Cash Game Playing 2/5 NL 1K buyin for a living? (1 Viewer)

[Anthony Martino]

Read up on 2+2 but interested in thoughts from all the smart folks here on an appropriate bankroll and hourly expectation in live full-ring 2/5 NL Hold Em where the max buyin is $1,000 (i.e. 200bb's)

I've seen a lot of varied thoughts on it, but I'm thinking if someone were doing it full-time your roll would need to be at least $25,000 to handle variance, plus 6 months living expenses separate from the roll.

For hourly earn rate again the numbers I've seen are all over the place, from $20/hr - $65/hr, although most of those are from folks who play in games where the max buyin is only $500, so being able to play deeper with a skill edge should impact that positively (provided there are enough players buying in for the max rather than less)

Would love everyone's thoughts on this.

 

[DrStrange]

Playing $2/$5 (200bb buy-in), $20/h to $65/h seems plausible for the better players, especially if the rake is the same at $2/$5 as it is at $1/$2 or $1/$3. Most people aren't "better players" and aren't going to have solid win rates like that.

Bankroll management actually matters here, it normally doesn't matter to a casual player with a regular income. You would need to have some idea of your personal standard deviation to set the risk of ruin you are willing to accept. The bankroll calculation could include the living expenses reserve. Holding that money separate is maybe something to keep the family comfortable. ( or not, maybe you do intend to leave poker and take up some other job when your reserve falls below six months living expenses. )

There are other sources of variance beyond the effects of luck. The ebb and flow of the economy matters. The cyclic rhythm of Vegas, both weekly and annually matter. The coming and going of other skilled players matter. Table selection and venue selection matters. And for the very long term, the life cycle of poker as a game matters - I remember the days twenty years ago when casino poker was almost faded to nothing.

This notion is not for the faint of heart. It carries costs for the family and for Hero's professional life. Full time poker can be a hard way to make a living. It also might prove to be a grand adventure. I propose Hero consider a test before committing, take a month or two and try the life style out.

Please keep us updated. I am sure your story would be very interesting.

DrStrange

 

[Anthony Martino]

I played professionally for a couple of years when we could play online, multi-tabling on Empire/Party Poker with rakeback, then they left and Stars and Full Tilt became the top dogs (and weren't as profitable for the mixed games) and then the UIGEA happened.

Right now working on closing on my first home which will cut my monthly housing cost in half and give me a lot more home. Plus I'll live half a mile from work so I can walk there. Even considering selling my car and doing away with that monthly expense (plus the insurance cost) since my boss said I could use the company transit van to do grocery shopping (aside from that my wife and I are kinda shut-ins and prefer to stay home mostly anyway)

Then, pay down debts, have a low monthly nut, start socking aside money and start playing part-time while still working and see how it goes. I'm a ways off from this, but wanted to start doing my research. I always preferred mixed games, and while the Hard Rock in Tampa has that, I don't think the game runs often enough for that to be a go-to. However, they have about 50 tables in their poker room and the 2/5 NL games run regularly with multiple tables.

And, should poker fade to the point where it would be an issue, I have a pretty varied skill set to fall back on. Anyway, it'll be awhile before this potentially happens, but something I'm considering.

 

[manamongkids]

Do yourself a favor, get this thought out of your head.

Work a regular job, make your income and pay your bills and get your benefits.

Plays on weekends when you can and tell wifey you want to make an extra effort in 2017 or 2018 to make a second income playing poker. Try to play some sessions after work and weekends and see how that goes

 

[DJ Mack]

I enjoy playing poker as a leisure activity but quite honestly it would be boring as crap if someone said sit down and play for 10 hours a day, five days a week. It would take something I enjoy for leisure and make it something I despise.

Without a doubt there are people who can and do make a professional go of it but here's the thing: you can be a really good player but having the mental acumen to spend 50+ hours a week at full concentration is completely separate from your skill as a player. Even the best concert musicians can't perform at their peak day in and day out. When you're playing cards for the long haul you make money on the margins. A good hand here, a good hand there. One or two slip ups at the end of a long day can wipe out what you spent the last four hours building.

Then there's the other things I'd consider:
1) Taxes - When you become a professional gambler you're no longer just taxed on your net winnings as a casual gambler would be. You become self employed so plan on earning another 15.3% to cover the self employment taxes just to break even.
2) Health insurance/benefits - Definitely expensive when you're self employed.
3) Speaking of health - if you're not a smoker, choose your casino wisely. Are you prepared to spend 10+ hours a day in a smoke filled environment?
4) Reputation - once you get a reputation as a professional who consistently beats folks you can bet none of the other regulars are going to want to play with you. So you'll be relying almost exclusively on the patrons who walk off the street on any given day. Does your chosen casino have enough new blood to make it sustainable? Remember, we're talking long run here, even people who play the casino just once a month will eventually decide they'd rather play at any table but yours.

Just to be clear I'm not necessarily discouraging you from giving it a go. Others have suggested a test run and I agree with that. My point is there have been many things in my life that I have enjoyed and thought to myself, man if I could make a living doing this ... only to realize that it's impracticable, would take something I enjoy and make it a chore, or is way more complicated than it seems at first blush. When I was in high school I thought for sure I could make money being a DJ. Yeah that didn't last. It wasn't that I didn't have the business but the economics make it really hard to make the leap from fun money hobby to vocation.

 

[Anthony Martino]

This would be something that would be eased into. As I stated, it would be part-time while keeping my day job (and records of sessions). Plus I'd have 6 months living expenses socked aside and a separate bankroll for the limit.

I only earn a little over 40K/year, I'm not like a lot of the folks on these boards earning 6 figures. This isn't something I'm rushing into, I'm just interested in getting input on the bankroll requirements for a 1K capped buyin 2/5 NL game. I've generally read 20-50 buyins as recommendations, interested in further input on it.

 

[manamongkids]

This would be something that would be eased into. As I stated, it would be part-time while keeping my day job (and records of sessions). Plus I'd have 6 months living expenses socked aside and a separate bankroll for the limit.

I only earn a little over 40K/year, I'm not like a lot of the folks on these boards earning 6 figures. This isn't something I'm rushing into, I'm just interested in getting input on the bankroll requirements for a 1K capped buyin 2/5 NL game. I've generally read 20-50 buyins as recommendations, interested in further input on it.

Again, keep your 40k/year and play on the side to make extra income. Get playing full time out of your head.

It's a well know fact that under 10% of players are actually consistent full time players who solely play poker as a living, almost all have main jobs or side jobs

 

[Mike Wells]

Me: "Ok, poker gods...I'm gonna go for it. Full time. Show me the money!"
Poker Gods: "How about a huge downswing instead?"

 

[DrStrange]

Risk of ruin of ruin calculations for no limit poker are difficult to calculate. This is due to 1) not knowing how much money is at risk when Hero buys in (lets say Hero buys $1,000 but the average stack is $500 vs Hero buys in for $1,000 and he is the short stack), 2) not knowing Hero's plan for leaving a table once he gets ahead, 3) not knowing if Hero's session winnings are at risk in a given hand, 4) not knowing how Hero's standard deviation changes as his stack size shrinks / grows, 5) not knowing how much variance can be expected in Hero's typical standard deviation (in plain language, how often does hero get tilted/drunk/tired and blow his stack on one bad decision he wouldn't make normally.) Etcetera

This is why I didn't find risk of ruin calculators for no limit poker while such calculators are common for limit poker. What I found was opinions from people of unknown intellectual skill / poker skill making guesses based on their own life experiences. Basically the bankroll suggestions border on valueless guesswork.

Bluntly, no limit players winning at the rates suggested in the original post have very little risk of ruin. I'd guess Hero could get by on a $10,000 bankroll plus six months living expenses. If Hero's $10,000 bankroll is lost, he likely has no business continuing trying to play no limit hold'em for a living.

Just as a point of reference, my $1/$2 "bankroll" is $1,000. I spend everything beyond that if I want to do so. I have never lost $1,000 in a month. I have never posted a three month loss in my lifetime, not even a dollar. Adjusting my no rake $1/$2 win rate ($20/hr) to a Vegas raked $2/$5 win rate comes out to $35/hr. That is "below average" in Hero's win rate range.

The bottom line is Hero should be paying attention to other parts of his game rather than worrying about the risk of ruin due to variance. If Hero actually wins at the rates proposed, he isn't going broke even in the face of a run of bad luck.

 

[jbutler]

No one on this board will have advice that will be helpful in coming to a meaningful bankroll requirement. Also remember that there is truly no threshold possible. The higher your bankroll, the lower your risk or ruin, but you will never be without that risk.

What you've read/heard the number of buy-ins necessary to withstand variance aren't going to help you in your particular situation. The people who arrived at those conclusions are using data that are different from the data which you should use to create your own threshold. They're making conclusions based on their skill level, their own playing style, their player pool, and a thousand other small pieces of the puzzle that they have hopefully accumulated to make sense of how best to approach the game. To even begin to discuss your needs, you would need to provide the most basic information including your hours played at $2/5 NLHE and your hourly loss/winrate.

If you intend to play as a means of income, the only sensible way of approaching it is by using your precise circumstance to determine whether it's a viable option for you. Beginning immediately, estimate your hourly winrate and starting now pay yourself that hourly rate regardless of what happens during your sessions. After, say, 500 hours at the table, take account of where you are and consider adjusting your hourly rate. After another 500 hours, compare the two periods.

The upper limits of the hourly rate range in the OP is not off base. I know many who play $2/5 NL (some combined with $5/10 and $10/25) for a living. The highest hourly over a reasonable sample that I have ever personally seen on someone's tracking app is $62 and change an hour over about 1500 hours (he showed it to me in the fall - he only kept the app current during the calendar year then exported the data and started anew each January). However, this is a guy who soon after that left $2/5 and has played $10/25+ for at least the last three years, so he's clearly a well above average player.

Tl;dr - don't listen to anyone on here telling you how much you need. Track your own performance over 500 hour periods. Only with the data from a couple of those periods can there be any meaningful conversation.

 

[Anthony Martino]

I think I just need to play more poker with Bergs, Harley and Guinness on my left to get comfortable with what REAL variance feels like

 

[kk405]

Do yourself a favor, get this thought out of your head.

Work a regular job, make your income and pay your bills and get your benefits.

Plays on weekends when you can and tell wifey you want to make an extra effort in 2017 or 2018 to make a second income playing poker. Try to play some sessions after work and weekends and see how that goes

THIS! Multiplied by 1000. Manamo is dead right. Too many people mistaken running well, getting lucky for a period of time, with have ing superior skill and an 'edge'. Not to say that it doesn't exist, it obviously does, but the player pool, even at the worst casinos and home game is infinitely better than what it used to be a few years ago and making a dcent living, even decent hourly rate, on a consistent basis has become inordinately difficult. Stick with a paying job and play on weekends or at night or whenever you have some free time, and try to save up as much of your winnings as you can. Let 203 years pass and then see where your bankroll/piggybank is, then decide on the next chapter.