5 ms·

> if you're a decent poker player, you can walk away with more than you started every night, This is a huge exaggeration from what my poker playing friends hav

> if you're a decent poker player, you can walk away with more than you started every night, This is a huge exaggeration from what my poker playing friends have told me. One notable individual being a professional poker player of several years and who has wins in national tournaments as well. So he really knows his game. We've often talked about the odds of winning and how sustainable it is as an income. The figure he gives me is around 20% - that is you can only expect to cash in around 20% of the competitions you enter. Which means you can often go months without seeing a return. However it's not just him I've seen give that figure, other players I've spoken to have echoed a similar statement.

mistermann 9y ago
Cash games are completely different than tournaments though.
- jdietrich 9y ago
  Cash players still have downswings. Big, ugly, edge of the bell curve downswings. "I worked 60 hours this week and lost five grand" downswings. Downswings where you start to wonder if you're actually any good at poker. That's the hard part of professional poker. It isn't the maths, it isn't the game theory, it isn't the table selection, it's the psychological resilience. You have to keep making very precise, very aggressive decisions even when everything is going to shit. You have to go all-in on the 51/49 coin flip, even when you've lost the last six coin flips. It all evens out in the long run, but the long run can be distressingly long.
  - mod 9y ago
    > "I worked 60 hours this week and lost five grand" downswings. That's nowhere near the worst downswing that even most midstakes cash game players have had. > the long run can be distressingly long. Especially in live cash games. It can go six months. It can make actually-winning players believe they aren't, and drive them out of the game. Poker swings were the most emotional time of my life--I played HUSNGs for a few years professionally and had very mild downswings, all things considered. I once lost 14 games in a row against one of the top-10 worst players I'd ever played with. I'm quite certain my winrate was about 70% against this player (exceedingly high for HUSNGs, almost the theoretical edge)
phil21 9y ago
I also know a WSOP final table player, and what you say is true of tournament play. Think of that more like the lottery for professional poker players. The celebrities do that a couple times a year, and the grinders hope to make enough for buy-in and "make it big". It's the least mathematically interesting way to "make a living" playing poker there is. Where you grind out your living is the daily cash games. Yes, if you are making a living off of Poker it's basically a job. That means boring play for little hourly money most days of your life. After a few months, I imagine this feels more or less identical to an actual job. I've watched "pros" grind out their day to day life, and it really doesn't seem that compelling. Better than working fast food, but on average seems to pay about the same and be roughly the same intellectual stimulation. 4 screens with 6 tables on each playing video poker every day doesn't sound that great to me.
- chx 9y ago
  > Better than working fast food, but on average seems to pay about the same There are quite a few people who play from places where living costs are low(er) like Costa Rica or Mexico or, for that matter, Hungary and make -- compared to the locals -- an astonishing amount of money. Istvan Ratkai, who wrote a few successful text adventure games in the eighties have been one of the most well known Hungarian video poker players. He said he played about 3-4 hours a day and made 50-70% more than the minimal wage -- the full time minimal wage, that is. He had an ordinary programmer job as well so this as a secondary was quite a nice haul.
- laumars 9y ago
  To be honest I wasn't talking about online play either. I was thinking more about GUKPT type competitions. But what you say was also true for my mates back before they became regular final table players in major tournaments. Online playing tends to bring out a different type of competitor from what I gather but the "grinding" nature of the game is still the same.
mod 9y ago
Multi-table tournaments are the most high-variance way to play poker. The post you replied to was talking about cash games. Those are also fairly high variance--you certainly can't win every night. Poker great Barry Greenstein says in his book that he won, IIRC, 70% of his sessions.
balabaster 9y ago
I used to be room mates with the guy. It's no exaggeration. He's charismatic, charming and a whole shit ton of other stuff. A really likeable guy. I saw first hand how he lived because he did it in my house.

mistermann 9y ago

Cash games are completely different than tournaments though.

jdietrich 9y ago
Cash players still have downswings. Big, ugly, edge of the bell curve downswings. "I worked 60 hours this week and lost five grand" downswings. Downswings where you start to wonder if you're actually any good at poker. That's the hard part of professional poker. It isn't the maths, it isn't the game theory, it isn't the table selection, it's the psychological resilience. You have to keep making very precise, very aggressive decisions even when everything is going to shit. You have to go all-in on the 51/49 coin flip, even when you've lost the last six coin flips. It all evens out in the long run, but the long run can be distressingly long.
- mod 9y ago
  > "I worked 60 hours this week and lost five grand" downswings. That's nowhere near the worst downswing that even most midstakes cash game players have had. > the long run can be distressingly long. Especially in live cash games. It can go six months. It can make actually-winning players believe they aren't, and drive them out of the game. Poker swings were the most emotional time of my life--I played HUSNGs for a few years professionally and had very mild downswings, all things considered. I once lost 14 games in a row against one of the top-10 worst players I'd ever played with. I'm quite certain my winrate was about 70% against this player (exceedingly high for HUSNGs, almost the theoretical edge)

phil21 9y ago

I also know a WSOP final table player, and what you say is true of tournament play. Think of that more like the lottery for professional poker players. The celebrities do that a couple times a year, and the grinders hope to make enough for buy-in and "make it big". It's the least mathematically interesting way to "make a living" playing poker there is. Where you grind out your living is the daily cash games. Yes, if you are making a living off of Poker it's basically a job. That means boring play for little hourly money most days of your life. After a few months, I imagine this feels more or less identical to an actual job. I've watched "pros" grind out their day to day life, and it really doesn't seem that compelling. Better than working fast food, but on average seems to pay about the same and be roughly the same intellectual stimulation. 4 screens with 6 tables on each playing video poker every day doesn't sound that great to me.

chx 9y ago
> Better than working fast food, but on average seems to pay about the same There are quite a few people who play from places where living costs are low(er) like Costa Rica or Mexico or, for that matter, Hungary and make -- compared to the locals -- an astonishing amount of money. Istvan Ratkai, who wrote a few successful text adventure games in the eighties have been one of the most well known Hungarian video poker players. He said he played about 3-4 hours a day and made 50-70% more than the minimal wage -- the full time minimal wage, that is. He had an ordinary programmer job as well so this as a secondary was quite a nice haul.
laumars 9y ago
To be honest I wasn't talking about online play either. I was thinking more about GUKPT type competitions. But what you say was also true for my mates back before they became regular final table players in major tournaments. Online playing tends to bring out a different type of competitor from what I gather but the "grinding" nature of the game is still the same.

mod 9y ago

Multi-table tournaments are the most high-variance way to play poker. The post you replied to was talking about cash games. Those are also fairly high variance--you certainly can't win every night. Poker great Barry Greenstein says in his book that he won, IIRC, 70% of his sessions.

balabaster 9y ago

I used to be room mates with the guy. It's no exaggeration. He's charismatic, charming and a whole shit ton of other stuff. A really likeable guy. I saw first hand how he lived because he did it in my house.