Agree with SNGplayer, the only pros I know routinely doing 40 hours a week are sour drunk live pros heading for an early grave

Sponsored ones

Yeah, this is the NVG version of the image of what a professional poker player is. Most do not have backers or sponsors. The ones that do, it's far different than what you apparently think it is.

Heh.

1.Buy a cheap RV
2. Play poker all day in the casino
3. Drive to a safe neighbourhood, Sleep in the RV
4. Eat McDonalds and carrots
5. ?????
6. Not many overheads
7. Profit????

Meh, a lot of people considering being a live pro won't be getting laid anyway.

i mean I know they exist but they're so rare IMO.....playing 2000 hours a year of live poker without autopiloting for years and years is a hell of a task

For anyone who read the above and thought it seemed a bit wierd, the issue is whether our family rotation is a high enough level of care, or if it's time for her to go to assisted living. I'm not waiting for my mother-in-law to die. She's only 91.

Really? You think most pro's aren't staked or have a sponsor that contributes a large % of their steady income?? I would think it was the exact opposite. My understanding is that a very, very small % of poker pro's are playing entirely unstaked on their own dime. And of those that are (Negraneau), most of them have significant sponsorship income.

Ryan Reiss, probably.

lol

Stop watching TV. When I say pro, I mean a person who derives their income from poker AND is self-sufficient. Your definition of pro is a dude that plays donkaments on the circuit. Well, yeah, most of them are broke. I've never been staked, and my kids and wife stay happy (I also don't play on the donkament trail - only a small number of select tourneys during the wsop).

First off, I don't watch poker on TV. There isn't any poker on tv in Canada for what it's worth.

My point was that my understanding is that most poker professionals who enter tournaments with 5K and up buyins are staked and/or have a sponsor. The vast majority do not put up those 5K buyins from their own money. They've sold action or have a backer.

Now, I'm not talking about cash games, or grinding small buy in events. I was referrring to professional tournament players. So perhaps we're talking about different things. Sorry for not being more clear in my post.

Aren't the vast majority of live pros low to mid stakes cash game grinders?

Right. Most high buyin tourney "pros" are staked because no live high-stakes tourney player's results will ever converge to actual expectation, therefore it's easy to lose for a long time playing well. Most high-stakes cash pros have their own action, though, unless they're taking a shot and wish to reduce fluctuations on their roll and they sell pieces.

I enjoyed reading through this thread, and thought I would respond to some of the earlier posts. It is interesting to me that everyone just assumes that they will win at 20$/hr if they play 1/2. That is an extremely high winrate! If you notice most of the samples people provide are around 500 hours at best. That would come out to approximately 15k hands. If you were ever an online grinder you would realize that is nothing. You could easily be losing over a 15k sample even if you were the best player in the game. I realize that most recreational live players are significantly worse than even the lowest online stakes but it would still be possible to go on 15-30k hand downswings or break even stretches.

Can you win in the long run at 20$ an hour in a 1/2 game if you were a good winning small stakes online grinder with a proven track record over several hundred thousand hands? Absolutely! But it will probably take longer than most people think to get to the "long run". So if you have a 5k bankroll and your living expenses are 2k, like someone posted earlier in the thread, you are really setting yourself up for failure. Eventually you are gonna hit a bad streak or even a break even streak and get blinded away by the life rake. Not to mention what if you have a car problem? That will eventually happen and is bound to take a chunk of that valuable bankroll.

I'm a big winner at live 1/2 and I have had numerous sessions where I have won and lost 1k in a single day. If you have a 5k roll and have a -1k month by running like **** (this can easily happen in a 4800 hand sample) and then have to pay 2k life rake (will happen eventually)... you are left with 2k and are essentially boned because now you have to win 2k that month to avoid being busto by life expenses. There is no way this scenario ends well.

In my opinion you probably want to have a 10-15k roll to play 1/2 for a living live. You also need 6 months to a year worth of living expenses so that you can give yourself a decent shot of making it to the long run. It's much better to get a job of some kind and grind at night when you get off work. That way you can put all of your winnings back in your bankroll to build it for moving up in stakes eventually.

All this being said I have a tremendous amount of respect for anyone that has the balls to attempt this. I absolutely love reading trip reports and shot taking threads. Very entertaining!

Some of us are lucky enough not to have a boss that lives within 500 miles of them. Some of us are blessed enough to be making great salaries which would be very difficult to match playing poker at our skill level. And some of us still think the grass is always greener and would quit in a heartbeat if we ever cashed for six figures or more....some of us are stupid.

This is key here. The higher your edge (e.g., online winner taking on small stakes live), the smaller your downswings.


Using pzhon's long run formula: 4 * (SD/WR)^2 * P (where P = hands or hours)

Say, an online player with a 6bb/100 winrate with a 90bb/100 standard deviation

4 * (90/6)^2 * 100 = 90,000 hands.

Say, live player with a 12bb/100 winrate with a 70bb/100 standard deviation

4 * (70/12)^2 * 100 = ~13,600 hands.

Assume 30 hands an hour, and that's 453 hours for the long run (and that's not even crushing), so the long run is far shorter in games where your edge is bigger.

That said, and I've elaborated on why already itt or the other one, but no one should want to play for a living with an expectation of only $20.

Thanks for explaining that. Out of curiosity how do you come up with the standard deviation for these calculations?

IMO, this is one of the biggest misconceptions about poker pros. Poker IQ and real life IQ are not related. You CAN be smart and be good at poker, sure. But being good at poker does not remotely suggest that you are a smart person.

There are smart people that make a living playing poker that can make a living in other fields. Then there are good poker players that can only make a living playing poker.

I think the point is that to be able to beat poker enough to live comfortably requires perseverance, discipline and dedication. Those attributes come in pretty handy when getting started in new fields, yet none of these attributes requires exceptional intelligence (although it certainly helps). The same can't really be said the other way around.

for real dude?
After 7 full ... at 12???
Growing sifnificant in one month?

Where were the growing the last 7..??

I'm primarily a limit player, but I thought those were pretty ballpark for FRNL. For my live play, I track with Poker Journal app which calculates stdv in dollars/hr. I also think StatKing for desktop does the same.

Alright thanks for the info!

This made me crack up

Welcome. I have to make a note that I found out that Poker Journal app has not been updated to work with ios7 yet (I didn't update my os due to battery drain issues. Now I'm going to have to stay on this until he updates or find another), so you guys shouldn't spend the money yet.

I know doctors who hate their jobs. Not quite as much as dentists, though, but still. One is an anesthesiologist who makes $700K/yr... hates it.


Bar owners are constantly working and many of them hit the juice during ****ty days and develop drinking problems. You sound like you were just a ****ty manager that let everyone steal the owner blind while you were "making your own hours."