Live Limit Hold'em Pros

[henrikrh]

What limit do you have to play at to play live professionally and crank out a decent living? 20/40?

the first question is what do you consider a decent living. after that it becomes much easier to answer the question. If you want to live at the quality of life of your average civil servant (somewhere around 50,000/year pretax which comes out to be (in nyc at least) about 550/wk after taxes) then I think if you are rock solid you could live off of 6/12 or 10/20 with little issue assuming you have sufficienct bankroll to survive the inevitable up's and downs of playing every day. If you find a solid regular game at a casino you begin to recognize the other semi regulars which is a big bonus as well as the fact that you eat and drink for free during your time playing...

I know I'm going to hear the bb/hr crowd say it is impossible to live at these games but I really don't see where you can't make at least a hundred a day playing one of those midlevel games. If you want to live more extravagantly then obvioulsly you need higher stakes

[henrikrh]

I'm thinking bare minimum, rent & food. What limit breaks you even?

This is strictly hypothetical btw.

[PokerCad]

First off, you have to be skilled enough to be a WINNING player. That being said I would not play pro unless I had a 100K BR and were skilled enough to profit at 20-40 at a minimum. To grind it out at anything less just does not earn you enough and you might as well just get a real job. The 10-20 and 15-30 are great limits for second income and good living. Dunno, I guess I just like spending money too much to have my poker earnings go towards living expenses. If you are going to try to grind out a living at the lower limits and have your profits go towards expenses how would you ever build enough of a BR to play at higher limits where you can truly make a decent living?

[Bulbarainey]

you could probably live off of 6/12 if thats all you want. make 1 BB/HR, and ur ahead of all the mall employees who somehow make a living from their crappy jobs.

[ThaHero]

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you could probably live off of 6/12 if thats all you want. make 1 BB/HR, and ur ahead of all the mall employees who somehow make a living from their crappy jobs.

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That's something I thought about. How do grown people, with families and such, make a living at Mickey D's, low-level Macy's, Gamestops, etc.? Some are working two jobs, no doubt, but many are working one, and for not much more than minimum wage(no offense to any here). I think I'd much rather play poker for minimum wage/10 an hour than work some crappy job at the mall. So quality of living and the amount you earn is really all relative.

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That's something I thought about. How do grown people, with families and such, make a living at Mickey D's, low-level Macy's, Gamestops, etc.? Some are working two jobs, no doubt, but many are working one, and for not much more than minimum wage(no offense to any here). I think I'd much rather play poker for minimum wage/10 an hour than work some crappy job at the mall. So quality of living and the amount you earn is really all relative.

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Working at McDonald's is guaranteed income. Even if you're good, there's no guarantee you can clear $10/hr playing small stakes Hold 'em. There's no guarantee you won't get burned out before you start to turn a profit. And as far as "crappy" jobs, I think you'll find that playing 6-12 Hold 'em for 8 hours a day can turn into a pretty miserable job pretty fast.

[betgo]

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you could probably live off of 6/12 if thats all you want. make 1 BB/HR, and ur ahead of all the mall employees who somehow make a living from their crappy jobs.

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You can make more than 1BB/hour playing 6/12. Those games are a lot easier than 40/80. Some people don't like a lot of risk. Also low limit requires different skills, less aggressiveness and reading and more knowing when to foldem. I know someone who plays that level professionally and makes 2BB/hour. That's not great, but definately an OK living. However, I having a feeling he would do better playing a little higher.

I said in my reply that you would hear this from the 1BB/hr crew and I say again...it is not that hard to make more than one BB per hour in the games that you play at any big casino from Thursday to Sunday. Anywhere from 6/12 to 15/30 and you should be able to clear somewhere around 200 per day which is better than the managers at all those stores mentioned at the mall. In fact it's better than teachers, cops, firemen, janitors, and lots of other jobs.
Yes you have to give up weekends and yes you have have to be tighter with your money than someone that knows that on every thursday a check is coming but the question was what is the bare minimum...

As for the NL/Limit question - hard to say. More quick money in NLHE for sure but the swings can/will kill you

[cwsiggy]

I've read 20/40 is sorta the minimum. Of course, you could switch to no limit but hold on for the rollercoaster!