Lets say for arguments sake that someone has a 20k bankroll to start a poker for a living career. The person decided to dedicate 40 hours per week to the job for 50 weeks per year (Taking a day week vacation time) and also running 10 hour sessions on the weeks he plans to take days off for a holiday like Thanksgiving, Christmas, etc..

The person makes 60 k per year (Never counting the 20k bankroll). Pays all his taxes, puts money into a 401K, maybe a little money a year into a CD or investment, Does not need benefits cause they get it from a spouse. Why not play for a living as opposed to working a typical 9 to 5 job where in the world today you work for 20 years then when your making too much money they let you go for someone younger.

Poker for a living would make more sense to me. It is never going away. If anything as more and more states add casinos it is growing.

bruno how old are you and where are you located?

No, opportunity cost is not an 'argument', it's a part of the reality that most people odn't consider. Poker is 1. work and 2. tie up of capital. It looks ok when it looks like just work or just an investment. But you have to do both. So you didn't really make 40k, you made 38k. And if you worked at a job that paid you 39k and added in the 2k you made on the 25 you would have made 41 total.
It's a discount that applies whenever you tie up money. It's not like the cost just goes away because you made more than the 2k. If you want to consider all the income as a "return on investment", then why don't you think about for a second what kind of risk adjusted return you get at a desk job, and how that compares to poker.

Whatever their reasons, I pointed out something that I thought was true, and they can do what they want with it.

You're right, 100% of the action of a full time player would be an amazing return. I believe that's called a 'slave'. Returns on slaves are great, especially when you don't have to pay for them.

Phil Ivey could have been an astronaut

I suspect that a lot of this winrate talk can be cut through by thinking about things from the opposite direction:

Where does the money come from? For every winning player, an equal amount needs to be lost, PLUS RAKE, from other players in the pool.

The result of that math is that unless there is a constant flow of tourists or whales in a particular poker venue, most of the REGULARS must be net losers.

Absorb that. Most regular poker players lose.

To be a net winner at any stake, you need to be significantly better than most players in the pool. To make "a living", you need to be not just a net winner but a significant net winner, which means you need to be one of the very top players, probably in the 90th or 95th percentile. If you have any doubt about this, look at the data on PTR regarding online play.

Only the very cream of the poker crop makes a living playing poker. The rest of the pool feeds the beast, to a greater or lesser extent.

35 and Jersey

I think that all depends how much you need to make a year to live on. If you want to make 200k per year then what you said is true. If all you need is 25k per year then I think you do not have to be in the 90/95 percent range.

Actually, it's called your return when you play on your own bankroll.

Except this return requires that you sit there for 40 hours a week. Which is also called a job.

Lol. I guess from now on my "income" is whatever I made less what I could have made as a high school teacher or a Saudi sheik.

I thought that was the OP's question.

Jlabruno. Do you go to borgata much?



Someone told me that 20/40 limit at borgata was probably one of the toughest limit holdem games in the east coast. However... I spoke to someone who did this for like 7 months striaght at borgata.... he told me he did pretty good but then quit though because he said you couldn't make that much. He told me the max one could make a year is 75k and thats if you are running good and all that but that is not sustainable. Basically 75k would be like your best year ever and more often then not its probably going to be 40k if you are a good and winning player.


Also few people mentioned that if you play limit holdem for a living... California is the only option it seems because there is always at least 3 tables of 20/40 limit running minimum at all times and few tables of 40/80 and higher.


I'm not sure if you notice or not but even at borgata during the weekday.... there is max 1 table of 20/40 limit holdem and sometimes there isn't even 20/40 and only 10/20 limit.



Would like someones opinion if anything i say here is incorrect.

No, those are not costs of tying up your capital.

As you must have learned at last semester's intro Econ class the principle of opportunity cost applies to things other than capital. Appreciate you setting me straight though.

Borgata is the ONLY place I play. I am there 2 to 3 days per week for about 7 to 10 hours a day. However I was creating this thread in general. I just this week played 10/20 for the first time. I had been grinding on 3/6 and 1/2 NL before getting feed up with certain things like the rake, etc....

Typically there is 2 to 3 10/20 games going, and 1 to 2 20/40 games. I very rarely see 40/80 there.

But if you look at the live board right now....

http://www.theborgata.com/play/borga...898C6ADC1&_z=z

4 10/20 games and 3 20/40. I do know however that most who play 20/40 also play 10/20 and go back and forth.

As for how much you can make based on limit not sure. I do know a few people who make 100k playing 1/2 and 2/5 NL for a living.

Capital returns and costs are comparable/fungible - money. And a market investment is presumably costless. This is fundamentally different from your example, although at this point if you don't/pretend you don't get it I'm not going to explain further.

bruno yes but thats the friday-saturday only where they get so many limit holdem games. If you play monday-wednesday... sometimes there is only 1 table max of 10/20 limit and not even 1 game of 20/40.


I do not think its possible for anyone who play 1/2NL for a living to make 100k. Do you mean someone who mostly plays 2/5 and plays 1/2nl sparingly? Even for 2/5... that number seems way too high. I mean... one can make 100k/year playing 2/5 but thats probably his best year. Do these people make 100k/year consistently though or was this just 1 or 2 year max?

2/5 and 1/2 sparingly.

I play my 2 or 3 days during the week and while I just jumped into the 10/20 game I can tell you they always have a 10/20 and 20/40 able going. I was just there Thursday and at 7 pm when i got up to leave they had 2- 10/20 and 3-20/40 going

I think it is tough to debate how much someone can make a year, year in and year out at a certain rate. I as hoping some actual people who do play for a living would have chimed in. Searching on the net seems around 50k a year can be made at 10/20 (Then again that is only 1k per week) 60k a year can be made playing 20/40 and not in your best year just grinding it out. Seems if you want 100k a year you need 40/80 or more. Someone even said 100/200 would be better for 100k plus a year. (Good luck finding that at Borgata) Maybe weekends only.

(c) all of the above

It's like the character "Dave Singleman" in "Death of a Salesman". If one is the very, very best at what one does-- sure. But there need to be a lot of Willy Lomans in the industry for every one Dave Singleman. And every Loman has to think he is, or can be, a Singleman.

Arthur Miller's leftism gives him a perspective a lot of people within the system (including the poker system) lack.

(c) They've actually played at the other 2 places on the east coast that spread mlhe (assuming he's talking about games higher than 4/8)?

Actually i made a mistake here. The person i spoke to who did it for 7 months told me the game wasn't tough at all.


I think there were 1-2 ppl who told me in just like 1 or 2 lines in a thread i created previously where they said the game isn't exactly soft.

Your argument is idiotic and makes no sense. Let's take two separate investments unrelated to poker. You have 100k to invest and have to invest all or nothing in either something the returns 10% or 3%. Let's take two hypothetical investments with guaranteed returns of 10% and 3%. By your reasoning if we choose the 10% return we are really only "making" 7% because we are foregoing the 3% return. Well, that's ridiculous because we could only choose one or the other, so obviously we chose the higher return. Our choice to make this investment over the other netted us an additional 7% but we still make 10% in totality. Same applies to poker. We can take our 40k bankroll and invest it or play poker with it. Either way the money is fully put to use so we're not deducting the alternative from our actual income.

I found this post by someone on a blog related to this topic that I started..

Not my post

I played live NLH for five years at Borgata in AC. I played 2/5 about 75% of that time and a mix of 5/10 and 10/25 the rest. Sadly, left it behind for awhile around 2008 to finish college and pursue my career. Sadly, because the poker money was way better and I really do love playing. I don't regret it though. It's just life and I had fun. I'm working to build up a roll again. The game is different from before but not greatly. It's still very beatable.

I recommend mastering NLH and not limit. You are not going to find many donkeys in limit games 20/40 and higher. It's good to try and master any poker game for your overall abilities, but NLH is where the money and bad players are. That should be your bread and butter game. A strong NLH player has greater ability to protect hands and steal from weak players. That hardly exists in limit poker. I find limit to be swingier and NLH to be more in control. I do say that from experience after experimenting. I was beating 20/40 but I could be 2/5 NLH way harder. Also playing limit that much probably leads to suicide. It's disgustingly boring. However, you need to evaluate your temperment and strengths before choosing which way to go. I knew a few people that whipped 40/80 there for a nice amount per year. They wouldn't tell me exactly how much. I'd guess some were close to 100k. They did have years of experience and a mastery of the game.

My hours varied because I was a party animal then, but I played between 30-60 hours a week. Probably averaging 40-45. I was winning 75-100k those years. I had all winning years but I definitely had losing months and some bad stretches. It's only natural. I was winning about 80% at NLH. Limit was around 60ish. I stopped playing any limit after year one.

I recommend you ask yourself which game you can enjoy playing more. Don't play limit just so you can reach that milestone of 1BB per hour. Play what you are best at. Do you have a preference? Are you more of a trapping tricky player? Are you a good reader of your opponents? Are you good at betting thin value? Can you make big laydowns? If you believe you are a more scientific disciplined player, play limit. If you are tricky, know how to trap, and can read well, play NL.

Bingo. (Or, perhaps in this case, Keno.)