C
coachlary69
Rock Star
Silver Level
Yes, I believe it's possible if done with discipline and patience even though it may seen harder than years ago. Most people don't have the discipline or patience to succeed which is why so many don't and you have to be selective in the games you play and build that bankroll up if you're starting from scratch and avoid all games that will suck your bankroll dry, such as casino games, etc. It's also important to move up in stakes and find a level that is comfortable and profitable to you and your bankroll. There are plenty of games at the Microstakes level but the rake will eat enough of your bankroll over the long haul which makes that level hard to beat, plus the poker sites don't cater to the microstakes player. You look at some of the promotions, like the recent MOMOMO PLO promotion on ACR. Playing at the microstakes level .01/.02 you can easily build up a $700.00 bonus, but it's almost impossible to clear that bonus over 2 months playing at .01/.02 and the sites know this. But again, it can be done, and there are people doing it every day. The question you should be asking yourself is do you have what it takes to succeed at this game and are you willing to put in the time and effort to do so?
C
Checknerd
Rising Star
Bronze Level
wilpinsi
Legend
Silver Level
We should always believe that there is a light at the end of the tunnel, the truth is that online poker is becoming more complicated for you to earn good profits, I try to diversify between online and live, so I play poker less online to risk more money when I participate of live tournaments.
In an overview, you're not totally correct, when you say that online poker is dying, the demand for live tournaments has been growing exponentially, with attractive entries so that anyone can participate
In an overview, you're not totally correct, when you say that online poker is dying, the demand for live tournaments has been growing exponentially, with attractive entries so that anyone can participate
Gorak
Legend
Silver Level
I don't understand your point. You say that online poker is not dying; but then you speak about the live scene growing and that you play less online. So what is your logic there?
san
Rising Star
Bronze Level
I think with great discipline and good bank roll management people do make living playing online poker. There's lots of money flowing on these poker sites.. I am sure there are many ordinary people making good money every month.. but the competition is really high, not like old days. you will find few sharks sitting on every table.. not easy for newcomers.
Gorak
Legend
Silver Level
Maybe some don't mind losing money or making some pocket change.
Making a living is another thing.
B
beninu
Rising Star
Bronze Level
Reg. profitable online poker
If your friend is profitable that is probably the case. You should absolutely multitable and put in many hours every day.
I have a friend that is making a living by playing poker on PokerStars. He usually plays many tables 20+ at the same time. Also he said he plays 8 hours a day. How much of this is true I don't know. Anyways... yes it is possible to make a living by playing poker. There are some live streamers online that play poker for living, but I believe they earn from the streaming too.
If your friend is profitable that is probably the case. You should absolutely multitable and put in many hours every day.
B
beninu
Rising Star
Bronze Level
Being profitable in poker
A few of the important things to remember to become profitable in online poker is the following:
Invest at least 10000 hours to achieve a mere decent skill set.
Understand that earning in online poker is a full time job (and often more). You will not get by if you invest less than 8 hours a day playing - especailly in the beginning where you probably play smaller stakes.
Have a considerable buffer-amount in your bankroll, and apply sensible bankroll-management to ensure you stay profitable.
Regarding bankroll management:
You should stick to the following rules, to be able to withstand the swings:
Never buy in to a turnament that cost more than 3% of your existing bank-roll.
That means that if you have a bankroll of 1000$ the most expensive tournament you should buy into is a 30$ tournament. And if you've had a downswing over a longer period bringing your bank-roll to, say 500$ you should only buy into 15$ tournaments or less.
The same goes for cash games. The following rules apply:
Never buy in to a game where the price of 100BB is more than 5% of your entire bankroll.
This means that if you have a bankroll of 1000$ you should never sit at a No-Limit Holdem table where maximum buy-in is more than 50$ (that is a 0.25/0.50$ table). If you only have 500$ in your bankroll that means you should never buy in to a game that has a max-buy-in of more than 25$ (that is a 0.10/0.25$ table), and if you are just a hobby player investing only a few houndred dollars in your bank-roll you should never buy into a game over 5$ which on most poker sites means you shouldn't play higher stakes than 0.02/0.04$ games.
Some online players even argue that you should have a bigger buffer than the above mentioned. Some even say it should be twice as much so you only buy into turnaments with 1.5% of your roll and into cash games with 2.5% of your roll, because the games have gotten so much harder over the last couple of years.
No matter what you can see that the amount that you can invest in a single game varies depending on your current bank roll. When it gets bigger you can invest in more expensive games, but never forget to go down in limits when you bank roll gets smaller. (And YES - that will happen to all poker players from time to time).
Be aware of multi-tabling ... but be aware!
Also remember that a good tight-aggressive playing style in the small or micro stakes can be very boring, and that often makes relatively new players move on to multitabling too much and too early to get some action. The idea is technically correct, because the only way of getting enough hands to even out the statistics to a degree where you overcome the swings, you should play tens of thousands of hands each month if you play at the small or micro-stakes. But don't immediately start playing 4 tables. Add one table at a time. See how it goes with 2 tables. If that works for you then compare your hourly income before and after you added a table. I can assure you it almost certainly didn't double up because you doubled up on the amount of tables you play. So the earnings per hand is probably better at one table than at two tables. Short and sweet: Don't start playing more tables out of boredom, but because you are completely confident in your current level of multi-tabling.
ONE IMPORTANT THING about multi-tabling: The same bank-roll management rules apply - even if you multitable! So if you could afford to buy into a 50NL (0.25/0.50$) cash game because you had a bankroll of 1000$ you should have twice the bankroll to buy into two of these tables!! So if you want to play, say, four cash game tables with a buy-in of 50$ (0.25/0.50$) table you should have the same bankroll you should have to cover the buy-in at ONE 200$ table! That means that multitabling four tables of NL50 (0.25/0.50$) you should have 4000$ in your bank-roll. Otherwise you will not be mathematically capable of covering the inevitable swings ahead of you. You cannot afford to count on being lucky and not being hit by downswings. Au contraire! You should prepare for the worst possible scenario and that you do by proper bank roll management.
Be prepared to invest a lot of time and money into the project of becoming a good poker player.
Don't fall into the pits of many new amateur players that have a hard time becoming profitable at the lowest stakes (micro-stakes), who often say: "I should just move up in stakes, because it is impossible to beat these fish. They don't respect my bets! These fools go all in with any two cards and always win on some icredibly lucky runner-runner or they get an insanely lucky flop. Noone can beat that. I'm too good for the micro-stakes.". Well, the truth is, a good poker player will be able to adjust to any kind of player and make a profit of them. So if you are a good player and you have a lot of loose fish around you at the table, you will "simply" adjust to these players and exploit their weaknesses.
Also remember that poker is not a way to get rich quick. The few houndred players world wide that won a high stakes tournament early in their carreer are the ones you see on TV. That (almost) never happens to anyone. Calculating on that is just as sensible as making buying lottery tickets your sole source of income. So be realistic about your goals. Be aware that you are not either a great poker player or a loosing fish. There is only a very fine line on each side of break-even that decides wether you are profitable or loosing in the long run. Even when you watch some og the online pros they make around 4-5 BB per 100 hands they play. That means that when they play hundred hands in a 50NL (0.25/0.50$) cash game they earn about 2.00-2.50$ per 100 hands they play. The playing speed at one table is about 60-70 hands per hour if it is high, so you can see these players usually muti-table 18-24 cash game tables at a time and play 7-8 hours a day.
This is not something you can make better by becoming better. The profit at the high stakes may be a little higher, because the players on these stakes rely more on good well-timed bluffs than you do on small-stakes and micro-stakes where ABC players ususally play. This is determined by sheer math. Sure, some days you will walk away from the table with thousands in winnings, but that is evened out by the times you leave the tables with the same amount in losses.
This may sound obvious, but still a few people get the point. Great poker players are great because they are capable of winning, on average, just a 1-2 percent more than they loose. So people who earn a lot playing poker also invest a lot (both time and money) to make it worth their while. That can be done either playing a lot of tables at small or medium stakes or playing one or two tables at high stakes. The swings are of course higher on a single high stakes table as one hand can cost you several thousand dollars, whereas the players who spread their investment may play for the same total buy-in amount, but they spread the risk over 20 tables, and therefore the math starts working to their advantage faster than it would to the high-stakes player because of the sheer amount of hands played. The larger the data-set the closer to reality the statistics will be, and the data-set will of course grow faster when you multi-table several thousand hands each day, than when you play only a few houndred hands a day at the high stakes.
So another trait of a good poker player is that he understands that swings are exactly that - swings. Having lost 5000$ one day doesn't matter more to him/her than winning 5100$ another day, because a good poker player are well aware that due to the mathematics of poker there will unavoidably be many days where you loose more than you win.
So if you want to be a profitable poker player you can - but it takes much more than enthusiasm for the game. It takes perseverence when the game gets boring, playing day after day after day after .... It takes an icy stomach to sit calm through hands when you loose hounudres or even thousands on a hand against some insanely lucky fish, that achieves his lucky quads on the river, beating your flush. In fact a truly great poker player smiles inside when he experience that kind of loss and make a note of that players name/nickname, as that player just temporarely borrowed your money. If he is only winning due to a few lucky hands the true poker player knows, that giving these money to the fish is a good investment, that will make the fish think he/she is good, keep playing, and eventually give you back every cent - with interest.
Or in other words - a good poker player knows that he plays every hand he plays the best way these two cards could be played, factoring in position, community cards, the size of stack (deciding the pot odds), his own stack, bet sizing, etc., the opponents stats, etc., so when he ends up losing the hand anyway, he is still 100% confident he played the hand exactly the way it should be played. Which translates to - he has confidence in his playing style and stick to it because it has proven profitable in the long run. (BTW: Sticking to your strategy still means adapting to the situation, the strength of the player base, the table size, etc. as these things are also all part of a consistent strategy).
Last but not least:
Keep your poker economy separated from your private economy. Decide in advance how much you can afford to lose playing poker in, for example, a year and put that into your poker account and stick to that budget. If you decide your poker expences this year cannot amount to more than 1000$ you put 1000$ into your poker account on the pokersite where you are playing, and you apply bank-roll management to this roll of 1000$, which means you don't just top-up again and again. If your bankroll drops you also drop down in stakes (whether it be cash-games, SNG or MTT). That way yuy will never burn through your whole bank roll. And should your bank roll get so low you can't find tournaments that only cost 3% of that amount you simply stick to free-rolls until your roll is large enough for yoiu to buy in to a 3$ tournament).
By adhering to a strict bank-roll management I have personally turned a very small starting
bank roll of only 400$ into about 2000$. The way I did it was that I started putting 100$ into my poker account and blew it all. They I put in another 100$ and blew it all - again! Then I paused for a minute and thaugh that maybe there were mor to it than just playing super tight and then go all in with QQ-AA, AK. Maybe I should learn a little more. Then I stopped playing for a while, and got myself a lot of litterature on poker. That helped a lot!
Some of the most essential things that anyone that takes poker seriously should read are (at least in my oppinion):
The Theory of Poker by David Sklansky is a MUST.
Harrington on Hold'em Vol 1-3 by Dan Harrington.
If you have a hard time getting through these three heavy volumes by Harrington, then a good alternative would be:
Sit'n'go Strategy by Collin Moshman, which is short and sweet and filled with good examples).
When you have gotten proftable in the small stakes and want to take your poker to a higher level you should read:
The Matematics of Poker by Bill Chen & Jerod Ankenman.
A few books that also taught me a lot personally are:
Don't Listen to Phil Helmuth by Dusty Schmith
and
Treat Your Poker Like a Business, also by Dusty Schmith
Finally a few book that are on my bedside table (or that might become holiday reading material) are:
Strategies for Beating Small Stakes Poker Tournaments
and
Strategies for Beating Small Stakes Cash Games
both by Jonathan Little
I should say, though, that I haven't read any of the two last mentioned books by Jonathan Little, but they came very recommended, and should be rather light reading amteriall that also suits beginners.
No matter what approach you take, I ceratinly wish you the best of luck at the tables - not that you need luck - but it will make you rich quicker than if you had to rely solely on good solid mathematical gameplay.
A few of the important things to remember to become profitable in online poker is the following:
Invest at least 10000 hours to achieve a mere decent skill set.
Understand that earning in online poker is a full time job (and often more). You will not get by if you invest less than 8 hours a day playing - especailly in the beginning where you probably play smaller stakes.
Have a considerable buffer-amount in your bankroll, and apply sensible bankroll-management to ensure you stay profitable.
Regarding bankroll management:
You should stick to the following rules, to be able to withstand the swings:
Never buy in to a turnament that cost more than 3% of your existing bank-roll.
That means that if you have a bankroll of 1000$ the most expensive tournament you should buy into is a 30$ tournament. And if you've had a downswing over a longer period bringing your bank-roll to, say 500$ you should only buy into 15$ tournaments or less.
The same goes for cash games. The following rules apply:
Never buy in to a game where the price of 100BB is more than 5% of your entire bankroll.
This means that if you have a bankroll of 1000$ you should never sit at a No-Limit Holdem table where maximum buy-in is more than 50$ (that is a 0.25/0.50$ table). If you only have 500$ in your bankroll that means you should never buy in to a game that has a max-buy-in of more than 25$ (that is a 0.10/0.25$ table), and if you are just a hobby player investing only a few houndred dollars in your bank-roll you should never buy into a game over 5$ which on most poker sites means you shouldn't play higher stakes than 0.02/0.04$ games.
Some online players even argue that you should have a bigger buffer than the above mentioned. Some even say it should be twice as much so you only buy into turnaments with 1.5% of your roll and into cash games with 2.5% of your roll, because the games have gotten so much harder over the last couple of years.
No matter what you can see that the amount that you can invest in a single game varies depending on your current bank roll. When it gets bigger you can invest in more expensive games, but never forget to go down in limits when you bank roll gets smaller. (And YES - that will happen to all poker players from time to time).
Be aware of multi-tabling ... but be aware!
Also remember that a good tight-aggressive playing style in the small or micro stakes can be very boring, and that often makes relatively new players move on to multitabling too much and too early to get some action. The idea is technically correct, because the only way of getting enough hands to even out the statistics to a degree where you overcome the swings, you should play tens of thousands of hands each month if you play at the small or micro-stakes. But don't immediately start playing 4 tables. Add one table at a time. See how it goes with 2 tables. If that works for you then compare your hourly income before and after you added a table. I can assure you it almost certainly didn't double up because you doubled up on the amount of tables you play. So the earnings per hand is probably better at one table than at two tables. Short and sweet: Don't start playing more tables out of boredom, but because you are completely confident in your current level of multi-tabling.
ONE IMPORTANT THING about multi-tabling: The same bank-roll management rules apply - even if you multitable! So if you could afford to buy into a 50NL (0.25/0.50$) cash game because you had a bankroll of 1000$ you should have twice the bankroll to buy into two of these tables!! So if you want to play, say, four cash game tables with a buy-in of 50$ (0.25/0.50$) table you should have the same bankroll you should have to cover the buy-in at ONE 200$ table! That means that multitabling four tables of NL50 (0.25/0.50$) you should have 4000$ in your bank-roll. Otherwise you will not be mathematically capable of covering the inevitable swings ahead of you. You cannot afford to count on being lucky and not being hit by downswings. Au contraire! You should prepare for the worst possible scenario and that you do by proper bank roll management.
Be prepared to invest a lot of time and money into the project of becoming a good poker player.
Don't fall into the pits of many new amateur players that have a hard time becoming profitable at the lowest stakes (micro-stakes), who often say: "I should just move up in stakes, because it is impossible to beat these fish. They don't respect my bets! These fools go all in with any two cards and always win on some icredibly lucky runner-runner or they get an insanely lucky flop. Noone can beat that. I'm too good for the micro-stakes.". Well, the truth is, a good poker player will be able to adjust to any kind of player and make a profit of them. So if you are a good player and you have a lot of loose fish around you at the table, you will "simply" adjust to these players and exploit their weaknesses.
Also remember that poker is not a way to get rich quick. The few houndred players world wide that won a high stakes tournament early in their carreer are the ones you see on TV. That (almost) never happens to anyone. Calculating on that is just as sensible as making buying lottery tickets your sole source of income. So be realistic about your goals. Be aware that you are not either a great poker player or a loosing fish. There is only a very fine line on each side of break-even that decides wether you are profitable or loosing in the long run. Even when you watch some og the online pros they make around 4-5 BB per 100 hands they play. That means that when they play hundred hands in a 50NL (0.25/0.50$) cash game they earn about 2.00-2.50$ per 100 hands they play. The playing speed at one table is about 60-70 hands per hour if it is high, so you can see these players usually muti-table 18-24 cash game tables at a time and play 7-8 hours a day.
This is not something you can make better by becoming better. The profit at the high stakes may be a little higher, because the players on these stakes rely more on good well-timed bluffs than you do on small-stakes and micro-stakes where ABC players ususally play. This is determined by sheer math. Sure, some days you will walk away from the table with thousands in winnings, but that is evened out by the times you leave the tables with the same amount in losses.
This may sound obvious, but still a few people get the point. Great poker players are great because they are capable of winning, on average, just a 1-2 percent more than they loose. So people who earn a lot playing poker also invest a lot (both time and money) to make it worth their while. That can be done either playing a lot of tables at small or medium stakes or playing one or two tables at high stakes. The swings are of course higher on a single high stakes table as one hand can cost you several thousand dollars, whereas the players who spread their investment may play for the same total buy-in amount, but they spread the risk over 20 tables, and therefore the math starts working to their advantage faster than it would to the high-stakes player because of the sheer amount of hands played. The larger the data-set the closer to reality the statistics will be, and the data-set will of course grow faster when you multi-table several thousand hands each day, than when you play only a few houndred hands a day at the high stakes.
So another trait of a good poker player is that he understands that swings are exactly that - swings. Having lost 5000$ one day doesn't matter more to him/her than winning 5100$ another day, because a good poker player are well aware that due to the mathematics of poker there will unavoidably be many days where you loose more than you win.
So if you want to be a profitable poker player you can - but it takes much more than enthusiasm for the game. It takes perseverence when the game gets boring, playing day after day after day after .... It takes an icy stomach to sit calm through hands when you loose hounudres or even thousands on a hand against some insanely lucky fish, that achieves his lucky quads on the river, beating your flush. In fact a truly great poker player smiles inside when he experience that kind of loss and make a note of that players name/nickname, as that player just temporarely borrowed your money. If he is only winning due to a few lucky hands the true poker player knows, that giving these money to the fish is a good investment, that will make the fish think he/she is good, keep playing, and eventually give you back every cent - with interest.
Or in other words - a good poker player knows that he plays every hand he plays the best way these two cards could be played, factoring in position, community cards, the size of stack (deciding the pot odds), his own stack, bet sizing, etc., the opponents stats, etc., so when he ends up losing the hand anyway, he is still 100% confident he played the hand exactly the way it should be played. Which translates to - he has confidence in his playing style and stick to it because it has proven profitable in the long run. (BTW: Sticking to your strategy still means adapting to the situation, the strength of the player base, the table size, etc. as these things are also all part of a consistent strategy).
Last but not least:
Keep your poker economy separated from your private economy. Decide in advance how much you can afford to lose playing poker in, for example, a year and put that into your poker account and stick to that budget. If you decide your poker expences this year cannot amount to more than 1000$ you put 1000$ into your poker account on the pokersite where you are playing, and you apply bank-roll management to this roll of 1000$, which means you don't just top-up again and again. If your bankroll drops you also drop down in stakes (whether it be cash-games, SNG or MTT). That way yuy will never burn through your whole bank roll. And should your bank roll get so low you can't find tournaments that only cost 3% of that amount you simply stick to free-rolls until your roll is large enough for yoiu to buy in to a 3$ tournament).
By adhering to a strict bank-roll management I have personally turned a very small starting
bank roll of only 400$ into about 2000$. The way I did it was that I started putting 100$ into my poker account and blew it all. They I put in another 100$ and blew it all - again! Then I paused for a minute and thaugh that maybe there were mor to it than just playing super tight and then go all in with QQ-AA, AK. Maybe I should learn a little more. Then I stopped playing for a while, and got myself a lot of litterature on poker. That helped a lot!
Some of the most essential things that anyone that takes poker seriously should read are (at least in my oppinion):
The Theory of Poker by David Sklansky is a MUST.
Harrington on Hold'em Vol 1-3 by Dan Harrington.
If you have a hard time getting through these three heavy volumes by Harrington, then a good alternative would be:
Sit'n'go Strategy by Collin Moshman, which is short and sweet and filled with good examples).
When you have gotten proftable in the small stakes and want to take your poker to a higher level you should read:
The Matematics of Poker by Bill Chen & Jerod Ankenman.
A few books that also taught me a lot personally are:
Don't Listen to Phil Helmuth by Dusty Schmith
and
Treat Your Poker Like a Business, also by Dusty Schmith
Finally a few book that are on my bedside table (or that might become holiday reading material) are:
Strategies for Beating Small Stakes Poker Tournaments
and
Strategies for Beating Small Stakes Cash Games
both by Jonathan Little
I should say, though, that I haven't read any of the two last mentioned books by Jonathan Little, but they came very recommended, and should be rather light reading amteriall that also suits beginners.
No matter what approach you take, I ceratinly wish you the best of luck at the tables - not that you need luck - but it will make you rich quicker than if you had to rely solely on good solid mathematical gameplay
.
vov4ik
Legend
Silver Level
You can earn money in poker, but you have to be good at playing and should be careful about betting in cash games,
or play good expensive tournaments and get into prizes and final tables and win money, but it all depends how much money you can afford to put in poker and at what rates you play, and you need to try to and raise the bankroll more and more, but for this you need a lot of free time to play poker and win your own decent money!
or play good expensive tournaments and get into prizes and final tables and win money, but it all depends how much money you can afford to put in poker and at what rates you play, and you need to try to and raise the bankroll more and more, but for this you need a lot of free time to play poker and win your own decent money!
Gorak
Legend
Silver Level
Sign me up. Where can I find such a site?
C
cardshark777
Enthusiast
Silver Level
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mBo3PhOg8wQ you cant play online poker for a living to much cheating in cash games, tournies and sngs.
N
Nano5722
Legend
Bronze Level
I Agree with you! It,s totally hard to make profit right now in online poker, because lots of people play really good. Also you need to have a lot of luck right now in online games. I was already unlucky for at least 2 months, can,t win anything even in freeroll games. So my advice, if you want to play poker and live for this money, better to think about real poker.
supernuts25
Visionary
Silver Level
in the usa market online is going to be hard, I would aim for live poker if you have that available to where you live.
is online possible ? maybe , would be my answer or at the very least if you hit a big one online move it to live play . good luck
is online possible ? maybe , would be my answer or at the very least if you hit a big one online move it to live play . good luck
C
cardshark777
Enthusiast
Silver Level
The players aren't that good online( very few are actually good) its full of collusion, super using and bots. They took over the online market cause the sites don't want to put in the money or time to do real security. They just want to collect rake. And they do a lot of it at the lower stakes cause the high stakes players will figure it out like (Joey Ingram)
R
RhoadesHoyle
Rising Star
Bronze Level
What sites do you see this on
trippin
Rock Star
Silver Level
Honestly it would depend on the money you invest, obviously playing with micro that would be very difficult, but then think about the one lucky buy-in to a 100k+ guarantee, winning first place is the 2x above the poverty level .
kraemer
Visionary
Silver Level
Like always in poker: Do the math!
In cash games it is reasonable to calculate with a profit of 5 BB per 100 hands if You are a good player.
Let's assume that it takes 1 hour to play 100 hands online.
If You play 6 hours per day You would end up winning 30 BB...
Depending on where You live You could make a living playing NL100 this way. If You are in america / europe where cost of living is high You will need to play NL200 at least...
BUT:
Also keep in mind that in most countries You will be required to pay income taxes on your winnings if You are a pro and not a recreational player... So it is more realistic to play NL400 for europeans / americans to make a living.
And that means that You should have at least a bankroll of $8000 to start with. Since poker is not a job You also cannot expect that the money will come in consistently. You also have to have some money as a backup to pay your bills during downswings...
So if You wanna be a poker pro You should have some 10K - 20K in your bank account THAT YOU CAN AFFORD TO LOSE !
Usually people with this amount of money in the bank have a job that is a lot more lucrative than grinding NL400 for hours each day... So why leave that job for poker?
You must have a very intense love for the game to make being pro a reasonable decision.
Or You must find someone else who is willing to fund your bankroll for a certain amount of the profit!
In cash games it is reasonable to calculate with a profit of 5 BB per 100 hands if You are a good player.
Let's assume that it takes 1 hour to play 100 hands online.
If You play 6 hours per day You would end up winning 30 BB...
Depending on where You live You could make a living playing NL100 this way. If You are in america / europe where cost of living is high You will need to play NL200 at least...
BUT:
Also keep in mind that in most countries You will be required to pay income taxes on your winnings if You are a pro and not a recreational player... So it is more realistic to play NL400 for europeans / americans to make a living.
And that means that You should have at least a bankroll of $8000 to start with. Since poker is not a job You also cannot expect that the money will come in consistently. You also have to have some money as a backup to pay your bills during downswings...
So if You wanna be a poker pro You should have some 10K - 20K in your bank account THAT YOU CAN AFFORD TO LOSE !
Usually people with this amount of money in the bank have a job that is a lot more lucrative than grinding NL400 for hours each day... So why leave that job for poker?
You must have a very intense love for the game to make being pro a reasonable decision.
Or You must find someone else who is willing to fund your bankroll for a certain amount of the profit!
J
JohnnyX
Rising Star
Bronze Level
kraemer
The BEST online NL25 players on Stars average 3.9bb/100 (big blinds, not Big Bets) in Full Ring games and in 6max the number is 5.3bb/100.
In higher limits higher win rates are possible, because the rake is so much smaller.
Not sure I succeed in attaching a picture from internet, but here it is, 2015 full ring:
https://cmates.blob.core.windows.net/posts/3fd4a291bcd1a2f94b15602400bad41e/original.jpeg
We are talking the best of the best. I have only now started playing and I beat NL10 for 4bb/100 over 150,000 hands and will move to NL25. The rakeback is apparently gone now from Stars, but I don't know how it was in the past, so... But the games are tough compared to old training videos that are on youtube, nobody shoves junk hands at your Aces any longer or gives you his stack with Ace high, not able to fold AK on river. NL5000 in 2008 looks softer than today's NL2. The rake is ridiculously high though, I paid more in rake than the money I won...
Based on my calculations:
At NL10 expect $400 a month at most
At NL25 expect $850 per month at most
At NL50 expect $1500
At NL100 $2500
by at most I mean without overdoing it, healthy hours.
In some parts of Africa, you could have a great life even at NL10, assuming you have access to internet. In cheaper places in Europe you'd need to beat NL50 but in an average area you'd need to be grinding NL100. No idea if I will ever beat NL50. NL25 seems OK for now. NL200 is where the real money starts pouring in, but looking at the lobby now and in older videos, the games are super dry (in fact all limits less than half of what was 4 years ago and full ring is dead)
The BEST online NL25 players on Stars average 3.9bb/100 (big blinds, not Big Bets) in Full Ring games and in 6max the number is 5.3bb/100.
In higher limits higher win rates are possible, because the rake is so much smaller.
Not sure I succeed in attaching a picture from internet, but here it is, 2015 full ring:
https://cmates.blob.core.windows.net/posts/3fd4a291bcd1a2f94b15602400bad41e/original.jpeg
We are talking the best of the best. I have only now started playing and I beat NL10 for 4bb/100 over 150,000 hands and will move to NL25. The rakeback is apparently gone now from Stars, but I don't know how it was in the past, so... But the games are tough compared to old training videos that are on youtube, nobody shoves junk hands at your Aces any longer or gives you his stack with Ace high, not able to fold AK on river. NL5000 in 2008 looks softer than today's NL2. The rake is ridiculously high though, I paid more in rake than the money I won...
Based on my calculations:
At NL10 expect $400 a month at most
At NL25 expect $850 per month at most
At NL50 expect $1500
At NL100 $2500
by at most I mean without overdoing it, healthy hours.
In some parts of Africa, you could have a great life even at NL10, assuming you have access to internet. In cheaper places in Europe you'd need to beat NL50 but in an average area you'd need to be grinding NL100. No idea if I will ever beat NL50. NL25 seems OK for now. NL200 is where the real money starts pouring in, but looking at the lobby now and in older videos, the games are super dry (in fact all limits less than half of what was 4 years ago and full ring is dead)
Last edited:
Gorak
Legend
Silver Level
They would probably make a lot more money with a normal job. And avoid some stress.
J
JohnnyX
Rising Star
Bronze Level
Depending where they live, of course. I think all of them are from poorer countries. Isn't here a thread here from someone from Greece who would be happy to get 400 Euros a month, because that's maximum what's currently available due to crisis, and that only if you do find a job, which apparently is hard to do
Last edited:
sanekhorror
Rock Star
Silver Level
Yes, unfortunately, in poker it became much harder to earn than before, and in the future it will be even worse, but the chances of winning are certainly there, and yes I think it's possible, the main thing is to choose the style of the game that suits you best, because this is also an important point.