As the title suggests, I thought it would be fun to do an AMA for the 2+2 community to see if I can provide some insight into what it's like being a successful low to mid stakes live pro for an entire decade. Admittedly part of my motivation is definitely a little bit of pride and vanity. Hitting this milestone of living off poker for 10 years is very exciting for me, and I admit I am proud of what I have accomplished, and I'm taking this time to reflect a little bit. I've come a long way in 10 years, from being pretty much broke to living a very comfortable middle class lifestyle.

I decided to stay anonymous which will definitely hurt my credibility, but hopefully the community will give me the benefit of the doubt, and this thread can be informative and fun for the people who find it. I'll give as much good detail as I can without giving anything away that might allow the people in my local card rooms to figure out who I am. I simply don't want that much attention IRL

My background

I found my first success in poker around 2009-2010 on Pokerstars before Black Friday. I wasn't making anything crazy, I think most months I made around $500-1500, which was a lot of money to me at the time on top of my regular low paying jobs.

After Black Friday that changed a little bit, I was trying to make money on the unregulated Merge Network, and I definitely made some money but it was quite a grind and not very fun.

Early 2013 I started going to my local casino to play 1/2, I think when I started doing this I had all of about $2-3K to my name. Thankfully I ran good, started off with several winning sessions, and quickly got to the point where I wasn't at serious risk of dusting all of it at this stake.

Prior to these casino ventures, I was working quite a lot of hours at multiple low paying jobs and just hustling for anywhere from 50-80 hours a week. Once I started making money at poker I scaled this down, and late 2013 I decided to quit to pursue poker full time, and the rest is history. At the time I still had under $10K to my name, so in hindsight it was very premature to quit my job, but thankfully I never had a downswing at that time and I was never in danger. In addition, I could've gotten my job back if I really needed it.

Anyways, from that point I worked very hard, eventually started to play 2/5 which is really where I cemented myself for a long time. Later on I would go on to play live MTTs, and sometimes play games bigger than 2/5, but 2/5 is really my meat and potatoes, and where most of my income has been made. Here is an approximate breakdown of where and how much I've made over the last decade. Since I'm talking total profit as a professional, I'll include all promotional earnings such as high hands. Naturally this is only a small portion of the total profit from cash games

1/2 and 1/3 games: $80K
2/5 and similar: $600K
Live tournaments: $200K
5/10 and similar: $30K
Bigger than 5/10: -$20K
App games during COVID (mostly 2/4 NL and smaller): $50K

Total: ~$940K

I also made about $30K in a successful staking and coaching arrangement, but that was a one-off investment for me, it's not something I really care to do in the future.

A lot of people, especially people with a big appetite for gambling, might be kind of incredulous that someone would stay primarily at 2/5 for so long, and I'm happy to elaborate on this throughout the thread, but my staying at this stake has a lot to do with the fact that initially when I took shots in games bigger than 2/5, I got absolutely destroyed. This includes 5/10, for a long time I was down a ton at that stake. Over the years I've game selected 5/10 more, and I'm now up a modest amount, and I'm also a lot more comfortable playing it, but for a long time the thought of moving up was very mentally draining. I'm still down a good amount at 10/25 or similar, as almost everytime I took a shot I got smashed.

Another reason I stayed primarily at 2/5 cash is that I started branching out heavily into live MTTs, and I wasn't keen on doing tournaments and bigger cash at the same time. I was drawn into them by how ridiculously soft the fields were, and also the allure of a big payday. Some years my split between cash games and tourneys was pretty close to 50/50 or 60/40, although lately I have scaled down my tournament play for a number of reasons.

Overall, my tournament results have been decent, but I also think it's fairly likely that my net worth and overall poker profit would be higher if I had never played them and just focused on being a pure cash player. No regrets though, I think becoming proficient at tournaments has improved me as a player, and there is also a lot to be said for the fun aspect of getting to play different formats, having the opportunity to make life changing money in just a few days, and so on.

Another thing for people to consider regarding which stake to play: I think if you're doing everything properly, including paying taxes, enjoying life, investing your money in stuff like retirement, it probably should take a lot longer to move up than most people realize. If you make $100K in a year at 2/5, you pay your taxes, max out your Roth IRA, pay all living expenses and maybe take a trip or 2, you really don't have a ton left over to add to your bankroll.

Overall I'm pretty happy with my risk profile as a pro. the 2/5 games, despite what some pessimistic mediocre regs might tell you, are still spectacularly profitable, whereas games bigger than 2/5 can vary dramatically, and very often, at least in my part of the country, are extremely reg infested. I definitely want to take a few more opportunities to play in them moving forward, as I do think I can increase my hourly even further, but also I don't mind if the next 5+ years of my career are still primarily at 2/5. I honestly would not be surprised if eventually my 2/5 profit exceeds $1 million dollars, which is pretty bonkers to me. How many people do you think have made a million dollars in public 2/5 games in the US? I feel like the number has to be crazily small, like under 5 or 3. I'm not there yet, but it seems likely, as I have no designs on a career change!

Some fun facts about my career:

Best year: ~200K
Worst year: ~30K (was pretty early on, and was largely from bricking tourneys and lowered cash volume)
Biggest cash pot won: $11K (not that impressive)
Biggest cash pot lost: Also about $11K
Biggest tourney win: Just under $100K

I'll link my 2/5 results that I have in my current tracker. It is not the entirety of the results, as I have switched apps a few times. In total I think I've played about 10,000 hours of 2/5 , but it gives visual to my general profitability as a player


Anyways, those are the cliff notes of my story. I'm hoping to drum up some good questions that I can field and provide some value to this community. I welcome most questions, whether its how my income has varied year to year, lifestyle, BRM, mental game, taxes, investing, or anything else.

Thanks for reading!

Wow brilliant results will probably have a few questions

What has been your biggest downswing in terms of hours and $ at 2/5 and all stakes combined?

One of the benefits of 2/5 is the absurd consistency of it. I'd have to double check but I'm fairly sure I've had at most like 2 or 3 losing months of 2/5 when I put in more than say 130 hours. Most of my losing 2/5 months were when I was playing a lot of tourneys and therefore I had low volume.

Worst downswing at 2/5 maybe like $10K or so? Most painful stretch was probably something like 3 months around break even. Those were back 4+ years though, I truly have faced almost no adversity at 2/5 in the last couple years.

I've had way bigger tournament downswings though. One WSOP I'm pretty sure I lost $40K or so, and I've had numerous stretches where I had medium 5 digit downswings like that. When those occur though, I tend to shift back to playing more cash so that I don't have that bad of a year.

I truly don't know how some of these guys play MTTs full time. Between the enormous swings, the negative tax implications (you'll pay a ton more in taxes making 300K one year and $0 the next year than a guy who makes $150K two years in a row)...it's not something I would choose for myself, that's for sure

Decided to ask the mods to move this from BBV to PG&C, seems more fitting as a blog type post, since BBV tends to be more low content from what I’ve seen. I hope you all enjoy reading

Cool thread. It's definitely the first one I've seen from someone whose been playing as a live pro for that long and been as open with the results. Even the other few threads on here from live pros there's less consistency regarding stakes and games played.

I think a couple questions that would be of interest to younger players are

1. What was your study routine like, and how has it evolved over the years?

2. What do you think it would take to start beating games above 5/10, and/or do you think you could realistically make more $/hr in those games?

My take is that often even if you are a well studied pro, the skill jump in average player up at 5/10 might just make it such that a good 2/5 table, that's going to have a ton more rec players in the pool, could produce a higher hourly rate. Agree?

What part of the country do you play?

West coast, Northeast, Southeast, midwest?

Hopefully that still keeps it vague enough for you.

Nice results!

I’ve studied a lot of different ways over the years. I was winning pretty easily at the lowest stakes and also at 2/5 just with my natural talent, but I also worked to improve steadily. Early on it was a lot of free or cheap content like Crush Live Poker and other smaller websites with free videos. Later on Doug Polk videos on YouTube, then some Upswing modules, GTO wiz, and other solver based work.

Also early on, getting into some group chats with people who were also beating 2/5 and 5/10 and just tossing around tons of hand histories really helped to solidify my game and to look at hands from different perspectives

The solver stuff starting in, idk, 2018 or 2019, really helped to solidify some of the stuff in my game, particularly things I was doing at 2/5 that work well as a population exploit, but against better players would be imbalanced. Learning and sharpening my baseline strategy, and understanding *why* I deviate from it so much at 2/5, is very key to my success I think. It allows me to crush the fish, but when I happen to play with good players I’m still pretty inexploitable. Obviously I’m not anywhere close to as good as the guys who crush high stakes, but I think I can play with those guys and only have a small to moderate loss rate.


I definitely think I beat most 5/10 lineups comfortably, I just suffer sometimes from a lack of availability where I live, and when they do run often times they are mediocre. It becomes a situation where would I rather make my $55+ an hour at 2/5 (easily could be more than $100 on a very good table) or would I rather sit at 5/10 with 3-4 other good regs, make around the same, maybe a little more or maybe a little less, with like 3-5x the variance? Doesn’t usually seem to appealing, although there is something to be said for challenging oneself, which I do at times.

Eastern time zone. Maybe I’m being overly cautious, but I really want to avoid a reputation

Cool thread and congrats on your success.

What do you think is stopping you from being a truly elite player (ie win at a rate higher than your $2/5 winrate at almost any $5/10 or $10/25 game).

Do you think you have been too complacent?

Thanks

It’s a good question, and it’s an obstacle I’ve dealt with for years.

As I alluded to, many times earlier in my career, I took shots in good 5/10 and a few times at 10/25 games, and mostly it went very poorly. Particularly at 10/25, each time I played I lost. Nothing too brutal, but several sessions in the -$4-7K range.

Mentally I always found it hard to deal with, losing in a single hand what it takes weeks or a whole month to grind out at 2/5

I think those losses are mostly attributed to simple bad luck, but I will admit that I had a mental block that I dealt with for years when the stakes would get big, dealing with mental fog when I would get involved in hands, and having way more trouble than normal to think clearly and play my normal game. It’s something I’ve worked on, and is not nearly as bad as it was say 7 years ago, but definitely there were some costly mistakes in those big spots.

Again, I think 70-80% of those losses were just bad luck imo.

But all these factors combined kinda kept me happy, and yes at times complacent, at 2/5

Between poker success and some good investments, my net worth has grown nicely over the years, so I have quite a lot more to my name than when I first started taking shots at 5/10, but at the same time, I’m also older, and I’m no longer in a position where I’m willing to risk even a moderate % of my net worth playing in games bigger than 5/10 unless it’s an amazing opportunity. Maybe I’m not reaching my full potential, but my current path allows me to invest monthly, live a pretty flexible, carefree life, and probably become a millionaire at some point in the next decade or so, which makes me quite happy.

Also I can take shots in certain soft tournaments instead of bigger cash games when I care to, while still making my consistent-ish 2/5 income

I don’t think it’s impossible that I become a 5/10 or higher regular in the future, but not something I stress over too much!

What percent of 2/5 players at your room would you consider to be legit winning pros?

I would say yeah no one is going to know an anonymous 2/5 player even if you said what state you play in, but appreciate the response.

Maybe like 10% would win in almost any lineup, and another 10-30% are either small winners or losers depending on lineup

Yeah, I’d just be worried about some of the players in my rooms stumbling on this and being like “I bet this is ______” and giving them a bunch of info that confirms their suspicions. Sorry for the vagueness

Are you still passionate about the game and motivated to play? Do you ever feel burnt out but feel compelled to put in the hours?

How many hours do you play per month?

What is your tipping m.o.?

Do you have a daily stop loss?

How many buyins do you bring with you to the casino?

Do you play a certain schedule or you just show up when you feel like it?

Best days/hours to maximize ev?

You know, I definitely had some stretches of time, probably most notably in 2015-2018, where I would say I was extra complacent and lacking discipline to get better and be enthusiastic about the game. I’d say currently, I am enjoying the game a lot still. I think part of that is just growing up and being grateful for all the things this game affords me. A good living, great flexibility, a generally fun atmosphere. There are downsides to it for sure, but I’d say I love what I do.

Also a factor, since 2019, every year I’ve made at least $85 or 90K I think. This year I’m already up over $90K, so it seems likely that I’ll have at least a $120K year just poker. Lots to be thankful for


I actually probably only average 130-140 hours per month right now. It can vary a lot, but I tend to try to play the best hours, as opposed to playing long days. I have other things in my life that take time

Tipping: I’m definitely more generous with dealers who I know well. Small pots a dollar, medium to big pots like $2 or $3 and very big pots usually a red bird. Massive pot might be a little more. If I’m traveling I usually scale down to mostly $1-3 tips max since I’m just a random

I would only have a stop loss if I was playing a way bigger game. At 2/5 I’ve never had one. It’s pretty freaking rare to be down more than like $3K in these games so it’s not something I think about. On the rare occasions it happens, it’s because I’ve gotten blasted by fish a few times and I honestly don’t care and am pretty unfazed. That’s one of the benefits of being what many would consider “over rolled” for 2/5 is, it’s virtually impossible for any single session to sting

I have a box at one casino so I don’t have to carry anything there, and other ones in my region I’ll bring like $7-10K, sometimes a little more. More than I would ever need at 2/5, and enough that I can hop in something bigger if it’s good.

Yeah I pretty much play whenever. I bounce around a lot and play different hours, but I definitely prefer to concentrate my hours at late evening and overnight, when I think my hourly is highest

I don’t think a particular day is consistently better than another to be honest, but I do think playing overnight is way better than during the day

are you ever worried a time is going to come when poker is either unbeatable or beatable for such a small amount it no longer makes sense?

do you see yourself venturing into tournaments or plo?

if you had no ties to any geographical area and had to move somewhere in the us (or elsewhere i suppose) to purely be a live pro where would you go?

how big of a downswing would it take before you began second guessing your overall strategy? i know u said u hadn't had many big ones but there must be a number somewhere that would be cause for concern

legitimately sick graph though

Games becoming unbeatable has worried people for almost my entire career. I honestly think I’m as profitable, or more profitable, than ever. My hourly over the last 2 years definitely reflects that. Part of it is because I’ve continued to improve, and part of it is because, imo, even though games have gotten less “crazy” the chances in any given session for a player like myself to generate EV have not really diminished in quantity.

If you have played a lot of live poker, you know about those “dream” tables, where most of the table is raising and reraising to large sizes with garbage, 6 way pots ever other hand, etc.

While those tables can be very fun and profitable, often times you have to just, make a good hand in order to realize your EV

At a more “normal” table, I’m able to actually VPIP a lot more, play a lot of small to medium pots leveraging my skills across all streets, and I believe that as long as the players are still making the types of mistakes I see today in these smaller pots, my hourly will stay very large for a long time. In fact, I might even perform better in a game like this, whereas a mediocre reg will definitely make more in the crazy game by just playing tight and having their premiums massively over realize their EV

My main worry over the next decade is that making like $100K a year won’t be enough to maintain the lifestyle I want to lead and my future goals because of inflation and such. This is why I’ve always been very diligent about investing, and I’ve done quite well as a result.

I do expect myself to play a lot more 5/10 in the next ~5 years and I expect I can have some years that approach $150-200K without binking a tourney, and even more if tourneys go well.

Best places to play live poker? There are many. I think Texas is the obvious answer right now, nice weather and poker still newish there.

Colorado recently getting rid of the fixed limit games, I hear the cash is quite good there right now, so if you like the hiking/skiing culture of Denver that would suit nicely.

LA probably offers the highest hourly if you’re good enough to beat 5/10 and 10/20 but also the highest CoL. Numerous other places in Cali would probably be good too, San Diego and San Jose for example

East coast, I think lots of places in Florida have good games and lifestyle, especially SoFla and Tampa. I’ve been to Jacksonville and the games were good there, although that is a less exciting city for sure

Baltimore and DC area are great places to play too. MGM in DC is a very big room with lots of games at all stakes.

Basically, tons of options depending on what you want exactly. There are also amazingly soft cities in the middle of the country. Might not be the most exciting lifestyle, but almost everybody at the 2/5 games in those states will be pretty bad lol

As for your downswing question, at 2/5, I really don’t know, it would have to be a huge downswing coupled with some kind of life event that makes me think my brain isn’t what it used to be. This could be getting much older, or some kind of medical issue. I know that sounds absurd, but when you think about the fact that I have literally made over 100,000 big blinds and have an hourly over 11bb/hour, there’s pretty much no way I’d suddenly go from that to like, anywhere close to losing

Thanks for the thoughtful responses

Thoughts on 10-10 game at parx?

What kind of work have you done on the mental game of poker to deal with the daily swings before being overrolled?

What have you done to be comfortable with all the ups and downs of the daily grind?

How do you respond when players comment about you being a "professional" poker player?

Any security or safety suggestions or stories?

Thank you for your replies.

I know it’s a big thing on Tuesdays but I haven’t played there enough to have any kind of opinion, sorry.


I think I’ve always been naturally fine at handling the beats at 2/5. I remember early on definitely having a few hurtful moments, maybe something like a $5K downswing when I only had like a $30-40K roll. And I’ve definitely had some super painful bustouts in high equity spots in tourneys. Sometimes I get kinda depressed for a day or 2. I’ll allow myself to sulk and not play (I’ll get a comfort meal, maybe have a few drinks, etc), but then I get dialed back in and I’m fine the next time I play

Also just being supremely confident that your decision making at a poker table is generating good profits long term makes it easy to handle short term variance. Think of how many hands I’ve played in a decade. Would be pretty silly to get worked up over 1 of them, or even 100 of them, for that matter

No major safety issues in 10 years. People I know have gotten robbed which sucks. Like I said I have a box at 1 casino. At the others, I rarely have much more than $10-15K, even after a big win. 1 or 2 times I thought maybe somebody was eyeballing me at the cage, so I did an extra lap or 2 around the floor out of caution, and I always try to have good awareness when in a parking lot or garage. Otherwise not too concerned. If I played big and was carrying like $30K+ all the time I’d probably valet

Thanks for the thread.

What is your living situation like and how has that been having poker as your main income? (I.e: renting, mortgage, etc)

How do you find managing a normal life style with a job like this where you work nights?
As in how is your fitness and social and family life?

Do you play online whatsoever? Even for practice if not for profit?

What are your thoughts on someone maintaining a normal 9-5 and then grinding weekends at 2/5?

Thanks a lot of you’re able to answer


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I actually lied about never having a scary situation. It was probably 9 years ago, I’m not even sure if I was playing 2/5 yet. I was still living in a pretty unsavory neighborhood in a basic apartment. It was probably like 3am, I parked on the street, and the moment I closed my car door I saw 2 large guys come around the corner and say “Hey big man, come over here!”

I ****ing bolted it into my building and up the stairs. They followed me initially, but thought better about chasing me deep into an apartment complex. My landlord, a super nice guy, pulled up the video of them chasing me into the building the next morning, but I never really did anything about it, I doubt the cops would’ve given a crap if I took it to them.

I probably only had like $3K on me but it would’ve hurt to lose at the time!

I’ve rented my whole career but it seems likely I’ll buy a house in the next year or so. Maybe when that happens I’ll let you all know because it won’t be a simple process, but I have some poker buddies who have purchased before and they’ve pulled it off.

The quality and location of my apartments have greatly improved over the years, I started living pretty nicely in 2019-2020. I’ve never had an issue getting a place, I might have to jump through some proof of income hoops, but I pay my taxes properly so it’s always pretty straightforward

Fitness is decent, I’m a little overweight but I get lots of exercise. One cool perk of not having a 9-5 is I can go to the gym during non peak hours. Gym at like 5-8pm is the worst, but at like noon it’s nice and empty.

Social and family life are good, it’s nice being able to take off whenever and however long I want. Sometimes it can be tricky because I don’t technically have to work ever lol, but the people close to me understand that obviously I need to get my hours.

In most ways I think I’m so much happier than I would be in a 9-5. The biggest downsides are not having employer benefits, not having career advancement and raises except via getting better or moving up in stakes, and also not having that sacred w-2 income for when it comes time to buy a house.

None of these downsides really come close to outweighing the positives for me though. I’m fine sleeping during the day, I honestly hate being awake at like 9am because there’s not much for me to do. If I get up in the early afternoon, I can do fun stuff, workout, and then head into the casino for the evening.

I think if you’re a profitable player, having a 9-5 and then playing when you can is smart! Poker is a very mentally stimulating hobby. Just as long as you realize that your poker hobby could perhaps be taking time that you could otherwise be spending doing other constructive hobbies, and more importantly dating, or at home with the wife and kids if you’re already at that stage of life. I play with lots of guys who have kids at home, a regular 9-5, and they’re still in there 3-5 nights a week, which is probably a bad sign for their home life

I played on the apps a ton when everything was shutdown in covid, and I did super well, as highlighted by my initial post, but otherwise, zero online play. I do use study tools tho

1) Are you single, married, have kids? If you have a wife and kids how do you balance being able to spend time with them vs the desire (or need) to play during Friday/Saturday nights or nights in general? If you're single now but had a LTR or LTRs during that 10 year period, how did poker affect your relationship? How did downswings affect your relationship?

2) You've said that you're not worried about never being able to beat the games for an unsatisfactory win rate. But you also worry about 100k a year not being enough in the future. What about sub 100k years? Inflation, increased rake, tougher regs/recs which would make it harder for you to fight for small/medium pots and would definitely eat into your win rate. What is your plan other than relying on investing if and when sub 100k years become the norm, especially when 100k tomorrow will be worth less than 100k today.