Quitting my crap job to grind 2/5+ live??

[FireStorm]

He's saying that the skills could be useful, not utilizing poker on a resume. You wouldn't have to ever make an issue of the fact that you've played poker, simply applying some of the skills you've learned at the table might help. This in and of itself is debatable, but thats the reasoning.

As far as the irrational love affair with casino poker, where in the world do you get this from? This entire site is obsessed with online multitabling. People here hate live poker, don't respond to HH's from it, and constantly rip on how the highest levels are equivalent to .01-.02 online (not even close to being true). Certain people simply like a live dynamic more, or dislike online for XYZ reason. No one is disputing the fact that more hands per hour are available, at lower rake, etc.

It's not that simple to say that he can play Hold Em till he's 28, stop, go to grad school, and wash away 7-8 jobless years.

[PrimogenitoX]

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lol...why be a live pro when the internet exists? is this a huge level?

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don't even bother asking this; people here have an irrational love affair with casino poker. yes, it's easier than online, but you get to play 10% as many hands.

i very much enjoy live poker as a recreational activity, but i play online to put myself through law school.

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Online is like watching paint dry. Is it irrational to want some balance and interaction during a work day?

Personally, I like a little interaction rather than just sitting in a room for hours on end by myself.

b

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Do you hate money? Someone who grinds 2/5NL and crushes the game will only make ~$50-$100 an hour. And honestly, game conditions will not always be optimal enough; so think closer to $50 an hour. Now play 6-8 tables of 2/4NL online, beat it for an average 5bb/100...and we have $240-$320 an hour without rakeback/bonus/incentives etc.

Can't play that many tables you exclaim? Slice the amount of tables in half and your winrate still exceeds your live winrate by a significant amount. Factor that over the 1200 hours you plan to spend playing poker every year as a pro..and we are talking about burning 6 figures of cash...

I speak from experience...I used to be a live pro..I crushed the games I played..I then moved to online...I still play live for fun...but I won't pay a six figure vig to be a live pro vs an online pro

[otter]

I think that anywhere close to $100/hour at 2-5 isn't a long term reality. I'd agree that around $50 is very doable and perhaps slightly more if you have good games or good game selction.

I'm no online expert, but from what I read it sounds like 3bb/100 is very good. Is it realistic to expect to make 5bb/100 over the long run?

[FireStorm]

Primo, again, no one is debating the greater profitability of playing online, when it comes to multitabling/hands per hour/less rake etc. not everything is about the money. Certain posters in this thread might not want to be misaerable, or spend years as social lepers in front of a computer screen wondering whether or not XPwnament719X on Stars is going to four-bet shove AKo preflop.

[Carlson411]

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As someone who has also considered making this move, albeit not nearly as seriously, it seems to me that you should try "living the life-style" by playing at Foxwoods 5-7 days of the week for a few months. Altough this probably isn't a long enough period to show decisively if you're a winning player, it should certainly provide some amount of clarification. If you do well financially and can mentally handle the grind of doing nothing but playing live poker, then perhaps you should make your move. My point is, if you have the opportunity to test out the conditions that you're talking about throwing yourself into, then by all means, take it. If you like what little you see of the life, then go for it.

[/ QUOTE ] I agree with this advice here. Why do you want to move across the entire country when you are making a killing at Foxwoods? How about you try playing poker at Foxwoods full time? You also have Mohegan Sun opening up the old poker room next year? You may find yourself right back at Foxwoods.

[im a model]

you dont think its realistic to expect 5bb/100 over the long run? 100 hands live takes three hours. you think all the 2-5 and 5-10 grinders in vegas are making around $8 to $15 an hour? actually i guess you are saying that they make that if they are very good, and on an upswing. i could easily make a living in the US playing 1-2 at any strip casino. when i first got here (mid june) i had never played live before, and that first week i played i ran bad (i kept track of all my all-ins--wrote them all down and calculated ev to make sure i understood where i was) to the tune of about -800 in equity and was still up ~300 after about 25-30 hours of play. since then i changed styles to adjust better to live play and now feel that i play full ring no limit cash perfectly and i have been running for over two months at 50bbs/100 like clockwork. and it hasnt been that im up some weeks and down other weeks. i lose a buyin about once every four or five buyins. most days consist of one to three buyins. (if i win or lose a buyin i go to a different table or rebuy.) so seldom does a day pass when i am down for the day, even though my "days" are often only like four hours. i also think that i could adopt a style that would have more variance, but enjoy an even better win rate. i just hate losing so much (im seriously devastated whenever i lose) that i choose a style that limits variance and still has a good win rate.

so i can personally attest to 50bb/100 consistently for a fairly long term (like 250-300hrs), but if youve ever been to a casino and seen the same grinders cashing out racks of chips and you know they never stack-off light, can you honestly believe they are making 3bb/100? thats like 40 bucks a day. i think a lot of people in this thread are failing to appreciate the caliber of retard that represents the average live player.

[jkamowitz]

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you dont think its realistic to expect 5bb/100 over the long run? 100 hands live takes three hours. you think all the 2-5 and 5-10 grinders in vegas are making around $8 to $15 an hour? actually i guess you are saying that they make that if they are very good, and on an upswing. i could easily make a living in the US playing 1-2 at any strip casino. when i first got here (mid june) i had never played live before, and that first week i played i ran bad (i kept track of all my all-ins--wrote them all down and calculated ev to make sure i understood where i was) to the tune of about -800 in equity and was still up ~300 after about 25-30 hours of play. since then i changed styles to adjust better to live play and now feel that i play full ring no limit cash perfectly and i have been running for over two months at 50bbs/100 like clockwork. and it hasnt been that im up some weeks and down other weeks. i lose a buyin about once every four or five buyins. most days consist of one to three buyins. (if i win or lose a buyin i go to a different table or rebuy.) so seldom does a day pass when i am down for the day, even though my "days" are often only like four hours. i also think that i could adopt a style that would have more variance, but enjoy an even better win rate. i just hate losing so much (im seriously devastated whenever i lose) that i choose a style that limits variance and still has a good win rate.

so i can personally attest to 50bb/100 consistently for a fairly long term (like 250-300hrs), but if youve ever been to a casino and seen the same grinders cashing out racks of chips and you know they never stack-off light, can you honestly believe they are making 3bb/100? thats like 40 bucks a day. i think a lot of people in this thread are failing to appreciate the caliber of retard that represents the average live player.

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250-300 hours is not a long time.

[whorasaurus]

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you dont think its realistic to expect 5bb/100 over the long run? 100 hands live takes three hours. you think all the 2-5 and 5-10 grinders in vegas are making around $8 to $15 an hour? actually i guess you are saying that they make that if they are very good, and on an upswing. i could easily make a living in the US playing 1-2 at any strip casino. when i first got here (mid june) i had never played live before, and that first week i played i ran bad (i kept track of all my all-ins--wrote them all down and calculated ev to make sure i understood where i was) to the tune of about -800 in equity and was still up ~300 after about 25-30 hours of play. since then i changed styles to adjust better to live play and now feel that i play full ring no limit cash perfectly and i have been running for over two months at 50bbs/100 like clockwork. and it hasnt been that im up some weeks and down other weeks. i lose a buyin about once every four or five buyins. most days consist of one to three buyins. (if i win or lose a buyin i go to a different table or rebuy.) so seldom does a day pass when i am down for the day, even though my "days" are often only like four hours. i also think that i could adopt a style that would have more variance, but enjoy an even better win rate. i just hate losing so much (im seriously devastated whenever i lose) that i choose a style that limits variance and still has a good win rate.

so i can personally attest to 50bb/100 consistently for a fairly long term (like 250-300hrs), but if youve ever been to a casino and seen the same grinders cashing out racks of chips and you know they never stack-off light, can you honestly believe they are making 3bb/100? thats like 40 bucks a day. i think a lot of people in this thread are failing to appreciate the caliber of retard that represents the average live player.

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This is true.

[Carlson411]

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you dont think its realistic to expect 5bb/100 over the long run? 100 hands live takes three hours. you think all the 2-5 and 5-10 grinders in vegas are making around $8 to $15 an hour? actually i guess you are saying that they make that if they are very good, and on an upswing. i could easily make a living in the US playing 1-2 at any strip casino. when i first got here (mid june) i had never played live before, and that first week i played i ran bad (i kept track of all my all-ins--wrote them all down and calculated ev to make sure i understood where i was) to the tune of about -800 in equity and was still up ~300 after about 25-30 hours of play. since then i changed styles to adjust better to live play and now feel that i play full ring no limit cash perfectly and i have been running for over two months at 50bbs/100 like clockwork. and it hasnt been that im up some weeks and down other weeks. i lose a buyin about once every four or five buyins. most days consist of one to three buyins. (if i win or lose a buyin i go to a different table or rebuy.) so seldom does a day pass when i am down for the day, even though my "days" are often only like four hours. i also think that i could adopt a style that would have more variance, but enjoy an even better win rate. i just hate losing so much (im seriously devastated whenever i lose) that i choose a style that limits variance and still has a good win rate.

so i can personally attest to 50bb/100 consistently for a fairly long term (like 250-300hrs), but if youve ever been to a casino and seen the same grinders cashing out racks of chips and you know they never stack-off light, can you honestly believe they are making 3bb/100? thats like 40 bucks a day. i think a lot of people in this thread are failing to appreciate the caliber of retard that represents the average live player.

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This is true.

[/ QUOTE ] While this is true, I think people here are also factoring in expenses that you have to incur playing full-time poker. I play live here and there. I primarily play online poker and to me online, 1,000 hours is not that much play. I think I've done that playing live, and I really don't play live that much. When my friends wants to have people come over his place or when I take my trips with my family to AC or if I go to Vegas. Every time I've played people at 1/2NL they were pretty bad, except for the locals grinding in Vegas(that was some fun poker can't forget the team unity they have too). I have not walked away from a live table with less than $50/hr playing 1/2 NL. People do think its a dam television show going all in every time. But when you start playing full time you have to factor in the costs of living. Hey if you are good at poker and want to try it for a living while going to grad school go ahead and try it. However, I think you should give it a test run at FW first before you move across the country to Vegas. You may find out that you don't want to leave to go to Vegas b/c you are making a lot of money at FW. I'm in the process of saving up my roll and may cut half of it off to playing 2/5NL or maybe 10/20-20/40 LHE at FWs.

[daveT]

I started playing live for a living. Two years of it, mostly because I would buy a computer, crash it, buy a computer, crash it, bust, rinse, repeat. I play OL now.

I also have not had a job since the year 2000. This does NOT look good on a resume. No matter if you try to get a job at McDonald's, or DeLoit and Touche, you have a lot of explaining to do. Employers see "self employed" as "unemployed." I did attempt to find a job earlier this year. I am what would be classified as "unemployable." Also, if you tell certain employers that you are/ were a professional gambler, forget about ever working around anything that involves money.

With that said. Would I change anything?

I quit working for a reason. I quit because if I had to hear a damn punch-card again, I was going to kill someone. I quit because I couldn't handle other people making decisions that had a large impact on my life. I quit for thousands of reasons. I will never ever look for a job again. I made that promise 7 years ago. I promised to stick to it thick and thin. I had one job for 1 1/2 months since then.

The real question you need to ask yourself, "Where will I be in five years?" If you see yourself working at ABC Firm, then I would not worry about it if you are in college.

If you have a vision of grandeur and independence, then go for it.

I would never tell someone to not live out their dreams. This site is full of players that won, quit their jobs, and probably have more options in their lives than they would ever have from any corporation.

50 an hour at 1/2? Someone has their head up their ass. I did play 1/3 live for a while. I earned $15 per hour.

2/5, I earned $24/hr.