I am a semi-pro wannabe live player. I do hold a full time job, it pays well enough to survive soly on. I fly 2 weekends a month to vegas or LA for poker games. I play 2/5 - 10/20 nlhe and 20/40-80/160 mix limit games.

I do ok. I have only been playing larger stakes (5/10 and 30/60+) the past year. I am pretty terrible at keeping a spreadsheet log of my take and give. I am a winning player, which is guaged by my litteral life and poker bankroll. However it seems pretty difficult to beat the Life Rake: Rent, bills, general expenses.

typically what sort of break up of funds do people make from poker income? is their a "set" bankroll people like to keep, anything above that goes into life roll and all losses are recouped before paying into life roll?

Just curious as i have terrible management of my bankroll. I'd like to read how people manage theirs.

Make no mistake, playing poker to make money is a business, and just like any other [successful] small business you have to do certain things to remain "successful".
Keeping good records is the foundation, without up-to-date accurate records you're A)using brain power to "remember", or estimate, or guess about the current financial condition of you business -brain power that could & should be used for other aspects of your business B) you never *really* know if you're making money or not, and if so at what rate.

Dreamers, scammers, angle shooters and hustlers never make it very far in todays poker world. Suffice to say the live poker played today is much different than yester-year, much more sophisicated, tougher players, more competition.

It takes old fashion hard work to operate a successful small business. Dedication, persistance, focus, the ability and drive to continually learn and get better...and passion! Passion for the game, and passion to set yourself apart from "good" players to become a "great" player..

best wishes sir....

LOTS of hard work!

^^^ absolutely true.

but unfortunately i have never been successfully organized. I understand the importance and value to firm record keeping, i just lack the motivation to do it.

I have done it before, or attempted to, and i quickly forget an entry here and there, of course downswings tend to propagate this behavior.

I was just curious how much people are typically clearing after bills, rent, living expenses for that month , food, etc... and what stakes they predominate at.

record keeping got way way way easier for me once i downloaded a free ap for my phone. just google it and find one with good reviews for whatever flavor of phone you carry. ideally you should be doing a spreadsheet that has not only your wins and losses, but your expenses as well. taking the tickets, cabs, hotels, etc into account, you have some pretty good hurdles to get over there - they should be accounted for.

other than that, most people don't clear anything at all - that is why it is possible for you to make money. smart a** answer, i know, but asking for typical income from others won't help you guage what you are getting and what you should be getting for yourself.

I make sure that I am aware of the best practices for everything. Whether I end up implementing them, well, that's another story. Deploy your resources as efficiently as possible.

You already know the consistently best poker info is found on twoplustwo.com.

Here are others:

Credit: www.creditboards.com
Personal Finance and Investing: www.bogleheads.org
Insurance: www.selectquote.com

(I am NOT affiliated with these sites in any way save as a member/user.)

No, you're not the only one.

Also, this thread made me realize that the one year I played full time online, I wasn't keeping records. In retrospect, I find that unbelievable! I just kept withdrawing money when I needed it, and made sure my balances were high enough to be a sufficient bankroll. Of course, back then, it was just raining money, so maybe it wasn't so unbelievable after all.

I expected this thread to be about the negative aspect of playing poker live. To me that is the biggest life rake of grinding.

If you have been playing high for a year you would have a good idea of the money that came in. Assuming you are really capable of winning at those stakes. Stick with your job until you can see how you are actually doing.

at 5/10 i have been a consistent winning player for about 1.5 years. I have been taking shots at 5/10 since 2008. Very streaky at those stakes historically but now i am a confident player at these stakes.

I took my first shot at 10/20 this year and have been playing if its around. but i still prefer 5/10 or even 2/5.

My mix game volume has increased significantly over the past year. This seems like the natural transgression most (if not all) serious players make.

I have trippled my bankroll in the past year, acknoledging i have had a very good cash game year and I have ran very good in many spots. But my confidence and play style has caught up to the games i play as well, allowing me the success i have had in many of the bigger spots. My life roll ( savings) has increased by about 30% since january of this year. However over the course of the past 3 months both of my rolls have been fairly stagnent even though i feel like i have been successful.

A big contributor to this is living above my means (as most americans do) and poor bankroll managment. I should note that i do have a wife and child which adds to my overhead more so than the average poker player these days.

I was just curious how funds are distributed among most poker players. How is money typically allocated between life and poker bankrolls. in order to get an idea to apply those principles to my finances.

I keep hearing the word "shot" in that last post. That's not a good time to be thinking about ditching a job (especially with a wife and child).

The main concept is your poker play is a business, which means you separate all business profits/expenses from your personal investments/expenses.

A good idea is to have a solid idea of how much you realistically bring in and determine a worthy salary to pay yourself - regardless of your results at the tables.

If you plan to commingle business finances with personal finances, expect to be another dead soldier on the cardroom floor. If you expect to be successful, or even have a realistic shot, your money management (notice I didn't say bankroll management) needs to be stellar.

If you have an iPhone, use Poker Journal and start tracking your play accurately first.

I think you should not spend any of your poker winnings. Live off your job and accumulate what wealth you can. You are probably in the making like 50 an hour range. At part time 400 hours a year you can't be spending it.

This.

The salary part I mentioned was for managing a roll without a source of income besides poker. With a full-time job that covers the bills and future aspirations to play full-time, there is no reason to spend any of it and it'll be a good habit for him to develop discipline since he admits to poor bankroll skills.

Also, OP, aside from the benefit of logging accurate records to have reliable data on your game, etc., how are you claiming winnings on your taxes currently?

If you plan to play for a living you better have your **** together because the words 'poker' or 'gambler' in the 'Your occupation' space of a 1040 form tend to be scrutinized a little more closely due to the cash nature of the business.

Essentially if you can't be bothered with the minimal record keeping that goes with running the simple information required for a poker pro, you can't be bothered to succeed. Would you say 'Oh I can't be bothered to think about tough spots?'.

Holy crap, join date of 2002!!! I can only dream of what it must have been like back then