anyone playing sngs for a living?

[yuenjai]

Games Played Av. Profit Av. Stake Av. ROI Total Profit
1,902 $1 $10 11% $2,323(I was in the negatives 2 months ago lol)

just a few questions

Is this a big enough sample?

How much money goes towards building your bankroll and how much do you cash out? and how often?

Do you keep moving up in stakes or stop somewhere?

How many hours are you playing a day?

Software?

I'm currently playing the $22's on stars, and I feel that I can really make a living through sng's. I want to get some input on this before I decide to drop out of school. ANY advice would be appreciated.

[taipan168]

I don't play SNGs for a living, but for what it's worth here are my answers:

Is this a big enough sample?

Big enough sample size to say you're a winning player but not nearly enough to get an idea of your long-term ROI.

How much money goes towards building your bankroll and how much do you cash out? and how often?

If you want to play for a living, then surely this will depend on how much money you need to live on? I have heard that some pros regularly cash out the same amount every week/month as a discipline (provided it does not make them play under-rolled). If you are playing for a living you should probably keep a minimum of 100 buyins for the level you are playing.

Do you keep moving up in stakes or stop somewhere?

We will all stop somewhere, it's about maximising your hourly rate. Move up far enough and no matter how good you are, your ROI will eventually drop far enough such that you're better off playing at a lower level but achieving a higher ROI.

How many hours are you playing a day?

Can't answer this one but you gotta treat it like a job - so at least 8 hours a day with suitable breaks.

Software?

If you're playing for a living, this means you're probably playing a minimum of 6 and probably 8 or more tables, making PT with some form of HUD essential. SNG Wiz is also essential for those push/fold decisions.

I'm currently playing the $22's on stars, and I feel that I can really make a living through sng's. I want to get some input on this before I decide to drop out of school. ANY advice would be appreciated.

There have been heaps of posts on this over at the other place. Finish school first, then decide whether you want to play for a living. Playing poker for a living (especially online) can be a soul-destroying, lonely way of making a living and at least if you decide you don't like playing for a living then you have something to fall back onto.

[yuenjai]

thanks for the reply, i just recently started 12 tabling the 22's and i have enough time to startracker people (if only this didn't stop working)

but having a hud would make things so much easier.

say i were to stay at the 22's (definitely not), making 25k shouldn't be too hard to achieve right?

[jdubs]

I am thinking of playing 45 man SnGs as part of my "living" so we are at a simlar crossroads. I am thinking that cashing out a "minimum" every month is the way to go, and staying pretty close to that amount every month. This way the BR will continue to grow and be added insurance for low variance months. Then again, I will probably start not using my own BR but playing with investors money ( I am part of a community called parttimepoker that connects players with people interested in staking them) . I like the low risk ( or virtually no risk to my own roll) part of this system, and will probably continue this way until my own BR has adequate "insurance" for me ( like 200 buy ins) , this is just in case I run into a 1K stretch of tourneys that is break even or negative, which does happen to even the best players.Anyways good luck with this, and you might want to check out parttimepoker

[Illfavor]

+ Infinity to tai for saying finish school first.

Also, Never assume anything with this game will be easy. Making 25K, lotto aside, is hard work in this world. You can get that working at MacDonalds, and you'll be busting your ass flippin' burgers all day long. Poker is no different.

[Ryski]

25k is pretty meager living if that. In any case, finish school first.

[hangchiong]

school 1st

playing for a living=pro
thumb of rule,gotta set aside money for one year for expenses.if you cant do that,gotta build a super size bankroll perhaps.

[taipan168]

say i were to stay at the 22's (definitely not), making 25k shouldn't be too hard to achieve right?

If you play 8 hours per day, 12 tables at a time, 1.5 hours per set (so 5 sets per day), you would play 60 games per day. If you earned a consistent 8% ROI (to be conservative) you would make $105.60 per day so if you played 5 days per week you would make $25k in a year ON AVERAGE.

Just a couple of things:
- You need to be prepared for massive variance. You may have 2-3 months in a row where you are either break even or downswinging. I think that hangchiong's advice of having one year's living expenses is a good suggestion.
- I am not sure of the cost of living where you are, but at least where I live (Sydney) $25k is pretty much poverty line income.

[yuenjai]

If you play 8 hours per day, 12 tables at a time, 1.5 hours per set (so 5 sets per day), you would play 60 games per day. If you earned a consistent 8% ROI (to be conservative) you would make $105.60 per day so if you played 5 days per week you would make $25k in a year ON AVERAGE.

Just a couple of things:
- You need to be prepared for massive variance. You may have 2-3 months in a row where you are either break even or downswinging. I think that hangchiong's advice of having one year's living expenses is a good suggestion.
- I am not sure of the cost of living where you are, but at least where I live (Sydney) $25k is pretty much poverty line income.

I don't play my sng's in sets. If I bust in any I fire up a new one. I'm also going to moving up very soon to the 30's.

wow...2-3 months of breaking even sounds like hell! are you sure? i would expect that since I'm playing so many that wouldn't happen.

Isn't there anyone who actually plays these for a living on this forum?

[taipan168]

I don't play my sng's in sets. If I bust in any I fire up a new one. I'm also going to moving up very soon to the 30's.

If your average SNG time is 1 hour then you might make $150-170 per day. That's pretty brutal though, playing 8 hours without a break - and personally I find it somewhat confusing to deal with different blind levels on different tables.

wow...2-3 months of breaking even sounds like hell! are you sure? i would expect that since I'm playing so many that wouldn't happen.

Yes, you can definitely experience 2-3 months breakeven, in fact you should expect it! From some posts I read at 2+2, terrible variance despite playing your A game causing long breakeven stretches was what drove people to quit SNGs for cash.

Isn't there anyone who actually plays these for a living on this forum?

No, and that probably reflects the difficulty in making a living playing SNGs. Most people who play for a living play cash games.

[mikeneron]

Sounds to me like a lot of people get this idea, but nobody ever truly goes through with it. Do you really want poker to become a job? I think you would soon find it becoming an awful grind and it just wouldn't be fun anymore.

I agree with tai...I play in sets and like having all the games at around the same blind level. I can't even play 2 sets in a row without some sort of break...ie usually bathroom, lol. I am playing 5 tables which is somewhat draining on the mind, 8 or more would be even more draining so I think for every hour of poker you are playing, 15 mins of break time should be had.

[Ryski]

Tai if you played 10+ tables at once you are saying you would rather have MANY bubble decisions at once as opposed to having a couple bubble decisions only and a bunch of others in their early/mid game? Just curious.

[elitemob]

In all seriousness:
- your own education is the most important thing, so I'll just stress it again what the others already said: finish school first!

tai is right:
- it'll be like every other job; probably even harder than most other jobs, b/c of the psychological pressure since you cannot do ANYTHING against variance.

- I also imagine it to be a very lonely way of making a living. I don't remember where I read it, but the essence of the article was, that you'll have less social contact than you would imagine.

- personally, I imagine making a living with SnGs as living hell, seriously ... why? Well because you'll play for an hour with your top game and still will not get anything out of it. Cash games are more "immediate", you know? You will never have this feeling of "all the effort/time was in vein" in cash games.

- I would never recommend making a living with poker to someone who hasn't played for at least 3-5 years of solid, winning poker and who has a very good idea what's it all about. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone who hasn't worked full time yet either, b/c a) you will know what it's like to work full time :P and b) you know pretty well what your expenses are

PS: about what mike said: that would be a 10 hour day then

[mxiu]

finish school u bird

you only have a year left

[oskar]

He might be an sng player:

http://groups.msn.com/PokerNation/ge...72496194461153

He sure has a lot of articles on sng's and small MTT's.
Maybe you'll find something there.

My $0,02 - if you can't beat the game for significantly more than your day job, why would you want to do it? When you work you meet people, you get your money each month and you don't need to worry.
Just keep playing. When you start making more on a weekend session than you did working all week, then it might be worth a consideration.
Or work part time and play part time if it works out. I always have a couple of part time jobs... none of which is poker.

[StarTracker]

If you really love this game, finish school. I can't imagine making a living playing sit&gos online. I would hate poker after doing it for 8 hours a day.

I see the typical pro as a cash live game player, and I can picture someone doing that. The appeal of making a living playing poker is that you are your own boss. Not many jobs are like that, even the owner of his own retail business still has to cater to his employees and clients. An investor or a gambler has only lady luck as a boss, and she is a one fickle b*tch.

Dude, finish school, and play for fun and extra cash.

[JeffreyGB]

I'd venture that there are very few players playing SNGs for a living not because of the variance but because of the significantly quicker cap in what you can make. Beyond $55s it is hard to get very many games. That means that even employing the 100x recommendation Tai recommends, you have nearly maxed your earnings when you have a $6k roll.

Compare that to MTTs which can run a full set of $109's every night (supporting a $25k roll), or cash, where you can find ample games to support even a six-digit roll. Assuming you can beat all of the above, SNGs are going to be your last choice.