If not for 2+2 I would probably be homeless so I feel the need to give back to the community who made my poker life possible. I'm a live pro, meaning that I support myself and pay my bills with poker, I grind 2/5nl, 5/10nl, and take the occasional shot at 10/25nl. Here is my PG&C thread CLICK HERE FOR THREAD

I've been asked countless times (both live and online) about "turning pro" and I cringe at the weekly noob postings/PG&C threads on turning pro. Below are my thoughts on the matter and at the end I provide an outline/path of how to turn pro.

NOTE: This is for becoming a live grinder/pro only, my expertise is in the live game NOT online play.

THE POKER FANTASY

I’m just a normal recreational player who plays on the weekends and I've had some sick nights where I won 100bb, 200bb, even 500bb. If I can do that while not even really having studied poker or applied myself, just imagine what I could do if I actually worked hard and studied poker!!!!

Even though I've never tracked my results or played more than a couple of hundred hours of live poker over the past few years, I'm confident that if I quit my job and/or drop out of school and just focused entirely on poker that I could realize my dream, become a poker pro, and make fat stacks…

WHY IS THE POKER FANTASY SO ALLURING???

The reason the poker fantasy is so alluring is because it seems very possible and easy. When you are winning, when the deck is hitting you in the face, when you on are the good side of coolers, nothing in the world seems easier than poker. And therein lies the rub. Variance is a two way street however human beings are only capable of seeing the “bad” side of variance. When we are experiencing the “good” side of variance, ego and memory bias work together to alter our perception and convince us that “good” variance is just “normal”. So while we are winning during positive variance, we believe it is due to our awesome skill which enables and drives the Poker Fantasy.

THE POKER REALITY

The reality is that poker is comparable to Chess in terms of complexity and the skill required to master the game. Notice I said “master” not simply have a winning session. Because Chess has no variance the skill aspect of Chess is 100% front and center. However, since poker has a variance component, that variance component combined with human memory bias, ego, and misperception masks the skill element and complexity of poker. The result is that players have a severely limited view of just how complex poker is. Players tend to develop all types of erroneous systems, methodologies, theories, dogmas, etc about poker that have little basis in reality.

But seriously, how complex can poker be? Well, there are 1326 possible preflop two hand combinations possible. Below is a table of how many hand combinations there are possible vs. opponents.

Opponents Number of possible hand combinations
1: ) 1,225
2: ) 690,900
3: ) 238,360,500
4: ) 56,372,258,250
5: ) ≈9.7073 × 1012 (more than 9 trillion)
6: ) ≈1.2620 × 1015 (more than 1 quadrillion)
7: ) ≈1.2674 × 1017 (more than 126 quadrillion)
8: ) ≈9.9804 × 1018 (almost 10 quintillion)
9: ) ≈6.2211 × 1020 (more than 622 quintillion)


There are 1,712,304 different possible boards (flop, turn, river) that are possible. If we were to apply the # of possible boards to the above table we’d get numbers that were beyond ridiculous (as if 622 quintillion isn’t ridiculous enough already!)

The above is just the simple math of possible hand/board combinations. Now factor in the human element. Is your villain aggressive, passive, or neutral? How skillful is your opponent? What about multiple opponents? What about the influence one opponent has on another opponent? What about the influence one opponent has on another opponent who has on another opponent?

But wait there’s more. Now let’s include game dynamics such as: Position, effective stacks, bet sizing, preflop, flop, turn, and river actions.
But wait there’s more. Now let’s include the human dynamic such as: fatigue, fear, anger, ego, tilt, focus, lack of focus, joviality, indifference, etc.

Now, think of the numbers of the above table and multiple those numbers by every factor we can think of and the total complexity of the system (i.e. poker) works out to something like:

A x B x C x D x E x F x G x H x I x J x K = SUPER COMPLEX. And if this weren’t enough, some of the factors do not apply multiplicatively but exponentially so the “complexity equation” actually looks more like this:
A x B^C x D x E x G^F x H x I^J^K = RIDICULOUSLY SUPER FREAKING COMPLEX

Okay, okay, okay, so poker is really complex, what does that have to do with whether or not I should turn pro?

Because step #1 in the question of “Whether or not I should turn pro” involves having a realistic understanding of the task/challenge you want to undertake.

What would you say to someone who said, “You know, the last couple of months I’ve been playing pick-up basketball down at the YMCA and I completely killed the game. I’m thinking about dropping out of school and becoming a professional NBA player.”

What about someone who said, “You know, Last night I was singing at a Karaoke bar and everyone loved my singing so I’m thinking of quitting my job and becoming a professional singer.”

You would tell the above person that just because they can beat the locals at basketball or rock the house of the Karaoke bar down the street doesn’t necessarily mean they could/should quit everything and chase the dream of becoming a professional. On the flip side, it’s possible they could become a pro but they would have to proceed in stages. Each stage would be a proving ground and if they cannot master and conquer each “stage” then they simply do not have what it takes to “turn pro.”

Well the same thing can be said in poker. It is possible to become a poker pro, but to do so means going through a gauntlet and if you can get through the gauntlet and progress through each stage then at the end you will have proven yourself and have become a poker pro.

BECOMING A POKER PRO.

Before I outline the steps of becoming a poker pro, I want to start off by saying that having the objective of being a poker pro from the start of your poker career is the wrong objective. The right objective is to just focus on becoming a good winning player. Once you are a good winning player, then focus should shift to becoming better. Once you are better, focus should then shift to CRUSHING the game. Once you crush the game, then becoming a poker pro will seem obvious because by that point you are making more money with poker than you are with your 9 to 5.

PREREQUISITES TO BECOMING A POKER PRO

There are some basic skills/talents I believe you must possess in order to have a realistic chance of succeeding as a poker pro. These are not absolutes but rather traits that will increase the probability of success and/or demonstrate that you have the aptitude to be a pro.

#1) Gaming Talent: Were you the best in your neighborhood at playing strategy based games like: Spades, Hearts, Checkers, Chess, Backgammon, Go, Monopoly, Clue, Warcraft, Starcraft, Sim City, etc.? Did you just seem to have a knack for figuring out the edge in games and being naturally better than everyone else around you?

#2) Fearlessness/Competitiveness: Were you the kid in the neighborhood who made ramps with a board and bricks and jumped them with your bike? Did you play sports in high school/college? Are you an adrenaline junkie that loves to bungee cord jump, mountain bike, race, platform dive, parachute, surf, scuba dive, play chicken, etc. Can you handle serious pressure and perform despite it?

#3) Emotional Control: Are you able to control your temper, fear, anxiety, nervousness, glee, mania etc and maintain a cool head and level thought process? Or are you the type to “blame” others for “making you angry” and then once angry are no longer responsible for your actions? Similarly, do you blame external factors for your happiness, boredom, depression, etc or do you believe that you are the principle in deciding how you feel?

#4) Mental Acuity: Are you good at puzzles and quick recall games like matching or concentration? Are you good at figuring out riddles and/or seeing patterns? Can you think quickly under pressure and recall significant facts. Can you look at a situation and pick out details, observations, clues etc that most people would miss or fail to see?

#5) Math and Probability: Do you have a decent grasp of basic algebra and statistics? Do you have a conceptual understanding of the words could, should, possible, and probable? Can you encapsulate and internalize basic statistical concepts and act accordingly? Do you have the ability to absorb a statistic and accept it as fact even if it is 100% counter to your natural instinct and personal experiences/memories?

#6) Endurance: Can you focus for long periods of time? Can you maintain control over yourself and your emotions for 4, 8, 12 hour stretches? Can you handle a repetitive stressful environment day in and day out for weeks at a time with no real break? Can you perform optimally even in the midst of adversity and negative reinforcement -- you lose but don’t let the losses discourage you or impact your subsequent performance.

#7) Controlling Your Ego: Are you aware of your Ego and its influence on your actions? Are you in control of your Ego? Do you feel an uncontrollable need to let others know your opinions on matters and/or how awesome you are? Can you let sleeping dogs lie in inconsequential matters or do you feel compelled to right every wrong regardless of the consequences? Do you feel compelled to ensure you are perceived as the Alpha in every situation regardless of whether the situation is meaningful or not?

#8) Self Evaluations, Observations, and Personal Growth: Do you have the ability to observe and evaluate yourself, recognize mistakes you have made, and take corrective actions? Can you be objective and critical of yourself? Is any conflict/problem ever your fault or are you always on the side of right? Do you take active steps to improve yourself such as reading, studying, researching, goal setting, etc.

#9) Bountiful Poker Population and Access to multiple Tables: You need to have access to a minimum of five 1/2nl tables and five 2/5nl tables within a 45 minute driving radius of where you live. Whether they are all located at one casino or spread out between several doesn’t matter. The games also need to run seven days a week at least 12 hours a day and 24/7 on weekends.

THE PATH TO BECOMING A PRO (part I, the Optimum Path)

There are many paths to becoming a pro, below is what I feel is the best path. Several steps should be done in parallel and ultimately it’s a cycle that never ends.

Step #1) Start playing online 2NL or 5NL and grind up to 10NL using bankroll management.

Hey, wait a minute? I want to play 1/2nl and 2/5nl live, why should I waste my time playing penny poker? Besides, online poker isn’t real poker and live poker is different.

Yes, there are differences between online and live poker, however, the fundamentals and technical aspect of the game are the same. In order to get an intuitive feel for the technical aspects of the game, you have got to play a ton of hands. Online play enables you to see 5, 10, even 20 x more hands in the same timeframe than if you played live. Online play also allows you to use software to track your play. This gives you an UNRIVALED advantage compared to live play in analyzing your hands/tendencies. Lastly, online play is a factor of 100 cheaper than live play, so you can learn the basics of poker for $50 - $100 playing 2NL/5NL vs spending $5k - $10k learning at the 1/2nl and 2/5nl levels. Note: if you have an extra $6k that you don't mind setting on fire than you can skip the online portion of my steps and proceed directly to 1/2nl play.

Step #2) Reading basic and beginner poker books with a focus on the technical aspect. At the beginning stage, it really doesn’t matter what poker books you read. Do a search on 2+2 for the best poker books to read as a beginner and read 1 or 2 per month.

Step #3) In parallel with #1 and #2, you want to become an active 2+2 member to include POSTING in the strategy forums of the micros and LLSNL threads. Even though you are a nooby you can post, “I would do this and here is why, can someone tell me if this is correct or incorrect and why?” It’s important that you get involved on a daily basis. You should be posting a minimum of 2 posts per day on 2+2 strat forums as well as reading strat posts/threads of others.

Step #4) In parallel with #1, #2, #3 you want to go through every 2+2 sticky link in the BQ forum, Micros strat forum, and LLSNL forum located at the top of each forum in the Stickies tabs.

Step #5) Every poker term you come across that you do not understand, you need to google and research until you do understand

Step #6) Watch training videos on Deuces Cracked, Youtube, etc. There is a ton of great poker training videos out there that are free.

Step #7) Do not try to learn poker by watching Poker After Dark, High Stakes Poker, WPT, or WSOP on TV. If you do watch it, watch it for entertainment and not as a guide on how to play poker.

Step #8) In parallel to playing online poker, you want to be saving up a bankroll using your 9 to 5. You need a minimum of $3k saved to be rolled to start playing 1/2nl live.

Step #9) Once you grind up to 10NL, you now need to demonstrate you can beat 10NL over a 50,000 hand sample size.

Step #10) Now that you’ve reached 10NL, you need to repeat steps #1 - #6, read more poker books, revisit training videos and online articles that you’ve read and you will discover that on the second time reading them your comprehension and understanding will have increased 10 fold.

Step #11) By now you should be chomping at the bit to play live poker, before you do so, revisit all the stickies in the LLSNL forum including the “how to beat LLSNL” threads. And reread everything on BRM. Proper BRM is the most important aspect of building a roll.

Step #12) Throughout this entire process you have KEPT your job and/or are still in school. You are now ready to venture out into the live 1/2nl games on a PART TIME BASIS!!!

Step #13) Keep a poker journal documenting key hands in the live game, you can speak into your smart phone in between hands or jot down quick notes on a pocket notebook. Try to record 3 – 7 hands per session during lulls in the action (dealer change, set ups, hands you aren’t involved in, when you take a break etc). Here is a example of poker notation that I developed CLICK HERE

Step#14) Do EV calculations for each of those tricky, problematic, or big pots that you entered into your poker journal. You will discover that the optimum play will sometimes be completely counter intuitive.

Step #15) Track your poker play with a Session tracker app or online site like PokerDominator.com.

Step #16) Once your bankroll has reached a MINIMUM of $6k, you can start taking shots at 2/5nl. You want to slowly transition to 2/5nl. Start out playing 90% 1/2nl and 10% 2/5nl, then progress to 80/20 => 60/40 => 40/60 => 20/80 => 100% 2/5nl. Depending on how often you play, this transition period should take 4 – 12 months. By the time you fully transition to 2/5nl you should have a minimum roll of $10k and be willing to drop back down in limit whenever you experience more than a $3k downswing.

Step #17) Focusing on crushing the game. By this stage you have proven yourself to be a winning player, but your 2/5nl winrate is probably around $25/hr - $30/hr. In order to become a pro, you simply have to be the best or 2nd best player at every table you sit down at. Thus, you need to fine tune your game until you are CRUSHING the game with a $50/hr or better winrate at 2/5nl. This means revisiting all the books, articles, links, threads you have already read as well as looking over your poker journal, analyzing hands, etc etc. You also need to look at slowly incorporating advanced poker concepts into your game like 3-betting light, merging, balancing, etc and learning when/how to employ them vs the typical rec fish you will encounter. This step can take anywhere from 4 months to 2 years and is a constant work in progress.

Step #18) By this step you should be beating 2/5nl for a significant sample size and have a bankroll in excess of $30k. At this point, you will be at a crossroads for either remaining at 2/5nl and crushing a game that with your skill advantage has become low variance or you will be chomping at the bit to move up to 5/10nl. Transitioning to a higher level will involve a similar transition path as you took to go from 1/2nl to 2/5nl. 90/10 => 80/20 => 60/40 => 40/60 => 20/80 => 100% 5/10nl and should take you 4 – 12 months.

Step #19) In parallel with steps #14 - #18 you want to be saving up a significant life roll. You want to have a cushion of a MINIMUM of 3 months living expenses covered as well as being 3 months ahead of all your expenses. You should have rent, car, utilities, phone, etc all paid out for 3 months in advance.

Step #20) By this step it should become apparent that you are making more money with poker than you are with your job. It should be apparent whether your local 2/5nl pool is sufficient to generate the income you need for the lifestyle you desire or if you need/want to transition to 5/10nl. In some areas, 2/5nl is juicy enough to sustain a “poker pro” and there are many red chip pros who make a living with 2/5nl. By this time, anywhere from 1 to 5 years should have passed by the time you’ve started this journey. You should also have had to deal with at least a few horrific downswings and possibly even a bust out or two, but thanks to your main job were able to start over fairly quickly, regroup, and grind back up ....

BECOMING A POKER PRO, Non-optimal path

The truth is, many wannabe poker pros find themselves in a tough spot whether they lost their job or their living/job situation has become so desperate that they may feel they have no choice but to take the plunge in less than ideal circumstances. Below is what I feel is the best way to try to turn pro when the odds are against you and you literally have no choice but to make it happen NOW!

Step #1) You have to be a demonstrated winning player with a track record of beating 1/2nl for a minimum of 500 hours for a winrate of $20/hr or better. You also need a minimum roll of $4k. If this is the case, proceed onward to Step #2. If this is not the case, skip this section and go to the next section titled “Hail Mary”.

Step #2) Swallow your pride and limit your expenses. If this involves downgrading your lifestyle and/or moving back in with mommy and daddy or couch surfing at a friend’s place for a few months then you gotta do what you gotta do. Building a roll while trying to pay life expenses while you are new to poker is a disaster waiting to happen and pretty much impossible. Similarly, if you have a family or others you are supporting and are new to poker with limited funds, grinding 1/2nl and supporting yourself and family is just not going to work without the financial support of someone else helping.

Step #3) You need to be studying like a madman as if you have a final exam in poker every week. You need to be reading poker material, articles, books, BRM, and posting on 2+2 daily in the strat forums. You also need to learn how to do EV calculations.

Step#4) You need to be keeping a poker journal and recording 4 – 7 hands per sessions concentrating on tricky spots and big pots you either win or lose.

Step#5) You need to review the above hands daily and do EV calculations on them.

Step#6) In parallel with the above you need to grind 1/2nl until you get up to $6k.
Step#6b) Your 1/2nl grind needs to be the max volume that you can grind while still playing your A-game and B-game (ideally a minimum of 40 hrs a week). Putting in volume is important, but unlike other tasks, you have to be playing well in poker to make money and grinding beyond your endurance will cost you money.
Step#6c) During this phase, nothing is more important that building your roll and following proper bankroll management. During the build phase you will need to be aggressive in building a roll, but aggressive does not mean reckless. You will have to pass up on thin +EV spots especially if those spots are for stacks. As far as cashing out, the rule of thumb is to cash out whenever 10% of your roll is on the table however I believe we can increase this to 20% and on rare occasion when we are at super dream tables I will up it to 30%. This means that if our roll is $4k and we win a huge pot and are sitting at $800 we have to lock up our win. And if we are at a super dream table full of mouth breathers and are up $1.2k we have to lock up that win and quit the table. This is the most we can push Risk of Ruin, ultimately, it’s all for naught if we can’t get the money off the table before we run into negative variance.

Step#7) Once you are at $6k, slowly start transitioning to 2/5nl 90/10 => 80/20 => 60/40 => 40/60 => 20/80 => 100% 2/5nl. This should take you 3 – 6 months.

Step#8) Once at 2/5nl, you need to revisit steps #3 thru #5 and if you drop below $6k you need to drop back down in limit and grind back up from 1/2nl.

Step#9) You are now grinding 2/5nl and can proceed to Step #17 of the optimal path.

BECOMING A POKER PRO—Hail Mary

If you are reading this section, it is because you are new to poker or are a recreational player who may have been playing for years but are not a winning player. Your situation is such that you feel you must turn to poker as a source of income and are looking for a way to start beating the game for profit right out of the gate.

If this is the case, then your odds for success are probably around 1 in 20. That is, for every 20 of you who try to jump into poker as a noob and become a pro, 19 of you will fail. And truth be told, that is probably overly optimistic. No matter your circumstance, no matter your situation, I urge you in the strongest way possible to NOT pursue this path and to find a traditional path to income. I urge you, beg you, implore you to swallow your pride, move in with family or friends, and to find a traditional path to income.

Alas, if you are still reading then that means you’ve made up your mind that poker is your only way forward so I will try my best to help you, though again, you are taking a path that will have a success rate of 1 in 20 so right off the bat you are demonstrating you lack the aptitude for becoming a winning poker player (kinda ironic in a sad way).

Step#1) Crash course in poker. You need to take 2 weeks and lock yourself in a room or library and study poker as if your life depends on it, because it does. You need to read every single sticky from the BQ forum and the LLSNL forum on how to beat live poker. You need to get a house in the LLSNL forum and do nothing but eat, sleep, and shtt that forum. You need to read every single sticky thread on there 3 or 4 times over as well as go through all the current posts.

Step#2) Limiting your expenses. You need to swallow your pride and downgrade as much as possible to include moving in with friends and family and couch surfing if you have to. You also need a minimum roll of $4k to even have any serious chance of success.

Step#3) Set up an online account and grind some 5NL for a couple of weeks. Your objective here is to familiarize yourself with the basic aspect of ABC play and to put into practice what you have been studying. Ideally, you want more than just a couple of weeks of grinding (i.e. my optimum path) but since you are reading this section, you can't be bothered to do things the right way, so we do the best with what we got. 2 weeks is better than none

Step#4) Becoming a basic but profitable ABC player. Your goal is to become a very basic but profitable ABC player right out of the gate. No sick moves, no bluffs, no advanced poker whatsoever, just basic paint-by-numbers ABC poker as that is your most probable route to success with limited skills.
Step#4b) Level 1 greenbelt. In short, you will bet when you have a hand (TPGK or better) and fold when you don’t. You will essentially play according to standard NL charts and your play should not deviate from basic charts or basic strategy. Playing like this will result in a winrate around $8/hr.

Step#5) Grinding 1/2nl while simultaneously studying. You will be faced with the tricky and dicey task of playing super robotic paint-by-numbers ABC poker while simultaneously learning the more profitable aspects of poker and slowly integrating those new skills into your arsenal. The main hurdle you will face is that as you learn new aspects of the game, those aspects will often result in a temporary degradation of your winrate until you “properly” learn how to implement the new skill set.

Step#6) Tracking and Journaling. As mentioned in the previous sections, you need to track results and record 4 – 7 key hands per session in a poker journal.

Step#7) Off the table work: 10hrs – 20hrs per week. On a daily basis you need to analyze key hands every session to include doing EV calculations on every significant hand or different spot you encounter. Similarly, you need to be posting on 2+2 daily as well as responding to the posts of others.

Step#8) LBB (learn before busto) Cycle. You should be going through a rollercoaster of ups and downs as you struggle to grow beyond ABC poker and incorporate more advanced concepts into your game. You will be on this endless cycle of thinking you’ve got the game all figured out to cursing the complexity of the game. During the upswings you will feel bullet proof, during the downswings you will feel like a mouse in a room full of lions. This is the most tumultuous part of the journey and the highest probability of you going bust. I call this the Learn-Before-Busto-Cycle and the first one will last 1 – 4 months. During this cycle, your entire roll will be at risk as you struggle with the emotional, mental, and psychological factors of being a full time poker player. 95% of noobs will go busto during this first cycle.

Step#9) Green Belt, Blue Belt, Red Belt… LBB Cycles. Essentially, every time you move up the rung in terms of skill and ability you will go through a Learn-Before-Busto Cycle. The reason being is that every skill you learn impacts all the other skills and thus affects your overall game. A relatively “minor” change in how you handle a play or situation can result in a major change to your winrate. Each of these cycles will last anywhere from a week to a month as you transition from being a Level 1 player to a COMPETENT Level 2 player. This can take 3 – 12 months during which 95% of noobs will go busto.

Step#10) Growing your roll. If you’ve made it this far then you should be able to grow your roll to $8k and then start the transition to 2/5nl 90/10 => 80/20 => 60/40 => 40/60 => 20/80 => 100% 2/5nl. This should take you 3 – 6 months.

Step #11) Transitioning to 2/5nl. Once you transition fully to 2/5nl then you can jump to step #17 of the Optimal section. If your bankroll drops to below $6k then you need to drop back down to 1/2nl.

IN CONCLUSION:
Becoming a poker pro is much harder than it seems. Every recreational player I have talked to believes it’s easy and/or they grossly underestimate the amount of work required. They all want to believe that they don’t have to study, don’t have to learn poker math, that they can rely on their innate talents and magical gut feelings instead of off the table analysis and rigorous study. They also don’t understand that the studying never ends and that either we are moving forward or backwards.

There is a right and wrong way to transition to becoming a pro and I tried to cover all bases. Obviously there are multiple paths to becoming a pro and since the live game is so much slower than the online game it is possible for variance to play a HUGE part in the disparity between the experiences amongst live pros. That is, live pro X may have had an easy transition to playing poker for a living while pro Y may have gone through hell and back several times before he was able to successfully transition. In any event, above are my thoughts on the matter and I hope the 2+2 community finds it useful.

beast thread 5*

Only skimmed so far...but looks excellent dgi

Nice post!

Cracking post! Solid read to break up my 9-5 day! -.-

dgiharris , this is amazing ****. If for whatever reason poker doesn't workout for you ( which I obviously don't ever see failing ) - consider a profession in writing and or motivational speaking. Absolutely loved this well constructed read and as a follower of your PG&C thread, I did not expect anything less. You are on a such a high intellectual level. KEEP IT UPPPPPPP

Anyone considering going pro after 12:33pm today should be required to read this.

I'm just starting now on step #16 (optimal)

Love the milestone. Wonder how many people read this and think 6 months tops (being special) as opposed to 3 years plus.

In in in in in. Ever since I met you at m8trix i've been noticing your posts all over the forums. Thank you for your contribution to this community.

Ughhh, I know I write well, but you always write so much better...FML, great post DGI

Me too on dreading these noob posts, drive me nuts, but then again education + relevance = hopefully common sense and knowledge and understanding of the real world of Poker...i have a RL job and a BR and even i quit playing this year...I don't think if I quit my job I would even begin to call it pro, but for DGI, it is how he makes a living and rightfully so, his post are always bawse level

After a few failed attempts you can use the other approach - buy a lottery ticket and when you win you can answer that well known question. "Will it change your life?"

"No, I'll keep playing poker 'till the money runs out."

Nice post dgi, and thanks also for all your many others.

dgi posting the nuts, again.

Excellent post!! As always, your experience reflects extraordinarily in your writing. Should be stickied in the beginners question forum for all those wannabe pros!! Keep up the good work and thank you for giving back to this community.

Thanks much for taking the time for this. Also appreciate the effort put into your PG&C posts. Just thanks for giving back to 2+2 in general.

Awesome. As always.

Thanks DGI. Fantastic piece!

Thank you Sir, a pleasure as always

Great post...how many wannabees will read and heed it?

Also...I think you missed a pre-requisite.

Either you need to be a lone wolf, or you need the wholehearted support and understanding of your partner...especially if you are playing long hours live at weekends.

applies mostly to cash game players in this post. What about MTTs

Bink early in you career, preferably a 10k with a televised FT. Freeroll sports bets, and profit. Oh wait. That's the edog thread.

If you understand tournaments and the nature of variance then you will understand why playing live MTTs for a living has an extremely low probability of success (I'd say less than 2%)

With online play and online tournaments, you can grind online MTTs and STTs for a living because with multi-tabling and the sheer # of tournies available online, you can conquer the variance through sheer volume by playing 20 - 50 tournaments a day. If you do a PTR or Sharkscope of online MTT grinders you will see they easily play 20+ tournies a day which is how they can sustain their lifestyle and have cash continuously coming in. But trying to cut-and-paste the online tournament grinder model to live tournament play is a recipe for disaster because there are only so many live tournaments you can play per month. At best, you are looking at 4 decent ($500+) tournaments per month and due to variance, you can play near perfect poker and go 10, 15, or even 20 tournaments without a big cash which translates into 2, 4, or even 6 months in the live MTT world. So that is up to 6 months without any real income coming in all the while you are spending money on MTTs...

To better illustrate this point, below is a calculator I created that can take your tournament stats (be them live stats or online stats) and apply them to live tournaments. (note: you have to use internet explorer or Foxzilla, for some reason it won't work with google chrome)

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/17...lator-1351878/

for some reason, if you use Google Chrome you can't download it, but if you use Internet Explorer or Foxzilla it downloads fine using the instructions I highlight in the link

if you play around with the numbers and plug in different stats you will see that being a live pro who exclusively relies on live tournament wins is super high risk and variance.

So yeah, if you can bink a $100k first place tourney right out of the gate, then sure, go ahead and follow the HPT and WPT tours. Other than that, trying to grind live MTTs and live LOL-Donkaments for a living is pretty much impossible unless you run like Jesus over water...

thanks for the addendum

recommend lone wolf...unless your partner plays actively too, just be a lone wolf till you make so much their opinion on how much you play means "0"...but anything past a healthy amount of time you would work a job is questionable loan wolfing it or not...

If you're playing full-time properly, then it doesn't matter if you loan wolf or not. The relationships that have problems are serious rec players with full-time jobs trying to get 20 hours of poker in each week, or full-time degens that pull together some responsibility during the month to scrape together some winnings to pay bills, rinse and repeat.

Sick post dgi. I'm personally doubling the the minimum BR requirements you mentioned per stake to minimize my RoR as much as possible.

I know this isn't a well and you probably would've mentioned it if you really wanted to talk about it, but could you give cliffs (if you don't want to go into too much detail, I would prefer detailed though) on your bio and your reasons for deciding to go pro? I would imagine that your guide for becoming pro somewhat mirrors your personal process loosely, but if you could talk about your actual process I would appreciate that as well.