I get a lot of questions about what the life of a poker pro is like so here’s my best guess as to how the percentages break down.

The vast majority of us make our money mostly from limit ring games. It’s not exciting, but 4 tables of 3/6 on Party can be a reasonable living for a lot of people. A large number of foreigners have found this source of income actually. $15 an hour doesn’t sound like much to most Americans, but think about how much money that is in some countries. If you add bonus programs and player reward programs in there it’s not hard to survive on it, but it’s tough to get rich doing it too.

I multi-table 5/10 or 10/20 most of the time these days, because I like the stability of it. I haven’t had a losing week since multi-tabling became my focus, which means I haven’t laid around the house annoyed at having a job where I lose money. That’s nice. And it’s better than $15/hr.

There is another fairly large group that multi-tables no limit games, and they have similar results.

The next largest number of pros resides at the higher level internet games. Playing 30/60 limit all the way up to 50/100 or larger no limit games can be very profitable if you have the skills and the bankroll. Some of those guys make too much money to even count it, but most are just making a comfortable living.

I would guess there are less than a thousand people who play tournaments online for the majority of their income. The ranked players here on P5’s mostly do, although I know some of them have jobs as well. The range of their income goes from jsut enough to survive, to enormous amounts of money in a good year. What BRSavage did last year, and what JohnnyBax has done this year might not set you up for life, but they are a damn good start.

There are of course thousands of pro’s working in brick and mortar cardrooms (yes they still have those) very few of whom make more than $80,000 a year.

Then there are the traveling tournament pro’s. It’s feast or famine for most of these guys, even the big name players. They sell DVD’s and cheesy poker products on TV because it’s steady, not because it’s fun. When they hit a few big wins the money can last quite awhile, but often they are back to broke in a year or two. As for how much money the really big names make? your guess is as good as mine, but the number better have a few commas in it.

See you at the final table,
Fox

The majority of long term winning players have another job. To be a serious poker player requires discipline, and most unemployed high school dropouts just don’t have enough of it.