I'm not saying you're a being a douche (others might be, whatever). I'm saying you're inflating some numbers. Fifty bucks an hour as a minimum makes poker 96k (40 hours per week) before taxes and expenses. You're basically saying you need to make at least 96k gross per annum to be a poker pro, and that anything less means you're fooling yourself. That's clearly not true. It is true, though, that you need to keep winning more and more just to keep up with rising costs of living to maintain your lifestyle (assume a frugal lifestyle, no hookers and blow, no steak and lobster every other night, no lavish vacationing). For a single guy, you can live just fine with $20/hour (~38k). If you can't hit at least $20/hour playing 2/5+, you're a losing player anyway, and should consider a different way to make a living.

alls i know is i spend ~$50 a week on groceries. On the road food costs $50 a day. A hotel room might be $50 a nite, but you also are paying rent back home. So having somewhere to sleep doubles or triples your rent.
A whole lot of $50/hr grinding profit goes down the drain.

90% of the 2+2 community can't be wrong!

I must say I don't know how you reach the 96k figure, 40x50 is 2k per week, or 8k per month, or 104k per year. Perhaps you are giving the pro a whopping 1 week vacation to get the 96k figure? I'd also be interested in seeing your calculations for the single guy making $20/hour.

You are making the same mistake as others where you compare poker to a regular job. They are not the same and you need to come to terms with this if you want to understand why you need to make roughly $50/hour to a have any chance of staying in the game for long. I'm not talking about the guys who live in their parents basement, or someone who as $200k in the bank or some other random who don't have the regular costs of living you probably have.

Do the following:

1. Write down $2.000 at the top of a piece of paper
2. under this write down how much you will pay in tax; if you pay any
3. under this write down how much your rent, utilities, insurance cost, etc
4. under this write down how much you pay for your car; if you have one
5. under this write down how much cellphones, internet and stuff like that cost
6. under this write down how much you spend on food and clothes
7. under this write down miscellaneous costs you have not included above

Subtract all of these costs from the 2k, turn to the other side of the paper and write down this figure at the top.

Then do the following:

1. under this write down how much the food costs* at the card room, 6 hours/day mean you are eating there!
2. under this write down any membership costs or fees you need to pay to play
3. under this write down other costs that you have related to the card room.

Subtract all of these costs from the figure at the top of the page, this is how much you make a week. If you find it hard to make weekly calculations change them to fit a month or a year.

I'm sure the 2k you started with isn't that much anymore and you probably understand why you need to make $50/hour since you will be needing to save for the future yourself, there is no employer putting money into a 401k or paying your medical insurance.

*I do know you can get some comps in card rooms but I doubt a 1/2 or 2/5 players get free food of any decent quality. The best I ever have been given were filled toasts!

Also know that this is based on you playing for $50/hour for 40 hours. I somehow don't think this will happen considering I have played some and know that the juicy games are 2 nights a week, you can maybe get in 20 hours these nights and then you need to fill up the rest with maybe decent games. $50/hour sound like a lot of money but it truly isn't, as you probably will come to understand making $50/hour is a minimum,you may be a single guy now but I do hope you meet someone and what do you do then? What do you do when the children magically appears in your life and need to be taken care of? You may, and this is a big may, be able to get by on $20/hour today but you won't if you ever decide to get into any form of relationship or leave the cardboard box and move into a nice place where you are living as opposed to sleeping.

The extent of this trolling is actually impressive

If youre not clearing 100k/yr after tax as a poker pro, you should not be playing poker as your sole means of income. It should be your hobby and a solid side income.

Watch how fast you get ahead in life with a 50-60k/yr job that grows as you grow your career, and has all your benefits and 401k matching, and then winning 25-30k/yr on the side from poker. Its the much higher LT life +ev play.

^^This^^

My life got much better,when i got honest with myself and made poker income a supplemental part of my cash flow and not my sole means of support.

OK, this doesn't happen often on the internet or even in person generally, but I concede to your argument (in fact look outside, you may see strange anomalies in the sky).

You're right.

He's not trolling. He's making a lot of reasonable points.

Every young person should take chances and aim at the moon. Got for it. That's part of being young. You can afford it because you have a lot of time to recover if things don't work out.

Just don't lose track of time.

Spoken like a true hustler.

Just to be clear, I don't mean you have time to recover money. I mean you have time to redirect your life and pursue another line of work.

Here and there along the sidewalks of Vegas are shabby old men who chased the dream too long. Don't be one of those.

yes, like the point he make's about having to make 50/hr and play 10hrs/day just to tread water

well... if you wanna live hand to mouth, own nothing and have no life outside of your job, you can get by with less.

I suspect a lot of people who has poker as their only source of income won't be able to jump right into a 50-60k/year job if they wanted to make that change. Many of us didn't get much education post high school because we were busy with poker. Nor do we have any work experience. This is inherently one of the risks of playing poker for a living - it doesn't translate to anything else!

So you're suddenly looking at jumping off the poker train to flip burgers for $10 an hour. The equation changes.

I agree with many Things here, that a normal job is best for most People,especially longtermn,meaning your whole life.At the same time I totally agree w last poster.Unless Im totally unaware and know the wrong People,it is damn hard to make 50-60k/year.And I say this as a student and semipro, even with a Master degree and good job you start with like 30k and you can consider yourself well paid(euros,austria if you wonder).field is biotechnology.
Im sure there are exceptions as there are everywhere, but the People in my age that work in Healthcare or as engineer have something between 25-35k.
Obviously its gonna rise, but given the recent trends here its less than the Inflation unless you get promoted alot, which in some fields is nearly impossible.
I guess I didnt really give advice or a real Answer..but it aint so easy apparently.

For myself, right now it doesnt look like I would wanna take a normal job, what keeps me studying or improving tho are several things.Mainly I dont know how Poker is gonna develop, its possible that in 2-3years Im not gonna even make half of what I do right now, maybe Im gonna make twice as much, but just the uncertainity makes me wanna have at least some options later on.
Further, a huge benefit for me is, that there are officially no taxes on Poker.But given recent developments worldwide, also with most countries being broke, Im rather sure that it will happen sooner or later, especially because quite some People came here to exploit that and the sum gained for the government increases. That alone would probably reduce my income by 40% or whatever they gonna deduct.

Agree. At least anybody can jump right into poker. Seeking other sources of income are a lot harder in this day and age. But even if you're making 100k a year playing, that can easily dry up in a second. Some years you will make less, or just completely go broke if you're not careful. Having other income is probably the only reason some players stick around though.

I think you need to read through this a few more times.

You also need to understand that I'm not saying that anyone who think they have the skill shouldn't try poker out, but they need to be realistic, treat it professional and know what mile stones they need to get to within a certain amount of time. Most poker kids don't have a clue about what they are doing, some may play good on the tables but don't understand what kind of race they are in. They need to make some serious money fast and taking breaks the first year should not be done. Most studies show that all kind of 'life ventures' one takes on need to be on the go within 12 months or it won't materialize into what it was supposed to.

With $50/hour you will be able to get ahead in poker. I'm not talking about just sustaining yourself at the current level but have a few dollars for every hour that can be put away in some form of poker fund that you could use to take shots at whales playing at higher buyins or something of that kind. You are probably one of the delusional poker kids who just don't get it and refuse to even try.

If you are a player on a liquidity market you need to be liquid to be able to capitalize on opportunities that are presented to you. If you need to take this money from your bankroll you risk of getting yourself into some real trouble.

Your delusional thinking inhibit you from even grasping these fundamental aspects of what you are doing, instead of thinking it trough or even making some form of calculation to see if I'm right you get in with the herd of feeders that only provide the liquidity for the market but don't get that much back for it. Look at the thread I started under the 2010 account and try to get in touch with all the flamers I had in that thread, you'll find that at least 3 of them are not playing anymore for various reasons. I know that one of these 3 got hit hard during BF since he didn't care to cover his back like I told him. There is a reason why people stop playing poker even though they are winners at the tables.

since we're on the subject I wouldn't try it alone. Hook up with a couple like minded souls and support each other... split the costs of living.. all that good stuff. Many of today's big successes did it that way.
Few people have everything it takes to run a small business and that's close to what this is about. If you don't do something it won't get done. Partnerships are much easier.

lol not anyone can just jump into a 50k/year job. and please don't post ignorant comments like "anyone can do it if they work hard enough". also who are you to be telling people how much money they "should" be making? that should depend on lifestyle, values, etc. etc.

These types of jobs are incredibly waning, and there is tons of competition for jobs like this today in the weak labor market. Wages for the most part are suppressed; most of us make less than $30k/year and the majority of jobs created in this "recovery" have been in that income bracket. And a lot of jobs do not match 401k anymore (like mine).....despite record profits.

Jobs don't abundantly grow on trees anymore. Probably why so many are aspiring to rely on gambling for income (to get away from the bullsht).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXnifPfxK0Q

+1

50K is enough to have a good quality of life, even support a family if you are pretty frugal.

The point is that making 50K a year playing poker and making 50K a year in a salaried job are in no way equivalent, because in poker you are putting your capital at risk and could lose and the payoff fluctuates from month to month.

Also someone with a fixed salary of 50K probably has access to credit if he runs into short-term cash flow problems, a professional gambler making 50K probably does not.

The long and short of it is that you need to be making A LOT more than 50K a year on average playing poker to have an equivalent quality of life to someone making a guaranteed 50K salary.

You need to understand that the post you replied to is posted by someone delusional, the (since many think like this poor soul) have no contact with reality and is just as delusional as someone who is talking to their cat about astrophysics. The problem is that they can get along in society while the one developing theories about the cosmos with T'ger can't. Reality will catch up with them and they will suffer from their delusion, probably blame the god of variance for screwing them or some other part to avoid admitting that they have been in the wrong.

Just like lkasigh writes you cannot compare a wage job to playing poker for a living. They are so different and can't compare. Instead you should compare poker to other liquidity markets and you will find that there will be a need to make ****loads of money when you can to survive the times when you cannot. It is as simple as that.

Theres plenty of 40k+ jobs out there. What I read on here is that its better try to go "pro" in poker instead of going to college, getting educations and skills needed to build LT careers. To sit on here and say well I can grind out 50k/yr right now in poker so why go to college and get a job so I can come out and make 35k/yr is just awful advice. Its very short term thinking and completely misses the bigger picture of life. Its hard to see this when youre 20, but so much advice on here is bad. I have a masters degree, left accounting to do poker for 4 years full time (made triple what I was making with a Masters), and then BF hit. It really made me see things more clear and that LT poker just isnt the way for literally 97% of people who play the game. Of course the guy above me wont listen cuz hes the 20 yr old who knows it all, but gla who think poker is the better route.