Hey, I'm 34 and moved to CDMX earlier this year. Are you American? I agree that living in a country with a weak currency is a huge advantage for someone who earns a location-independent salary. My living expenses here are about 40-50% of a desirable American city (like Austin, Denver, Portland), which puts a lot less stress on poker. I can play 20-30 hours a week and still save money here.

Big +1

I'm moving from Brisbane to Thailand where my weekly expenses will go from $800 to $400 max. Will be earning same wage with Poker. Makes a lot of sense esp if you are looking to save or aren't exactly printing money.

I play online mtts but doing it for a living would be crush my soul within 6 months. Props to you for keeping it up.

Basically the crux of this entire thread is the expectation minus living expenses equation.

Eastern/southern europe, latin america, asia...pick one, save/invest, and have a sweet life. If and when profitable online poker goes away, live off savings until you figure out your next venture. Obviously this is all a no go without a solid amount saved up, living "paycheck to paycheck" with poker isn't an option.



Also, a great site to compare cost of living - https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/

^ I'd say though as a long term thing we can expect gaps in costs of living to narrow gradually over time as the world gets more connected in terms of trade and work.

Have definitely seen this in Slovakia, so plan for a reserve and try to own property where you live.

I'm 34. From the age of 23 to about 28 I worked full time in a non-career focused job (retail). I played low to mid-stakes MTTs online for anywhere form 10 to 30hrs a week. I would have holidays from work just to play poker on a full time schedule. I knew from 3-4 years of results that I could make equivalent or better money playing poker (bear in mind I wasn't making much money working). There were many occasions when I was close to pulling the trigger. I had lots of 4 figure scores but kept on missing the bigger scores by losing a flip deep and all the standard tournament stuff. I feel if I had won five figures I would have quit.

When I got serious with my gf and now wife, and we moved in together, we wanted to own our own home. Obtaining a ~£200k mortgage wasn't possible without working a full time job (save an unlikely 6 figure score and buying outright). This spurred me on to switch jobs into a related but far better paid field, I increased my qualifications and now make an above average but not spectacular living and hopefully will earn much more by the time I'm 40. I also have a young daughter.

I basically stopped playing poker for 2-3 years (although I still followed the game and posted on 2p2) and only started playing regularly again when I broke my arm last Christmas and took some time off work. I don't play a large online volume like I used to, I just play in online tournament series and big Sunday millions as well as about 6 live tournaments a year. I've run ridiculously good and am up $20k from 100 tournaments (lol).

Sometimes I wonder how my life would be different if I had tried to play poker full time. In a certain % of runouts I end up running like God and become a millionaire, but I think in the vast majority of runouts I grind a below average living and end up in my mid-30s without much of a CV and direction.

I'm very happy with the role poker plays in my life; if I run really good in a tournament at some point I might end up retiring well before I'm in my mid-60s. If not, as someone else ITT said, I'll be ready to boss the seniors circuit.

TL/DR - I'm not giving any advice, but I would tell youngsters to consider all aspects of a "boring" normal life first before giving it up to play full time, not just the one when you're single in your early to mid 20s.

Thanks for the link

This is a good honest assessment, and your description of the most likely outcome (grind a below average living and end up in mid-30s without much of a CV and direction) would probably apply to 95% of players.

I will say this.....


I started playing poker back in 2003 because I saw Moneymaker win millions of dollars and ESPN was broadcasting poker on the television. There was a HUGE poker explosion. In my city, multiple bars had poker tournaments every day of the week. There were also two Indian Casinos near my city that started poker rooms.

I was one of the people that got captured by the lure of poker so I bought every book, watched every show, studied the game and tried to learn how to play Hold em Poker.

In those days, there were so many STUPID poker players....ME INCLUDED...and we were easy money. Nowdays, if you go to a table it's super smart poker players all playing by the same poker rules. Everyone pushing all in on even money. It has come down to a coin toss amongst people playing by the same poker rules.

YOU CAN'T Make money on coin flips.

Perhaps that explains why Doug Polk can only afford to wear a tank top. Suits are expensive and you have to win a lot of flips to afford a custom made Italian Suit.

Explains his haircuts also ?

OTOH, are you saying a table full of GTO-playing smart folks will rake themselves broke ?

Humans cant come close to gto. Every mid/high stakes game you see that is "reg" filled will have someone who is +EV and someone who is -EV.

I´m Mexican from CDMX too. I´ve also thought that we spending mxn but earning usd or euros can be a double edge sword when being an online poker pro, as it´s not that hard to lose the will to become better player if u already are on a level where u have a steady +15 usd/hr win rate that allows u for a comfortable living while only grinding 20-30 hours per week (if u´re single).

Just depends whether you want to just get by or actually wanna save money and get max outta the poker opportunity

If u live in 3rd world country i think so, but if u live in western europe, canada or usa (or other 1st world country) u can´t get by only on a 15 usd/hr winrate with 20 to 30 weekly grind hours, hence online poker pros from those countries are forced to work on their game if they wanna live comfortably out of it. Isnpt it like that?

-Update

I found some of the initial advice given to me here to be useful. Giving up the "bells and whistles" ultimately did not make enough sense. Instead of going all-out and just dropping my employment, I took a job in my current position with a new company, in a city with a much stronger poker scene.

I've increased my play time both live and online significantly. In essence I act as if I playing for a living, but I also work 9-5. It's very time consuming, but it's what I need to do if I want to incorporate poker as my "primary income". I'm having my best year ever so far and I attribute that to the change in my perspective. To treat poker as my primary source of income with the time that I could allow. And that has seemed to be fruitful. My biggest concern about playing for a living was whether or not I could play well knowing that I had to win. Would I be able to handle that pressure? A 9-5 is the passive income of a professional poker player if you treat it as such, and that's what I'm doing. Now I'm certain that quitting my job to grind full-time Labor Day 2018 is not the best option. I'm going to continue this effort until 1) the decision becomes obvious, i.e. it's costing me money to be at work 2) I've built up enough nest-egg (life roll/poker roll) to play poker and do private consulting. The latter seems most likely as it will give me the freedom and flexibility that I spoke of in my earlier posts, but also some stability.

GL to anyone out there who is giving it a proper go.

I'd advise anyone thinking of going full-time to listen to the first circa 20 episodes of the Heads-up Poker Podcast. One of them gives up his day job with the post office to play full time and then goes on a downswing. He sounds pretty suicidal most episodes and ends up considering jobs at Walmart so he can make his child support and other bills.

That's about as far as I listened as I can barely keep up with other podcasts, but if people are thinking of going that route they should have a listen.

Re: Mexico.

From Numbeo "You would need around 1,910.33$ (36,132.79MXN) in Tijuana to maintain the same standard of life that you can have with 5,200.00$ in San Diego, CA (assuming you rent in both cities). "

Come back in 5-10 years and laugh at how big that difference is because it'll be a lot narrower by then.

Apart from the issues of "the future of online poker", if you're making money in Mexico make as much as you can while you still can and buy some land or rental property because you will regret it later if you don't.

Obv +1 to this

Big -1 to this. Buying property is an entirely different discussion unsuitable for this thread, but there are too many variables involved with property to simply say that its a must for everyone. Obviously investing is part of being a successful adult, but head to BFI for it.

On that note, anyone out there that is profiting at poker or life in general and has no idea about investing/business/etc, make it a habit to lurk the BFI section and read almost everything. There really are a lot of quality posters there that offer a ton of free knowledge that is far better than your average financial advisor.

Not investing wisely, or at all, is easily the biggest life leak possible for an already successful person.

I'm 33 and playing for a living, mostly 5/10 NLHE and PLO live in home games, Sands, parx, and Borgata. I did it in my early 20s as well before I had my son. I am in a better situation then most, my wife makes alot of money and I have a substantial bankroll. That being said we do have a very big monthly # just to maintain and I certainly feel the pressure. I do not regret my decision at all. Before I had a job making about 110k but it was crazy hours and I hated it. Me and my wife Literlly never saw each other. Her days off I worked and my days off she worked. Both of us together were rarely at events together. From the outside in we were living the dream, but neither of us were truly happy. My wife got a big promotion which entailed traveling and we sat down and poker made more sense. I make as much as I would have at my job( maybe a little less gross but more net) and of course the freedom is great. As obvious as it sounds , the problem is you have to be a winning player. There's so many ways to be a great player and screw it up. Its extremely hard to play your best Every day and never giveaway a buy in. Ill try and not make this post about the downfalls of playing , but if done correctly it is a great way to make a living, but so is being a professional football player, few can do it.

This post is completely genuine, but all of the above has alot more to do with you and not poker. I could easily make the same exact post about my prior job which many people look at as a dream. Many people see your job as a dream. Being happy isn't easy, and sometimes you need to make drastic changes in your life. Sometimes you need to sit back and really think about What you want from life. For me it took some time to navigate the whole playing for a living , not getting sucked into the life and pitfalls, keeping a steady schedule, keeping things in perspective etc etc, but that's not unique to poker. Being healthy solves almost everything, trust me I know. I am bipolar and playing poker certainly isnt the best for that. Through diet, exercise, constant conversation with my wife(kinda therapy) and waking up Every day with goals in mind I am thriving and happy. Pm me if you wanna talk, I had all your same issues and they are all 100% gone through some easy life changes

I agree with the bit I deleted. I would say though that owning at least some property in a given place is a good hedge against increasing local living costs.

If you own zero properties and you need one property (i.e. to live in) then effectively you have what's called a "short" position in housing, every increase in property prices represents money you lose. Owning 1 property is arguably the neutral position, but because other people's housing costs filter through to so much of the money we spend, you could argue that the neutral position would be more like 1.5-2 and somewhere about there is the lower variance play.

Agree investment is off topic, potential changes in living costs in the cheap paradises people are considering playing poker from should be considered and hedged against though.

Great post

I have been playing for a living for many years and I love it, I could never go back to a regular 9-5. I recently turned 50 and my youngest will be in College next year.

I think there are many people who seem to regret things in their lives. The lifestyle is not a fit for everyone and people usually find that out for themselves. I can see the unhappy people everywhere they let it show.

Your wife's actual name is "Literlly" ?

Average salary per month in Portugal (Europe - Souhtwest) is 928$, we earn 14 salaries per year, wich gives us shy under 13k a year.

And thats average salary, i strongly believe that a lot of the population (70%+) earns less than that.

So, grinding poker, even in small stakes, you can earn that a year or get a nice extra income.

Been doing it since 2008.

Just started in July in Las Vegas. It was going to be Reno, but after 2 weeks there, I was concerned that there were not enough games going to make a 40 hour/week living.

I have a House of Blogs thread going on it.