To my person, I am playing online poker since 3 yeahrs now. I dont like multitableing because I dont see any sense in playing 70% of your skill on 2 or 4 tables when you can play 100% and have a knowledge gain every session. I mean observation and learning from others helped my game a lot. So I just dont like it. I was always underrolled for the level I played in and sucked at it, but felt quite comfortable with my skills.
After I spent 6 month in Canada and took a little break from university, I have now a bankroll to play NL50. I have no high expenses every month just something like 250 - 400 Euros. I made the decision to live my dream and become a Semi-Poker pro or full poker pro if you want, because I have no other income then that. I sucked at online play for certain reasons so I am now playing the 50NL live games. I have the possebilety of playing 14 days in a month at these games.
Most people are over confident with their play, thats not how I rule. Every session I make notes about it. Figure out what went wrong, or what should I think about when I am not in a hand. I pushed my observation to the farest and gained so much its incredible. After I lost some buy ins and made some awesome first places in some small tournaments, I am break eaven right now.
I dont have any pressure because I got enough money to life the next 6 month without any gains from poker. So the only pressure I have is to reach my personal goals every session of makeing no mistakes, haveing the right reads and putting the money into these spots where I am a favorite. (Needles to say that I play tight when 6 of the 8 players are loose as hell)

Just... its not that easy as I thought. I mean you got your suck outs, you lose a bit and win a bit. Grinding is not fun. I realized that if you want to become a pro at poker you need a lot more then just skill. You need fun with what are you doing. These fun got lost in the last couple of days. The only motivation I have is, to observe, accumulate informations and improve your handreading skills PLUS understand way more the different stiles of plays of your opponents. I see now and look up to these guys like Doyle and all the other stars, that they started in such a bad time with poker and still are motivated to play the games. Even the things that the authors are writing in the pokerbooks, u see it in a different perspektive right now. Every guy who reads this should understand, that playing poker as a hobby and going semi-pro/pro is a total different game.

I really like to take these shot in my life, because I thought about it every day since I started.

Even when its not fun anymore, maybe one day when I get my result for the hard work, I will walk out at the end of the day with a brighter smile then now...

Sincerely

james81

troll

Your welcome

I play also since 3-4 years and i play mostly under NL50. You should think about making money and 8 tables that you play with 70% skill bring you maybee more than 1 table live. For me the problem is that i dont love poker i only like the money.

u can't make a living playing 50 NL.

how do you onyl play nl50 after 3-4 years?
Were you grinding out 1c/2c for the rest of the time?

I'm assuming this is either a level or English is not you're first language. Even if this is for real and English is not you're first language, I'm still LOL> PLease don't live out you're dream dude.

You dont see the irony here?

And yes it is possible to make a living playing NL50 but it requires a ton of tables.

Acutally there is a guy that broke down every thing he profited per hour 8 tabling on stars and his profit + fpps for bonuses he was making over $40 and hour. So ya you can make a living playing $50nl.

Just did some math and if this guy played for 40 hrs a week for 38 weeks he would make $60800 per year. That my sir is a living. $45k a year if he only played 30 hrs a week and $30k if he only played 20 hrs a week.

Hey thanks for the replies,

at first I just wanna say, that Yes english is not my first language, but I try my best.

the second thing is, I know the board mentalety of twoplustwo, everytime when I read something here from other users there are a hand full of dudes that are try to hate on him. Anyways its now about me and I just want to let some people now, it is possible to make a living when you only need 200 to 400 euros. I have no pressure of money and the live games I am playing in are very profitiable. I counted my hours together and made so far an hourly rate of 6.55 bucks. Its not amazing, but its still good compared to the online hourly rates for one table play.

The games here are very juicy. The players are so easy to read now. I made all my notes about every guy that is usually playing there. I know now the level of thinking way better and which kind of hands the dudes with the money are like to gamble with PLUS all the informations I need, but I am still aquiering because you never now...

the intention of my post was just to get some feedback of some users and maybe critics of my plan plus some insights for people who are planing a similiar project.

Sincerely

james81

If you live in east europe , asia, etc 400 is enough for a living. But prices will increase also. You should make more and invest your winnings.at sample real estate..stock market.

FYP

The average wage in the USA is 35k... Most probably working 40+ hours and if you factor in travel + other working expenses then the 50nl poker pro looks pretty well off.

im 23, working 40 hrs a week and making about 22k after taxes. playing 50NL seems like a good idea about now when i spend 60$ a week in gas getting to/from work and the closer it gets to summer the longer it takes me to get home cause of the damn weekenders that dont know how to drive!

/rant

where do you play NL50 live for euros?

In a local casino here in germany...

thought that minimun level to play live in europe was 1/2. or the rake is killing the game or the casino is not having a lot of profit with that table..

learn to multitable online. Its cool you are enjoying yourself but if you really want to do this seriously you are going to have to do some of this. First of all, its the only way you can make anything decent at such small stakes. Second, it will make you improve a lot faster and will be very helpful even if you decide to ultimately play live.

and yeah, if you include bonuses and everything $40/hr multitabling nl50 is relatively easy.

OK guys I have to explain way more...

I have a mental problem to play online. I am very successfull in the short run because I stay focused. The reason why I suck at online poker is, there are to many stupid players there and after some hours I dont take them serious and I am donking my money away. I know its MY problem... but other things are bothering me way more. The cheating aspect of online play is just ****ed up. I mean u have there two or three players that are chatting on MSN and say there hands. I recognized some strange plays and when I am leaving the table you see two other guys sitting there and play to loose and to good for that level on another one. Maybe some haters will say James u maybe suck at poker... but I dont...

Life play is so different. I stay focused all the time because I try to keep every little detail in my mind and build my own data of how the players play their cards. On the other hand there is a social aspect that I really like. If you cheat there with other players u get a serious problem. I learned in these days of grinding and my mistakes way more about me and my opponents then I did at online play. Honestly the online play made me practice and gave me skill to my handreading... but the perfectly adjustment to my opponents tought me the life games...

So far for my goals, I am up one buy in for each session. I got 500 plus this month Minus my living, I have 200 to add to my bankroll...

Not to sound overly judgemental but why on earth do people still play at anything less than 1/2 and consider going semi-pro or even pro? I may be wrong but after playing poker quite intensly for over a year, I dont believe anyone who isnt yet above .50 should be even thinking about poker as a primary source of income unless they come from a seriously poor country. If you are serious about playing poker for a living then I would ignore multitabling for the moment and just improve your game. After that you can improve on your multitabling but until you can beat the games a few levels above 0.50 then I wouldnt take poker that seriously

It sounds like you're a winning player, but don't be afraid to move up, or add a table or two. After a certain point, things get a little stale.

your comment against getting to know how your fish regs play is spot on as is how the good regs play. of course i believe all types of play can be lumped into gender race and appearance.

first of all.. you're playing $50 NL. if you're expecting to have fun playing in a game with no meta game at all, you can't. $50 NL is just grinding. You just sit there waiting for a donk to give away all his money. You'd probably have fun playing sit n go's since the short term skill definitely comes into play differently than how it does in a cash game. That's basically how I grinded my roll up. I played sit n go's, exploited players in ways I couldn't exploit them in cash games. THen once I had the roll for $1/$2-$2/$4 nL, I started playing in more of those games. PSychologically, a 3 bet in a .25/.50 isn't as powerful as it is in a $1/$2+ game because you're only taking down $1.50. If you 3 bet someone at a 1/2 nl game, you're taking down $10 dollars. So if you keep running 3 bets and you keep stealing $10 dollars every time, you're getting into your opponents heads. That's when poker starts to get fun. So tbh, I just can't deal with poker at those small stakes because I find it harder to get action with hands at those levels. Like, no matter what you do, if you have a table filled with nitty players, there's absolutely nothing you can do to change how they're playing. If you feel like you are a skilled poker player, try sit n go's for a while and tell me how that goes.
I guarantee you'd make more than $6.50 playing them lol.

@ Sander Jonez

I tried Sit&GOs about a Yeahr very seriously. I played poker there as a hobby and started on stars with the smallest once. I moved up every time when I had 10 buy-ins for the next Sit&Go level. I did very great and moved in days from a roll of 20 bucks to a roll close to 300. After a really hard downswing, I recognized that I was emotional not strong enough to douge the variance. I tilted the money away in the next couple of month...

That was one of the first times as I recognized how important a bankroll is.

I completly agree with your thight is right mentalety for the 50NL games. Live here, its so crazy action you cant believe. Everybody is laughing at me, because I am such a nit or a rock and stuff... but its only because I dont limp in that much OOP. Anyways u are right u just have to grind there and dont bluff that much. I also observed that u really can see when somebody is strong/medium or weak and then you can play your image - I Love It...

That is why I started this threat here. Grinding isnt fun at all. Sometimes I am wondering what makes a poker player great...

Today there was this guy. He played his position very strong. Called down multiple streets just to run the turn or river bluff. Some times he was succesfull and sometimes he wasnt. he really made great plays and made these guys think about their own hand, but on this limit or this kind of games the players are to dump to recognize it or the just wanna see what he has. The end of the story was, he went broke with 4 or 5 buy ins. Everybody got his money and after all everybody considered him as a very good and strong player... I dont agree, becaus he played HIS game and didnt adjust to the NOT thinking players... As a status as a poker player I was thinking about it and came to the conclusion that he isnt great or maybe I am to dump.

if you dont enjoy what your doing , then find something else more challenging.