This is something that I and probably a lot of other people struggle with. Not just in poker.

We start something, after a few months we look at our results and they're just not where we'd like them to be, so we quit.

For the first time in my life I'm now pushing through this.
I've been at it for over a year, but I'm still not seeing significant results.

I was hoping to have achieved at least some success by now.
Maybe I have, I have a pretty decent winrate in some small games but I've lost more in the bigger games, the ones I'd have to play to make a living.
Probably variance over a small sample in combination with still learning how to be a winning player.

My estimate at the moment is that it's going to take at least another year, more likely two or three, to build up a bankroll so big there's (nearly) no way to go broke and a liferoll to sustain me.


So anyone with experience in this, who's now playing poker as a main source of income, please share how long it took you to get there.

Any big obstacles you met on the way? How did you overcome them?
What games are or were you playing? Live? Online?

I'm very interested in the hard-work-success stories out there!

I played professionally for about 18 months in '09-'11 online. Was playing about 3 years regularly before that and taking it serious intense studying about 6 months. I did alright, well enough. Basically just from when the economy tanked until black Friday. A couple years ago I started playing again. February after football season into September before football season. Lost quite a bit, but had a huge August, over $25k profit. Then started my own business and kinda stopped. Now just playing a bit during this tyranny, I mean quarantine.

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I've played for a living for about 8 years now. Before that, I tried twice unsuccessfully. The first time I was way underrolled and would have needed to run pure in order to get ahead of my bills. The pressure of that sure didn't help me to play my A game. This was in combination with not being as good as I perceived myself to be (I could beat fish, but I was a bad reg compared to other pros). The second time I was skilled enough but still underrolled due to having a staking/coaching arrangement. I got a lot better in the long-term, but the profit split made full-time just out of reach.

The 3rd time I had the roll and the savings to do it. I'd say all of this took about 4 years for me due to working a day job for about 2 years in the middle.

Thanks for the replies so far!
Seems to be in sync with my expectations.

Fedor Holz said he was a losing player for 4 years before he started crushing. Fedor Holz.

i started when i was like 10 y.o or so w my dads credit card bkuz my older brother played, and donked it off and eventually took a hiatus.
~eventually i really went at the game hard.. id say after maybe 3 years the stars kind of lined up for me, as far as having
- the knowledge
-the right player pool to beat
-the resources to improve

i played for a decent amount of money for several years, and still do- but, always make sure i have side income as well, esp bkuz as u get older it doesnt look good to have no job and just poker income is what my counselor told me.
if i had a time machine, i think i could go back to my pre-teen self and fast track it to being a winning player in a few months TBH.

ill point out, playing for profit: a lot of it for me has been action chasing. I could probably go sit stars and duke it out with some nerds and lose/break even.. or i could find soft action and give wedgies to ******s all day for $$$
once u figure that out... you realize that only part of being pro is theory/strategy
and there is a lot of satisfaction in knowing that, that 1500 filipino peso pot i just won.. while only 30$ to me.. is likely some guys entire family's food budget for the month, n he just gambled it off to me. which idk just gives me a sense of power/accomplishment when i think about it lol

ill also add, as a cautionary piece of advice, that, its important to set realistic goals. Making ~several K per month USD is possible, but consider how much time you put into it, and what you realistically will get in return. I'd say if youre happy putting all this time and work into it, and making 800-2k$usd in a month your goals and realistic odds of that working out are pretty favorable. but if you think ur gonna make much more, the expectations/reality of how its likely going to work out is going to more and more unrealistic.. if that makes sense.