-
Im a sit n go and MTT grinder ....im young, not married and dont enjoy my job at all ...I work 6 days a week 8-5 monday to friday, 9-2 saturday ....although im making peanuts right now, my job will be very benefitial in the future ....(even if i take a couple years off this job will always be here for me)
Ive always wanted to go pro, and I've read all the downfalls, struggles and "its not as easy as it sounds" threads ...I think I understand ....but the only way to really understand is to try it out IMO ....
last year I made over 25K profits from playing less than part time hours ....
This year im up over 15K and thats with taking months off without playing, and not playing anywhere near every night ....
I really think if I do play full time, I can make over 100K a year....might just be wishful thinking ....im not sure ....
These are my stats
<TABLE class=sortTable id=t1 borderColor=black border=1><THEAD> <TR class=sortTable><TH class=sortTableasc width=140>Username</TH><TH class=sortTable>Games Played</TH><TH class=sortTable width=45>Av. Profit</TH><TH class=sortTable width=45>Av. Stake</TH><TH class=sortTable width=45>Av. ROI</TH><TH class=sortTable width=50>Total Profit</TH><TH class=sortTable>Form</TH><TH class=sortTable>Ability /100</TH><TH class=sortTable>Network</TH><TH class=sortTable width=50>Filter</TH></TR></THEAD> <TBODY id=tablerows><TR class=sortTable id="domster123#fulltilt& SNG Only"><TD class=sortTable align=middle><INPUT onclick=showpreferences(); type=image height=14 width=28 src="http://www.sharkscope.com/images/shark3.gif"></TD><TD class=sortTable align=middle>2,036</TD><TD class=sortTable title="The Av. Profit is the Average Profit Per Game after rake has been subtracted." align=right>$4 </TD><TD class=sortTable title="The Av. Stake is the average tournament buy-in amount." align=right>$38 </TD><TD class=sortTable title="The Av. ROI is the Average of each game's Return On Investment. It is the average of each (Payout-(Stake+Rake))/(Stake+Rake). This is not the same as total ROI which is (Total Payouts-(Total Rake+Total Stakes))/(Total Stakes+Total Rake)." align=middle>7%</TD><TD class=sortTable title="The Total Profit is the net profit for this player (and includes rake)." align=right>$7,683 </TD><TD class=sortTable title="Super Hot=6 straight payouts. Hot=3 straight payouts. Tilt=4 straight losses. Super Tilt=8 straight losses." align=middle>-</TD><TD class=sortTable title="The ability rating is a number up to 100 that shows a players ability based on combining all the statistical measures we have for that player." align=middle>84</TD><TD class=sortTable align=middle>SNG Only </TD><TD class=sortTable>x</TD></TR><TR class=sortTablealt id="im a no namer#fulltilt& SNG Only"><TD class=sortTable align=middle><INPUT onclick=showpreferences(); type=image height=14 width=28 src="http://www.sharkscope.com/images/shark3.gif"></TD><TD class=sortTable align=middle>1,224</TD><TD class=sortTable title="The Av. Profit is the Average Profit Per Game after rake has been subtracted." align=right>$4 </TD><TD class=sortTable title="The Av. Stake is the average tournament buy-in amount." align=right>$63 </TD><TD class=sortTable title="The Av. ROI is the Average of each game's Return On Investment. It is the average of each (Payout-(Stake+Rake))/(Stake+Rake). This is not the same as total ROI which is (Total Payouts-(Total Rake+Total Stakes))/(Total Stakes+Total Rake)." align=middle>2%</TD><TD class=sortTable title="The Total Profit is the net profit for this player (and includes rake)." align=right>$5,011 </TD><TD class=sortTable title="Super Hot=6 straight payouts. Hot=3 straight payouts. Tilt=4 straight losses. Super Tilt=8 straight losses." align=middle>-</TD><TD class=sortTable title="The ability rating is a number up to 100 that shows a players ability based on combining all the statistical measures we have for that player." align=middle>85</TD><TD class=sortTable align=middle>SNG Only </TD><TD class=sortTable>x</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
I understand the volume is extremely low...but I really feel I have a big edge on the tables that I play, and I know I have the confidence in my game and the patience to handle the hard varience now when it comes ....
on official poker rankings:
<TABLE class=ContentM cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 border=0><TBODY><TR><TD><TABLE class=ContentM cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 border=0><TBODY><TR><TD><TABLE class=ContentM cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 border=0><TBODY><TR><TD vAlign=top width=160>








</TD><TD vAlign=bottom width=80>120 days </TD><TD class=ContentM vAlign=bottom align=left width=120>Rating: 99.02% </TD><TD class=ContentM vAlign=bottom align=left width=175><SPAN title=" Rank: 3,823 of 390,176 (Full Tilt Poker) "> Rank: 3,823 of 390,176</SPAN> </TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE></TD></TR><TR><TD><TABLE class=ContentM cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 border=0><TBODY><TR><TD vAlign=top width=160>








</TD><TD vAlign=bottom width=80>Year 2009 </TD><TD class=ContentM vAlign=bottom align=left width=120>Rating: 98.02% </TD><TD class=ContentM vAlign=bottom align=left width=175><SPAN title=" Rank: 11,317 of 572,189 (Full Tilt Poker) "> Rank: 11,317 of 572,189</SPAN> </TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE></TD></TR><TR><TD><TABLE class=ContentM cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 border=0><TBODY><TR><TD vAlign=top width=160>








</TD><TD vAlign=bottom width=80>Year 2008 </TD><TD class=ContentM vAlign=bottom align=left width=120>Rating: 99.82% </TD><TD class=ContentM vAlign=bottom align=left width=175><SPAN title=" Rank: 1,523 of 862,428 (Full Tilt Poker) "> Rank: 1,523 of 862,428</SPAN> </TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE></TD></TR><TR><TD><TABLE class=ContentM cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 border=0><TBODY><TR><TD vAlign=top width=160><SPAN title="Play 12 tours or at least 3 tours with a total profit above $400 to get a OPR Rank.">








</SPAN> </TD><TD vAlign=bottom width=80>Year 2007 </TD><TD class=ContentM vAlign=bottom align=left width=120><SPAN title="Play 12 tours or at least 3 tours with a total profit above $400 to get a OPR Rank.">Not Rated</SPAN> </TD><TD class=ContentM vAlign=bottom align=left width=175><SPAN title="Play 12 tours or at least 3 tours with a total profit above $400 to get a OPR Rank."> Rank: n/a of 355,486</SPAN> </TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
Im looking for some real heart to heart advice from pros, and people who've made this leap recently ....
As long as your being honest and your advice is truthfull, shoot anything at me I wont take no offence .....
Is 100K a year attainable? Or is it shooting for the stars?
Any and all input is really appreciated .... -
The one issue here is that you DON'T play a lot right now. I think you need to experience playing all day every day for an extended period of time, and see where you are at mentally at the end of this period. If at the end of this "trial period" you are still feeling like this is the right decision for you (which should be at least a month of hard grinding, 5 days a week+ and 12+ hrs a day), then by all means go for it. The problem is, once it becomes you're job and you're income, you can't just take months off. If you have ever had issues with motivation for playing (which I doubt if you have only been playing LESS than part-time), or any issues with wanting to just quit for good, then I would strongly advise against going for it. Good Luck to you sir, I hope you make the right decision for you.
-
If your job is going to be awesome, and you want to play with 25k a yr profits, and hope to hit 100k, why would you quit ur job if you get a ton of benefits?
-
Yeah that's the only way you will ever know is if you try it....if you live cheap and u can stil get ur job back then it's kind of a win-win...u'll hate it and go back to ur other job, u'll like it and make money so you stick around with poker. Grinding 30-70 buy in sngs for a living would suck tits tho, especially only being able to get <20% ROI (for sngs that's good but risk/reward/effort is shittiest in poker imo).
-
OP said he made 25k on "less than part time hours"...which is why he wants to go pro...
Not that your point isn't valid, but I think he was implying that he'd be at 50k+ (and hoping to reach 100k at some point) if he were actually playing full time. -
What you, as well as OP, don't seem to understand is quite simple. The amount of success someone may achieve while putting in a small amount of volume may be the result of a players true skill, and not a result of "running well" or anything of that sort, but the issue is he may have been only playing when he really felt like it. Once it becomes you're job, you will be playing every single day and sometimes you will wake up and not feel like grinding and you will have to get up and put in the hours regardless. It's even worse for a sit and go grinder because the only way to make money is by logging as many hours as possible. Again, good luck to you, but it isn't as simple as multiplying your results by the amount of volume unless you are mentally unflappable (which is an impossible trait to have imo).
-
How many sg´s do you play at once? How many hrs do you plan to play? How many days per week and use the ROI from your sg´s so far to forecast your likely earnings. At pokerstars I have logged in about 5,500 sitgos at an ROI of 17% and I can tell you that my stats from the first 2,500 are close to the last 3,000. So I do think that you do have enough sitgos under your belt to forecast your earnings of playing full time.
How stable are you emotionally?? How big of a nest egg will you have?? These questions are just as important. Ask yourself this - how will I feel when I go through runs where my last 500 sitgos only yielded a profit of 5 dollars???? Will it affect my social life??
One more thing, if you do go full time, assume that you will goose egg mtt cashes when you budget each month for expenses.
Enrique -
Here are my thoughts..
In order to make more, you need to play more. By playing more, you will also experience more true swings....what this means is simply, you will have periods of 500 games plus that are either breakeven or losing.
When poker is your sole source of income, these swings will affect you more than they did in the past..you may play slightly differently as a result..even small changes in your push/fold game in sng's can affect your bottom line greatly...so when you experience your first couple big swings, they will probably be worse than they need to be. eventually, you will get better at dealing with teh swings and will come out of them sooner, but they will always be there. A 3k sample size is simply not enough for you to really understand the variance. Shyt..i didn't hit my first real swing until about 8,000 games in.
With that said...I think at your ABI, 100k is way too ambitious....Looking at sharkscope leaderboard for ABI 36-100 among 9 person sngs, the most profitable player has made 45k while a patry 10k is still good for 20th place. What this means is simple..SNGS are not cash cows..they are grind fests.
You also underestimate how often you will run into reg's and how they will adapt to your game...and how much they will lower your overall roi just by being at your table..when you play fulltime, you can't table select as well.
So..what is realistic...I'd say in this day and age..a 30k to 40k year is realistic..and can be more depending on your mtt success / failure.
Even at the high stakes SNG's, only a few players are up more than 60k on the year according to sharkscope (turbo stt's).
The way i always explain it to anyone wanting to go pro is that unless you ship something big early in your career, it is going to be a grind every single day followed by a couple really good days and then absorbed again by the grind....basically look at it as a 30-40k a year job that has the potential to pay you a 6 figure year end bonus if everything falls into place...but until it does, you should assume you are grinding your 30k out.
also juggling both sngs and mtt's while providing for the best opportunity to "get rich" also increases your swings as a very good day in sng's can be wiped out by a bad day in mtt's and vice versa.
As to go pro or not, only you can decide...imo, you have to be built for this..especially if you wanna be a grinder. You have to love it and be able to play today like yesterday never happened, no matter how bad yesterday was. You also have to be realistic as to your earn rate, and unless you bink a big tourney or two, 100k probably isn't as realistic as you think it is. I'd say look at it as 30k a year, with the potential to recieve a 6 figure end of year bonus if all incentives are met.
With that in mind...and with some luck..there is always the potential you go off one month and take that money and risk it, and then proceed to hit something really big...that is what happened to me...I was up about 60k on the year and was on pace to finish the year up more than 100k..but i decided to risk it and took 20k of it to vegas to play in the WSOP and Ven deepstack events. I binked a few tournaments and the rest is history...but understand I went through two years, 15,000 sngs and almost 3,000 tournaments before I hit my come uppins...had I not binked in vegas, I would have returned back to the grind and probably grinded my way to an 80k year instead of the incredible year i'm having. How much to push your roll vs protect it also determines where your ceiling lies imo.
So...if you wanna do it, then do it..but do it with the mindset you will have a lot of small profit months, some breakeven months, and hopefully one or two big months...but you are putting in all that work during those 10 months to hit during the other two. Keeping your shit together during those 10 is where most falter, so they never see the two glorious months imo.
JD -
The cons is that playing poker every day and playing for 100% of your income will probably lead you to a mentality where you feel you need be playing all of the time, which will in turn lead to you disliking poker after a short while. Also there isn't much opportunity for advancment, so in the long run (20-30 years) if money is a primary objective, stay with your job because you'll make more there.
The pros are setting your own schedule (if you are someone who can handle that), and making more income in the short term then you would at your job.
My advice, if your job really is always there for you, take a 6 month sabatical and try out poker. If SNGs are your main game, try to schedule when you play and give yourself mandatory time away from your computer to maintain a sense of normalcy. -
imo that's probably more due to people who are beating the games moving up.
Originally Posted by jdpc27
With that said...I think at your ABI, 100k is way too ambitious....Looking at sharkscope leaderboard for ABI 36-100 among 9 person sngs, the most profitable player has made 45k while a patry 10k is still good for 20th place. What this means is simple..SNGS are not cash cows..they are grind fests.
But, with a 5% ROI at the $50 level, you'd have to play ~110 SNGs a day to make 100k in a year (although you'd actually make more then that, taking into account RB/SNE) -
Your stats are immaculate and you have enough volume to be sure you will continue to win. I have done nothing but play 50 hrs a week for about 18 months now. A few points you should consider. First off, the sharkscope leaderboard is misleading for 36-100 sng. It might seem that the top guys are ONLY up 45k and most guys are barely up 20k. That is untrue. It is for just 8 months, and is filtered for mid stakes. Most people that get up 20k move up in stakes and those are not reflected on the 36-100 leaderboard.Next thing you should consider is that you will constantly be taking out money for bills. When you do nothing but monitorhead for 50-60 hrs a week, you will have more of a need for external stimulus and end up spending more on vacations, going out etc. My problem the past 18 months is I can't move up in stakes, I get up and bills remove the profit. I also never turn down 1000max HU cash game challenges when I am drunk and someone runs their mouf. That is a different story. One thing I will say is it is nothing at all to increase volume especially if you do not have a girlfriend. You can get 40 hrs in so fast and burnout won't even come close for at least a year. One cool thing about playing fulltime is you can push yourself, 9 table for 16-20 hrs straight, but then sleep as long as you want to. The sleep when you want to helps prevent burnout imo..Another thing to consider is you are playing with no fear of losing because you have a paycheck. That is huge. Anytime I had a job a few yrs ago, I crushed the game because I had no stress effect of losing. If you are used to taking money out and then take money out and hit a downswing, that can mess with your head, make you play more conservative and play to not lose rather than win. In my opinion, there are many players with sng graphs that are almost downswing free due to high volume. If the job will be there for you then go for it..but do it because you get up on your day off and can't wait to fire up some tables ..don't do it for the title of 'pro' or for the dream of getting rich. I am not sure how much your job makes but I am about to start a 45k yr cake job plus whatever i make in 25 hrs a week playing poker on days off.say 10k more.55k/yr is probably more than 95% of the pocketfivers will make playing 'pro'. Think about this, anybody that says they made 20k last year in cards actually lost money by being pro vs having a 35k a year job. 20k sounds good on paper but its the same hrs to work a real job and automatically win 30-55k with a paycheck.Sure, everyone of those 20k/yr players dreams of being the next 100k mtt stud or the next durr that can move up in stakes faster that usain bolt but 'pro' isn't a get rich quick scheme, it's a scheme because you absolutely love to get up and crush the fish everyday
-
shouldnt your profit for the year be more than 30-40k? like aaron said with RB and SNE....i remember reading jhubs blog and he was nailed 1500 bonuses like crazy. i think he racked up over 100k in bonuses for 1 year. granted he's playing the highest levels..but even if you can profit 30-40k in sngs and make 15-20k+ in bonus..thats a pretty good year.
i'm no pro but like reading others that are and their insights...just a question to you guys. -
Ballpark example with current data - I only used his numbers from the lower buyin
ABI 38, ROI 7% at 120 sitgos per day , 5 days a week
Annual profit of: $82,992 -
Calculate your hourly rate.
-
My numbers consist of 9 hours per day 5 days a week
So 45 hrs per week comes out to an hourly rate of $35.47 -
pending on what you play...grinding 1 table sngs....12 tables..roughly 18 tables/hr(based of roughly 40 mins of play per game).
6.66 hours/day for 120 sngs.
we'll round up to 34 hours/wk x 52 = 1768 hrs
$83000/1768= $46.95
assuming u play $60 buy ins. according to ps vip calc..
157896 VPPs/month
440536 FPPs/month
You need 100k fpps to buy $1500 bonus, so we'll say 4 $1500 which is another 6k/mo
6000x12= 72k/yr on bonus ...or you could by the $4k bonus for 250fpps. plus u get milestone bonus at ever 100k VPPs which would add $800-$20k/yr
not sure if this is possible....any pros care to input on the possiblity of you hitting these numbers? this is assuming you have 7% in the $60 sngs
looks good on paper, i think the whole thing is constantly grinding them all year. what do i know though -
my math was all effed up too.....if you play 1768 hours x 18 tables/hr= 31824
31824*60*7%= $133660 not $83k.. to hit $83k via 12-tabling you only need 1097 hours of play or 19762 sngs/yr @ 7% ROI.
Not sure what the going rate at the $60s are these days but im assuming tough as hell. but if you can even hit 3-5% and use ur rake back your still banking over 100k/yr theorteically speaking. -
Thats a really low outcome imo ....if the reality is im most likely going to be making 30K - 50K a year, i dont think I'll ever play professionally, and keep playing part time as im doing .....
Originally Posted by jdpc27
The way i always explain it to anyone wanting to go pro is that unless you ship something big early in your career, it is going to be a grind every single day followed by a couple really good days and then absorbed again by the grind....basically look at it as a 30-40k a year job that has the potential to pay you a 6 figure year end bonus if everything falls into place...but until it does, you should assume you are grinding your 30k out.
This question to go for it or not is really starting to bother me......A lot of amazing advice in here, I appreciate it from everyone ....But im still having trouble leaning to one side more than the other ....
I dont think I've ever read a post on this site from a professional saying that they love their job as a grinder and wouldn't change it for the world. This is really demotivating to me, being everytime this subject comes into topic its always pointing out all the negative sides to playing full time ....
I understand there is obv positives, but it seems the negatives out-weight them by a long shot .....
Its obviously an amazing feeling when you ship a nice big tourney, but is it that torturing those other sour months when things don't go well?
When it comes to me I think im very results oriented ...meaning now that I have the confidence in my game, when i grind part time now the down streaks don't bother me at all, because I know im a winning player....
SO, if I knew I could make 100K a year (or close too there), I wouldn't mind having 360 days losing streak, and then a 5 day killing streak......as long as i'm confident I can make a figure that is close to my goal ....
But that is where my problem lies, I have no idea what I can even come close to making in a year, and that is what is scaring me right now ....and that is what is going to make my downstreaks a lot harder as I go through them if I were to start playing pro .... -
Do non-poker players enjoy their lives as "grinders?" I am a writer. Long ago, I had to decide if I wanted to write or grind as a worker bee, I chose writing. I was once a reknowned member of the running community. Earlier, I was torn between running and law school. I quit law school and increased my mileage. I started a running magazine, I opened a running store, I went to work for NIKE.
Life is about choices. There are no guarantees. Decide who you are and act accordingly. It's not easy.









