Pro Players...tell us your story!!!

[Sportsrmylife]

I have read an interesting thread about someone that is deciding to go pro and noticed a few others that have made the leap. Tell us how you decided that to go pro, what stakes did you start at, what stakes are you playing now, what are your goals, how much did you make your first year playing and what do you make now, how has this changed your life...are just a few ideas on what you can write about. I am looking forward to reading some of these.

[holyfield5]

i went pro, start at 10NL, i won monies, i moved up, i profit!

[Sportsrmylife]

LOL...I hope that all the responses are this. Thanks for starting things out Holyfield.

[thedustbustr]

read the well posts, in the master sticky.

[tufat23]

[ QUOTE ]
start at 25NL, i won monies, i moved up, i went pro, i profit!

[/ QUOTE ]

[deaders]

I guess Im a pro, Im a uni student and dont work any other job these days. Started at 5nl, got lucky, learned a bit, tried to play minbet, played nl badly for ages, played better, moved up and kept winning moneys. Ez really.

[spyderracing]

I'm lazy and didn't wanna work a real summer job. Enter teh pokar.

[delta k]

I'm really close to going pro actually.

-I've applied to relevant schools for fall '08 (law, dental)
-I work a job in a lab that has good benefits but i don't need the money and don't enjoy it that much
-I have mucho $ in the bank, and generally print it at 200 (but don't play more than 25k hands max in a month)

I want to quit my job, play more poker, travel the world more and have more fun (less work). My only concern is I don't have any/enough friends that are at the same point in their lives, so all of my potential roommates are broke and no one can take months to just travel and have fun. That's the thing holding me back the most I think.

Pros- do you guys just play poker non-stop? What do you think the minimum $ about per month is that you need to make?

[RearNakedChoke]

I just started playing full time this year. Finished school in December and decided to give it a shot. It is easy to try when you have nothing to lose. at the the I had been playing .5-$1 NL on FTP and 4 tabling. I was making around $1500 to $2000 a month on the side playing 20k to 30k hands per month. I figured why not give it a shot.

I currently am PLaying $1-$2 NL and some $2-$4 NL. I am up just over 26k this year so far. This is including rakeback, bonuses, etc. I am happy with how it is going so far. I seem to be improving a lot as of recently and feel like I am ready to move up limits. I have the roll to but I am not in a hurry, I also know that I have a long way to go as a player. My goal right now is to be beating $3-$6 for over 5BB/100 NL by then end of the year.

To be honest I like the lifestyle and freedom, I am also making more money than I would at anentry level job. However I am semi embarassed to tell everyone what I'm doing after college. As an online player people who know nothing about poker (most) think you're either full of it, or you are a degenerate. Obviously this isn't a huge deal to me, but It is something that bothers me about playing full time.

[spyderracing]

Tell them you work in Risk Analysis.