Turning Pro. Potential Pitfalls and advice needed

potential pitfall H.R. 4954

First of all Good Luck with your future Poker Pro life. In reading this thread I luckily discovered that I am not the only one who has problems extracting money out of the players which are online when its evening/night down-under. My cash games stats are way better when I play on the weekends during the day. I countered that initially by only playing SNG’s and some small MTT’s during the week (where IMHO the players are usually the same no matter what day of the week) but for some reason I have stopped that despite running at more than 25% ROI? Better get back to that.

Also too often I make the mistake of drinking, watching TV, talking to the girlfriend, rolling joints and firing off some e-mails while playing Poker. Hardly +ev as I noticed that the FT is just so much easier to get to when sober and concentrating. My current living arrangements didn’t help either as playing on an old laptop is not much fun. I am looking forward to my new place where I can have a dedicated office again. My plan here is to create a Poker-friendly environment with print-outs, charts, goals, books, big screen, stress ball etc around me.

Going Pro: The only word of caution I can give you is when budgeting, to be as conservative as possible when it comes with your income and a generous as possible you can be with your living expenses. Last year I dreamt of going full time to University but after making budget after budget I just couldn’t comprehend how I could do it without having a major change in my lifestyle and being over 30, I was less willing to go back to flatting, eating 2-minute noodles every day and drinking cheap piss. I like that you will be working part-time. This will help enormously to fight boredom with Poker and paying the bills.

I don’t like to go to the Auckland casino because of the rake structure and also I am under rolled to play the 2/4 tables. At this table I would like to sit down at least with $500 although I am sure (for what I have seen) that I can beat those players but variance would kill me. I play in a couple of home games but I was always more interested to see whether there would be enough support in Auckland to open a Poker Club with monthly meetings, discussion groups, regular games etc? Unless there is already something like this here and I just can’t find their contact details?

Anyway, good luck!! I am 33 and am disillusioned with my work and my career hence my interest in how you will be going on. If you ever need a heads-up or just a cold Monteiths on a hot Auckland summers day then feel free to PM me. I always enjoy meeting new people.

Well .....my 1st week as a professional poker is complete

The 1st day I was down $270, now I had anticipated a greater form of pressure/heightened anxiety when I was losing and poker didnt dissapoint...I actually become so stressed in the back it was affecting my breathing...not too pleasant

In that 1st day however Id been nailed by 2-4 outers quite a lot including 4 games in a row so i just went to bed reminding myself of that

Things improved greatly from there and i finished the week $2316 up which is a great result well beyond what i had hoped for. Converted to NZ $ is over $3000 and thats as much as I was making a month after tax in corporate sales. Would be stoked if I could mantain that but really I was just targetting making at least as much as previous career and not going loco... we will see if it was just a lucky week soon enough I guess. But if can mantain that? Quadrupling my income doing something I love? Puh-lease. id never go back to work lol

Nyehehe

\Have moved up levels as well and now call the $100 and $200 sitno goes my home. the level of play seems to barely improve there from the $50's? I make a point of acknowledging my mistakes to myself (and I make plenty) but boy do some people make some stupid, basic erors

My ITM rate is hovering around the 42-44% , not playing too many tournaments as i recognise the potential volatility there

Wish I was better at multi tabling but i really seem to struggle with 2.... let alone more. Im going to stick to playing 2 when im feeling super alert only. Multi tabling is clealy good for the bankroll but I thinking just as well off to play high limits and play them well

Im not really sure how many hours i put in? Including reading my Poker Books and musing the game? Maybe 60-70 hours I guess.

Dont really care....loved every minute of it. Such a relief to be rid of my bitch of a boss and associated pressure and w*nk-factor. Bundled all my suits into a suitcase. Bye Bye

P.S I am so god damn happy, didnt realise just how much my job was dragging me down Smile

I'll check out and post my stats on the various levels when i get a moment, guts instinct tells me they will be similair

Great start to this week too, up $713 on Monday and up $1217 yesterday. Winning a few $200 sitngoes in a row makes a nice impacton the BR.

Might indulge in an MTT on Stars today I think

Nyehehe

Well I did no good in the MTT's but ended up the week $3289

But this week....Im already down $2000. wow. I am playing like utter shite but getting a few bad beats as well. i tjhink i may have started playing arrogantly and are also not paying attention properly

I guess this is one of the true tests, you can be a good player but can you maintain consistantly good play

Just tuning in from Mexico at the moment. Mate, keep at it. Ups and downs happen. Haven´t `played Poker since Vegas where donkeys rule and suck out on you big time. Still had fun. 3 weeks without Poker makes me hungry.

You had a great start - keep at it and keep us posted!

Ka kite!

So hows it going another few weeks into it?

I'm a kiwi too, just learning at the moment untill I've read enough to get into the real money. Have you had any problems with transfers from kiwi credit cards/banks? What deposit/cash-out methods do you use?

Good to see so many kiwis on here. Keep it up Smile

The only Kiwi Pokerwebsite does not allow Kiwi players which is weird but then their site is really small. I play on Bodog, Titan and Stars at the moment so maybe see you at the tables there.

KiwiPoker doesn't allow NZers because there's a law prohibiting them letting us play. Us playing on overseas sites or vice versa is legal though

Vegas aye? You lucky bugger I LOVE that place, when i was there though about 7 years ago i didnt have a clue about Hold Em... so didnt play

*tried to remember what he used to do with himself before he discovered poker*

lol I have no idea

Well today is the last day of my 1st 4 weeks as a poker pro and Im pleased and proud to report Im up $6,962 US$. Converted to NZ$ thats pretty much triple what i was making in the real world.

I did play a lot in my 1st 2 weeks, probably too much, around 60-65 hours. Started to get quite bad RSI. I went and bought myself a super flash new chair, $750 worth, and a few different shaped and styles of mouse. I also worked that quality over quantity is the way. Id been trying to multitable but really not getting my head around it that well even with just 2. Thing is though, playing the $500/$200/$100 sitngoes ....if you are finishing ITM often enough you really dont NEED to multi.

there is one guy on my site though who is my hero, his handle (rather aptly) is "volumeoverskill" and he must be cranking 8 tables at a time at an ITM only slightly below mine. His is 41 and mine 43.5. he must be making a fortune

So yeah .....Im not him though so im just focussing on playing high stakes and playing it well. ive also lost over $1000 over on stars playing in the Sunday Millions etc. So hopefully one day one of those will pay off. Obviously I am only 1 month into this new venture, but all indications i can see are telling me I am good enough to make it.

silu wasnt it you who came to that game i knew of? Theres another one next wednesday. High rollers/$100 buy in only though

Hey,

First of all good to hear that you are running well. Keep at it mate!

Yes it was me who came to the home game. I love to come but its the night of my cricket practice and I have already missed so many because of my holiday that my place in the team is not guarantued anymore Crying or Very sad

I'm not claiming to be a pro player or to have the ability to give advice on being a pro player. But many of you are either looking at too strick of guidelines or overlooking many factors.

I think many of you are a little off on this.... Jeff, Renton, BMX, and Ilikeaces.

Do you need to make 100K+ a year or $100/hr? Well, No.

Is making 40k, 50k, 60k a year enough? Not nessicarily.

Do yo uneed a certain bankroll or living expence cushion? Probably.

There are so many factors that everyone who is deciding to go pro really needs to weigh for themselves.

What are you making now? To someone who is struggling by working long hours with no benifents at an $8-$10 an hour job, then maybe going pro would be a better idea if you can make $30-$40 per hour playing poker. But if you are making $40-$50k a year with benifiets, you need to be making a lot more. A whole lot more!

Do you have health/retirement benifits? If you currently do (or could with a regular job), what are you going to do about that when playing poker? You need to make a lot more money to make up for the losse of those benifets. What about sick/vacation benifets? I get 10 vacation and 10 sick every year, so that is another 160hours I get paid and don't have to work. That's, on average, over $250 a month I get without having to put in the hours, or that I know I can get paid even if I am sick for a week (how do you think you will do playing poker with the flu for a week, not what you normally would). Now, if you have good benifiets at work, you may need more than $1500 extra a month to cover the health, retirement, sick/vacation benifents your empployeer provides.

Now I have it pretty good (without specifying exactly), lets just say I make $50k a year, have good health and benifits, retirement, the sick and vacation time. I would probably need to be able to make $75k-$80k a year to cover my full compisation at my job.

Will you be able to get loans/morgages? Now, you better plan on buying most things with cash. How easy do you think it is going to be to get a car loan or morgage when you list your profession as a poker player. Hell, even to rent an apartment, many places want employment history and two of your most recent pay stubs as proof that you will be able to make the rent.

So, the typical $50k plus extra for benifiets would not cover it for someone like me. For me to quit my full time job, I probably would need to make something like $100K a year.

And I know I would want to live a leasurely life and not put in the 40+ hours a week I do now. So I would probably only want to put in 25-35 hours a week and be able to take vacations. So I would probably need to make at least $75/hr playing poker.

And I would need have at least 6 months living expenses saved up to help with varience. But even more so because, if the pro poker career is not working, its not so easy to just jump back into the type of job I've got. It will take months to find another job like this.

So for me to turn pro, I would need about $60-75k and be able to consistantly beat the $30/$60 - $50/$100 Limit Games (or equivalent 6-max or NL games) just to make it financially equivilant.

If you've got other oblications like a family and kids, then you are in even worse shape. But if you are a high school kid looking for a good/flexiable/fun way to put youself to college, learing how to beat the poker tables for $10-$20/hour with a $5000-$10000 bankroll would be an awsome route to go. Most of use are somewhere inbetween and we all need to figure it out for ourselves. General, "need $100+ per hour" or "need to make $60K per year" is not adequate.

For me, I have a long term goal of hopefully being able to have enough bankroll and savings and good enough to make $75-$100/hr by the end of 2010. That is when the Space Shuttle Program I am working on will be ending. I'll be married to my current fiancee (hopefully Wink

) who will have a steady income to help cover the most of the monthly bills and help with varience if need be, and who will have a health plan that I can be on. I hope to have a $80k+ bankroll ($50k savings & $30k+ poker bankroll) and be able to constinstancely make $80+ per hour. (now if I were single, I would probably want double that to cover my current job)

That way, when I get laid off, I can take my leasurely time looking for another job in the area, and if it turns out that I'm making a decent buck playing poker, and enjoying it... I just may never find another reagular job while poker is going well.

But my point is, going pro is a lot more complex than most people realize. There is some much to consider. Some poeople overlook health benifits, retirements, etc. Everyone needs to decide for themselfs and their situation wheither it is finacially worth it, or if they have the character to make it as a pro poker player.

Nice [post Newell agree with many of your points

Well another few weeks down and the news is nowhere near as good, starting with the week right after i posted last. I got sick and stupidy decided to play on. Dumped $3900 off my bankroll Sad

Disaster!

Poker really is a bit of a confidence game and I think not feeling my best meant I attracted every Bad beat in the book. Including a one outer on the river at one stage. Of course I think I was playing too many hands which meant I was putting myself in marginal situations more. I also finally accepted I wasnt playing to 100% of my mental capacity but it took me too long to turn off the PC

I fought back the next week with a $1900 win but last week dumped $2000 again. Last week concerns me more. I played SO badly Brick wall

For example a hand I remember =

I was in this hand and leading in right down to th river and someone would put me all in. I would go through what had hapened in on the streets and conclude "ok I think youve got 10-10 and just back doored a lucky straight. I should fold"

Then before I knew it my hand reached out for "call"....the the guy turns over 10-10 Confused

Like....Im reading the hands prefectly but then making oppposite decisions. And this happened all week, dumb ass calling raises pre flop, getting a good flop but then getting beaten later, outs I could complain about except I never should have been playing the f__kin hand in the 1st place!

*sigh*

I am nowhere near dead yet, still showing a decent profit from turning pro but im really worried at this turn of events. One of the tests I have read about being a true pro is to remain consistant in your play and after 6 weeks I am already faltering

I have also noticed an influx of new players who are unfortunately mostly pretty good. I use stats for poker and most of them have an ITM of 40% +. I suspect the yank pros have found a way to use a Canadian ISP or something. Not sure if this is possible? So I guess my early good results were magnified by the US Players being absent just as I launched my pro career?

I am now contemplating getting part time work so when i do sit down for poker I am amping for it, not playing cos i know I have to/its my job. i know when I play my best Im good enough, but id love to hear how other guys have found ways/mental triggers to mantain consistantly good play

'Yanks' can still play.

By your "" Im fearing yank is percieved as a degoratory term? I dont mean it as such

And how do you mean they can still play? I dont see any?

Oh, I though you meant online poker in general, but I assume you mean Party and P a r ad i s e Smile

. Yeah, unless they get a foregin mailing addresses, a telephone rerouted to their US phone, and a proxy IP then they are out of those sites Smile

.

Apologies, and gl sir.

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Turning Pro. Potential Pitfalls and advice needed