another question. PLEASE RESPOND

[Ace of Spades00]

on avarge how much money have you lost before playing poker better. and how have you bettered you playing beside reading books, and playing. like how have you improved, ive know how to play, been playing for a while. does watching help, how do you read the oppoinet, online reads also. sizeabal bankroll. how much??? any books i should read, if it help. im thinking about becoming pro, please give me anything. cash and tournment.

[matrix]

there are posters on these boards who started their online bankroll with a free $10 giveaway and built it into $1000's without going broke - or ever risking any of their "own" money.

I lost about $500 before things turned around - nowadays I a winning player (over last 30K hands) but only marginally - still I have now recovered all of the money I lost in the first place and am making ~4PTBB/100 @ $50NL and have a bankroll of about $1000 which is "free money" - i.e I have long since cashed out my initial deposit.

Forget about going pro anytime soon - to get to where I am has taken me 6 months everyones different tho YMMV - I still have a long way to go.

The past 6 weeks I have been playing/studying at least 10 hours a day EVERY day and have improved much more in this time than I did in all the time before that.

For info on bankroll amounts and stuff RTFF

As far as books go read Theory of Poker and Harrington on Holdem v1 first. Phil Gordons Little green book is also highly rated - but I've not read it yet.

FWIW adding "PLEASE RESPOND" in your thread titles isn't going to help you get many responses. Particularly as most of the questions you ask are easy to find the answers to if you take the time to read through some of the threads on these forums and search through other sections of this website.

[vulturesrow]

You shouldnt even consider going pro if you dont know the answer to any of those questions. Read the FAQ, scour these boards, keep reading.

[Vince.]

First of all, how much experience do you have playing poker? What limit do you normally play at? For no-limit the bankroll rule is usually 20 buy-ins for whatever limit you choose to play.

[jmillerdls]

Well...I started winning (very marginally), right from the beginning. I've been playing for about 1 year now. I started with NL tournaments, then tried NL cash games, and have dabbled a couple times in Limit cash games.

I've read several books that I think have helped my mindset as a player significantly. HOH1 and HOH2 probably being at the top of my list. I'm sure others will tell you not to start there, but I did. I've since branched out to read Theory of Poker, Reuben and Ciaffone book, The Little Green Book, Kill Phil, and Small Stakes Hold'em. I also have King Yao's book and Texas Hold'em for Advanced Players if I ever get seriously into Limit.

I went pro about 6 months ago. I'm not a hugely successful player, and I didn't have a huge number of hands when I made the move. However, I don't require a lot of money to live off of, and it isn't like I had some great job that paid a significant amount...in fact, I could get the same paying job tomorrow if I had to. So, really for me, it was just about making enough to pay the bills...setting my own schedule, and enjoying what I do. And hell, if I somehow manage to get good playing 30 hours a week...and get to making a significant amount of money at some point...well great!

I started out basically just bonus whoring. I'd say the first 2 months I would make around 4/5 of my profit in bonuses and the rest in winnings (Absolute is hard to make a profit at). I was strictly playing small stakes NL at the time with a pretty small bankroll (I think I started with $400, and was going to either make it, or go bust at the beginning).

After those first two months, I had a reasonable bankroll, and decided to drop bonus whoring, and focus on playing the SSNL at Party, where I had my biggest profits when doing bonuses. At this point, I also began dabbling in SNGs...mostly because I enjoyed them, but had no clue whether I was good or not.

I started reading the SNG forum a significant amount and deciding to go the mass-multi tabling low stakes route, with a push-bot approach to maximize my $/hr. While pretty basic, I found it more frustrating than anything. The variance with a 10% roi can be pretty ugly at times. I also found myself unable to cope with what I felt like were endless beats on the bubble. Given the nature of SNGs (quickly raising blinds), people have to make moves...so I found that my good hands would be against horrific hands quite often, and the bad beats just ate away at me. I played these for 2 months..and had two of my best months during this time in terms of profit...but I just am not cut out for it.

I have since moved back to cash games (where the variance is higher). Although, since I play quite tight...I don't have to deal with the ugly beats on an hourly basis like I did with SNG's. Sure, you get some every now and then, but they are not the all-in preflop kind...with your QQ losing to QJo when he rivers the flush. Causing you to finish 4th and waste your last 40 minutes earning nothing.

I'm still plugging away. I have a sufficient bankroll. Party is starting to shape up what I consider to be a great VIP program (I prefer cash for points as opposed to monitors). And I haven't had any situations where I don't know if I can pay my bills.

The only problem I feel like I am going to need to account for is that I haven't really improved all that much in 6 months. I'm so concerned with making money, that I massively multi-table (8+), and clearly that is not a recipe for improving your game. I might start taking a day or 2 out a week where I play a few hours of 1 or 2 tables and really work on my game. Hard to get myself to do that for some reason.

I think I went on way too long..but maybe you can find some of this useful. I was bored, and figured I'd give you a little insight to how an average player can become a pro...when I'm sure everyone else on here will insist that is the last thing you should think about. Not that I am saying you should...just that it isn't really as hard as everyone seems to think...but that's only the case if your circumstances are right...mine happen to be perfect.

[Grunch]

What makes you think you should go pro?

Serious question.

[TomBrooks]

[ QUOTE ]
You shouldnt even consider going pro if you dont know the answer to any of those questions.

[/ QUOTE ]