Income from poker??

Hi to everyone!

Ok, I have been playing no limit hold'em for a few months now (play money, and have progressed to freerolls). I love the game and it's got a real hold on me.
To play this game online on a part time basis and to earn a little extra cash would be a dream!!
But I'm a little scepitical of some of the claims I here.
Playing for play money is a joke obviously as it is easy to win. Been entering freerolls typically with 2000 players and to be honest getting into the top 50 is not hard.
Having a high IQ and an extremely exceptional mathematical brain I thought I was pretty good at the game, i.e. playing pretty tight and also generally knowing if a call was a good gamble or not % wise anyway.
Having just read my first book on hold'em (beginners book) I have indeed learnt a lot e.g. starting positions and pot odds (which I can now work out for sure if it is a good gamble or not, rather than guessing, albeit a very good guess!!).
Don't get me wrong I know that there is a hell of a lot more I can learn from the books of Mr Harrington and Mr Brunson etc.
Now, coming back to my mathematical brain I feel that winning money would be extremely hard due to this rake, I believe is typically 5%. Unless of course you are head and heels better than the opposition.
I know some of you are thinking well the only way to find out is for me to play, which I intend to do. I intend to start off on the 2c/4c blinds ring games and take it from there. The standard I imagine would not be great but still decent nevertheless for it to be not that easy to make money???
I intend to get the Harringon, brunson books etc to improve my game further, but would the information in these books be wasted on the opposition of these low limit blinds?
Anyway, anyone with any opinions, comments or advice please feel free to reply.
Looking forward to your replies and good luck!!

Thomas

Before you do anything, sign up for rakeback. I believe there is a good thread made by spoonitnow in the beginners digest about this in pretty good detail. Rakeback in a nutshell is signing up through a third party that will give you back a portion of your rake. However, you cant do this after you sign up so make sure to do it first!

Also, there are people with great winrates on this site and will be more than willing to help you out, just post a bunch of hands and say what you think and the people here will bitchslap the wrong thinking out of you (assuming there is). I do mean bitchslap too, they will not be gentle :)

One last thing, while the caliber of player isnt as great at 2/4c (4nl) the books by harrington will help you learn the fundementals and even show you a few things you may not of thought about. His thoughts on tournaments will go along way if you plan on continuing to do sng's or mtts. He also has a book on cash games that is likely to be as beneficial...but ive yet to read it :(

thats all i got right now...post some hands!

You will find quickly that real money play is very different from play money even at micro stakes. Poker is a long learning process (three years and counting for myself and two dozen books later).

Follow proper Bankroll Management and start small and work your way up, learning the whole time. There are lots of good examples here of players who have done just that and are now making an actual living off of poker. Read everything on this site and others and every book you can get your hands on. It is a long road but good luck with the beginning.

And yes, you will get bitchslapped a couple of times. Everyone here has good intentions, just not great people skills all of the time.

For $0.02/$0.04 (4nl) you would need around an $80 Bankroll or so to be properly rolled (rule is 20+ 100bb buyins for the stake you intend to play). So please have that going into you account before you play, as it helps to get started off on the right foot.

Concerning whether you can make money and beat the rake. Yes, by alot. At first it will probably seem like you can't as you are still learning and only a marginal winner, so when rake is taken out you might be just break-even. However, you should quickly catch on then you hardly notice the rake coming out (as your winrate has rake already figured in).

A reasonable winrate at most stakes (barring the micros as the opposition is so terrible it is generally higher), is 3ptbb/100 (which stands for 3 pokertracker big bets per 100 hands... That is the equivalent of 6bb/100 or 6 big blinds per 100 hands... Example: 1ptbb = 1BB = 2bb). That means that if you had a 3ptbb/100 winrate at 4NL you would be making $0.24/100 hands. If that doesn't sound like much money, that's because it isn't. On a single table you get about 60 hands per hour or so. That is why mutlitabling becomes so profitable. Because if you were to play say 10 tables then you are now making ~$1.30/hr. While that's probably an insignicant amount, it's a solid winrate, and hourly, at 4nl.

Compare that to how much you could expect to make at 100nl ($0.50/$1.00 blinds), which starting at 4nl and moving up when properly rolled for the next level can occur in a couple of months (3-4ish depending on how fast you learn and how much you play). At 100nl, figuring you have a 3ptbb/100 winrate, you are playing $6/100 hands. Let's factor in the same 10 tables for 600 hands per hour, and you are now making around $36/hr. This is not including any amount you get from rakeback, which you could get up to around 30% or so back. Fwiw, at 100nl you can easily make $2-$3k per month if you are a solid winning player.

ptBB actually stands for Poker Tracker big bet since it was original made for both limit and no limit
big bet is a limit concept (that is equal to 2x the big blind) that is used in PT for both NL and limit

Granted I have a long way to go and I play this game only as a hobby. I normally only play tournament with a $2.20 buyin or less with money added and of course low field freerolls. I don't know what my win rate is but I can tell you this. If it were a job, I would not work for this amount of money as it is way below the minimum wage rate.

As a general rule, people are pretty bad...

Thanks for your replies and advice!

Tom