Playing for a living

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Mzepp20

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Hi all. Was wondering how many of you guys on here are actually playing this game and doing well enough to live on. I'm curious to the number of people who achieve this. Obviously most have that ultimate goal of living a nice life free of working a real job. Hell that's why I been spending pretty much all my free time either playing the game or doing research or watching hand breakdowns. For those of you guys that are playing for a living how did you make your start to get to the point to where you could afford to do so.?
 
Psyanide14

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I’m not making a living playing poker (probably not even covering my electric bill from using my ipad while playing).

However, it’s like anything that requires a lot of dedication and practice (like musicians, golfers, etc). You’re not going to make a living until you’ve spent literally thousands of hours playing and studying.

Start at low limits and work up to where you can still win more than lose. Remember it’s no point playing higher stakes and losing. Stick where you win and build on that.

Hope that helps some. I’m sure the people who play for a living can give better tips. Or they may not want to give up their trade secrets.

Good luck.
 
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rosa

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poker is also a job

I believe that playing online poker is a harder job than normal work, here in my country a worker, works on average 8 hours a day, now in online poker a match lasts in average 5 hours or more and most of the time player does not earn anything or a small amount
 
vov4ik

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I play poker for fun and for me it's good when I make a profit in poker but not great, but I would also like to devote more time to the game and get good money for me to have enough for life, I learned to play poker normally but I do something not enough to win good expensive tournaments, I learned a lot of teaching materials and recorded for poker lessons and if everything is fine in the game, then I sometimes win in the game but I do not care what exactly is missing!
 
jfofla

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my friend, if I were to depend on poker to live, I would be gambling on the street, poker is a very dangerous game for any player to try to live only on him, not even you will always be winning and then the loss leads to bankruptcy.
 
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LukeSilver

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hi I have played poker for several years now probably around a decade or over by this point. in all honesty i never put a lot of work into the game which has probably cost me a few hundred k in oppertunity cost by now.
My results clearly show that I am capable of doing this for a living, and with some actual hard work i could almost certainly do much better.

That been said there are a number of drawbacks to taking this on for a living.

1. This is not a long term career.
there is nothing anyone can do to stop bots in the long term, because of this online poker has a limited shelf life. I honestly cant tell you if this will be a few years or a few decades but I would be very surprised if it was still possible to make a living from online poker in 2028.

2. Despite common misconceptions it is a full time real job
that is to say its not stress free and its not easy losing to a bad beat several times in a row when they are playing bad and you are doing everything right may not be so stressful when you have a four figure bank roll and a regular income from another source coming in.

however when you know you need to with draw 500 this week your sitting on 1300 and you run bad losing 300 of it your suddenly getting very stressed and it eats up at you.
playing poker for 2 hours a day or 10 hours a week is a hobby and not much of a demand. playing poker 40-60 hours a week can be exhausting and hard to motivate yourself or bring your best game to. for almost any job out there doing it for two hours a day is not stressful doing it for 40-60 hours a week is.

people think because poker is fun and not to stressful when you do it recreationally and make a little bit of money that it will be the same when your doing it for 40-60 hours a week and relying on it for your income this is very far from the truth.

3. poker is not a respected profession

okay you can say so what to that and that works for the random joe blogs in the street who cares what he thinks etc if your making good money and your happy you dont need to impress random strangers right? wrong.

what about when you want to get a loan for a car or a morgtage or for some reason they need to a general credit check on you?

or what about when you meet girls trying to find someone to settle down with? she may well not be impressed and wont listen to statistically significant results or etc, as far as she is concerned your a gambling addict mug who delusionally thinks he has a system and 99% of the population cant think for themselves and dont want to they just listen to what the media tells them so good luck trying to persuade them. even if you do what will her family say another likely obstacle?
and what about if you want to or have to move on from poker the fact that you were a professional poker player for 7 years or etc will not be considered a positive thing from most employers.

I think poker is great for making money and will when I am back at uni likely make me 10k+ over the uni year to have as spare money to invest in other things. also it will be great for flexibility with my studies eg if I have an assighment due i can just stop entirely where as if I work 16 hours a week in a kitchen as a student not getting time off for studies.

But I do not believe poker is likely to be a life long career option.
 
MattRyder

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I'm not playing for a living or trying to play for a living. I do think though that if you are a professional player and have been consistently filing income tax returns that show a positive and rising income it would be hard for any banker, employer or potential girlfriend to doubt how seriously you take your profession.

Also, much is said about playing for fun as opposed to playing for money. I enjoy winning at poker, not losing, so for me they are pretty much one and the same.
 
monstr999999

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for me poker is fun ..))
I think that living only with poker is a very difficult task ...
:tomato:
 
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I play for relaxation . I believe in order to make a living from poker would be harder work than I have ever done in my life , and I did heavy construction all my life . Better to just enjoy the game than to make it a job , in my opinion anyway . Good luck in whatever you attempt .
 
well_cap1302

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I play poker as a hobby, but I would like to play professionally someday, so I try to study and practice at the tables what I see, maybe one day I'll get there haha.
 
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LukeSilver

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I'm not playing for a living or trying to play for a living. I do think though that if you are a professional player and have been consistently filing income tax returns that show a positive and rising income it would be hard for any banker, employer or potential girlfriend to doubt how seriously you take your profession.

Also, much is said about playing for fun as opposed to playing for money. I enjoy winning at poker, not losing, so for me they are pretty much one and the same.


you clearly then do not understand people. you assume that other people are perfectly rational beings happily willing to discuss whatever assertions you make and look at the evidence objectively without prejudice carefully taking into consideration the facts and making informed conclusions?

I don't know where you have been for the past several decades but your clearly living in a fantasy land if you believe most human beings operate like that.
 
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KholodOFF

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Greetings from Ukraine !

Good afternoon. My name is Vladimir Kholodov. Today I registered for CardsChat. I want to play with you at pokerstars and 888. My nickname is mamamio57 P. S. I'll learn something from you and teach myself something.
 
Psyanide14

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I’ve won $5.00 in the last month playing freerolls. If that’s not making a living then I don’t know what is. If you need more than that to live on, you are just greedy.
 
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willko01000

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?

Playing for a living well it depends what you can live off really so its an open question.

Whats a living? Decent median wage in UK is about £35000.

So what game you gonna play to make that up? What happens if you lose 25% in one game.

If a person seriously wants to live off poker they are gonna have to get their money management right. Other than that you are going to want to get backing which tends to be the realistic way to live off playing poker.
 
mk0523

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Once you start taking poker really serious it eventually leads to feeling like a grind or a job which eventually leads to you becoming disinterested and bored of the game. Poker is tougher than it's ever been and today's climate doesn't suit the interest of someone looking to play professional. If you want to play it as a hobby by playing on weeknights or on the weekend at times that's fine, but if you really want to become great your going to have to make it your life and eventually you will become worn out after all the hours you put in.
 
bablo

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I think most people play just for fun, but everyone wants to win an expensive tournament and get rich.
 
MattRyder

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you clearly then do not understand people. you assume that other people are perfectly rational beings happily willing to discuss whatever assertions you make and look at the evidence objectively without prejudice carefully taking into consideration the facts and making informed conclusions?

I don't know where you have been for the past several decades but your clearly living in a fantasy land if you believe most human beings operate like that.
Hmmm... two names come to mind:

  • Bernie Madoff
  • Paul Manafort
Nobody questioned them, and look how far they got. Forget those guys, how about Donald Trump? Fraudster, swindler, racist, publicly renowned liar, bankruptcy addict and all around narcissist with obvious ties to the underworld and foreign criminals. Not only did 62,979,879 Americans not question his obvious bad character, they even handed him the keys to the kingdom.

I understand people well enough to be able to distinguish between a crook and a good human being worthy of being given a chance regardless of his profession. I'm guessing Daniel Negreanu doesn't get turned down by too many bankers. And yes, I love my world, fantasies and all.
 
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LukeSilver

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Hmmm... two names come to mind:

  • Bernie Madoff
  • Paul Manafort
Nobody questioned them, and look how far they got. Forget those guys, how about Donald Trump? Fraudster, swindler, racist, publicly renowned liar, bankruptcy addict and all around narcissist with obvious ties to the underworld and foreign criminals. Not only did 62,979,879 Americans not question his obvious bad character, they even handed him the keys to the kingdom.

I understand people well enough to be able to distinguish between a crook and a good human being worthy of being given a chance regardless of his profession. I'm guessing Daniel Negreanu doesn't get turned down by too many bankers. And yes, I love my world, fantasies and all.

I dont want to get into politics here and I am not a Trump sychophant but briefly a lot of a negative press is regarding the man is hear say nonsense and only proofs my point that people will avoid rationality and evidence and go with whatever the media tell them. I certainly have my criticisms of Trump but I am not going to jump the racist sexist homophobe chanting nonsense. and for whatever dirt you can throw at Trump I can throw worse at Hillary. Trump did not win because americans thought he was a good choice he wasn't. He won because he was a better option then Hillary which really isn't that hard to achieve. I think I would elect my local homeless drunk over Hillary just saying.

Daniel Negranue is an exception since he has a major sponsorship deal with pokerstars and is a well known established name in the industry. from my current games and looking at my results using statistical significance tests I have learned from my first year of a maths with statistics degree, I can be confident that if I was to play full time my win rate be between £100-£150 a day. assuming going full time and over exhaustion does not lower the win rate so lets call it £100 a day.

If I went into a bank and tried to get mortgage on that do you really think they would give it to me? I don't. I don't think they are going to want to sit down with me and look at my results or do statistical significance tests or just look at my bank statements etc. I assume they would just say gambling is not stable.

most girls I talk to are put of by my poker I lost a potential dominatrix girlfriend over this, do you have any idea how hard that is to get? she did not want to sit down with me and statistically verify my results she just assumed I had a gambling problem. and if she was okay with it what do you think her parents would say? there may be the odd case of a mathematically qualified open minded father sitting down and looking at the results but most parents would be saying let this one go.
 
Nathan Williams

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Yes, I have been a professional poker player for over 10 years. Although, more part time now due to other commitments.

I got my start about 15 years ago online at the very lowest stakes like most people. I built a career out of this by simply vowing to outwork everybody.

20+ poker tables at a time for many, many years, millions and millions of hands played. Eventually moving up the stakes and quitting my job.

Then more recently I moved overseas for the lower cost of living and better weather. Also, I created a large side business teaching the game (3 books, popular blog, youtube etc.).

Truthfully though, most people should just continue to play this game as a hobby. It takes a near superhuman level of perseverance to survive in this game over the long haul.

Good luck.
 
Psyanide14

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Everybody sees poker players on tv and think, what an easy job. It’s a lot of work and stress to make a living, but everyone these days wants to make a quick easy buck.

(Pulls up old man pants). Why in my day, we had to get up at 4:00 am to feed the goats, then walk 2 hours to school, in 10 foot snow drifts. No heat in the school and had to walk 5 minutes to the outhouse. Walk 2 hours back home, and the path would be snowed back in, then have to catch a chicken, and pluck it, then cook it over an open flame to feed our family of 12. And another thing...ZZZZ (snoring)
 
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