[baztalkspoker]

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Do you have kids? Is your wife employed? Its seems like at this point you will struggle to support a family on your poker earnings. I know that it all looks rosy when you are running at 4pt/bb/100 but you'll go through stretches where you are breakeven/ losing.

How bout health insurance? Can you afford it if you or your wife gets sick/hurt?

You will be working 50 hrs a week at a quasilegal job with little chance of advancement. There are only about 15 players a month who win more than 4K at 2/4 on Pokerstars (TOTAL! The names change). Its a Sisyphean task to make ends meet in this situation.

I'm a poker pro, but I wouldn't feel comfortable doing it if I was raising a family that was dependent on my monthly earn. I am looking at exit strategies from playing already. There are lots of risk factors that are relatively high that you can't control this makes it an a unappealing choice for a profession.

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I had a feeling I was going to get the 'Are you sure you should go professional line'. My question here wasn't about going pro. I am really just interested in peoples opinions on what one's bankroll requirements should be. I know already about risk of ruin stuff. Having approx 20 to 30 buy-ins for a bankroll where you don't make withdrawals. My own instinct on the effect of being pro would be to have about 50 buy-ins minimum plus money in the bank set aside, but I didn't want to leave it to my instinct alone and so requested my peers valued opinions.

As an aside I would be very interested if someone could explain Bill Chen's RoRU formula i.e. Risk of Ruin with uncertain Win rates formula.

To reiterate I have been largely playing as a pro in the last year anyway. My other work has been writing about poker, which I have been doing for a large online site(not prepared to mention whom here for obvious reasons of privacy). So basically I have been immersed in poker for a long time. Also my win rate is higher than 4 ptBB/100. My win rates that I mentioned were ptbb/hour. In Omaha for 2/4 to 3/6 my win rate is actually 9.59 ptbb/100, and in holdem a less rosy 5.43 ptbb/100 - the per hour gap is much narrower however. I don't have any kids. I'm not American so I don't pay tax on my winnings and also health insurance in Europe is nowhere near as expensive as it is for you guys. I also have some poker information sites in my name that can make me money expecially if I put more effort into them. Also I play on the softer European sites mostly, where there are a lot more people than 15 players a month making over $4K a month.

I've worked as a computer programmer for many years before hand and absolutely hated it after a while. For the past year I have been playing and writing about poker full-time, now I just want to concentrate fully on playing it as I think I can make more money by dedicating my time to playing and also enjoy playing it more than writing about it. I had plenty of success in the past year, including enough to buy a cheap property abroad.

In the worst case scenario and poker does turn sour on me, I can easily turn my hand to developing websites and making money from that, so it's far from an all or nothing situation for me. I understand the cautionary tale about going pro but I'm not some newbie flushed with recent success.

Anyway please don't let this thread turn into a 'Should I go pro thread.' It's about what bankroll should one have as a pro, for which I have had some very good answers which I appreciate.

Edit:I'd like to know also how people manage 75000 hands a month?