What would a reasonable financial goal be for playing HU 100 NL 1-2 tables at a time 30-40 hours a week? 6K with rakeback? How tough are the low stakes HU NL games on Full Tilt? Any input would be appreciated.

Just bumhunt like the rest of the regs and you will be fine

It all works out great in theory til the downswing hits....

As far as weak players in HU goes FTP definetly has the most.

if you are good at money management and don't lose confidence in your game when a huge downswing hits and have some backup for the start in case the downswing starts right at the beginning, it should work out ...

why just 1-2 table? try to 4 table nl100 and your hourly rate should be much bigger.

Or just work on your 6max game, switch to 12+ tabling 100NL 6max and start printing money. RB should be ridiculous anyway if your playing that many hours a week.


Also less variance

more up is a better answer if you have that much time

play 5-6hr/day of hu nl for months would crush my mind...(actually even in one week i think..) gl if you can make it and mantain the focus you'll need to play good poker!

playing 30-40 hours/week of poker is not realistic over the long run. when ppl work 9-5's at normal jobs they have good days and bad days and their work efficiency goes down over time.... none of that matters for them however, they get paid the same no matter what. this is not a luxury us poker players afford; if a poker player slacks off or loses focus they dont get money. if you're going to rely on poker as your main source of income i would suggest being at the very least a big 200NL winner, but really i think 400NL is the cutoff.

I think I'd rather kill myself...

Let's phrase it this way - If you had to grind HU 100NL for 30 hours a week, what would your monthly monetary goal be. Is 5-6k a month definitely possible or even more? I've played a little and a good percentage of the players on Full Tilt seem generally pretty weak. I mean, in your guys opinion, how weak are the players?

If I had too ... I'd prefer 15 tabling 6max tbh

It's all relative. You get some awsome players and you get some complete fish.

My advice is to be sure not to get into an ego competition with another reg, if you don't think he will spew easily leave, even if he has some of your money.

As for your main question; I'm guessing your quite young to be able to play 100NL for a living.
Don't base your targets on other, base them on what you are capable of.

Great, can the mods close this VERY high-content thread now? This stuff is getting old and is happening WAAY too frequently lately in my opinion...

I'm young and have a decent amount of money saved up and only one semester of college left. My expenses are 2500 a month plus the occasional Vegas trip and things like that that probably put my lifestyle at about 40k a year. I've done a lot of sports betting and had a successful last 18 months betting on sports but am trying to branch out into HU No Limit. I'd like to do well enough at 100NL to be able to move up to HU 200NL and be winning at it within 1 year. I know this isn't the most aggressive goal but I'm trying to be very realistic. I have a ton of poker experience online and live but am a small loser online over a decent sample because of tilting, playing too many hands, gambling too much, etc. I can control this but previously I've just played online poker for fun and never focused too much on playing my best game. I'm a cardrunners member and am in the process of watching and studying just about every HU video as well as reading this forum quite a bit. My opinion is that if I game selected and played a lot I could make 5-6k a month at HU 100NL and maybe 10-12k a month at 200NL. I have no interest in playing 6 max as Heads Up is my best game and I think it would definitely be the most profitable for me as I've had my most success in online poker Heads Up. If you guys could comment on this I'd appreciate it. Also, of the mid to high stakes HU NL players, who would you guys say are in the top 5. I know all the nosebleed guys, but who are the most successful 5-10 through 50-100 Heads Up guys? Thanks.

I play 30-40 hours a week... and I am trying to get in more hours.

I am pretty sure that one could train themselves to play profitably to 50-70 hours a week if they did so correctly.

Honestly, don't go pro.

Sadly, I think this is the truth.

30 hr/wk really isn't that much when you think about it.
Just play a session in the afternoon and one at night.

i dont this is accurate. if you look at the leaderboard on tableratings for 100nl, there are many people who make over 5k a month. even beating hu 100nl for like 5 ptbb, 2 tabling is $30 an hour. that's reasonable money.

and 30 hours a week is barely more than playing 2 hours early in the day and 2 hours later in the day, every day.

if you really needed to, you could support yourself.

edit: granted, pretty much everyone on that leaderboard could beat 200nl for a decent amount as well, so im not sure how much im disagreeing with you.

Here's the main problem. If you work the standard 40 hr week/50 weeks a year, that's a $60k job. Now you have to pay for your living expenses (estimated by OP at $40k, which he seriously seriously needs to cut back on unless he's independently wealthy), leaving $20k. Student loans, car loan, car insurance, HEALTH INSURANCE, dental, whatever else. $20k just will not cover that, and we haven't even touched on savings for the future.

Seriously OP, unless you're on a $150k+/yr pace and have had experience putting in huge volume (100k hands in a month), you're not ready to go pro. Being a 8 bb/100 winner over 10k hands per month simply doesn't translate into 8 bb/100 over 100k hands per month.

Of the % of us that are winning players, 99% of us are best off using poker as supplemental income rather than as primary funding.

i wasnt advocating that op go pro, i was pointing out that it's realistic to think you could make >$30 an hour playing 100nl. for most people coming out of college, $30 an hour is a pretty good salary.

it's a very different question if you're trying to do it for the next ten years of your life or support a family.

I don't know how you can make blanket statements like this. OP said that he has 1 semester of college left, has money saved up, and has pretty modest goals IMO. I don't know if he is really asking about going 'pro' indefinately, just seeing what is possible in terms of profit.

Personally, I think this thread is a bit of a waste. Because he could easily look at long term results of ma=ny players to see what is possible.

i made 50/hr at 50nl hu for a good sample.. and 5BB/100 at 100nl is probably something more like 40/hr
but going pro at these stakes it totally lol... there are too many "what if" ecc and you don't get enough money for all the risks... if you are a 600nl reg pro and you loose some confidence you can always go down and make enough money to live, if you are a lol 100nl pro... gl

and try to play 30 hr of hu nl every week, than come back... u need a lot of experience to manage that volume..