On becoming a professional poker player

[Pennglock]

Originally Posted by bawlin

Online = Gay

Seriously, I don't see the appeal of online play. I've had some success online, but there's no fun in it. I much prefer going to the casino, where even if I lose a bit, I can enjoy myself at the table.

The appeal is playing many tables at once. Since there are more hands played per hour, you can earn a higher wage playing at much lower limits, hence making more money on a smaller bankroll.

Live players, at almost any limits, are generally a joke. I still sometimes find myself in AC ad even at the 10-20 tables there is rarely more than 1 other person who is able to push it and make moves.

 

[GQgeek]

Originally Posted by bawlin

Online = Gay

Seriously, I don't see the appeal of online play. I've had some success online, but there's no fun in it. I much prefer going to the casino, where even if I lose a bit, I can enjoy myself at the table.

My boss can't win consistently online either, and that's his opinion too.

Anyway, sitting in live games can be torturous until you have a real bankroll. Online=More hands per hour. You don't have to sit waiting for minutes at a time while some fish decides how he's going to play his pocket pair on a rag board. For a new player, the benefits of playing online are enormous:
a) he can play at limits which aren't typically available in live games. That means he doesn't need a huge bankroll to make it through the variance. He can build his bankroll from scratch starting with $50 bucks.
b)He can also measure his progress and use software to analyse his play and plug leaks. The sooner you plug leaks in your game, the better. It's much more difficult to do without the aid of a poker database.
c)far more hands per hour. You see way more hands and get the knowledge/experience that comes with it.
d) once you're winning, multi-tabling can bring bonuses of its own, just through volume of play.
e)play whenever you want. if you are feeling off it's easy to just switch off the computer and come back in a couple hours. Of course, tilt-control is a skill in its own.
f)you learn by playing against better opponents, and in general, the caliber of player is simply higher online these days.

 

[tiecollector]

Had a friend who used to clean up at poker nights with the guys. At a casino he never came out ahead.

Knew someone who got laid off and wrote some partypoker scripts to play 20 tables at a time for him. He ended up making about $200/hr 24/7, probably still does.

Your best bet at making money is probably calling the aggressive betting Asian ladies at the casinos.

 

[Aperipan]

Originally Posted by tiecollector

Had a friend who used to clean up at poker nights with the guys. At a casino he never came out ahead.

Knew someone who got laid off and wrote some partypoker scripts to play 20 tables at a time for him. He ended up making about $200/hr 24/7, probably still does.

Your best bet at making money is probably calling the aggressive betting Asian ladies at the casinos.

I think he'll make more money selling the scripts.

 

[jim_n]

let me be the first to say grinding a bankroll at micro and small stakes online becomes horrendously boring.

 

[Viktri]

Poker is a good paying job. I have 2 buddies who are into it. The money is very good (talking $150k USD+ in this economy) and the hours are pretty good (iirc, 3,000 hands a day is considered alot).

If you are serious, expect to spend lots of time reading books, charting progress, and looking for whales. The hours are whenever the whales are on as you don't really make money off of each other.

I was looking at doing this on the side of extra money but I came to the conclusion that it is a full time job. You don't make money by doing a half assed job as the results aren't linear (with respect to hours put in).

 

[dusty]

Is this some white people grifter fantasy?

 

[Henry Boogers]

Originally Posted by bawlin

Online = Gay

Seriously, I don't see the appeal of online play. I've had some success online, but there's no fun in it. I much prefer going to the casino, where even if I lose a bit, I can enjoy myself at the table.

I used to play as a sort of 'side-job' and strongly preffered online for 3 reasons:

1. Online poker is about 3x as fast as the live game plus you can multi-table. Depending on a number of factors I would play 4-8 tables on 2 21" monitors. 1 hour at my desk was equal to 24 hours live if I played all 8 tables.

2. 6-player tables. I love 6 player NL and tend to do best there. I had more 6-person NL tables on my 2 monitors than you could find in all of Las Vegas.

3. Variance. Swings. The standard deviation of this ***** we call poker. If you assume that you are just as good at live 1000 NL as online 200 NL what is the difference in your long-term win rate at 1 live game of 1000NL vs. 5 online games of 200 NL? There is none - but the variance will be WAY lower on the 5 games of 200 NL. This keeps crazy swings at bay, keeps you playing level headed and if you can't get professional gambler status with the IRS it keeps your taxes down. The reasons here are complicated and I need to get back to work.

Oh - any my advice is to do anything but play poker professionally unless this is your only talent in life. Given that it's not even a talent of yours yet I would forget it.

 

[Henry Boogers]

Originally Posted by dusty

Is this some white people grifter fantasy?

Yes.

When I tell people I did it to replace my Wife's salary when she left work to start a family people envisioned me in a black suit with dark glasses smoking a cigar while shuffling stacks of $10,000 in cash on my desk at home with girls in swimsuits rubbing my back. It was more like me coming home from work, stripping down to my underwear and playing 2 monitors at a time while watching Everybody Loves Raymond re-runs in the background.

 

[Fuuma]

Online poker and all this stat bullshit make that game sound so boring it's not even funny. You're basically describing the lifestyle of people who play online games and sell their magical items on ebay or whatever.

 

[constant struggle]

goodluck
i played hours and hours and hours, i ended up realizing i was making like 1 dollar an hour, it wasn't even worth it, i hardly ever play now

i would rather just play live games for fun with some friends (which is still a very competitive game, as everyone has thousands of hours of playing under their belts)

 

[Henry Boogers]

Originally Posted by Fuuma

Online poker and all this stat bullshit make that game sound so boring it's not even funny. You're basically describing the lifestyle of people who play online games and sell their magical items on ebay or whatever.

A fair assesment, hence the recommendation to not pursue this as a career.

 

[GQgeek]

Originally Posted by Henry Boogers

Oh - any my advice is to do anything but play poker professionally unless this is your only talent in life. Given that it's not even a talent of yours yet I would forget it.

Everyone wants to be the next CTS.

Anyway, I disagree with Fuuma about the stats. Doing regular analysis of your play allows you to become a better player by identifying tendencies that are -EV. It's much much harder to do that without a database.

 

[Fuuma]

Originally Posted by GQgeek

Everyone wants to be the next CTS.

Anyway, I disagree with Fuuma about the stats. Doing regular analysis of your play allows you to become a better player by identifying tendencies that are -EV.

I'm not saying it won't work (I dunno **** about poker) I'm saying being the kid that plays multiple games of poker online while running stats on how to improve himself is basically avoiding the only interesting part of the game (the edgy social interractions, psychological games and whatnot) and it's a miserable lifestyle. Online poker is to regular poker what porno sites are to getting laid.

 

[GQgeek]

Originally Posted by Fuuma

I'm not saying it won't work (I dunno **** about poker) I'm saying being the kid that plays multiple games of poker online while running stats on how to improve himself is basically avoiding the only interesting part of the game (the edgy social interractions, psychological games and whatnot) and it's a miserable lifestyle. Online poker is to regular poker what porno sites are to getting laid.

Lifestyle partly depends on how good you are. If you've got the skills, the discipline, and the mental toughness, you can make well over six figures playing 2-3 hours a day, even at small stakes. CTS makes 7 figures playing poker, and he spends a lot of his time travelling all over the place doing really cool **** with the money he makes. That's a pretty awesome lifestyle. He's an exceptional player, but my buddy who is merely a very good player clears 10k/mo playing 15 hours a week. There aren't any jobs that pay that well and give you that much time off that I know of. He lives in a nice condo and doesn't work. He travels a lot. He gets to spend the majority of his time doing the things he likes doing, as opposed to working. He could make more but he's lazy.

Now if someone sits infront of their flat screen grinding 8+ tables at the lower limits for 8 hours a day, I'd agree that the lifestyle would suck. I don't think many people actually do that though. Your brain just gets tired too fast when you are multi-tabling unless you are playing well below your skill level.

And there is still a large psychological component in online play, but it mostly comes from an observance of HOW your opponents play (bet sizing, aggressiveness on various streets, etc.) and a self-conciousness about your own table image plus and ability to act on it. I think that the biggest psychological challenge in poker is always how you deal with your own losses though. You have to be pretty damned tough to ride out the bad beats if you are playing professionally and depending on poker for your income. Variance is a total *****. People sometimes have downswings spanning thousands of hands. That is why bankroll management is so important.