Online Poker for the average Joe, Am I alone?

How many FTRers are there who play online poker as a hobby? I don't mean people who don't take it seriously, I mean people who work a full-time job and only play online nights/weekends.
Reading through many of these posts, it seems very possible that I am up against full-time online poker players. I doubt though that I would run into any of you at the 25$ tables on party.

I wish to define what I think a "Hobbyist" is (like myself) and figure out if there are others out there like me, who are at least scraping a small win rate. Here are some stats on my play:

Total Hands Played: 4,239
Started: 8/25/2005
Initial Roll: 150.00
Current Roll: 178.33 (However the first 4 or 5 games I lost all the way down to 55$, and slowly worked back up. Consiider it a learning curve?)

Some other considerations I probably need to state are:
--I only play one table at a time.
--I always buy in for 25$
--I use Poker Tracker
--I have read just about every poker book everyone else has read.
--I re-review my game and stats.
--I read everything I can online.
--I just started playing 6 Max NL 3 months ago on Party
--I have no illusion that I will make much this way, but I am interested in playing to hone my skills, and I enjoy it! (Enjoy it more as long as I sustain a long term winrate)

Now here is my Question for other Hobbyists:
Are there any others that play like this? (Meaning a part time poker player who plays around 30 hours a month) And have you been able to beat the rake?

Now here is my Question for the big Pros:
Are us Hobbyists just fish in the grand scheme? And what advice would you provide for someone playing this way, if any?

Thanks in advance,
--Cave

Now here is my Question for other Hobbyists:
Are there any others that play like this? (Meaning a part time poker player who plays around 30 hours a month) And have you been able to beat the rake?

Just 3 months ago I was a Hobbyist. I started making a small profit after about 2 months playing. Really, at the $25 level, stop playing poker and start playing cards. You cant play poker until your playing players that are good enough to fold. Betting hard with your a good hand is the way to make money at that level.

Now here is my Question for the big Pros:
Are us Hobbyists just fish in the grand scheme? And what advice would you provide for someone playing this way, if any?

I'm not a big pro, but I play as my job now, so i'll try to answer. If your a profitable player, or even a breakeven player your not a fish.

You can also be a pro without being a very good player. For example i'm making just 4BB/100 (thats 8 times the big blind every 100 hands if your playing NL.. at the $25NL talbes thats about only $1 an hour per table.)

Start playing at 4 tables and move up to the $100NL tables(like me) and thats starts to be a good income.. Start looking at thoes players that can do that at the $2000NL tables and your looking a great income!

I'm a Hobbyist, I guess, cause I only get to play about 10 hours a week. And yes, you can easily beat the rake consistently if you have a solid game. Don't get me wrong, you will have days and weeks where you'll loose a lot, and days and weeks that you win a lot. But in the long haul, if you continue to learn and gain experience, you will be able to make a little bit of extra money and have a blast while doing it. But it is a crazy roller coaster, and I think Scott Fischman said it, the winners are the ones who ride the roller coaster the longest without throwing up.

One thing that I'm curious about, is that little fact that I read somewhere, that only like less than 5% of online poker players are profitable... So should I consider myself in the top 5% if I've been showing a consistent profit for 8 months now? I guess it's not really that important, but it makes you wonder... I mean how many of our regular posters aren't profitable? Maybe FTR rules and all FTR members make up this 5% of players? (2+who?) I dunno, I keep using that 5% thing to brag to my wife to show I'm not doing this all for nothing, that I actually have some skillz.

One thing that I'm curious about, is that little fact that I read somewhere, that only like less than 5% of online poker players are profitable... So should I consider myself in the top 5% if I've been showing a consistent profit for 8 months now? I guess it's not really that important, but it makes you wonder... I mean how many of our regular posters aren't profitable? Maybe FTR rules and all FTR members make up this 5% of players? (2+who?) I dunno, I keep using that 5% thing to brag to my wife to show I'm not doing this all for nothing, that I actually have some skillz.

Thats news to me, but doesnt sound unbelieveable... I would have gussed more like 15%-25%..

Woot, i'm in the top 5%!!!!

i started as a hobbiest
My flat mate played at home (im at uni) and i came in and watched one day and thought hey ill have a shot.
I played on off from sept to about may as a hobbiest with just a few hrs a week. I bumped into this site just as i finished uni and decided to take up the game and see if i could play for profit. While i originally made about $150/200 while being a hobbiest i lost double this for the first few months of playing 'for real' This all changed after i really worked at my game and now i can show a large profit over the whole of my so far short poker career.
If the stat on 5% is true, then for a good proportion of my career i have been a looser but once i got my game sorted i have done nothing but win with a few occasional poor runs where i dropped maybe 2-5% of my 'roll.
If you show profit from making it a hobby my suggestion would be to try and play more. More hours surely=more profit.

I work all day and play 5-7 nights a week (total about ~20hrs/week) and I can't beat the rake at nl ring. I started playing in March '05 and have increased my roll from $100 to as much as $1000 playing SnGs and MTTs. When I played low-limit ring I lost my ass on 2nd (3rd and 4th) best hands; and when I did win at showdown it didn't pay enough to recoup my stupid-play losses. I'm learning the game and can't afford to lose $25 on a bonehead move so I strictly play tourneys. GL and welcome to the boards.

Originally Posted by Theeggman

I work all day and play 5-7 nights a week (total about ~20hrs/week) and I can't beat the rake at nl ring. I started playing in March '05 and have increased my roll from $100 to as much as $1000 playing SnGs and MTTs. When I played low-limit ring I lost my ass on 2nd (3rd and 4th) best hands; and when I did win at showdown it didn't pay enough to recoup my stupid-play losses. I'm learning the game and can't afford to lose $25 on a bonehead move so I strictly play tourneys. GL and welcome to the boards.

Don't give up on ring games quite yet. At the low stakes NL games, you can simply sit back and camp for the absolute nuts and let other people have the 2nd best hands. Try set-mining a couple 25NL tables while you play your tournaments and you can at least cover the entry fees with your ring games if you play super tight. Theyll pay you off still.

And to the OP, yea, its very easy to make money being a hobbyist. That's what most people around here are. Its just a hobby that you can use money to keep score.

by the way if only 5% of online players are profitable, does any body know how many players actually play online total?
i remember being online at bet365 with 2or3K online players.
5% of that is 150!!!
that would have made me one of 150? i dont know how reasonable a stat that would be when thinking of it in that sense

I am definately a hobbiest, and was a huge fish before I found this site. I think I probably dropped about $100 before finding the site, and maybe $50 after just starting to play NL ring games and learning the ropes.

I basically only play SnGs and MTTs now and have had a decent record and profit so far considering I've only probably been playing for 3 months or so. MTTs = 20 total so far $5 + 50 on pokerroom.com. Final table 5 times, won my first one last weekend (640 players) for a $630 collect.

I think i saw just the other night that it is estimated that 50 million people play online poker (World-Wide).

Not sure where I saw it, but maybe someone can back me up on this.

5% of 50,000,000 is what??? 2,500,000

Originally Posted by SwanDawg

I think i saw just the other night that it is estimated that 50 million people play online poker (World-Wide).

Not sure where I saw it, but maybe someone can back me up on this.

5% of 50,000,000 is what??? 2,500,000

damn, thats a lot of winners

I have been playing for money for about 3 months, playing at empirepoker and bugsys. I make about $1 per hour, and I think that is great.
1 good MTT win, only small stakes (238 players) and play ring games and sit and gos 1-5$.
I think most of the poker population treat it as a hobby, with occasional thoughts of more

I picked up online poker last summer watching a neighbor play on PartyPoker. I think I lost about half a grand over the course of a few months before I started playing winning poker, and I haven't looked back since. Now that I stopped going to school I play full-time. Right now I'm working on a 25k roll, grinding at the 600NL and 1000NL tables. My game has really come together in the last few weeks- after 7k hands, I'm averaging 12.92 BB/100 at 600NL, way up from the meager 3.12BB/100 I was making at 400NL.
I think one of the main differences between hobbyists and pros is game selection. I have over 400 people on my Party Poker buddy list, and sometimes it will take me 15 minutes just to find a good table to sit down in. I also sleep most of the day so I can play at night, because that's when the fish are most active. Also, pros have more endurance than hobbyists, meaning they can play longer sessions without losing concentration/getting fatigued.
And from what I've read, 20-25% of online players are winners/breakeven players. I'm guessing about 5% are significant winners

Wow. Thanks for all the replies. I lilke to here that people are not full timers but able to come out ahead. But I am afraid to say that I have had the worst night, and I felt I didn't even tilt that badly. I lost over 7 buyins at the 25$ Short-Handed NL tables tonight. I went from 210$ down to 60$. I tell you I feel like an abused Donkey.

I do not *feel* I played too awful, but always seemd to be on the worse side of things. For instance, making a full house only to be outhoused by a bigger one. Or flopping a set of 9s and getting busted when someone else flopped a straight. (Yes, wen't all-in). I am sure there were a few moments of bad plays.

I have tried playing extremely tight at around 25% VPIP, Ive tried calling people to death with good hands (I have seen people do this over and over again and end up having a trippled up stack. Whenever it seemed I tried to push, they had some funny 2 pair or low flush draw, and would call. Then the turn or river card would complete them)

I know that not everyone can be winners. I am just really surprised by the amount of mental energy I have put into the game only to be where I am at.

If anyone would like to evaluate my 7,000 hand hand history and give some feedback, even at a cost let me know. If I am going to hand over money It might as well be to you guys on this board!

Thanks all,
Caveman