That is a masterful argument that I think may buy me a longer poker leash with the wife.

Your point about the pros is valid. I may stick with $1/3 during the weekday nights I am able to go but still play $2/5 on weekend nights unless I get placed at a bad table.

I suppose I really like to be challenged in order to drive myself to get better. I don’t like feeling complacent in anything I am passionate about.

For instance, I was a decent football player in my youth. When I played in some competitive flag football leagues in my early to mid twenties I had much more fun battling with a DB that had solid press coverage and challenged me to run solid routes. I got more satisfaction out of scoring a TD and having a 80% catch rate while helping my team win as compared to scoring 5 TDs against a team of weekend warriors who weren’t exercising or doing anything during the week to prepare.

People seem to have different definitions of the word "pro" with respect to poker players.

While a pro of course has to be a winning player, IMO it's not based on how good he is or his hourly win rate.. If someone has no other job and pays his bills mostly with poker winnings, I consider him a pro. I've never hear anyone lie that they were a pro, and I can't imagine why they would do this. I have, at times, lied at the table because I didn't want recreational players to know I was a pro, fearing it would make them dislike me or possibly leave the game.

If someone plays just for fun and can easily pay his bills with other income (usually but not necessarily from a job), he is not a pro, no matter how good a player he is.
I'm sure there are at least a few recreational players (mostly in larger games than I play) who are better players than I am, and may even win more per hour than I do.
But they're still a rec, and I'm still a pro.

I do understand that, but I guess then you were using the word "uncomfortable" in what I would consider a non-standard way. I would never say I enjoyed something that made me uncomfortable. Maybe "intellectually stimulated" would have been a better fit.

Semantics are important here. I agree with you.

To be more precise, I feel actually uncomfortable facing triple barrels from OOP with just a bluff catcher against a substantial river bet. The other situations I feel “challenged” and need to get better so I am not spewing EV.

That makes sense. I'm easily made uncomfortable in a NL when I have a large stack and am in a hand with another player with a large stack. That's part of why I mostly play limit poker.

rob, i 100% have met a lot of people who lied about being professional poker players

to be fair though, i don't think most understood they were lying at the time, but rather they were some kid who was in their first month or so and variance hadn't yet caught up to them

I like your definitions here. In your opinion, what proportion of recreational players do you think are profitable? Of that subset, how much time do you suspect they spend playing and studying, on average, per week?

OK, but my definition of lying includes dishonest intention, not being mistaken. And those guys aren't really even mistaken, if they are using their (lucky) income to pay their bills. That just sounds like a pro who isn't going to last long at his job before he goes broke. Like a really crappy waitress is still a waitress, but she will soon get fired or get so little in tips that she will go broke.

fair enough

but i also think a lot were knowingly lying

living on unemployment/disability/spouse and would rather say they were pro poker players than state the truth


especially when dealing with the past, how many times have you have a poker conversation with someone at a party and they start telling you about how they just printed money back in the day on stars etc and it's obvious they don't know what they are talking about and thus even in those super soft times could not have been a winning player

the amount of people who've told me poker was just a money printer for them when they learn i used to play it for a living while also stating things which make it clear they fundamentally didn't understand the first thing about it is astounding

That would really depend on the game, though it would be low in most casino rooms as the rake is proportionally very high in smaller games and the higher stakes games are tough to beat. In my regular 20/40 LHE game I am currently probably the only regular who is truly a "pro" by my definition (it doesn't go enough hours a week to attract full-time pros; I only play part-time, with some travelling to other areas to play other games). There are quite a few other winning players though.

At least one regular is someone who used to be an online pro, and then was a live pro for awhile when the game went more regularly but now has a job and only plays occasionally. There are a few winning older retired guys whom I'm pretty sure have enough (pension/social security) income to pay the bills but make some extra money by playing. They have plenty of time, so maybe play 25 hours a week on average. Then there are several people who have never been pros AFAIK and have regular jobs making good income, but play for fun/intellectual stimulation like you and have the bonus of making money on their hobby. Maybe they play 12 hours a week on average. I will likely get a regular job again within the next few years and join their ranks. Maybe half of these guys would not be winning players in a tougher game with more pros (like the ones in Las Vegas).

Then, of course, there are a lot of losing regulars or semi-regulars, along with a few random bad players that show up once or twice to try out the game then disappear. Maybe 1/3 of the players in my game at any time are winning players, but the winning players generally play more hours than the losing ones. In raw numbers, maybe 1/8 of the regulars are winning players, but that's a very rough guess.

It would be even tougher to know how much time any of the guys spend studying poker, but I would say it's likely to be extremely low. I don't really spend a lot of time studying poker anymore myself, and what I do study is often not about the game I mostly currently play, as there just isn't much new info or discussion about LHE. I'm trying to learn more about other forms of poker so I can also enjoy and be profitable at them for when I want a change of pace or do not have LHE available to me.

I have studied a good amount about NLH as well, and am a competent winning player but just don't enjoy it much. While there is still plenty of new NLH material to study, I would still guess that very few recreational players spend any significant amount of time studying. Though maybe others would know that better than I would, I bet that you would be one of the very few recreational players who were studying enough to improve their game, so I imagine you would have a big edge on anyone who isn't a pro.

I don't go to many parties, but when I have talked to random people about poker I've never heard anyone tell me anything like that. Most people who are interested or curious about poker seem really impressed that I can consistently make money at it.

I've never gotten unemployment income, but I have sometimes described myself as looking for work and/or having investment income (both partially true) rather than as being a professional poker player because those generally seem more respectable to most people. But then again, most people who ask me what I do for a living tend to be in social groups where I'm hoping to meet women to date, and women in their 40's are mostly not at all thrilled at the prospect of dating a professional gambler.

oh man, there's a gold thread here about why it sucks to tell people you're a professional poker player, you should find it and read it, you'll see my experience is very common


also hard agree that it's better not to tell people

i just tell people i'm self employed and deal with data analytics and only if they ask follow up questions will i mention that it's in the form of gambling a la dfs but 95%+ just nod their head at that answer and move along to the next topic

I'm going to try to remember this phrase.

this statement reeks of EGO, till you rid yourself of that you can not move forward

I have to respectfully disagree. I am trying to point out that healthy competition (on par with my skill level) is a huge motivation and fun factor for me. If I was playing against a bunch D1 college level or pro level football talent I would be the worst football player on the field. No matter how hard I trained, I would never get to their level to even be on the same field. The purpose of this post is to determine if I can realistically get to a level where it is healthy competition at $2/5and beyond when not being a professional.

With that said, I acknowledge that there is a fine line between having confidence in oneself and being egotistical. I don’t think egotistical people have the self awareness to question whether they are good enough. I do, however, have a lot of self confidence with the ability to be introspective and, quite frankly, very hard on myself when making mistakes (I.e. perfectionistic tendencies). Apologies if the tone of my responses has left a negative impression.

Passive limpfests can be much more intellectually stimulating than games that are more aggressively 3 and 4 bet.

For one, you can profitably play far more hands in various positions when you are pretty sure it is going to limp through. Playing more hands results in getting into much more intellectually interesting situations more often.

For two, passive limpfests require different skills than more advanced "regular" poker games. Knowing when to bluff is far less important, but understanding how to control the pot size is much more important. It also changes the value of starting hands.

For three, just because everyone else is limping, or making/calling small raises does not mean you need to do the same. You can raise as much and as often as you think is correct.

Excellent points. I think I am going to focus on $1/$3 to see if I actually can be profitable in the game on most nights but play $2/5 when it is a softer table. I think some of the posters bring up some valid points and I think walking before I try to run may be best.

While there is a fair amount of limping in 1/3, I would hardly call it a limpfest. Many of these games have many hundreds and often thousands of dollars on them. That attracts players that know what they're doing.

I agree. I believe some of the feedback and constructive criticism I have received is valid. I think my confidence exceeds my current skill level, so I am going to stick with $1/3 except on weekends when the $2/5 is functioning skill-wise as a typical $1/3. If I can prove over 200-300 hours that I am actually profitable I may take some more shots at $2/5. I know that is not an adequate sample size but that is probably a year of me playing.

my point is you don't always have GAME SELECTION sometimes you go home or play in the 1 game available.
each game is different and requires a different style , some games even change as players come and go.

there are some rec players that routinely crush the pros so don't think the word pro makes them a better/smarter player

True. But that's why a one-dimensional style of play is so bad. It has been known for a very long time that tight wins in a loose game and loose wins in a tight game. If you can't do that much, just play while you have the budget to spend.

False. While it is true that a rec player can crush a pro, if the other guy is really a pro, it's just not going to happen all that often. Further, the rec player is likely to either just be screwing around, or get frustrated easily, while a pro will (mostly) maintain an even temperament, and anything that looks like he is screwing around will be planned and have a purpose.

A very old poker saying is: "It's not what was done, it's why it was done".

Didn't read the other posts, but of course they can be profitable. I won about $20,000 a couple of years ago and usually come out ahead live every year. Play mostly 1/3 NLHE in underground games with low/average rake. Also play in Vegas a few times a year -- mainly PLO.

Again, (just to clarify), it takes a different skillset to play on these limpfests. Correctly anticipating implied odds is huge in these games. Since you will probably be playing more hands that play well mutiway (suited connectors and flush draws) you will find yourself in situations where you have to make a decision based off of implied odds. Estimate wrong and you will be making the wrong play far too often to be profitable.

You also have to be hyper-aware of finding yourself with a monster hand, but the 2nd best monster. If playing correctly, you will be playing lots of non-nut flushes, or bottom end of straights. It is easy to lose a lot of money in those situations.

It is those situations where skill will matter most. Knowing how to correctly play the river with a non-nut flush in a huge pot will make a huge difference in your results. That is why I was pointing out that limpfests can be hugely profitable but require different skills. There will be many hands were you will walk away from the table wondering if you played it correctly given the odd circumstances. Adding or subtracting just a few hands from a bad players range can make a big difference between calling, folding, or raising.

One of the truest posts I’ve ever seen on 2+2. I remember about 15 years ago when I’d be one of the ones rolling my eyes at guys making comments like this because I was one of those stubbornly wanting to just play poker and not “work for the man.” Now, I’m one of those who recognizes time is better spent focused elsewhere, with poker as a fun side gig/hobby.