I'm sorry, I was under the impression you were insulting me as are most of the clowns here. I appreciate your advice and legitimately didn't know if you were serious at first. Sorry, and thanks for the advice.

so you think lower/mid stakes mtt's can't really be used to play for a living, but lower stakes [100NL-200NL] cash can be?

i explained this in a post earlier in the thead. but in addition to the things mentioned in the that post ops location shows him living in boston which will increase both his cost of living and tax bill. also, he is someone who is getting a college degree so playing poker as an alternative to a job should be making more than the rest of america that is scraping by.

why argue with a ******?

You could make thousands of valid points, but people lost in translation don't want to hear wat rationale people have to say

If people didnt argue with ******s, BBV would get half as much traffic IMO

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I'm gonna bookmark the OP's OPR page and I expect to see his ROI come down pretty dramatically as he jumps into high stakes tourneys!

Hey OP, the 1k Monday is about to start. Jump in!!!

He said "500.000". In many European countries, a period is used where we use a comma, and vice versa!

The more you know!

lol so you ran good?

nice nice...

Seeing as his post was in response to mine, I'll assume that you are calling me a ******. While I am more than happy to listen to his response (of which he did make a couple good points), I do challenge you to pick out the part of my logic that makes me a ****** or even to find an untruth in my initial response. If he supports his rationale that you'd have to be an idiot to play poker for 50k/yr, as he did in his later posts, I'm more than willing to listen. However, the initial post simply stated that you'd have to be crazy to play poker for 50k/yr.

In response to the idea that 50k/yr is not enough to live in Boston, I can tell you that is false. I have several friends living quite comfortably in Boston on roughly 50k. In addition, I'd also argue that there are good reason to be a poker pro for 50k/yr or less with a college degree. I'll take myself for example. I graduated from a highly ranked public university in 2007 with a degree in finance. I was making just over $50,000 per year in my first job and I was absolutely miserable. This past February, I had my finances to a point where I had a year's worth of living expenses in the bank and no debt. I was winning over a decent sample in my niche of the poker world and I decided that I wanted to give playing poker "professionally" a shot. After crunching all the numbers, I concluded that I would make roughly $56,000 per year at the tables playing 6 hours per day. After 4 months of playing, I reduced my hours per day because I was starting to burn out. In October, the idea of playing cards was so appalling to me that I played only a few hours over the next 3 months. I've made roughly $25,000 since February. I pay rent, utilities, cable/internet, and everything else one needs to survive, and I still have profit left on that 25k.

While I have recently decided to find an actual job, it has a lot more to do with deciding to move on with my life than it does with having made only 25k in 8 months of actual playing time. I can tell you one thing for sure though; I was a hell of a lot happier playing poker in my underwear for a few hours a day than I was wasting my life away at my desk job even though I was making 2x as much at the job.

As I know it's possible to live in Boston for <50k/yr, it is really up to OP to decide what type of life he wants to lead. After living expenses and general necessities are met, not every decision boils down to money.

There are a lot of things in tournies that are beyond your control. They are high variance and many tourney pros can go a very long time without making any money.

It's a well known fact that grinding cash games is the only way to make consistent money in poker. Most SNG/Tourney players end up moving to cash games eventually.

There are plenty of poker dorks online consistently making 100K+ per year at the small/mid stakes.

But you have to learn. And as anyone who read this thread can see, you have a lot to learn. Get coaching. Coaching forum.

lol

Here's the thing... you don't make 50k/yr playing poker. You pay more in taxes and you have to buy more health insurance. Not to mention you have to plan on bad years where you'll run bad. You can do much better working a normal job.

[ ] living
[x] ****ty living

Taxes:
Well, you don't make 50k/yr in any job salaried at 50k/yr for the reasons you specified. Regarding whether or not a pro poker player has to pay self-employed tax, it really depends on how one files for taxes; is the money just gambling winnings or is it a profession?

Insurance
Health insurance is an interesting topic, and something I looked into before leaving my job. I'm 24 yrs old and healthy. I decided that my best option was a high deductible emergency form of health insurance. I pay $68/month. It covers a physical and a few small annual things for free, and I have to clear a $5,000 deductible before anything else is covered. Essentially, my insurance is for emergencies. It's not amazing insurance, but should something terrible happen to me, I have a limited out of pocket expense.

Running Good/Bad
For me, I think my hourly wage is roughly solidified. I played 40,000 sngs in 2009, so my expected earnings in terms of $/hr are likely accurate to within a few dollars.

Monetarily, I could absolutely be doing better. In terms of quality of life, that is certainly debatable. Poker has given me a lot of freedom, and that's something most people with a day job don't have.

If your only income is poker. It's a profession and you get to pay the payroll tax your employer pays. This is an extra 6% or so a year.
I have exactly the same plan. Again, its a bankroll problem. You need to be able to cover 5k in expenses a year. You can't really do that making 50k a year on avg and playing poker.
Your $/hr is not a constant output. It's an average that has substantial deviations. Furthermore, the dude has made his money in MTTs, which are obv much more variance prone than SNGs.
That is a nice thing, but trust me, there are plenty of downsides as well.

Good post. I don't have a job either atm and would make more if I'd work 40 hours a week, but I'm pretty happy about playing poker for a living (for now). So if you really can play poker for a living, I think that's a legitimate brag.

It is. OP is not able to. That's the main point.

That's why I inserted the word 'really'.

yes, i can. i think another big thing to realize is that about 1/4 of all my tourneys are sattys. i used to play them almost exclusively, but focused i know my efforts would be enough

lol gl

I reckon 10 months before OP is reduced to getting on his knees deep-throating cowboys for microstakes buy-ins. Maybe 12 months before his knees give out. 18 months before his throat gives out.

What do you reckon people? Am I being too generous?

don't criticize what you don't understand.

Play pro for a couple of months and report back.

lmao @ living off $100K a year. Do you live in Ethiopia or something?

Please let OP luckbox another tournie soon to further convince himself of his greatness.

To all those weighing up starting a career versus playing poker, don't just look at your potential starting salary. In most professions the real money is made in years 7-15+.

And also, since when was 3k a good sample size for tournaments?