$2000 a month

I'd like to hear from anyone playing at <100NL who wins in excess of $2000 per month: how much they win, how many hours and how many tables etc.

I realise to many of you this is a piddling figure but to me it would mean I could go pro if I so wanted (once I proved I can beat the cash game).

*note* I know the pitfalls of turning pro, what's required in terms of BR etc and have read many sobering articles on the matter.

One FTRer told me he wins $3000 pm by playing 20 tables (at 50NL) but that is waaay beyond my scope and probably will be for a very long time. So anyone doing it on less tables would provide welcome inspiration and a benchmark to aim for.

Interestingly enough, I was reading an article which states that at 6 max, 10ptbb/100 is standard. That's 3x FR rate, is this true? It also makes it look extremely easy to earn $6000. That's $72k a year tax free - which would be the equivalent of a taxed job paying $115k! So I'd love your thoughts on this:

A grinding .50/$1 6 max NLHE player averages 10bb per 100 hands playing 6 max. This equates to 540 hands per hour which equals $54 ph. To make $6k they'd need to play 111 hours which is approx 26 hrs per week. 6 tabling won't always be an option so aim for 35 hrs.


To prevent the thread from being derailed it would be appreciated if replies were limited to guys who have done/are doing the business, no offence.

Cheers.

Not sure how it's done in England, but it's absolutely NOT tax-free. If you start cashing out thousands of dollars each month, the IRS will eventually come knocking. The IRS is not someone I'd want to screw with.

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Originally Posted by Mezza Morta

in England, it's absolutely tax-free.

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fyp :D:D:D

don't think about going pro just keep playing as a hobby and if you study a lot and you're patient it'll be a viable option.

One can definitely do this at 50NL.

I'd break it down the opposite way:

$2000/month playing regular work days (5 days a week) = $2000/22 = $90 per day.

$90/day divided by $5 per hundred hands (10bb/100 hands) = 1800 hands per day.

Each table is approximately 60 hands/hour or 30 hours total so you could play 5 tables for 6 hours, 10 tables for 3 hours, etc.

Somehow that seems ridiculously easy.

Of course you have to factor in variance which I'm sure changes things dramatically. It also means you're living on only $24k a year, which won't certainly pay my bills.

If I apply the same formula to 100NL playing say 20 tables for four hours per day = 80 table hours*60 hands per table = 4800 hands = 480BB won per day or $480 per day for a monthly income of over $10000. Now that's some cheddah.

Sorry if my post was unwarranted or wrong, I'm just a math geek.

Well, I know it's possible at 50nl, and I think it may even be possible at 25nl (with enough hands?).. $2k is my goal for August at 50nl.

There way I have it figured is:

At 3.5ptbb/100 (a little less than what I beat 25nl for) that's $3.5/100 hands. So let's assume you play 10-12 tables for approximately 680ish hands per hour. That's $3.5 * 6.8 = $23.80 per hour. So you would need to play around 85 hours per month, which is quite doable ($2023). However, I did just make all this up on the spot. It's not really my plan exactly, but I haven't quite worked mine out yet so. Just wanted to show that it is possible without 20 tabling or even playing hundreds of hours a month.

Also, this is also with rakeback or bonues etc.

It's definitely well within the realm of possibility even for the worst player on FTR. And i'm talking about a time-frame of learning of a few months. I think making about 2k per month is a great goal if poker is your hobby!

Thx for the responses guys.


Mezza, the good news is that poker is tax free in England. Being your own boss, choosing your own hours, having as many holidays as you want and all without having to pay the taxman. Chuck in a fat bloke and a tree and you've got Christmas :D

Badgers, you're perfectly right and are on the same lines as what I am thinking. Of course, knowing the facts first to know what can be achieved, what's realistic and provides good perspective.

Rilla, if it's definitely possible for even the worst player a FTR then there is hope for me yet! $2000 pm as a hobby would be phenomenal. It would make my day job more bearable as it's doubling my salary and I could even go part time with a McJob if I wanted to. That you said it's possible within a few months is the most startling as I was expecting 12 - 18 months.

XxStacksxX, congrats on your targets and I'd love to be kept informed of your progress. Just pm me or whatever.


Cheers.

I think $2k in a month is achievable, but you need to remember that what you need is something slightly different. You don't need a $2k profit every month - you need the ability to withdraw $2k out of your bankroll every month reliably without hurting your ability to do the same the following month. Mainly the thing that allows you to do this is a winning on average somewhat above $2k with a decently low variance.

The one way above all to get low variance is to play a lot of hands. And by a lot I mean a ton. If you can win on average $3k in 5k hands one month you may win $10k one and the next you may lose $5k. And if you put the losing month before the winning month you have a problem. Playing long hours and many tables is to get a lot of hands in and reducing your variance - I think any plan to live off poker would need to include some of that. I think your premise here was to do it with less tables or somesuch - you're really just making it that much harder mathematically to do the job then. With fewer hands per month your monthly variance will be higher and your average win rate needs to be correspondingly much higher.

I've read a bit from people who have played poker as a job and then decided not to play poker as a job anymore - and they all seem to say that it's a pretty cruel and stressful existence. Every decision at the table can impact whether you eat or can pay rent next month. I think this is probably the main overlooked factor in people considering playing poker for a living. I don't think anyone really understands how much and in what ways this is going to tilt them.

I'm not saying don't do it. In fact, I'm cheering you on and saying go for it - especially in the UK where you don't pay taxes off gambling winnings. I'm just also saying know what you're getting into.

For what it's worth I don't think win rates are 3 times higher at 6max than at FR. I think 6max games lend themselves well to an exploitative strategy and given an exploitative strategy can be higher win rate and lower variance - but this is hard to implement on multiple tables, where a FR game is possibly better if multi-tabling with something nearer a game theory optimal strategy. (speculation)

Going forward with this plan there are three things I'd do if I were you.
1) Learn what your actual win rate is at the tables you are playing with a reasonable degree of certainty (mathematically). There should be a good handful of threads on here that help tell you how to calculate this (lower bound, upper bound, 95% certainty etc - all second/third hand to me).
2) Review your game and decide what adjustments you'd make for massively multi-tabling, start incorporating these strategy adjustments into your game and increase your number of tables. The basic formula here is if you can reduce your win rate from 5 ptbb/100 to 4ptbb/100 in a way that allows you to play twice the table (because all decisions are easier) that's more money overall.
3) Work on stamina - making good decisions for longer periods of time. I'm not saying do marathon sessions - Spoon has some excellent threads and advice on this topic. Tilt management material will be well worth looking into.

Erpel,

Thx for the sound advice. I was aware of the BR portion already but it is good to be reminded of it so cheers.

Nothing is going to happening in the forseeable future. I need to establish a decent win rate at cash (where my biggest obstacle to success is going to be me & my attitude) then I need to be able to multi table, then serioulsy multi table.

Your advice for going forward is really helpful and as I am a tourney player I'll have missed a lot of threads that are relevant to cash play. Stamina is an issue with me and it took me a while to realise that even though I am not tilting, my play is still suffering through apathy. Currently, my levels are really low and in all poker, plan to play 2-3 hour bursts rather than my usual 8-10 hours at a time.

Once again, thx.

Should probably put the disclaimer that I'm not speaking from experience here, but just analysing the factors that seem important to me. The one thing I really wanted to mention was the stresss/tilt of of playing for a living which I didn't think had been mentioned before and which I understand (secondhand) is often a much bigger factor than expected. The rest just sort of spewed out automatically.

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Originally Posted by Thunder

That you said it's possible within a few months is the most startling as I was expecting 12 - 18 months.

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Just for perspective, I have been playing cash games since June 3rd, starting at 10nl with $320. It had taken me almost two months of rarely playing to get the $50 initial deposit to this point, but since then I have been putting in 30k hands per month (gonna start shooting for 70kish) and I've moved up stakes every month, so far. So it is definately possible. Just start getting in as many hands in as possible and you'll start seeing the results. Good luck.

Here are my last 2months playing 50NL. I did a lot of charity/volunteer work in those months so didn't have the time to put in as many hours as I'd have liked. I figure I can put in 100k hands in a month.

http://img507.imageshack.us/img507/4206/11hq7.png