8-tabling 5/10, how much can you make?

[IlliniRyRy]

Hey everyone, just wanted to get your thoughts and opinions on something I'm thinking about pursuing. I'm a fairly experienced online poker player, I've been playing for about 2 years now and built up a large bankroll playing a range of limits all the way up to 15-30. Over the last couple months, I had a lot of trouble playing 3 boards in the 15 game and after deciding to switch to 8 boards of the 5-10, I've done extremely well. Playing more hands makes for less variance in your bankroll over time, and that really appeals to me since losses can really get to me emotionally. Anyway, I'm a futures trader right now and I love my job, but I'm not doing well for my company and I'm on the verge of getting canned. I've been thinking about giving the poker thing a full-time try, and I'm trying to figure out what I can set as a goal for myself for the year and from month to month. I have more than enough hands in my pokertracker database to be confident enough that I can at least beat the game for 1BB/hr per table, so if I'm actually doing this full-time for 40 hours a week, that would be $3200/wk (10*8*40), which is $160,000 a year. I'm wondering though...has anyone that's decided to do this full-time finding it completely impossible to play 40 hours a week? I'm really afraid of burnout, stress, and mental exhaustion. When I play 8 boards even for just 3 hours, it can get very tiring. Anyone else find themselves setting what turn out to unreachable time goals? And profit goals too...I'm wondering if the amount I estimated is too farfetched. I think if it is, it's strictly because it's too hard to play 40 hours a week. the 1 BB/hr seems fairly easy to me. Alright, let's hear your thoughts, I'm very curious to hear what the online pros out there have to say. David Ross, Schneids, Gonores, etc, feel free to chime in.

[Alobar]

I find it difficult to believe you can find 8 good 5/10 tables to play at the same time.

I also think if you could beat 8 5/10 tables, you could beat the 15/30, which would be a better place to play

[meow_meow]

If it's 6max, then no problem.
Full-ring on party/empire, problem.

[Sponger15SB]

yeah there is no problem playing 8 6-max tables at a time.

[BusterStacks]

5/10 full on Party sucks except for like the hour it is good late at night.

[Alobar]

[ QUOTE ]
If it's 6max, then no problem.
Full-ring on party/empire, problem.

[/ QUOTE ]

yeah, i assumed full ring for some reason

[La Brujita]

My general thoughts on Party full tables is either play 3-6 or 15-30. 5-10 is not nearly as good.

[MicroBob]

I also don't know why you would prefer to play 5/10 instead of 15/30 if you have the bankroll for it.
But I guess the inability to stomach the variance is an acceptable idea.

Still, the reputation of the 5/10 full games on party is that they are reasonably tough compared to the 15/30 full.

And I find it very difficult to believe that you can play 8 of the 6-max tables at a time effectively.


My goals are more in the $1k/wk range at 2/4 through 5/10 with some 10/20 thrown in there too.

But I'm not trying to play 40 hours a week of 8-tables at a time and I do think it would burn you out pretty fast.

I will play somewhere around 30-35 hours a week typically....usually 3-6 tables.

But this will involve a couple days of 10 hours of play which I'll do on a weekend. Just watch a lot of football on TV. My GF works on weekends so we don't see each other anyway during this time....we'll be hitting the bars on a Monday or Tuesday night more often which is kind of fun in it's own weird way.
so it works out well for me since the poker games are best on weekends and I can have football on the tube ALL day long.

So I might do
Fri - 6
Sat - 10
Sun - 10
Mon-Thu each - 0-4 hours

something like that anyway....then again...i might play a bunch on a Tuesday or something and then not get around to as much on Saturday. Whatever floats my boat.


For 8-tabling...I would think that 25-30 hours/wk would be a realistic goal. More than that would be tough to maintain imo.
If you're really making $10/hr on each table then that's $80/hr X 25 hours = $2k/wk = $100k/yr

Talked with someone else about this and he mentioned 24 table-hours a day and I agree this is a good number.

So if you're 8-tabling then that's about 3 hours (24 table-hours).
If you're 6-tabling then it's about 4 hours.
If you're 4-tabling then roughly 6-hours.

But again, you should have some kind of idea as to what you may or may not be able to handle over an extended period of time.


It's definitely a fine-line between making sure you get your hours in each and every week AND making sure you are playing when you aren't tired or unmotivated.
I'm still going back and forth with this.


I would also be interested to see David, Schneids and others' opinions on this....but they don't typically hang out here in the Zoo that often.


If you have the bankroll and are about to get canned anyway then I say go for it.
Hopefully you have some sort of back-up plan in mind in case poker doesn't go that well.

Good luck whatever you decide.

[BIGRED]

I tried 8-tabling recently on 5/10 6max for about 2 weeks. Although do-able, I think there is diminishing rate of return once you go past 5 or 6 tables. I tried 8 because I got greedy on the rake return, but after doing it for 2 weeks, I realized it wasn't worth it. You may still get more $$ per hour basis, but the added eye strain, the occasional blunders, and the pain of finding that 7th and 8th table while trying to play on the other 6 is.... ehhhh, not worth it. 6 is enough for me.

[IlliniRyRy]

Thanks for the info guys, particularly MicroBob who's always got somethin interesting to say. Yeah I just play the full 5-10 games on party, and although they do tend to be tight at times, I still think they're easier than 15-30. You have your maniacs up there who just like to gamble in the biggest game they can, but let's face it, the higher you go, the tougher they are overall. After dealing with all the extra aggression in that game, 5-10 seems like a piece of cake to me. I do think 40 hours a week is pretty much impossible now that I think about it. 25-30 seems more likely, so I think I'll shoot for $100,000 on the year.