I've played at the local casino a few times and noticed it's _really easy_. I've at least doubled my buyin within the first 20 minutes every time. And tripled it about half of the time.
Bought in for 120 and had 250 in 30 min. Bought in for 75 and had 180 in 15 min. And bought in for 50 and had 175 in 30 min. That's just a few sessions from this weekend.

Just curious if it's even possible to make a living doing this?
I know I'm nowhere near being able to do that but it feels possible. Even just $600 a week is significant for me. I'm not considering quitting my job or anything obviously since I know I'm bad at the game but 1/2nl live players are very bad. Not sure if I was just running lucky or what but people will call you down to river with ace high so it's easy to just take a $40+ pot with two pair on a dry board.

Anyone here do it or have done it? Would love some advice so the game isnt always just an expensive hobby for me. I'll likely never make it as a successful player (as much as I would love to) but even small winnings would make me happy so I could at least keep breaking even.

I think online poker isn't for me. I enjoy the experience of live much more anyway.

Yes it's really easy. But you will have down sessions where you don't get any cards and everyone hits their two outers.

Maximum that you can expect longterm is around $20/hr while playing. That is if you're always the best player at the table and are crushing. Is that enough for you to make a living?

That sounds great lol. That's like twice what I make at my job. Even if I only played a few hours a day if be basically doubling my income when running good.

Anything live-specific I should know? I've been studying for online mostly and noticed some differences in how people play but overall live seems much softer. I'm usually not the best at my table but maybe 2nd best.

People will lose half their stack and reload while saying something like "just had to take a shot at all the money on the table" when they make just bottom pair with k4o out of position.

Yeah I've def gotten suck outs like hitting the nuts flush then villain landing their boat on the river after calling my all in. But I tend to make it back over an hour or so.

Definitely keep playing at tables like that. There's nothing better than having a hobby where you make money doing it.

If you play against ppl who don't care about losing their stack, just reloading every time they lose it, AND they're bad, don't leave until they do.

But I think it's realistically NOT possible to make a living playing 1-2 -- basically there's just not enough on the table, variance will mess with you, it's not fun when it's a job.

NOW when you enjoy the game and realistically just want to keep getting better while winning some money, that sounds realistic. But I would not count on the money you make as part of your real life income.

If you want to structure your approach, maybe think about building a poker bankroll of say 50 buy ins -- $5,000 at a buy in of $100, say -- and then put that aside (can invest if you like) and take any additional winnings as spending money.

Sounds good thanks. I'll have to actually build a bankroll since currently I'm just playing when I can afford to. Just trying to get better and make what I can, even if it's on the side. I suppose I'd move up in stakes if I can manage to get good enough.

Thanks (:

I’d say depending on the card house, this could change. In many places, the rake + standard of play could result in higher WR than this. I’ve heard of people who pull in $50k a year doing nothing but live 1/2.

Of course, this depends on
1) your opponents not improving in any meaningful way (since this life often means that like 80% of your opponents will be the same handful of regular players)
2) they don’t increase rake (a $1 increase per hand could result in $5-$6k of lost profit)
3) black swan events (yeah a poker player in Florida, Texas, New Hampshire, etc were put off by the early months of the pandemic, but many of those guys are back in action. A California player might still be on the shelf right now, or scrambling to make trips to Arizona or Nevada to play).

Also poker is very much a cyclical game. Because as a live poker player, you have to consider yourself as part of the entertainment industry, giving people action and the rush of winning big pots sometimes. So maybe in 2018, everything is easy and we have 10 full tables going. Move to January 2021, a lot of players can’t really afford to go gamble and we now have 5 tables. And of those that dropped out, it’s disproportionately the weakest players.

So that really brings up one more point

4) the ONLY way to get a “raise” is to move up in stakes

Essentially, there’s a lot of environmental downward pressure on your income (player pools that trend towards improving over time, inflation resulting in playing for less over time as well as higher rake, etc), but the only way to make more is play higher. But sometimes you can’t just play higher. For one, there’s “biggest game in the room” syndrome, which is essentially that when you try to play the biggest game in the room, you see that the level of competition is vastly better than the next stake down. So if you’re living in northern Maine, you might try to play 2/5 and find that half the table runs PIO sims when they get home. And the other is that the worst players often get chased down the stakes; I’ve seen on more than one occasion that a high stakes fish just says f*** it and drops down to smaller games, because they find that the difference isn’t losing at $40 an hour and $80 an hour, it’s more like $40 an hour and $200 an hour.

This all being said, poker can be a very good idea if you’re in a transient situation. Like if you’re a grad student, live 1/2 could be the low key income generator you need.


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I’d say the ultimate value of 1/2 is in conjunction with side income, getting to like $25k ASAP and then being able to play 2/5. In a lot of cases, the 2/5 games are no harder, but it’s a lot easier to make $50-$60k a year at those.


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For a cash game player, what would be the kind of games/volume you'd have to put in to make a good $50k+ USD a year online?

Making 50k a year online is so much harder than making 50k live.

Especially during this pandemic - all the tables are short handed so you could just crush 1/2 live at a 6-7 handed table.

You need to be playing 200nl online in soft pools to make 50k.

Also variance matters way more online since win rates are smaller.

So, what about a solid 2/5 live player? 5/10? How much can higher stakes cash game guys make? Also, if you add in coaching, videos, streams, etc, you would think some of these guys who play both live and online would make quite a bit.

Maybe some country in the world still have flows of bad req players donating BIs all night long. But its still a misreable plan given how few hands you get to pay and limitations on improvment. Sure if you have low iq, bad work ethics, bad mental game and live in some Romanian village then 1/2 live game is fine. Otherwise the ONLY way to go in nlh in 2021 is to aim to be the best.

Depends on your location, sosial skills and what games you are able to play.
If your goal is to make 50k playing 200nlz on ps well then gl and it will not be easy.

No. If you want to make a career out of it you're going to have to move up at some point. If you can't, then you should not make a career out of it.

I mean, if your ceiling is being an okay winner at 2nl then you should not try and make a career out of it.

However, you can certainly use it to supplement another income source.

Pretty much every time I talk to a European grinder about live poker in the USA, they’re shocked at what games are like.

I know for sure that minimalists can make a living off low stakes live poker and comps. Quite a few people have leaks all over the place and still average in the $15-$20 an hour mark.


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You really want to subject yourself to the swings and stress of relying on poker winnings to live and pay your rent for $15 an hour, an amount that's fairly low by the standards of risk-free jobs you can get?

So, if earning a living as a cash game player is pretty unviable here in 2021 - what's the point of even playing and spending time getting good?

It's generally only pursued by people who live pretty alternative lifestyles anyway but in certain cities it can be done. I know of a few people who've done it for 5 years + and seem happy enough, but yeah, they're not the type who'd be working in an office anyway.

Yeah basically this.

Couple of things

1) as stated prior, some of these people really aren’t cut out for jobs. Whether they lack skills for any sort of job beyond things like fast food or retail, are incredibly disagreeable, or simply hate living off of a schedule, amongst other things.

2) for some people, autonomy is hugely valuable. They’d rather make high variance, average $15/hour playing a game than a 0 variance, $50/hour job feeling subservient to people they may not respect.

I know dudes who were trained engineers, with social skills to boot, who opted to play poker. Probably made half of what they’d be making if they just stuck with work.


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Some of the brightest people I've ever met (both in terms of raw intelligence and level of education) are low stakes poker grinders. A really cool category of person and I hope they can keep doing what they do.