me being drunk right now >>>>>> poker as a job > normal job imo

easy imo

edit: anyone telling you it's hard is ****ing with you/bad at poker/doesn't remember what a normal job is like

You are playing pro, and you chase your losses? Oh boy.

QFT - There will be bad runs that last longer than you would think. And when money starts getting tight and your bills being paid depends on how the cards are falling, it isn't fun anymore and is more stressful than just about any other job.

YES, DO IT!

Opportunites like this in life don't come around that often. Captalize on a gift/income life has given you

I'm in my third year of poker only income. I have a newborn baby and a 4 month break even stretch. You are going to want to have a lot of savings.

poor or mediocre players will tell you to not play full-time. if you're good it's a different, but you won't find out if you've got what it takes until you try it.

Best advice in the thread IMO.

Playing 8 hours/day for a few days or a couple of weeks is NOT enough to really see what it's like or to determine what your win rate is. I would play basically full time for AT LEAST a month & at least 150-200k hands & then re-evaluate your earn rate and how much you still like it to make a solid, well-informed decision.

FWIW, I quit my job & went pro 5 years ago. I'm happy I did (still enjoy it), but 1) poker is NOT as much fun when it's a job, and 2) your win rate will almost surely be lower full time since when you play for a living due to playing less in primetime & putting in longer hours.

It is possible. It's different for everyone though. I 24 table 40 hours per week with absolutly no problems at all. Granted I only play my A game for maybe 16 hours a week, I still do ok for playing a mindless no thought required game. I'm probably a bit older (mid 30's) than most the guys giving you advice. I owned a construction business that went down with the economy a few years back, and after years of 60hr work weeks, this seems easy to me. It's all relative to your situation. Been playing the aboved mentioned schedual for about 5 months now.

I would give anything to be in your situation, and go for it. You truly won't understand how great your situation is right now until your older and may never get these opportunities again.

Here's how you need to approach these situations. If you didn't try it what would you do? Answer is X. If you do try it and fail, will X still be an option? If yes, then try it, if no, then you have to work that out and decide for yourself.

Follow your heart.

How much do you make off of rakeback?

Well, I don't have any real "fun" now anyways, I imagine my mindset is the same as most online professionals at this point in that I just focus and play, there is not much else to it. I don't have great fun and do it for the money only. My mind is probably in the right place, but can it stay there would probably be the question I need to answer.

I'm going for supernova elite this year on Stars, so it will be 100K+ for the year if I make it. On track so far. I think it works out to around 50ish/hr, but depends on the limit I play. Right now mostly 100nl with a little 200nl. Hoping to play more 200nl in future, but 200nl requires thinking, something I'd rather not have to do when playing this many hours. This is full ring play btw.

When you say "my situation" do you mean being in college or having the available option of a min 50k job at 18?

FWIW, with my winnings included I would guess I land around 100k per year at this pace, if not more. I calculated this rate to see what would be guaranteed as rakeback and bonuses are not related to my gameplay, just how many hands I put in...Even if I lost 20k in play I would still make 30k+ in rakeback and whatnot.

Another thing might be my cash saved, right now actual cash is around 4k, but I have a car that is another 7k, literally thousands in clothes that are both re-salable and returnable, probably around 2k in electronics, 4k in jewelry, and a few thousand in a few other possessions. That puts my net worth around what I would estimate to be 25k...does this help anyone give more advice?

Lastly, a few people have offered to stake me if need be...

Well I may have been out of line here, but what I meant (and I assumed this maybe wrongfully). Was young, single, and little to no commitments in life so far.

I'm married with 4 kids and 50k a year barley covers my bills.

Take this for what it is (friendly advice without an agenda)- you really don't know what your win rate is yet as a full-timer.

65k hand sample is definitely too small (search in strat forums on variance/win rates). Your sample is also skewed since so far you've played fewer hours per week and also during likely "softer" times of day/week than a full-timer will, and fatigue creeps in after playing 150+ hours in a month which you haven't experienced yet.

Play a month+ full time and check what your win rate is at the end of that period. What is the downside of committing a month to experiment and trying this out before making a decision?

Yea for sure, I wouldn't jump into it, I just began considering it. However, I thought 65k hands was pretty significant?

Yes I am young, single, and my only commitment is college...

Jealous

Are you talking about full time while in college and then stopping once you graduate? Or do you mean full time while in college and full time once you graduate?

plus a million

65k is not a big sample

you're in college. there are many better things to do with your time. Think of your overall life goals. Do not be a slave to the false idol of money.

How do you get $8 in bonuses/hr? Also, I assume you're playing 6 max?

65k sounds like a bigger sample than it is.

I've been a pretty steady winner online over 5+ years (maybe 2 or 3 losing months max), but I've had plenty of stretches of 50k-100k hands where I broke even or worse. I've also had stretches of 20k-60k hands where the Luckbox was on overdrive and I won at well over 5x my career win rate in BBs/100.

I don't want to discourage you since I happen to like playing full time, but I am SOOOOOOOOOO unbelievably glad I did not go straight from school to playing cards full time. There are a lot of reasons - for me, these included the fact that I made way more for my 1st 5-10 years after college than I would have as a grinder, but most of them aren't about money.

Bottom line, poker is a pretty mediocre 1st job, and probably the absolute best 2nd job I could possibly think of. I used to love poker more than anything, couldn't wait to play, got giddy at the prospect of going to Vegas/AC, really truly enjoyed playing online until the sun came up, etc. Money I won at my real job went to practical stuff, poker winnings were "found" money I really enjoyed blowing on expensive vacations, presents for girlfriend->wife, toys. As a pro, money won at poker pays the mortgage, period. Not as fun.

For me, while I still prefer supporting my family playing poker over the consulting gig I quit 5 years back (words don't describe how much I hated my job), poker simply isn't the fun obsession/hobby it once was. Honestly, I probably wish I had put more effort into finding a job I could tolerate to let poker stay a fun & profitable hobby. I'd likely have more $s and still love the game.

But everyone's different, and no one on the planet knows better than you what will make you happy. I can only say there is NOTHING stopping you from getting a job AND playing 20 hours/week, and you lose NOTHING by starting your post-school career and keeping poker as a hobby/2nd job for a year or two. It sounds strange, but after quitting a 50 to 60-hours / week job, my poker playing didn't even double in terms of hours played. Plus now instead of playing at the absolute best / most fun / most profitable times (nights & weekends), the "new" hours I freed up to play when I quit are the absolute lamest for playing online (Mon-Fri 8am-6pm). You don't gain a lot of quality online poker time by quitting a standard schedule job, IMO.

Speaking from experience, it is comically easy to leave your job/career to play poker, but it is not as easy to go the other way. Yeah, you can, but your career/income growth will be, at best, x years behind what it would have been. Not to mention the fact that a 1- or 2-year "self-employed"/un-employed gap in your resume after college doesn't help you when interviewing. You'll may never have as easy a time finding a half-decent job/career as right out of college (placement office, interviews on campus).

Best of luck to you. Feel free to PM if you have comments / questions you'd rather not post, I'd be happy to answer anything.

He said 90% of what I meant, only shorter and better.

FWIW, I doubt I would have been lucky enough to meet & marry my wife if back then I was the degenerate online poker junkie I am now. Mega-hours spend on a computer not exactly social compared to working in an office, going out after work (i.e., having a normal life.)

She works part-time and loves playing now the way I used to, makes me jealous.

I'm contemplating playing full time as a job as well. I'm months away from being able to though.

I am 34 and work 50 hours a week as a restaurant manager making 42k a year. I"m burned out on my job and really tired of dealing with people (customers and employees).

The time I would free up would be evening and night hours, so that can only help.

BTW, good luck and Go Cards!