Going pro Article

[TimM]

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do you feel the pace is no problem, and that you could play this way for a few years, or do you see it as temporary until you can move up?
Also how long have you been playing?

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I started playing Dec 2003. It took me about two months to move out of the micro-limits and start playing multiple tables (3 until August 2004, 4 after that). I averaged 20 hours a week until January 2005, and I had a full time job at the time. I quit the job in early February. Everyone in the company was to receive a big pay cut, and I believed the company would not last much longer anyway, so I figured that was a good time to bail and give online poker a shot full time.

I have been playing 30 hours a week since then. So really I have 30 hours more a week to myself. Half of this went towards sleep, and that has been a great thing for me. I have never been a morning person, and I hate to stop whatever I am doing and go to sleep just because I have to be up at a certain time. I really only start to wake up when the sun starts to go down, for whatever reason. I felt like a total zombie all day every day at my job.

So now my 6 hours of play days are like this: Wake up at 2PM, shower, eat, whatever. Play 6PM-9PM. Eat, watch movie, whatever. Play 12AM-3AM. Go to sleep around 6AM. Unless I want to stay single for the rest of my life (and I don't), I probably can't keep these hours forever. Other than this, I don't see a problem with the pace, and I'm only doing days like this 12-15 days each month. The rest are much easier with only one 3 hour session per day, and I throw in a few days off each month too.

Maybe I won't wind up doing this for years, who knows. It's hard to have a real long term plan as I am still in the "moving up, bankroll building, discovering what's possible" phase. But for now my goal is to put away as much money as I can, and maybe eventually put it towards starting a business and/or investments.