We have had a lot of "Should I quit my job / not bother with school / be a professional poker player" threads recently.

Unless there is a reason for one of these threads to be made standalone, they will be merged into this thread, and posts on this topic should be made here.








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Hello All,
I am thinking of going pro. I would like some advise. It’s a big life decision I am making so I need some solid advise. I don’t expect my friends to support my decision so I am here asking fellow poker players.

Background info on me: I am qualified Mechanical Engineer with 4 yeas of experience in oil/gas. I just got made redundant at my current job in Melbourne Australia. Its very hard (practically impossible) to find a job in my field in Melbourne. I can find a job easily in Perth or Brisbane. I currently have no savings. I have also signed up an apartment lease with a friend in Melbourne and the rent will be $1500AUD per month per person. I am assuming all my other expenses to be $700AUD per month and hence total expenses to be $2200 AUD per month.
I am 99% sure I can get a job within a month in Perth or Brisbane paying 100k+ easily. I have initially turned down close to 140k+ paying job.

I don’t play online poker much. I have played on/off without any success. I want to start playing online as well. I want to play online with very small stakes and build up from there. But initially my goal for online would be just to learn and play a lot of hands to gain experience. I would assume most of my profit would come from live.
I am prepared to play any number of hours.

Poker background: I have been playing poker for about 6 years. I consider my self a better live player than online. I believe I am good at reading people and I play good TAG game. Crown Melbourne is very very soft. I think it’s fairly easy to make money even with high rake. Not sure how much though.
Not much experience playing online.

Info on cash games in Crown Casino Melbourne:
$1/$3 No Limit Holdem (Turbo) (Buyin $50-$200). Rake: ($5 seat fee, 10% 12$ cap)
$2/$4 No Limit Holdem (Buyin $200-$400). Rake: $5 seat fee, 10% 12$ cap
$5/$5 No Limit Holdem (Buyin $300-$700). Rake: $10 seat fee, 10% 10$ cap


My plan: Get a $20,000 loan from my bank and transfer the loan to the Citibank offer at 1.9% for 15 months. My minimum payments will be very low as it’s a credit card and after the 15 month my loan will go to 21% interest rate.
So basically the loan would be at 1.9% PA interest rate for 15 months only.
My plan would be to pay off my loan in 15 months and have a bankroll of 20k of my own.

The numbers per month would come to:
Loan repayments of approx $1400
Expenses: $2200
Bankroll build up: $1400

The total profit I need to make per month on average for 15 months to achieve all that is: $5000 AUD

Worst case scenario:
I loose all my bankroll and I am broke. I can get a job in Perth and move there. Then pay off my loan. I will also have to find a flatmate for my current lease in Melbourne as well which shouldn’t be too hard.

So that’s my plan or that’s what I am thinking of doing.

Questions I have:
1) Is it s good idea? Why and or why not?
2) Is it doable? Anyone comments from grinders at Crown Melbourne would be much appreciated
3) What stakes should I play?
3) Should I concentrate on online more and live less or vice versa.
4) What are your thoughts in general? Should I do this? Do you have better suggestions that I can look at. Better way of using the 20k bankroll in or out of poker.

Please feel free to ask any questions and any info I might have missed.

Cheers
AK

1) Is it a good idea? No. Getting a loan out to play poker is not a good idea. If you want to play poker move to Perth, get a good paying job and clean out the drunk miners at Burswood (quite profitable from what I hear)
2) Is it doable? Probably, depends on how good you are
3) What stakes? Again how good are you? What hourly are you after?
4) Get a job and play online / live until you build up a roll. If this is your long term plan any job will do. If you are not good enough to build up a roll this way what makes you think you can build up the $ without the job? Better way of using the 20k is to use it as moving expenses to Perth and play while working. Work on a mid term plan of saving lots of $ while working then returning home to Melb in 2 - 3 years time with some money in the bank, loan paid off and in a much better position to grind out a living

Edit: your low stakes rake is worse than ours in Sydney!

Questions I have:
1) Is it s good idea? Why and or why not?

taking out a loan for a BR and unsure if your actually a winning player is prolly not the best idea imo, the field will be soft but there are still swings involved and live downswings last longer than online obv.

2) Is it doable? Anyone comments from grinders at Crown Melbourne would be much appreciated

crowns rake is better than stars rake and stars is still beatable for a pretty crappy hourly, be prepared to give close to half your paycheck over to crown.

3) What stakes should I play?

higher you play better your hourly i guess..

3) Should I concentrate on online more and live less or vice versa.

if you've had no success online, ull get ripped apart. at least live you can nit it up.

4) What are your thoughts in general? Should I do this? Do you have better suggestions that I can look at. Better way of using the 20k bankroll in or out of poker.

not sure how old you are but no matter what people suggest your going to go through with this because well, you just are. track all your results and study hard and dont go on life tilt when u go on a downswing eg. chase losses in pit games.

gl

no its not

but yeh +1 to last thing denks said

Yes it is, same hourly with a lower cap.
Sydney @ 1/2 is $5/hour + 10% up to $10
3/3 is $5/hour + 10% up to $10
5/5 is $10/hour + 10% up to $10

Unless the seat fee is a once off at Crown?

You should just get a job first and save the money if you think you can get 100K jobs so easy. Playing poker for a living with no savings would be very stressful. How will you survive the down swings?

Why don't you have any savings if you were earning so much?

Nothing in your post implies you have the track record to consistently beat these games for $5K a month.

Borrowing money to play a game you may or may not be able to beat is an incredibly terrible idea. It's about the worst "I want to go pro" idea I've read on this forum and I've read a lot.

FWIW I would go and get your $140K job because the current resources boom may not last forever or even the next decade. Make the most of it.

If you really want to make it as a pro poker player, play the casinos in your new city or get online. Meanwhile, save up some money, if you must try it this way at least you can put together $20K ot better yet $60K of your own money first.

Looks like resource boom is starting to reach its end. Resource stocks here in Oz took a battering today. Now's the time to milk it for all it's worth because it may not be around in 5 years time.

+1

DO NOT GO TO PERTH!!!!!THE POKER ROOM THERE IS ABSOLUTELY MISERABLE.WEEKDAYS THERES LIKE 2 OR 3 TABLES FULL OF THE SAME OLD REGS....not to mention perth is boring as hell.....and full of muthafarking annoying teenagers partying.

im not australian but spent 3 months in melbourne and its absolutely fantastic.....so many shops and restaurants and cultures from all over the world u could never get bored living there.....and lots of asians,not that im partial to that but it does help me a bit,in fact its kinda annoying theres so many asians.

i would say crown casino is definitely beatable provided u have a decent grasp of abc poker and a decent bank roll at least $5k to $10k to help u get adjusted to live play and get u thru the swings.of course best time to play is always friday and sat night,it literally pays for ur entire weeks expenses just on those 2 nights.i will not miss fri and sat night poker for anything.

but what im curious though is why someone of ur capabilities and intelligence would give up a 100k plus job to play small stakes live for a living.i mean i work a ****ty minimum wage job in a asian country so giving up everything and going overseas to play live poker is no brainer......i mean seriously i live on a income that most of u westerners would consider near poverty level.i would kill to have a $16/hr job in australia.

not to mention ur target profit and ur expenses are a little steep....5k a month?ummmim not sure if most of the 1/2 or 1/3 regs in crown even make a consistent 5k a month.....

one thing i would say though,living in melbourne was a huge plus to being a live poker player.....

Expenses in Aus are ridiculously high so his expenses for a major city are unfortunately not that far off. 1500 per month per person for rent is on the highish side for someone without a job, might want to consider moving somewhere cheaper. Unfortunately in Aus you would be lucky to get anything to rent for under 1500/month, 2k/month will get you an average place.

well i stayed in backpackers mostly,so rent was about $150 a week.most of the places are hellholes but i found a nice well kept place run by koreans/chinese on elizabeth street...about 20 mins walk to crown casino.

i try to keep my daily expenses to less than $40 a day(including rent) cause depending on poker for a living is no joke...

Oh my God.

Anyone says that they are better live than online aren't suited to even ask this question. Yet, anyway. I mean, FFS, can you even beat .02/.05 tables online over a large sample of say 100k hands?

Learning poker online is a CHEAPER and MORE EFFICIENT way to learn poker by FAR. Being able to read players at a live table is a LUXURY, not a NECESSITY.

How much better is it to learn online? The average .02/.05 grinder is better than the average $1/$2 grinder GUARANTEED

Oh and buy Poker Tracker 4 while you're at it

nah i doubt it,live is pretty tough nowadays......even online 10nl abc players dont quite cut it nowadays.

i lol'd

At $1/$2 live? Idk...

I'm beating 5NL FR at .37/hr @ 47 hours
& 200NL/300NL live at $47/hr @ 34 hours

I know the sample size is lol, no I don't think those numbers (at live, anyway) are sustainable, but there are generally tougher players at 5NL FR than at the live tables I've played at within my sample.

well u got no sample size online or live...and $47/hr at 300nl is like 5 buyins.

The 1/2 live rate is def unsustainable. However I'll add another lol @ 1/2 live being tough.

I'm beating 2NL 6-max for significantly more than that 5NL hourly so I would suggest that is quite sustainable if you are even half decent.

Even I a 40k a year call centre consultant can tell you you are a moron. Why would you even think of breaking out a loan to play a game you mentally cannot beat... wait troll thread, nothing to see here. Just an Aussie who watched Rounders recently.

You're posting in the beginner's forum, you don't know your own win rate, and you're considering taking a loan to go pro. As a side benefit, you recently had a high paying day job and could easily get another one. This is a bad idea, bordering on horrible.

I'm actually all for OPs idea. Hey, he can make decent money, Why not take out a loan and blow it on a decent life lesson? He seems young enough to make a dumb decision and recover from it.

I give you the fact that he needs a loan to do this as evidence that OP has life leaks/money management issues.

Hey guys,
Thanks a lot for all the input. I have decided not to take the loan. As all of you have assured me its a bad idea. I wasn't thinking clearly as i had just found out about being redundant. So i was a little frustrated. I have actually decided to go back home to Auckland. Yes I am a Kiwi. I have decided to become partners with my brother in his business in Auckland and live the comfortable life. Will start playing online micro and start learing from there. Gotta do my online phase to become a better player. I know that. Just never had enough time and patience for it.

The reason i have no savings is as you all said, i have life leaks and no money management. I live very very comfortably and spend when i like. Some of it goes to Poker as well. E.g. Played all 3 day 1s at WSOP APAC event 1 and played few satellites. That was just under 6k in 2 weeks. Ran deep (5hours, 6 hours, and 8 hours. levels on day 1 lasted 9 hours) in all day 1s and just got really unlucky in one day. and couple of bad moves in one day and i cant remember what happened in the other day.

Thanks all again.
Will hear from me when i make it in Poker