grinder
Join Date: Mar 2007
Posts: 441
Re: Survey of the "Live Pros"
Quote:
| Originally Posted by WMB  O.K., this is inspired by the recent "Live Pros" thread. I'm looking for responses from those who derive their entire income from playing live poker. Especially 1-2 or 2-5 NL or low to mid stakes limit games. Please only respond if you have no other source of money coming in. Those who don't currently play for a living but did at one point for more than a year can also respond. And this is for live play only, not internet. Specifically, what stakes do you play, what is your monthly nut for living expenses, are you content with what you do or do you wish you had a job and a decent paycheck every week, how long have you been doing it, and any other thoughts you may have. I'm hoping for serious responses. Please be truthful. I'll give you mine if the thread takes off. |
My monthly nut, meaning "minimum earn needed to avoid going backwards", is only 3k, because my wife works and makes that much take-home. I could make 3k at 1/2 if it came to it. We can live off 72k take-home a year if it comes to it.
I strongly suggest structuring a life such that a weak month at the tables IS your monthly nut. 3k is a pretty sad month for me, but the thing is, it isn't sad. It's okay. Much of human long-term happiness comes from the absence of stress. If a weak month's income is adequate, then you'll find the poker life relatively devoid of stress. In fact, I think I have a much lower stress life than almost anyone. Supervisors, alarm clocks, demanding customers, loony co-workers, traffic jams, etc, kill. Don't get killed.
If you're a materialistic person, you'll have to play higher stakes than I do. But if you're a materialistic person, it won't matter how high you play, you'll still be miserable.
Want to lead the baller lifestyle? Find a baller who isn't a miserable turd inside. I'd like to meet him. Haven't yet. That's why they're ballers: they're trying to please their inner turd. Inner turds are like princess daughters: they can't be pleased. Ever. Ballers need attention. Why? No one happy inside needs bling or fame. You think Hellmuth is anywhere close to happy? Ivey, even?
I have a home a few miles from the beach in SoCal. Good and cool kids. I like it. I'm a slacker, true. I'm even a slacker in poker. I like it. I like the weather here. I like sleeping late. I like not taking poker so seriously that I lose sleep over it or gobble Tums or do drugs or degrade myself by borrowing money to stay in action.
I play about 80 hours a month, 9-10 months a year, and have been at this for about 20 years. I always seem to end up making about $50-$80/hour, depending on whether I'm playing the low end of my stakes range or the high end. That was true when I was playing 20/40 to 40/80 LHE live, 2/4 NL online, or middle-stakes NL live now.
Wouldn't want to play more hours. Feel a bit sorry for those playing more than 1200 hours, much less 2k hours. What's the point in playing poker for a living if you're going to make a job out of it? Not to mention that this is true: play less, play better.
But wouldn't want to play fewer hours, either. I like playing poker. I like getting out of the house and meeting people (I tend to be a bookworm otherwise). I've made great friends in poker. Met lots of interesting people. The whole range of characters. I like walking in poker rooms.
Wouldn't want to play bigger. For what? Money? Money is crap. You lose just by needing "more" of it. The only thing dumber than being embarrassed by how small you play is being proud of how big you play.
And the life gets drastically different above middle stakes live. There's a whole, constant game-around-the-game to deal with. An odd and tricky and degrading culture. The loaning and staking and hunting and preying and piecing. I like playing at levels where I can just walk in a good-sized cardroom and play who's there and leave when I'm done. You can't just do that in high-stakes games. It's hard to explain why, just believe me, the very life of a cardplayer changes when you play above middle-stakes. There's a whole nother game on top of the game, and if you aren't good at it (I wasn't) or don't enjoy playing it (I didn't), then leave it be.
I honestly never regret taking this path. I like my freedom. I find very, very few people with jobs who really enjoy them, and almost no one with a job I'd enjoy. Not day-in, day-out, with attendant obligations. I like kids. But I wouldn't want to be a teacher. That would be day-in, day-out with a nightmarish bureaucracy to deal with. Pass.
I realized the other day that I wouldn't even be happy being an NBA pro. All the obligations and attention. Having to be certain places at certain times. Getting bothered for autographs when you just want to enjoy a meal in a restaurant. Pass that, too.
I don't regret not getting job "benefits." I have an 800 FICO. I pay my taxes (no kidding). I buy my family health insurance (Kaiser) and put money in an IRA. I don't know what other benefits I'd want. Can't get unemployment, true. But can't get fired, either, which is a nice perk these days. Millions of people are now finding out just how much of a gamble working for someone else is.
I could go broke. But if I was ever going to go broke, it would have happened by now. I can't possibly go broke by variance. If I ever go poker-broke, I'll quit the game, because it will mean I've lost my skills.
I keep 4 rolls: ER, LR, RR and BR.
ER is the emergency roll, which is mostly gold coins these days. Don't know why I keep it. Financially phobic, I guess. Used to buy coins in Vegas for cash after good sessions. Still got them. Cash for last resort.
LR is the life roll, which is what we live off, and is mostly in checking. I put 3k a month in there, last Friday of every month. That's it. That's my obligation. Playing or not, running good or not, I put that 3k in and my wife is chill thereafter. We have a good arrangement.
RR is the retirement roll, which is our IRA's and home.
BR is the bankroll, for poker, and it's paper cash in safe deposit boxes (except for the dayroll in my pocket, of course). If the BR taps out, I'll quit the game. If that isn't true of you, then you don't have a BR, because that's what a BR is: the amount you can lose which will make you quit, the amount you give yourself to lose before quitting. That's what it is.
I've always hated the idea of "work, retire, move to a warm-weather beach and THEN be happy."
I figured I'd just go ahead and quit work, move to the warm-weather beach, sleep until noon and play cards when I feel like it NOW.
Well, 20 years ago.
Could I contribute more to society? I'm politically involved, and free to be so. And I'm a very involved Dad, which I'm also free to be. I'm not the Dad who misses his kid's little league games because he's on a business trip. I'm the dad coaching them.
And yes I know this post is way too real for 2+2, but WTF, I kind of enjoyed writing it.
