I want to play poker full time

Also you could try something like Prostaker to minimize the risk you are taking when thinking of playing professionally.

Edit > Ups, that is only for Nordic players. I bet there are similar sites for players from other countries as well...

Yea i'd agree with trying to go semi-pro first. Keep your day job, perhaps work a few less hours, then try to play ~5hrs a day and a little more on weekends. If it is working out after a year then maybe you should give going pro a shot. But i think at the start you want to supplement your income with poker rather than it being your sole income.

semi pro would be what i would decide to do if i was going to attemt to go pro. I would get a job that is 3 days a week and can cover 60%+ of weekly expenses and play poke rthe rest of the week.

OP can we have some more info on what stakes/games you intend to play?

Well, whatever happens I wish you the best. If I were you I'd make sure I had a significant bankroll before making this HUGE decision

You lost your job and you say poker is your only option? How about going out to find a job any job. Playing poker doesnt sound like the answer for you right now, with no income comming in.

You lost your job and you say poker is your only option? How about going out to find a job any job. Playing poker doesnt sound like the answer for you right now, with no income comming in.

Same here. With the extra bonus that in France, if you have a regular job as your main activity, poker earnings are tax-free...

On the other hand, 20-tabling 25nl 8 hours a day 50 weeks per year as some suggest is probably one of the most unbearable job you can find.

It's not just you, Zach.

I think 60k-80k is actually a bit low. If you can make that much money playing full time, you can probably do 15k-20k playing in your spare time in addition to your regular job, of which you keep full benefits. That's likely to be a much better deal in many cases.

I'd probably start considering playing poker full time if I could earn at least $100/hour. Which means I most likely won't ever.

I'd have to agree that you shouldn't go pro at this point, you would be better served taking up poker as a second job until such time as it doesn't make sense for you to do your primary job anymore. I'd say you need to be making at least twice your income playing poker for an extended period of time, and have a fat bankroll. I'd also keep the bankroll completely separate so you can grow it at the fastest rate rather than using it to buy things to live on, and you should invest any part of your bankroll you're not likely to need in the near future in a highly liquid, low variance form that you can grab your money quickly if you have the need like in various length CDs depending how likely you are to need a certain portion of it at a given time.

fwiw, most current pros didn't sit down and decide to just make it their career; rather, they woke up one day and realized that their "hobby" (into which they were putting all their free time) was making them more money than their current "real" job. In other words, the decision was made for them, after they already knew they could be (because they already were!) successful-- it wasn't a matter of guessing if they could make it or not.

i read something about art. i am not sure i can translate it properly into english, so i will cut out all literature stuff. just replace art with poker

"if you dont want to be dissapointed in art, never see it as a job. no matter how talented you are, search money and power somewhere else. so if you cant get what u deserved, you wont be angry with art"
i will run a greenhouse, viva strawberries

I play poker full time now and make a pretty good livin out of it, I wouldnt bank on how good u are or if u can make it in poker just on tournys. U have to be good in cash too bc thats where u can make some good money and it really helps ur game to improve. If u live near a casino then i would sugest playing there as much as possible but play online too, i would do like 70/30 in favor of casino. I started out with $5000 grand and went to tunica, Ms and built it to $15,000 and then went on to Atlantic City and then vegas. Now i play mostly online but get to the casinos atleast 3x a month.

i play 600 hands in 2.5 hours FR playing 4 tables so is my hands per hour 240 or do i then divide it by 4 to get 60 because i was confused about when zach and somebody said they average 50 hands per hour when i thought i was doing 240 lol ??

Running scripts with 12 tables or just clicking away? I dont even think I could see the cards on my current monitor with 12 tables. Can do 4 pretty easy though.