No offense taken

it takes years , everything you do in life takes years to be great. poker for me is about the freedom and the lifestyle im still coming up obv. if you got this much quit in you i can promise it will only be a headache. and people forget who play just how much 100k is. not alot of JOBS pay that much. owning a business will pay that and more but there are even less jobs that will.

You understand that there are plenty of people making 6-figures with their normal job who play on pokerstars right now, yes ?

We play 4 the fun and to stay sharp in live games.

If you can make 100k+ with online poker, you can do it in a normal job too.. And it usually is much more fun.

I don't have special insight tbh, it just seems very likely to me that it's in the hundreds, maybe over 1000 I dunno. I have only heard Stars mentioned on this site. There are a fair amount of other sites around. I don't even play on stars, and I've never made less than $200k/year at online cash since 2007. And I'm just a nobody most people will never have heard of.

Lots of people will supplement their Stars winnings with other sites. $100k just isn't that much...

It's a lot higher. about 400 people made SNE elite last year I think (I don't know the exact number). A lot of those players made 100k+. On top of that there's a lot of mtts/sngs players who made 100k+, a decent chunk of 100k+ winners at mid stakes cash etc. Only a small percentage of the people who make 100k+ play high stakes cash. It wouldn't suprise me if more than 750 players made 100k+ on Pokerstars in 2015.

100k is mutch, but it can be achieved. If you aim a little bit lower, like 80k it becomes easy.

Truth is, many of these seating script kiddies will never make a decent income because the think they are smarter as the rest and deserve everything for free.

im talking USD . i dont know about the mark or whatever you have in germany. but 100k from a regular job in the u.s. is rare. average income in usa is about 50k before tax.

Many people don't need 100k a year to have a good living. Average income in my rural area is 25k. Average house around 75k and average rent around 400$ for a 2 Bdrm. I could live like a king for ~$50k a year.

Im talking Euros before taxes, but i know US vages.

Just look what Comapnys pay for a decent senior in IT.. Devs, Consultants, Project manager etc.. They all make 75k+ with 35.

I don´t want to offend you or be a smartass! But you can make 100k+ with a 40 hour week, and there is nothing magical about it.

Thats only taking into account 25/50 players and above tho

If you're smart enough to make 100k/year from poker chances are that you could make a lot more working a real job (if you didn't drop out of college that is lol). Poker is obviously a terrible long term "career" choice because most pros' earnings will decrease every year (and it's the opposite for a real job). On top of that poker players contribute very little/nothing to society, you're sitting alone in front of your computer all day, your job is arguably mentally unhealthy and you can't know for sure if you will even make it as a pro (chances are you won't even make 50k+). For most people a real job will bring more happiness, money and freedom than poker (if you live in a western country at least).

Because it's baller, yo.

do you live in a small village in Africa?

Making 100k+ in poker as a pro is probably more rare than a raondom person making 200k+ working a real job in the US/Europe.

I think the question kind of misses a point. Firstly, from a perspective of a poker player.

I used to play for living. No, I never made huge amounts and I was never a crusher, but compared to other opportunities at that time and the fact that I was still better than your average micro stakes donk, I could make a decent income. These days, I don't really play full time, but still I do play and to answer why - because I know that I am still better than an average player at micro (perhaps even midlish-stakes) tourneys. I don't put enough of a volume to beat the variance quickly perhaps, but I am not in a rush. At the stakes I play, I know I am +ev, so whatever, it is not like I am putting my livelihood on the line if I run bad for a couple of months.

You would be surprised how many people (and I come from a country where online anything isn't really a big thing) I know that believe that they can play good poker. They can't, they don't even have the basic principles in their head, but somehow they believe their game is the nuts. And just using the logic, if that's the case here, I can only imagine the exponential growth of numbers in other, more developed countries.

Then there are people who don't actually care about winning. For them it is just a distraction (I know a few of these as well). For example, it is still +ev for them to play Sunday Million and occupy themselves that way instead of playing slots and losing a couple of thousands. It is all the same to them; if the luck is on their side, they could end up winning the whole thing and that's really all they care for.

And now, let me give another perspective.

I love chess. I've loved it since I was eight years old and at one point in my life I was quite decent at the game. However, I've realized that I am not super talented for the game and I would never become top 1% or even top 5%.

Do you think that stopped me from playing? Of course not! I took some breaks and had periods where I couldn't look at the board, but it's always been my passion. I don't hope to ever become one of the best, especially at my age (not super old, but old enough to know that my "prime" has passed). Still, if I can be decent at chess, win some games and play some nice lines, that's cool with me. I don't particularly care when I lose, I only care for the things I could've done better.

You could mention financial element, but back in the day when I used to play more, I paid fair share of tournament fees to play in the fields where I stood no realistic chance. Who cares? If I manage to outplay one IM or God forbid GM, well, it was worth all the money. And guess what, I am looking into playing more tournaments soon, and getting crushed some more It is just something I love to do, it is my pastime, and I would be an idiot to assume that I could consistently beat someone who devoted a big part of their life to chess.

When comparing the two, poker is immensely more exciting and, on the basic level, simpler to learn for an average person. That's where the 90k come from; most of them just want to have fun, to compete, to pass some time or distract themselves. Not everyone is chasing the dream. I mean I used to have a dream about becoming the top 1% in chess (or in poker for that matter), but once I've realized that wasn't going to happen, I did not stop playing. It was still fun, exciting, challenging and, as far as poker goes, profitable.

So there you go

HSDB is just that, 25/50 and above, and most of the big winners opt-out these days. Although, I would guess the numbers and amounts won is significantly down on the "good old days", there will be plenty of 500NL+ that a grinding out more than $100k a year.

just aim a bit lower, say 1k, and have a ****in great year relaxin in the sun

THIS.

It is only worth / was worth it if you can increase your net worth (and keep it) so rapidly in your early 20's that you have total financial freedom for the rest of your life. Kanu7 is a good example of that.

It was the main driving factor why I turned away from life as a pro a few years ago. I was earning a lot more money than a "normal" job, but could see the future.

The vast majority of those smart enough in todays games grinding out $100k+ a year could be earning that or on a long term career path to earning more than that (especially when you include health care, pension, access to credit etc etc etc).

Poker was a fad that black friday killed. Get over it

i play nl2 on stars and its obv nitty af. i tried partypoker this week and its nitty af. nobody call your 3bet, unbelievable.

cant believe 93% of players are scared to lose 16 cents pre flop. wheres the fishes at ?

I bet everything I own that there was nowhere near 90,000 individual human beings playing pokerstars when you saw that.

Counting the number of people whose accounts are +100k or more is deceptive if you're trying to evaluate the opportunities available to aspiring professionals. Almost half the people on the list have 5k or fewer hands played.

Anyone know how many $100-->$400 grinders made 100k+?

Most players making >100k are going to be playing across multiple sites so you'll never know how many there are. I'd be surprised if the total number was under 1000.

To answer OP ...It certainly doesn't seem like there are many good reasons to begin taking poker seriously in 2016. Personally, I'm starting to look some way to transition out of it as GTO solutions will be widely available within the next 3 years. I'm just still making enough money that it doesn't make too much sense for me to get out of it yet. Soon though.

When you say poker is still lucrative enough for you to not have to look elsewhere, where would some of you look? Honest question, I don't figure any real grinders that have been living off poker could just waltz their way through to some other career primarily for the lack of experience as I'm sure many grinders have had previous education.so I mean when you say its still worth it for you to play, what are we talking in terms of numbers? I'm trying to get a sense of how profitable poker is nowadays as I've been out of it for many years now just got back in.

I kinda suspect theres still a **** ton of dead money to be picked up in MTTs? Anyone who plays em professionally can comment on that (or wants to lol)?