Summer, Making The Jump - Goals

[UOPokerPlayer]

So school gets out in a little less than a month for me, and for the first time since I was 15. I'm not going to have a job. I'm going to play poker.

I feel pretty good about this. I play 400nl and 5-table. I think i can get that up to 6-tabling pretty soon.

I had two big problems during the year -

1. Using my bankroll like a bank account.
I'm really not that upset about this. I just had bills to pay, and I gotta a little more generous and materialistic in my living. Sue me. The result of this is that though I was winning at a pretty good rate (5.8ptbb/100), my bankroll didn't grow much at all.

This isn't really going to happen during summer because i'm living at home (no rent/bills) and I just don't spend that much money during the summer on stuff (booze, dinners, etc.).

2. Playing enough hands
I made a post about this a while back, and I think I got a lot better. The past three months I logged 18k hands. 1000 hands a week. I didn't feel like I played at all, I honestly had my first session longer than 3 hours last night. I also think 18k hands isn't a bad number for 3 months at school.

So at the end of my rambling - It's time to take the leap.

Who's with me? It's always been pretty cloudy in my mind of who here plays full-time, who plays part-time, and who plays for fun.

If you're a pro now, what should I look forward to and what should I be worried about?

If you're going to be a pro over the summer, aka it's your income, what are you apprehensive about?

I'm going to post what my goals are for the summer, how many hands I plan to play, how I hope to move up, what I hope my bottom line to be. I invite anyone else with any sort of goal over the summer or just in general to post theirs.

Here goes -

My assumptions -
80hands/per hour/per table
250hands/hour total
40 hours = 10k hands

5ptbb/100 winrate

Step 1
Play 25k at NL400
Have a bankroll of 15k

Step 2
Play 20k hands at NL600
Have a bankroll of 25k

Step 3
Play NL1k (20k hands at least)
Make boatloads of money, think about NL2k, keep making boatloads of money

Timeframe - 86 days.

[cts]

Good luck with your plan. I would recommend staying at NL600 for more than 20k hands. The games there are really good and you'll learn a lot to prepare you for 5/10, which is significantly tougher.

[UOPokerPlayer]

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Good luck with your plan. I would recommend staying at NL600 for more than 20k hands. The games there are really good and you'll learn a lot to prepare you for 5/10, which is significantly tougher.

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Good idea. I've alredy got the 18k at nl so in another month i can probably get in 7k. That puts me at nl600 to start the summer and can get in like 35k. You think 400 to 600 is not that big of a jump?

[cts]

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You think 400 to 600 is not that big of a jump?

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NL600 is a lot more agressive and the regulars float around from 3/6 to 10/20, they are much better. It's a much more fun game to play in my opinion and there are still plenty of fish. I assume you are playing at Party. Party caps the number of 5/10 tables running at 12, so the tables fill up with regulars and game selection can be lousy.

[Lucky]

Dont listen to what anyone says; always pull out money each month. Invest it, save it, whatever, just pull it out of your BR as money you've earned.

Its amazing how so many here say poker is about money but it never leaves there BR. Because you run hot for 100k, then drop 90 at the 25/50, doesnt mean you made "about 100." It means you made 10, if you dont drop that.

200 grand

[imgoingrock]

When you get to 400NL or 600NL, cashout what you don't need (anything over 15-20 buy-ins). Keep cashing out until you have 10-20k, throw it in a mutual fund/savings account/whatever for the next 2-5 years.

You'll have lots of rainy day money, and be earning a good bit your money. I think these guys that hoard their poker bankrolls are on a path to gross destruction. IE the guy who had 18k on bodog and lost it all in a few hours or whatever. Just don't do that [censored] to yourself when you have your bad run

Also, the 600NL games at party are ridiculously weak... For me, they are the most profitable -moreso than any other game including 25 on up to 2k... 600NL is where it's at

[Megenoita]

Your biggest "jump" is going to be putting in hands. School or not, 1,000 hands a weak is very, very little. NL 400 is an 6 figure income, easily, playing 40 hours a week. It's closer to 100 hands an hour per table than 80 (estimate 90). Play 2/4 and get in the hours; that's the hardest part. When you play 3/6, mix in 2/4 at first. Moving up to 5/10, the game selection sucks and you'll have to work hard at bouncing around to find good tables. Some argue that 3/6 is as/more lucrative than 5/10 just b/c of table selection.

I would definitely say to get used to putting in a good number of hands, like 40k a month at least. If you can do that consistently, you can be a pro (assuming you're a winning 2/4 player).

[imgoingrock]

1 more thing:

like he said...

The hands are the hardest part... I was trying between 3k and 5k hands a day 4-6 tabling... It's not all that hard -for the first week.

But it's very very easy to get burned out and start paying hands off more and not really playing your best. Going from 1k hands/week to 2k+ hands/day is going to be very rough at first

Best of Luck

[LegallyBlind]

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200 grand

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VERY NICE GRIM! [img]/images/graemlins/shocked.gif[/img]

how long did it take?