From amateur to pro player

Goody_Ace

Hi Neil

At what point did you decide that you could make a living from poker?

Was it forced on you (like no job or made redundant) or a natural progression, or a BIG decision or........

I read a lot of the posts in the 'poker chat' of various players diaries over a year and see they are profitable winning players

but the best of them are making only a few thousand per annum for thousands of hours of play.

My mind says for all those hours played, equating to about £1 per hour, a job on minimum wage would pay 7 times as much.

I mean, if I were to win say £50K through satteliting into a big tourney, it would not cross my mind to try pro.

MattBates

In Response to From amateur to pro player:

Hi Neil At what point did you decide that you could make a living from poker? Was it forced on you (like no job or made redundant) or a natural progression, or a BIG decision or........ I read a lot of the posts in the 'poker chat' of various players diaries over a year and see they are profitable winning players but the best of them are making only a few thousand per annum for thousands of hours of play. My mind says for all those hours played, equating to about £1 per hour, a job on minimum wage would pay 7 times as much. I mean, if I were to win say £50K through satteliting into a big tourney, it would not cross my mind to try pro.
Posted by Goody_Ace

Is some diaries of players who play a fair bit but for an extra side income (eg Sir Tikay). It might be a lot of hours but effectively their hobby is making them money whereas for most a hobby will cost money. There isnt many diaries of full time players, main one I can think of is Timmyrara and he makes a very tidy tax free income. 

NChanning

 I can remember the mid 90s...I was working a full time job in the gambling industry and was probably a losing punter...the betting tax meant almost everyone was.

 Four times a year the Vic would have poker festivals which meant five tournaments and instead of the two or three cash games you got most nights...(£1000 sit down £10/£20/£40 PLO...£50 sit down 50p/£1 round of each and £1 running ante 7-card stud)...there would be seven or eight games and some would be pure hold em...(£50 sit down 50p/£1...£100 sit down £1/£2 and sometimes £250 sit down £2/£2/£5). They would be pot limit and the casino would open at 2pm and close at 5pm. The poker games ran from around 4pm to 4am and I would not miss a single minute in the cash games for all four weeks...I would take my holidays for those four weeks and I'd never play the tournaments.

 I used to earn around £16,000 a year from those games so I guess I knew I was good enough to make a living but I also knew it wasn't possible because apart from at the WSOP those were the only times there were enough games to play that long and it wasn't really possible to play bigger as the £250 would hardly ever run.

 I finally realised there were enough games to do it in 2006.