First time in vegas i didnt sleep for two days, and that added 2 years to my life, lol.

Some of these responses and questions are ****ing A+.

Hey guys I imagine there's a lot of PPPs on this forums so I couldn't help but ask.

I'v always fancied having a go at becoming a professional poker player.

In the last month I'v made about £900 ($1400) aside from working full time.
Mostly by playing low/med stakes MTTs.

I was watching Party Pokers 'Premier League Poker' on Sky Sports this evening.

Marvin Rettenmaier a German Pro said 6/7 years ago the players were much worse than they are today and luckily he was a little bit better than these players and managed to make some money.

Obviously the standard of the field has improved dramatically so do young players like myself 21 stand a chance of making it with today stronger field.

What would be you top 3 tips for making it pro?

Would you ever take the game on fulltime today?

How much worse were the players 6/7 years ago? (I was only 14 therefor have only played casino level poker for 3 years.

Online they were considerably worse, and the standard online is generally agreed to be much higher now.

From my own point of view, I can't really comprehend how the live players 7 years ago could possibly be worse than the ones in the 235 or the G in Manchester currently ...

tip #1- bankroll management. Make sure your bankroll allows you to play the games you want, while on your up/downswings.

tip#2-invest in a coach, wheather it be for SNG's or Mtt's or even cash. The knowledge learned can be built for a foundation for getting better.

tip#3- Know that you cant win every day, so with that there will be days, weeks, maybe months of running bad. This can hurt someones confidence pretty bad. Stay on top of the game, and know the way you play is profitable in the long run. And if its not, get someone too look at ur games for advice.

GL

Living in LA, there are tons of super-soft 1/2, 1/3 games in the area. Have had many a profitable session.

Have considered playing more often and turning it into a part-time/full-time gig... but then I get to thinking. How much can you really expect to make?

Going up against variance and rake, + the extremely low number of hands you see per hour (made even worse by everyone tanking on everything these days), what's a realistic hourly goal?

I'll start off by asking how many is a many profitable sessions. Live takes alot longer to see if your actually beating the game since its so few hands per hour so 10 sessions doesnt mean much. Then most people looking to actually make income in poker use 1-2 live to build a bankroll and move up since even a decent win rate wont make much when you take out living expenses especially when you also have school so it wont be a full time grind. Sorry if I sound negative but if I was you I would not try to make live poker my primary source of income right now.

I'm not. Just asking for curiosity's sake.

Agree 100% on sample size. I've won more often than I've lost and have no doubt I'd continue to do so (even ABC poker crushes at this level), but I don't have remotely enough data to put together my ROI. And in live games, that'd probably take a long while.

I know that once you move up a bit, 2-5 BB an hour is decent enough to make a modest living off of. Was just wondering if anyone was able to turn a consistent worthwhile profit staying at 1-2/1-3 where the game is considerably weaker.

The answer here is pretty simple: play more and find out how you do. No one can tell you what your expectation is, as we don't know how well you play, and other players' EV has no relevance on your projected expectation. Just play.

Playing 1/2 from what I seen can be anywhere from of course losing money to $25/hr. Realisticly i think you can aim for $12 - $16 hr

And about sample size remember anything under 10k hands is almost meaningless. That means at the 250hrs played mark (assuming about 40 hands /hr) you could have a profit and be breakeven / small loser or be a loser but actually a small winner.

My advice (and what im currently doing) is play poker on the side, save the money your making and build a nice bank roll. Once u have 1250 hrs played decide what you wana do based on how your doing up to that point.

From what i see / hear if u want to play live as your main income you will need to play atleast 2/5.

You can make an "ok" hourly at 1/2 but you will have some downswings and with the hourly at 1/2 you won't have the extra life money to make it comfortably through the bad times.

You would get to a point ur BR is low and you can't spend any money then rent is coming and it gets to a point where you will always be "catching up" because you don't make enough to pay for life AND rebuild after a downswing at the same time. This is an important thing to consider

Well here in the uk 0.50/1 and 1-2 live are like 0.1/0.2c online lol

How do you guys know when to turn full time pro and quit your full time job?

Like do you guys say ' I'm clearing $1000 a week, I quit my job'

Or do you guys just take a shot?

( I'm a noob at poker,maybe make 100-200 every week / fortnight from tournaments ) - nowhere near ready yet,but no harm dreaming lol

6 easy steps:

1) Have stability in your life
2) Have a job that pays all your bills
3) Play (study) poker on nights and weekends

{gap here due to the repetitive nature of the first 3 steps}

4) Make more at poker (at least double if you have a career and possibly more depending on the career and benefits package) than your job for preferably at least a year
5) Have a bankroll that meets conservative requirements based on your personal win rate and standard deviation
6) Have preferably at least a year's living expenses stuffed away

This is the safe way and the method I chose back in 2002 due to my wife's concerns at the time (well, #5 was a guesstimate at the time).

This is expert. Could we stick z4reio's post, close the thread, and then refer anyone wanting to play for a living to it?

/thread

Just for completeness we need to add that the gap between 3 and 4 is usually measured in years, not weeks or months.

I feel like there should be something about buying individual/family health insurance and private retirement packages in there as well.

Indeed.


Yes, and I've spoken at length about these before - especially how to ensure you keep taking home money during extended downswings (your family shouldn't suffer with your downswings), and the post just turns into a huge nitfest that few read, so I gave the cliffs this time.

That said, health insurance and retirement packages for a pro player are no different than they are for any self-employed individual. Just to note, I had a birthday recently, and my health insurance premiums went up an additional ~$100 per month (they go up every 6 months, but never that much). So now I'm paying $507 just for myself every month.

A friend of mine that's 10 or so years older than me (self-employed, but not poker) is paying $1000 a month with a $5000 deductible and a yearly $10,000 max out-of-pocket, so essentially catastrophe insurance for $12,000 a year. Something a 20-year-old could get for $35 a month. He's said he's going to switch to a $10,000 deductible plan because between him and his wife, he's paying over $25K a year just in premiums alone, so he might save money with a high-deductible, high out-of-pocket plan if they can avoid the doc.

Jesus. Are there skilled part-time jobs your friend could/would get just for the sake of health insurance? Especially since poker players are not really known for their healthy lifestyles.

He's not a professional poker player, but I doubt many skilled part-time jobs would want to foot even a quarter of that bill.

Hi, I'm 15 years old, I am extremely good with numbers and want to become a pro poker player. I am currently enrolled in an extremely expensive private school. I have been groomed for success in the commercial area. I have a general love for poker and have had so for the past 2 years. I am thinking of becoming a pro poker player. What does it take? Is it math, psychology , balls, resilience, patience, determination ? What does one have to endure to succeed in poker? What percentage is skill? Do you think I could make it professionally? Please, I would greatly appreciate an answer

The answer to your title is almost certainly no. And based on what you've told us about your life you'd probably have more chance with finance.

See also this thread:

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/32...thread-1323281

And in particular this post:

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh...&postcount=164

I don't know how much I can give you as I have only dabbled in using poker as a supplement income to my main job, but I think the number one thing you need is the willingness to learn. To continue to get better. As soon as you think you have it figured out there will be other surpassing you. This means detailing your sessions, reading books, and using tools like this website to improve your game. And learn from your own mistakes. Everything you else you mentioned is important as well but this I believe to be the most important.

If you start online I hope you start a thread. Love to follow you.

Good luck

Home game, after lights-out, v monied fish FTW.

Good Luck.

For the love of god, don't.

Moving to the containment thread

Study at your expensive private school, get a good degree, get a job. Then, in 8 years time, if you are making a ton of money from poker and want to give up your job, do it.