This was an interesting little thread as well I thought. This player kept turning down advice and getting defensive everytime someone tried to tell him that his approach was incorrect. I'll skip all the stuff in-between...I'm just tossing up his post and my rather harsh reply (that was much more polite than many of the replies he received) because I thought I made some good points in there.Somewhere in the middle of the thread he talks about how he 'usually' wins $150 n hour playing 6/12 or 9/18 (except for the times where he has really bad luck).His 'plan' is to save up $3000 and play 5/10 and 6/12.He crushed the 'live' games but those pesky little online-games always get the better of him because the bad players always draw-out on him. etc etc. Anyway - onto the thread: ---------------------------------------------------------- First of all, I would like to say "hello" to everybody. This (I think) will be my first post on these boards (I - apparently - unsuccessfully attempted to post a similar message last night). On to the problem: I am contemplating the idea of becoming a "professional" poker player. I don't really know what the exact definition of a "professional" poker player is, but I think of it as someone whose only source of income is playing poker on a regular basis. And this is what I hope to eventually be doing. I started playing Texas Hold 'Em approximately 6 months ago. My friend, who has been playing for years and knows quite a few people who play semi-professionally, introduced me to the game. I was never really into "gambling" before I started playing, and I really don't think I would be interested in any other form of "gambling" besides Hold 'Em. I'm just not a "gambler." The only reason I play poker is because I am good at it, and I find myself making over ten times what I make at work when I am on top of my game. The only problem is that I will occasionally have a bad luck streak, where the cards just don't work. I am an aggressive player, and sometimes I just don't get the cards that I expect to come. Some nights, it seems as if that's all that happens, and I lose my entire $300 stack in just a few hours (I play 6/12 cash games at Commerce Casino, CA). Does anybody have any suggestions/advice for me? Should I go "pro?" Should I just play part-time? What kind of bankroll should I have for playing 6/12 games on a regular basis? Is it better/easier to play online versus brick-and-mortar? Am I just a newbie fish that should get the heck out of your world? I would appreciate some constructive criticism/helpful advice. I would like to thank anybody who helps in advance. And please, no jokers. I am serious about this. Edit: Don't be afraid to ask clarification questions. If there's anything you'd like to know about this subject, just ask. I will answer any intelligent questions. ----------------------------------------------------- Response from Jeff A. 1 - You're not as good as you think you are. (No one is, but newer players are especially susceptible to the "I've been running well and am a poker god" mentality) 2 - Before you even think about playing for a living you need several things: A) Several months of proven success. Not just "I win more than I lose" or "I had a good few weeks". Documentation of exactly how much you're winning/losing is essential. B) Several months of expenses which are separate from your bankroll. You will absolutely go through losing streaks and months where you don't win enough to cover the bills (and some months where you don't win, period). You cannot afford to dip into your bankroll to cover these expenses, as that will open you up to a bigger disaster - busting out. C)You need a bankroll which is separate from your spending money. 300 BB is the normal suggestion, but 500 BB is much better. This should allow you a bigger cushion against the inevitable downswing, and can prevent you from having to drop down in limits when you start losing. 3 - Playing online for a living is significantly easier than trying to play in a cardroom. You can play any hours you'd like; you don't have to drive to the room and then wait for a seat; you can play multiple tables at the same time; you can get rakebacks and bonuses which add to your earnings; you can use programs like Pokertracker and Playerview/PokerAce to help track your play and your opponent's play. 4 - Go to the archives, search for all posts by davidross. He started his poker career over 2 years ago and gave weekly updates for the first year about his journey. It's a great read and will give you a lot of insight into the difficulties of becoming a professional. ----------------------------------------------- my typically long-winded response: This has certainly been an amusing little thread (that I skimmed through parts of admittedly...it's kinda long afterall). to milenko if he is indeed serious in these posts (some of this discussion is so ludicrous that one does suspect it might not be on the up-and-up): $150/hour is not possible in the long-run on 9/18.$20/hour is. Maybe $30-$35 for really superior players. Losing streaks happen. Bad players draw out on you all the time. That happens too.Even the best pros will probably only win in 2/3 of their sessions it has been estimated.That means you can expect to lose in 33-40% of your sessions most likely (IF you are actually a winning player...and that's a big IF). So when you are calculating your hourly-rate you are not allowed to just discount the times you lost and only look at those times you won. For 1BB-2BB/hr you might have a deviation of 10 per hour.That means that one hour you will win 10BB's...and the next hour you will lose 9BB's. And so on and so on and it will happen over and over again. After a stretch of 30k hands or so you start to get an idea of what kind of win-rate you might have at a given limit because you are at least beginning to get through some of those peaks and valleys and find out where you really stand. 30k hands would be about 300 hours playing in a live casino...and in the past 6 months I doubt you have played that much yet.So you probably don't even know whether you are a winning player or not. -------------------------------- You most obviously have absolutely no grasp of the 'long-run' and the kind of variance that is inherent in poker.You complain about the times that you lose. This happens to every single player anywhere and everywhere. Over and over again. -------------------------------- I too am curious how it would be possible to have read SSHE and not know what a BB is. ----------------------------- I have played professionally (mostly online) for a little over a year now. I like it. I have been asked by several aspiring players via threads like these and via private-messages whether I think they have a shot at making it as a pro (playing full-time for income) or whether I think they are out of their mind.I am very honest in my assessment with those who ask the question. I am not afraid to tell someone "go of it. Based on what you have told me I think you can definitely do it." Obviously I'll also go the other way and will not be bashful about telling someone that they shouldn't do it or that their hunch is correct that they probably aren't QUITE ready yet but they could get there in the future if they keep working on it. Obviously I'm just stating my opinion and it's not necessarily gospel...but I believe I'm a pretty good judge on these matters. I know you've gotten quite defensive about some of the replies you've received in this thread and I have no reason to believe that this won't happen again..but I'm going to tell you anyway. Based on what I have read there is absolutely no way you would succeed as a pro.In fact, you are possibly the least-qualified candidate to do this of ALL the "should I go pro?" posters on these forums (of the one's I have seen anyway). You lack some VERY basic knowledge of the game and what you need to do in order to succeed.We're not talking about the slightly more complex stuff here that I think you should know also....just the REALLY basic stuff. You don't understand variance...you have no idea what kind of win-rate is realistic at a given limit...you seem only moderately willing to listen to some of the solid advice given to you in this thread.I think I skimmed past something that read along the lines of a 'double-up and then quit to lock-up my victory' type of philosophy which is also especially bad. You won't believe this either most likely because you'll say "How can you know that if you have never even seen me play?"....but..... there is almost zero chance that your actual play of your poker-hands is as good as you think it is.and I highly doubt that you are a long-term winner at this game in the first place.Almost every long-term winning player who has posted in this thread is nodding in agreement right now about the idea that there is no way that this guy actually is even a winning player.Think about that. All these long-term winners...and we can see it from a zillion miles away. You might think we don't know what the hell we're doing...we're all just stuck up snobs who think we know everything...perhaps you are the exception to this rule...etc etc.Well...everyone else thinks they are the exception too. It's up to you to decide whether you want to open your mind to the possibility that some of the long-term winners here REALLY DO know what the hell they're talking about when they speculate that you probably aren't a long-term winner in the first place and that your sample-size regarding the number of hands you have played is probably REALLY small. But even if you are good enough to beat the games...your complete lack of understanding regarding some really basic concepts makes you an incredibly bad candidate to consider playing this game professionally as things stand now. Your stubborness on some of these issues leads me to believe that you will never be good enough to play this game full-time for income(but I'm not 100% certain of that part...there have been a couple others on these forums who have impressed me in their ability to drop their total stubborness, listen a bit more, learn, and actually pull it off)

Source: Poker and other Random thoughts