whole series. Maybe someone who understands PLO could tell you more, but I think the smallest games were 1/2 with a mandatory 1st bet of $5. There were plenty of bigger games (maybe up to 25/50?), though I could be wrong. I was playing mix and not big bet, but I assume the $4 rake was across the board. I assume there were several "you could make a living" games going on for ~6 weeks. Where you'd play live PLO for the rest of the year, I'm less sure. Walking by those games, they seemed deep.

No one is making 75k a year playing 1-2nl period. Maybe someone made 6k In a month but that's not what we're talking about. As far as 2/5 NL, anything over 70k a year is phenomenal. If someone has done concideribly better over a 3 year span raise your hand. Here's the numbers I believe to be accurate for 2/5nl.

Numbers only apply for 2k hours+. Anything less the jury is still out, even 2k is small but it's big enough I think to make the assumptions below.

40$/hr + = top of the top, best of the best, great player 100% a winning player

30$/hr+ = great player, 99% sure a winning player.

20$/hr+ = jury is still out, good chance your a winnin player, report back at 4k hours

Anything less who knows, could be great. Could be horrible and just hit a heater.

Notice no where I said able to make a living. Win rate is only part of what makes someone able to last playing as a pro

OK, that re-affirms the old world-view. Thanks. Just reading above about 1/2 players making a decent living was making my head spin.

On the LHE side we get tons of people coming in wanting to play 4/8 or 6/12 for a living and quoting some 200 hour sample of rungood as gospel. Many of us old/grumpy people giggle at the 10/20 pro wannabes. Like 20/40 is on the low side (slightly possible), and we'd prefer to see someone with your good sample playing 40/80 before anyone says "Yes, definitely go pro". I assume that's somewhere between 5/T and 10/20 NL. On the NL side, to not be sweating a couple losing months, you're preferring a guy who plays 5/T with the ability and BR to look at good 10/20 games, right? Sure, a 2/5 guy who makes $30/hour can live, but since his household expenses eat up so much of his expected WR... he's basically a 6 month slightly worse than expected stretch away from homeless. An actual downswing is horrible because he can't move down and even make enough to pay bills, let alone recover a roll.

^^ That's the problem. If you're playing high enough stakes to play for a living, you need a very large bankroll. If you have to dip into your bankroll to pay bills, you're not going to make it long enough to retire.

As a corollary, if you're starting with a small bankroll, it's extremely difficult to keep going indefinitely.

There's so many different ways to fail. It's not black and white. Many players are "good enough" to do it but go on uber tilt when running bad. Others can't handle the swings. Otnere are bad with money. Some people can't handle the "freedom". During big up swings tney play less and party more becuae tney made so much , then they run bad and wonder what happened. If u play for a living it's a constant struggle with yourself . It took me a long time to be 100% confident, not worry about winnin/losing, just play my best poker and let whatever happens happens.

For those who play(ed) 1/2-2/5 in Vegas..... Would u say the games are softer/more difficult than other parts of the US?

Softer than Atlantic City, probably tougher than Iowa and Milwaukee dont have a ton of live play across the country

99% of my play is at the borgata. People always say that's the toughest place to play anywhere in the country. Can't confirm or deny but I hear it all the time. Its usually compared to Vegas and Florida

And online poker misled a lot of people in this regard. At least during the Party era, it was possible to be (1) good but not great at poker, and (2) build up a bankroll relatively quickly starting from a small seed by multitabling lower stakes games which were relatively lightly raked and which ran 24 hours a day with players from all over the world.

In live poker, it's totally different. You get to play about 35 hands an hour in lmiit and 25 an hour in no limit. That's it. No multitabling. The only way to outrun your variance any quicker is to grind out a lot more hours, and even then there's a physical limit to the number of waking hours in the day (even if you can find a good game all that time).

And because casino employees are a high, fixed cost, the rake in low stakes games is prohibitive. Plus, you have to pay your expenses, your gas, your food, whatever else you need to grind. That means it's impossible to build your bankroll in low stakes games. You have to bring your bankroll, and you have to start out having a big enough edge to beat a mid-stakes or higher game, which is likely to have several decent players in it.

Online just spoiled a lot of players on what you have to do.

Lawdude, you may be right in regards to SSLHE in Southern CA, but SSLHE elsewhere and LLNL almost everywhere is pretty beatable as a bankroll builder (albeit usually not competitive with other forms of income).

Not competitive with other income? I guess everyone on this board makes 100k + because everyone seems to think 40$ an hour at 2,000 hours is a waste of time. Also the notion if your good at poker you can get a good job is a joke. There's people with great résumé, experience, education who can't get good paying jobs. anyone whos successful at anything could prob do a bunch of other things , doesn't mean they can just go out at get a great job

^^^If you have an $80k/yr job that comes with health care, employer-paid payroll taxes, and other benes, you're effectively earning a lot more than $40/hr.