"Going Pro"

Suppose you play 25nl full ring on a $1100 bankroll and for whatever reason you make $20/hour and are able to play for 30 hours/week. If your job pays $9/hour, and you get to work 40 hours/week, you should quit your job and play poker if your bills are lower than X.

What is X?

x= $10

You're dumb.

(6:45:01 PM) ***euphoricism went pro way before 25nl

I'll give an example. Suppose you're in school and you only have about $400/month in bills. What happens then?

Going pro doesn't mean you can't go get a job if the poker thing doesn't work out.

I'd think that as long as you are bringing in enough money to pay your bills, live as comfortably as you would with a regular job, and still be adding to your bankroll to move up, then you are OK to try...but thats coming from a guy who is a long ways from that point

20 x 30 = 600
9 x 40 = 360
600 - 360 = 240
still no answer for X

Assuming no benefits from the job, playing poker is better in this case.
20x30x4=2400/mo
9x40x4=1440/mo

You also have to add in a factor to correct for some things in poker, variance being the greatest. Plus your taxes will suck a little more (you will probably pay more). The games might get harder, etc. So I multiply the 2400 by 0.8 and get 1920.

Next you have to figure out your monthly budget, bills plus irregular expenses plus lifestyle costs. If this number is less than 1920 (which it should be if you're only making 1440 a month now). Then you have to decide if the difference is enough. For example, if you're total expenses are 1200 a month, your difference would be 720, and your bankroll would grow this much per month allowing you to take shots and have more cushion. If however, you're bills are 1900/mo, then your BR will grow by 20 a month and you will pretty much grind 25nl forever.

So I'd say x = 1500. If you spend less than that a month (including everything) then go for it.

disclaimer: needless to say i'm oversimplifying a lot. you could find a better job, get sick of playing 30 hours a week plus the study it would take to stay sharp, etc.

i made 17 dollars an hour at my dayjob. I went pro once I had a solid sample size of making over 100 dollars an hour at poker.

my bills were prob 1.5k a month.

you need a non BR cushion W, and a proven history of Z hand being a winning player at some rate.

This is why most people don't qualify. If you've played 100k hands making $20/hr you should have way more than $1k. If you haven't you probably shouldn't rely on it for income.

Although this is basically what I tried and I was up $2k after 2 weeks then UIGA hit and fucked it all up.

I always get a kick out of those silly micro-grinders who call themselves online pros but then get frustrated when they can't get their BR up past a $2K. But anyway...

Yeah, I would have to be making at least $20/hr for every 100K hands to even consider "going pro", not to mention withdrawing a certain amount each month but at the same time growing my BR and taking shots.

regardless of x, hero shouldn't go pro. (conservative)
if you're already living comfortably off your day job, then take a shot (idealist)

There are many external variables beyond those you gave, i'm interested in your thoughts.

maybe x is the square root of -1
imagine that.

x = about 200. our hourly rate is irrelevant at this point. more important is our bankroll. We would ideally want 3-4 months worth in reserve, over and above what we need to play.

Until I'm making about 1.5-3x (depending on how bad variance is up there) my current income, I wouldn't...

pgil's definitely onto somethin' with the reserve...

Having 3-6 months expenses saved is a pretty good standard for anyone, poker player or otherwise.

You can not quit a job and go pro with a $1100 bankroll. Insanity!

Very few responses here are original. This is a topic that's been rehashed repeatedly in magazines, articles, books, and message boards.

A quick look at that tells me X has to be next to nothing, we're talking about an $1100 roll, but we're asking the wrong question, and I'm going to cop out just like everyone else and say something I heard: Going pro is as easy as quitting your job. Assuming you're an adult and capable of going broke and surviving the ordeal, fuck it. Take your shot. Learn your lesson.

$600/week is more than $360/week, so assuming your benefits at work suck, x is a non-factor. Or I guess you could say that if your added expenses (medical insurance and such) after quitting your job add up to less than $240/week, you should do it in a strictly financial sense.

However, swiggidy's quote below pretty well sums up the realities of the situation, which is why quitting your job in the scenario is at the very least a gamble. Go right ahead if you're fine with gambles and don't have any dependents.

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