Yeah, I believe he sometimes even slept under a bridge when he was busto again. Dunno for sure though.

Also, to the 15 year old kid: a nice, wel paid job (non poker) >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> being a poker pro

It is hard to advise a 15 year old about how to train for a career that he can't even start practicing for 3 years in a few places and 6 years in most. How do you practice to be this guy as a minor?

Mostly, you don't. There are some aspects you can't try out until you're there.

There are plenty of people who can/should be poker pros. It isn't a huge number and the percentage of people who wanted to and/or tried and then succeeded is small. Still for random person who hasn't had success as a hobbyist player, get trained for a job and if your poker hobby starts to dominate that we can talk.

As for the Ivy talk, it is fun but not really important. Maybe Ivy is the GoAT and maybe he isn't. You can't set out to be an enigmatic poker genius. Many (most/all?) live TV pros are more a product of hype, and trying to emulate their story is silly. That Ivy later became online genius comes after his live pro roots. There are plenty of strong, even wealthy, pros who post on 2+2. Go read some wells. See how they got started.

+1 to reading wells, some of them are amazing.

Make sure to read Jman well, pretty close to GOAT thread on 2+2

Hi, I know it's early but I am 16 years old. I live in Melbourne Australia. I am currently going to a private school which is one of the top in the state. I am ranked in the top 2% of students in mathematics and generally love numbers.
I have been playing poker ever since I was 10 and have loved every second of it. I read books and play a little bit of 888 poker and am an ok player. I do not know if I should invest all my time in it and perhaps try make decent money off of it. The edge I feel I have is that I have a good number brain. Is it hard making money in poker? Because all these people on this site seem extremely indulged in the game and seem to invest so much of their time in the game but aren't making decent money ? Do you think I could make it? The only thing holding me back is the fact that I could be successful as some sort of business owner or broker of some sort.
Please, I am desperately seeking some deep, well thought out advice

You have already been given the advice you are asking for, and very recently at that.

Why do you think that advice will have changed ?

It is hard to make money in poker. You should do something else. No you could not make it. (I could now elaborate on why you could not make it, but since I know that anything I write would meet deaf ear, so I am not gonna do it. You would just ignore it the same way you ignore the advice you got before.)

What exactly makes you think that you are good with numbers? You have apparent holes in logical thinking. It is very funny feeling to read your posts. It is like see somebody jumping from the cliffs and not being able to stop them.

i think you should focus on education. If you study until you're 22 for example, you can practice poker and have a decent side income during student years. Being a student and poker player is a very nice mix.
Being good on math does help you, but you still need to learn the psychological aspect, which could be the reason why not everyone can go pro.

Okay, I'll give you the response desire (yet likely wish not to hear), but perhaps we can link this to every other 15-year-old with $ signs in their eyes preventing them from seeing clearly.

I play high-stakes poker for a living (not the nosebleed high-stakes you're probably envisioning when you hear the term high-stakes, but high-stakes nonetheless). My typical opponents are white collar professionals (e.g., surgeon), wealthy businessmen (e.g., hedge fund manager), other poker professionals (i.e., ***holes), a spattering of successful sociopathic criminals, inherited wealth, and maybe the occasional prince from a Middle Eastern country.

The majority of opponents come from the first two fields: white collar professionals and elite businessmen. You don't get into the positions they are in without being highly intelligent. Some of them have highly impressive backgrounds in mathematics. Save for a few, I'll play any of them HU all day long. Why do you think that is?

It's because all of them fall into two groups:

1) I don't give a ****

and

2) I really don't give a ****

Group 1, the I don't give a ****s, are the players who could beat the game if they really worked on it (i.e., they have the requisite knowledge to figure it out on their own), but their time is worth too much money away from the table to be bothered with calculating equities etc., for something that will yield them little money, comparatively speaking.

Group 2, the I really don't give a ****s, are the players who could beat the game if they really worked on it (i.e., they have the requisite knowledge to figure it out on their own), but they are so ****ing loaded that when they sit in the game and lose a bunch of money, they still come out ahead due to how much passive income they generate by doing absolutely nothing, so poker winnings would be peanuts.

Don't get me wrong - with the exception of a few that just like to blow money, most of these guys are competitive and relatively tough. It's just that the money is more important to me than it is to them, so I put the work in. I put as much work into poker as they probably did in their respective careers. I'm sure if they wanted to crush poker they could do it in far less time than it took for me, but like I said, that's not their main objective for playing.

The point I'm trying to illustrate is that you are looking for the easy way out - the free lunch. It's not there. It does not exist. Either way, you're going to have to work your ass off because the edges in high-stakes games are thin enough that it requires you to squeak every bit of EV you can find to make a good living from the game, and the edges in elite business are similar.

The only reason I play poker is for the money. I don't care anything else about the game. It sounds like you want to play poker for the money because you think that would be fun. Based on personal observation, I'm guessing it's probably more fun to be in one of the I don't give a **** groups. If you have the potential to be in one of those two groups, why would you want to settle for being the dude trying to chip at what they discard to make your living?

I came from a corporate career. I started making far more than my job and my job's future earning potential (in hindsight, my perspective back then was correct), so I left it for poker at the beginning of the poker boom. That's how it's done. You don't decide at 15 you want to be a poker pro. That's on par with every 8-year-old saying they want to be a professional athlete; it's something that neither of you have the full picture of to make an accurate reflection on.

Maximize your full potential. You can still play poker. They are not mutually exclusive. At some point your full potential could very well turn out to be poker, but that's not a decision you make when you're 15 and can't even beat the game yet.

What games do you play on 888?

Lol

First of all, what z4erio, lapka, and ASB said.

Different twist, same answer: no. Why?

First of all, you're too young, and not likely to have the emotional control. I'm more than willing to give you the benefit of the doubt when it comes to your intellect, but I don't think I've ever met a 16 year old who should be even remotely thinking about forsaking college and a career to be a poker pro. Your brain isn't even done developing ffs. Girls (boys, w/e). Drinking. Partying. Stress. Living on your own. You have so much that you haven't even touched in life that could easily destroy a poker career if you are not ready for it - and few people are. Are you some kind of genius savant emotionally and intellectually? I really doubt it.

Secondly - live, do all those things. Walk before you can run life-wise. Find out what your -EV life things are going to be - you don't even know what your flaws are yet as you're a kid! - and work on them. I'm 39, man. It's taken me decades (granted I am not a paragon of emotional control) to identify my issues AWAY from the table that would prevent me from playing well. But at 16? Geez man. I'm not being condescending, btw. You just don't understand how much wisdom you need and how much your thought processes are going to change.

Continue to play, study, and practice, sure. Stay away from smoking, drugs and drinking (eg: smoking was a demon of mine that took me years to kill. nicotene addiction is super -EV). This is where z4erio's advice is so powerful: if you find that you have a true talent for the game in spite of what life will throw at you, then you won't even need to ask the question.

Deserves its own paragraph: the studying you see all these people undertake is NECESSARY. Think you're just going to hop on a table with a head that's good for the maths and play? Nope, take up another hobby. By the way - to answer your other question - a lot of these people fail because of the poor life management skills that I touched on earlier.

Closing: I remember being 17 and my father begging me to go into the AF instead of the Army, as I had a 95 average on the ASVAB (military aptitude test, I am not saying I am a super-genius, I'm saying it was a dumb choice to go infantry when i could have had any school I wanted). Nope, I knew what I wanted time-wise, it would be fine, blah blah.
My point is parroting Lapka: are you even going to listen to people's advice or just do what you want anyway? You're not ready now. Could you be? Time will tell if you put in the hours and truly have a passion for the game.

Edit: you are about to enter a world where a college degree, internship in a trade, or super-awesome business idea (remember, most small businesses fail) is practically MANDATORY to get a good job. Forsaking college: NOT a good plan. It's part of the reason I'm back in college at my age....

Good luck.

Thinking about quitting my day job and moving near a casino wtih 7g's. Bad idea? Yea, probably a bad idea. I think I would be better off with a 20 grand bankroll. 10 for poker and 10 for life but damn..its gunna take my another 18 months to save up another 13k!!

Is there a particular reason that you think quitting your job and playing poker will be better than either: (1) not quitting your job and not playing poker; or (2) not quitting your job and playing poker sometimes when you can?

Because unlike the last seven joes, this one's gonna make it!

Terrible idea if you refer to money in terms of 'g's'.

Keep your job dude.

Even 20k is too small. Your goal with playing poker for a living should be longevity, not getting yourself out of one ****ty situation and into another one.

I would say 7 is way too low. Save up and wait till you have 8gs

guess it depends how much your job is paying, and what kind of upside you have if you stay there long term.

What stakes were you planning to make a living on?

your better off playing roulette and putting 100 on zero or as i like to call it.. the freakin green one!

7k is probably not enough, but with a high enough winrate, low enough standard deviation, and zero overhead costs, maybe.

Don't quit your job though.

Dont quit your job to play poker. Save up and play when you can.

I'm a limit player, so let's see. For LHE, 1000BB playing 30/60 is $60K. Add in $40K for a year of living expenses, $100k should do it. Tell us that you've won .5BB/HR to .75BB/HR over maybe 1000 hours, and I say totally go for it. Honestly I'd prefer you start playing full-time at 40/80, but few people actually do. If you're starting at 20/40, you'd better be rolled for 30 and 40 shots.

Would guess that 5/10 NL, you buy in for $2K. 50 buyins is $100K. $40k as your 1 year liferoll, and you're around $140k? Again, a sample of ~1000 hours where you ran $60+/hour ($80+ would be better, I think), and I think you snap quit your day job. Maybe my NL numbers are off? TBH, the NL 5/T guy makes a lot more money than the LHE version, so I'd go that way given the choice.

If either of these cases are true, welcome to your new career as a live pro. Run well early. Don't spend any initial upswing.

PS. $40K seems huge for a young guy starting out. Don't forget that we're buying at least catastrophic medical. Also since we're driving to the casino, we have to have some ability to fix/replace a car.

Doug wins.

How about: "well I'm a solid xbb/100 with 8 years of solid play and training. i have a degree to fall back on, and while my roll is light at $32k, I feel that given my skill, sustained wr over x (tens of thousands) hours of play, and overall stability, I can make this work."

Compare to: "man I have $7k, I wish I had $20k, but **** it."

I have the math behind me when I say that you will probably fail. I'm a student living off starches and I still have to spend over $1200 a month for my monthly nut. Your ror is through the roof.

I'd change your mind fast were I you.