make a living from playing poker?

[kobayashi78]

professor, are you making a living with playing poker? what stake levels are you playing?

anyone else knows somebody doing that? is it realistic to earn 100-500$ per month with playing online poker for a couple of hours per week?

[The Professor]

I make a nice income from Poker - but I don't rely on it as my only source of income - I've got lots of different income streams so if I have a bad period on the poker side it doesn't really hurt me.

In terms of stake levels I play - on cash games normally $2/$4 or $5/$10 although to be honest I prefer the $2/$4 level as I seem to have the most success there. I play alot of $50 / 2 tables SitnGo's at the moment and have found them to be quite profitable.

In terms of your question - Earning $100 - $500 per month would be more than achievable I would of thought (although don't know if you could live on that amount of income!). The thing with committing to earning a living from poker is that as we all know you can go through dry spells and you really need to have some kind of backup plan in place incase you have a bad week / month.

You would also need to have sufficient bankroll in place.

But I know lots of people who earn a significant living from playing online poker and I'm talking 4 or 5 figures a week - but I'm sure they will be the first to agree that it's not as easy as it sounds to achieve that sort of income.

[Deuces]

I personally believe that if you do poker as a living then it takes most of the fun out the game and you become more stressed when you lose money/get bad beats.

I would never have poker as my only income unless I was a millionairre and played at the .50/1 tables :D That way I can have fun and enjoy the game more rather than be totally focused on winning because I have put my last few hundred on a table.

If you ever think about using poker to earn a living just think about Matusow, One week he could be 500k in profit and then the next week only be on 20k. It was only a couple of weeks ago I saw him go broke on a table and ask for 20k off another player :D now I see him regularly earnig about 20k-50k on tables.

[HO55]

its a hard way to make an easy living


i would like to try someday also but thats quite a way down the road...

[pokergal]

I always wondered if anyone made a real income source out of it. I have a long way to go before I can even consider trying to do that. I think I am going to go play a few hands. I am going to need all the practice I can get.

[TexasGal]

Originally Posted by Deuces

I personally believe that if you do poker as a living then it takes most of the fun out the game and you become more stressed when you lose money/get bad beats.

I'm with Deuces on this one. I would be so stressed out over my money and a wrong move or a wrong read jeopardizing my finances that I just couldn't do it. I'd much rather play for the joy of the game. Then again, I'm still a novice and can't possibly play for a living.

[PokerPrincess]

Making a "living" playing poker is not the easiest thing in the world. First of all you need a "bankroll", second you need to be very self disciplined. If you think that staying home and playing poker all day doesn't take discipline then it's definitely not for you.

Think about how you feel at times when you have "just had enough" of poker for a bit. If you are making a living at it you can't take that break you want when you want because the water bill needs to be paid.

Also, working at home at anything takes complete discipline to "work" and "take breaks". The main problem of working at home is not taking breaks when you should in order to make just a little bit more money. This is when it starts to become a drag.

If you start on a losing streak then the possibility of tilting is greater as well because you "depend" on that income.

So, as the professor says, you need a secondary or back up plan for making the day to day living money and use the poker money for all those nice extras you would like to have.

[redstar]

I don't think I could ever want to try to for living. The risk, in my opinion, of trying to depend on that money to pay the bills is just too great. I play as a hobby and if I win a couple of dollars thats even better.

As for working at home it can be hard thing to do. I think I work harder at home than I did at my outside job. There is always something to and breaks are very few and far between.

[RiverQueen]

Well the paying of bills is one major concern for most people and that automatically puts them under pressure.

I have talked to several "Professionals" such as Lou Krieger, Barb Enright and others and the one thing they all say is that if you are planning to go professional you have to have a bankroll of at least $40-$50,000 before you even consider it.

Then you go the Vegas, AC or one of the other places that attracts poker players and sit yourself down to work. If you go through that bankroll before hitting it bigtime then you know for sure it's not for you.

If you find that you are making a decent living and not touching much of your capital then maybe that's where you were meant to be. But remember, it is and always will be a "job". There are ups and downs and good and bad in every job and when you play poker for a living it can become a grind.

[aces_up]

I play poker for fun and to relieve stress not to cause more. I do well enough that my poker is self supporting so playing doesn't cost me. If I found that I could make a little extra from time to time to help out with bills I'd be happy but I would never count on it as it's too much of a roller coaster. You can't count on it and it would take all the fun out of a favorite hobby for me.