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tautologically? Ok I googled it....you couldn't have just said '''you don't want to repeat urself? lmao. Ur right by the way! And it amazes me that someone would question the logic of ur statement.

If 30k is the standard of what constitutes a living im sure there're a lot of people making a living even lower than 20/40. It's not something to shoot for but it happens. There're tons of competent grinders at any casino … it's not really that tough to clear 30k in a year. The contentious claims are that people are making 100k/year.

The argument that people would be playing bigger if they could doesn't apply in 90% of cases because bigger games almost never run unless you're in one of a very small number of cities in the US. And moving to LA is just impractical for a lot of people. Higher cost of living makes a 40/80 game a lot less lucrative than it otherwise would be.

For NL the excuse becomes a lot iffier. There're a lot more places that spread 5/10nl and higher, and the reasons for not moving up start becoming a lot less believable for someone allegedly making 100k/y at 1/2 and 2/5nl.

As someone who at the very least dipped their toes into the pool of being a pro limit player, I feel as though I can contribute here ( my username used to be poogs. I was a pro sports bettor but poker was always my first love and played lots of hours live 20/40 at foxwoods and the bellagio for almost a decade).

I think its possible but I cant imagine doing it forever. One thing that you might not be thinking about if youre a young guy thinking of 'going pro' is how youll personally feel about playing live poker for 40+ hours a week. When I was in my young 20's, right before I moved to Vegas for my 'shot', I couldnt even imagine not loving every second of a poker session. I used to eat breath and sleep it. But over time it just crushes your soul. You lose respect for money, big wins or losses make you feel nothing, and WHEN you hit your inevitable downswing, it can be downright depressing. Now I play once or twice a month and always leave after like an hour or two, swearing ill never play again.

And this isnt even touching on the people. Youre interacting with the public every day, all day. This can drive you insane, honestly. Some of **** you see/hear over the years is weird.

And like lots of other people said; if you can even break even long term at 20/40, you can easily get a job thatll pay you more. And in todays business world with the internet and phones and everything, regular work isnt as bad. You can work from home lots of places. When I got a real job with a salary, it was strange at first just seeing this money in my account every week. I was like "wow, having a salary is kind of cool. KNOWING im making X this week is nice."

So my advice would be, if you were like me and literally felt it in your BONES that you had to at least try to be a pro gambler or youd regret it forever, AND youre a young single person, go ahead and try it. Give it your all. Dont half ass it...if youre going to do it, go at it 100%. I dont regret what I did, not for a second. But I cant pretend it was the optimal career move for me.

So while I think the mathmetical arguments are interesting, I almost think theyre moot. All the other stuff will catch up to you eventually, even if the big downswing doesnt.

The charitable interpretation is that you mean you need a smaller number of hands to establish with a high level of certainty that your winrate is positive. This is true as your winrate gets higher.

It really should be emphasized, though, that 20k hands is not close to sufficient to prove you're a winner for any realistic winrate you'd observe.

One reason I think people underestimate the number of hands it takes is because live stdv tends to be quite a bit higher. Hard to say how much higher, but more players to a flop means the outcomes are more variable and your net outcome is more dependent on a small number of enormous multiway pots.

Online limit stdv is in the 20bb/100 territory. Live poker could easily be 30 or higher, in which case...

Someone with a true winrate of -1bb/100, for instance, will show a +1bb/100 winrate about 1 in 5 times for instance, or show a 2bb/100 winrate about 1 in 10 times.

https://www.primedope.com/poker-variance-calculator/

When you consider the selection bias people tend to exhibit by starting their record keeping on the heels of a heater it's even more likely that an aspiring pro who logs 20k hands firmly in the black will in actuality not be a winner in the game.

For what it's worth, when I was a 30-60 pro, my standard deviation was 12 bb /sqrt(hr), and since (with Shuffle Master machines) we got about 40 hands per hour, this works out to be just about 19bb/sqrt(100 hands). This was after 2000 hours of playing 30-60.

Nothing to add to this epic thread other than KenoVictoryLap is my all-time favorite name here.

Mathematical arguments could help a rational person make the correct decision when faced with going pro or not. However, the current mathematical arguments aren’t complete. You need large amounts of data in order to make accurate conclusions, but the data set we currently use is too small; The number of pros who’ve been winning considerable money for 15+ years is tiny and most likely tainted by winners bias.

Most of the data we do have is ignored because the results are negative, and therefore do not fit into the poker pro narrative. There are probably thousands of cases just like poogs who have the technical skills, but hardly play anymore. I know of at least a dozen former pros in my area that are like this. It’s almost unheard of for a working professional to abandon a valuable skill set for lower pay, and yet that is what every ex poker pro seems to do.

I think it’s fairly obvious that the poker community places too much value in technical skills and knowledge and not on the factors that are out of our control. If the poker community just accepted that it takes skill AND considerable luck to last long term, everyone would benefit. As I said before, the truth isn’t found in the data we focus on today, but instead on the data we choose to ignore.

In all my years playing poker for a living, I never thought of it this way. Thank you for giving me a new way to think about this, Maxeth.

Well said and really no different from any profession with a limited number of highly successful people earning at the top.

In math terms. All of us agree that skill and win rate has a direct correlation. The majority of us will agree that there is a limit or maximum to that correlation. However, none of us can agree where the limit or maximum exists, (where the direct correlation ceases in relation to the percentile scale).

Based on the fact that average skill levels are higher than 20+ years ago, it’s my guess that the maximum( or correlation) sits much lower on the percentile scale than what most of us believe. Again, it’s a guess, but I think a very good guess based on the limited information available. Nerd note: you see this phenomena on a small scale already. For example when the fish busts and the table immediately breaks.

We could easily find the maximums within a player pool using relational databases and some computing power. But we don’t have the databases and most likely never will. Interesting to think about though.

You've never played online, I take it.

Playing online limit is foolish imo. I have played a bunch of nl though. You’re correct that online poker is the only data we can test to get an idea. It’s the reason why I think being a professional poker player in any game or format is an extremely stupid career choice.

For most people. For some people, it might be a decent choice or the best choice based on their other options. If you ignore the "I can make so much money doing this, it will be a great career both now and in the future" implied claim, you might wind up with some people who should play poker for a living. In better poker days, I told newer players that consciously going pro was silly -- if they made so much money playing poker that other jobs made no sense, they'd figure it out it was time to go pro.

In the current poker environment, your statement hits a higher % of aspiring full time players. I think of it this way. Since at least the 70's(?), there were at least a few full time poker pros who played in public casinos in the US. There have been a few times when that number was large. If there are 10,000 pros, the profile is different than when there are 200. I'm not sure what the number is today.

My definition of "for a living" is different than others. In the time that people could be on their parent's health insurance, living rent free in the basement, and make a ton of money on Paradise and Party poker are different than moving to LA or Florida to play in public casinos. Right now, rent and health insurance cost a ton compared what most people could expect to make in a 2/5 NL or 20/40 limit game. Some few people might have circumstances that make this not important. Even in the 80's and 90's, I'd guess surprisingly many full time "poker pros" had a spouses income, a retirement, or some other factor make their poker earnings more of a nice side income than a full-time/pay the rent, sort of deal. Old poster Jim Brier used to talk a lot about that, to pull a name out of the past.

I don't think you're wrong in the vast majority of cases. The exceptions might disagree with you with passion.

I mean unless there unnatural barrier like government intervention and Union, supple and demand. Wouldn’t you say say every single jobs should get tougher due to competition. I also think it an excuse to blame luck*etc. since I love nothing more than knowing that I suck at spots and willingness to improve to studying. Poker is still relatively easy. Would love for economic people to start playing poker maybe they can explain variance better.


*2015 went on a huge upswing on Stars. Then went crushing down at that time lol variance. Looking back I should of realize I just sucked and it wasn’t variance. Same thing happen in 2017 went on 6 months breakeven. Once again I blame tougher field less fish. Probably will happen again in future. Poker is a very complex game. I am still amaze by what I don’t know but I hate the talk about we don’t know how much variance there is to blame luck.




And if you think lhe has too much variance. Tell that to the guy that playing plo with 120-150 Std. and rake is like 6/bb. Anything less than a 6/BB win rate is insane to play.

Crediting yourself with a 3bb/100 winrate at any stakes these days seems like a bit of a stretch unless you're bumhunting heads up and playing very low volume.


The 95% confidence interval showing a 3.5BB/100 spread over 50k hands really tells it all.

If you're a 1.5bb/100 winner (which is pretty good in todays mid stakes+ environment) you could reasonably have a losing year, mostly because the games are so few and far between. You'd be fortunate to get even 10k hands a month on stars at 5/10+.

It used to be the case that you could easily slam out 20k hands in a week and with softer competition. And under those circumstances the confidence you could have in your annual results was VERY VERY high. Potentially 250-500k hands a year, with an effective edge of 3bb/100 (including prop pay or rakeback) means you'd realistically never have a losing year, and almost never have a losing month.


Playing online limit these days just isn't worth it. If can win at limit, you can learn to win at something that actually runs regularly.

Rake is .6/BB so 2.5/Bb. Also why can’t we assume the guy that has 3/Bb might actually be 4-5 BB and just running under normal std? Why is it always we are running above? Poker isn’t static you should keep getting better. And if you telling me 3/Bb isn’t possible than I am gonna ask that you prove to me that you are studying for hours and that you know most how to play most spot correctly. Now we can agree that it make more sense to be putting more hours at a different game and earn more but in theory it certain is possible.

I see a lot of guys complaining that they run bad currently and they were winning before. The most likely case is that they were winning at normal rate before but didn’t improve and 6 months or a year went by and people gotten better or bigger fish quit etc which is my case 2014 when stars got tougher end of the year. Beginning 2017 when I got lazy and didn’t study. Mini 2018/2019 however each time that I put in effort in the lab I end up increasing my win rate. I save a bunch of hands that other current best player and even then I see a bunch of mistake when I sim. I am not saying I am better than them but to blame variance etc is a bit off when I don’t think human reach gto limit yet.

We can make inferences as to the winrate ceiling based on what we see the games are like. Maybe 5 years ago things were different than they are today so i won't comment on what was true in 2015. But today, it's rare to even find games at all these days - not because people aren't online, but because none of the people sitting alone at the tables are willing to play against each other. It's a very rare occurrence to have 2 people who aren't serious grinders sitting at a table beyond 5/10.

Yes, there are qualitative differences between pros, and you might be better than some others, but the difference is very incremental relative to the impact of having one additional recreational player at your table at a 6max or full ring table.

I don't KNOW for sure what the potential is. I'm making an estimate. And I'd give that estimate a lot more weight than a 50k sample showing 3bb/100 because the statistical significance of 50k hands is not particularly high.

If you saw someone show a 5BB/100 winrate over 10k hands, would you not have any opinion as to whether it's more likely his true winrate is 0BB/100 vs 10BB/100?


Also have to add the caveat, i'm talking specifically about poker stars. I know there're a lot of US based sites, or other country specific sites where this might not be true.

To put it into perspective, consider how much 1 rec has to be losing to enable a table of 5 grinders just to break even (on average). Each player pays about 1.5BB/100 in rake at 10/20. That means one rec has to be losing at a rate of almost 10BB/100 to cover the rake being paid.

True, maybe one grinder is in actuality a small loser who hasn't realized it yet and is dumping 0.5bb/100. Maybe a not so great one is only making 0.5bb/100. maybe you're crushing for 2.5bb/100.

You can see, though, how these (optimistic) differences between you and other grinders of 1-2BB/100 pale in comparison to the value being dumped by recs making clearly bad decisions.

And so when i look at a table and see only 1 semi competent recreational player it's fairly irrelevant as to how well you've mastered GTO to say with a high level of confidence that you arne't winning 5BB/100. And i'd say i can pretty confidently conclude that your winrate is also not 3BB/100 when the rest of the table are competent grinders.

Each time you put effort into the lab? Over what number of hands? how often do your actions even change as a consequent of your lab work? how much are those decisions worth in pio?

This idea that there's always room for linear improvement is just not true.

The value of the improvements become increasingly small as you converge on GTO. the most valuable improvements are generally the ones you make earlier on. before too long you're contemplating whether to cbet the flop with 70% or 80% frequency while holding K9o that includes a backdoor flush blocker on a J72r board, where the difference in value between betting and checking is 0.0001BB/100.

Tldr

Semi brown out.

Have at the very least 2 source of income [(ex: full time job / trading / real estate / dividends / sports bet / etc) + poker].

Technically can probably make 5 - 6 figures playing 20/40. Anything is possible but just move up stakes aggressively if playing LHE exclusively and/or learn new games in my biased opinion.

Alternatively move overseas and 6 table online with RB as a prop including HUHU in multiple sites.

To add to Abbas and Dougs post. People who choose to play for a living think they don’t have better options (which could be true). Meaning if they fail poker they’ll be flipping burgers or greeting people at Walmart. People who have backed themselves into a corner like that will work extremely hard not to fail. And yet they do.

To imply that they failed because they didn’t work hard enough or are smart enough is pretty lol considering limit is practically solved and how cheap and easy it is to improve your game.

There are better ways to make money playing poker than playing 20-40 limit. Despite the doomsday predictions in NVG, no-limit hold'em games are plentiful and juicy. The average player in the US is rather more likely to have nearby access to a 2-5 NLHE game than to 20-40 limit, and earnings prospects are about the same in both games. But if PLO is available, go for it. Even today, hardly anyone knows how to play it well, and if there is a PLO game in your market, chances are it is a very juicy action game.

Why do you believe that playing online limit is foolish? Simply because of the relative lack of liquidity/fish compared to NLHE or for other reasons?

+1. I've found that NL is much more lucrative and you can play 1-3 with a limited bankroll and have a similar winrate to that of a 20-40 player. The variance is also much lower in the NL games. Only way I am playing LHE for a living is with a 600BB bankroll and playing 40/80 or above, and having strict BRM moving down when necessary. Another obstacle is the game only goes Tuesday, Friday and Saturday on the east coast and the risk/reward ratio to the NL games in the Philly/AC area are noncomparable.

I don't play limit but always wondered this as well. How many full time live limit holdem players can there really be in the US? Checking bravopokerlive, its like the only places to play limit holdem is in commerce or bellagio at 20/40+ limits.


I mean they have limit holdem at say borgata but when you check the bravopokerlive app, they only seem to have limit on weekends. They don't even run limit on the weekdays most of the time.


I mean would you say in the US, theres probably no more than say 25 live limit holdem full time players? I say this because i read there are lot of prop players in california who play limit holdem. But if you don't count those prop players, isn' even 25 a high number? Because its like you cant even play limit holdem full time on the east coast.



I mean if you play at commerce or bellagio at say 20/40 or 40/80, wouldn't it basically be regs? I cant imagine many recreational players or whales playing it and saying okay this is fine or looks fun and continue to lay it.



Also did that guy jessemakesit from a while back stopped playing? I read his blog years ago and then recalled he played again but not sure now.