blonde poker forum

hey guys jus wanting to know what everyone would think a decent bankroll would be to take that risk of trying poker as a living, im asking this because in the past week ive made more money from poker than i would normally get from 2 1/2 months of 9 to 5's, (one big mtt win, 4 final tables, 1 win on the ladder at laddies and another few cashes on the same ladders) im thinking about taking a month off if i continue to get decent results. is it a wise decision or am i just dreaming?

Well done on your recent results


but


You're dreaming!



large bankroll to withstand the hard times, a much longer track record of success across many types of MTT/STT/Cash so you know what suits you, the temperament to cope with having to play rather than wanting to play...all necessities


I know nothing of your personal circumstances or savings and don't want to know but the key word you mention is risk!


A month off sounds fun though!

Firstly i would suggest playing for 12 months and seeing if you can sustain continually getting the good results over a period of time.

Getting a couple of good results in a few weeks is not enough to go off to contemplate giving up work.

In 2004 and 2005 i believed my results were good enough playing mtt's on pokerstars to give up work and play full time - however 2006 didnt get off to the best of starts and in the end i decided that i didnt want to put myself under the pressure of having to get results week in week out to pay the bills and put food on the table. The arrival of babymonkeyboy in November made me glad i didnt make that decision and now i'm happy starting to rebuild my bankroll from scratch without any pressure knowing that the bills are still being paid and i dont have to cash regularly.

If you don't have a mortgage, kids to pay for and a nagging wife I would say go for it. :)

was it u who won the 100k tourney on laddies $25k 1st? I saw he was from up here.

thanks for the quick responses guys, advice taken on board, it just seems a double edged sword doesnt it, id like to do both properly but with having to get up early for work kinda rules out the late night mtt's, so really only have weekends to play the games i like, im not a cash player so its just the ladders and mtt's for me. think i'll give it a couple of months see if i can get some more results, then maybe take that month off :) and put in the hours on the tables

hey acidmouse nah that wasnt me, although i did satellite my way into the 100k and managed to cash 1st time round, i was basically a losing cash and stt game player but since i switched to the ladders and mtt's ive had a load of good results thats why i opened this discussion, btw no wife no mortgage and no kiddies lol

No brainer for me :) You only live once, and unless you in fantastic Job you can always go back to it..

*this advice comes with a disclaimer, no comebacks on me*

serious questions


why the big difference? what changed?

You also appear to contradict yourself. You say since i switched to the ladders and mtt's ive had a load of good results but earlier on you say you've only won one of each. Two wins isn't 'loads of good results'. Lower cashes usually only pay for that day's entry fees.

If you are a losing cash and STT player then you will need a huge bankroll to survive from playing MTTs. Which you won't have from 2 wins.

As Matt says, come back in a year when you have played at least 1000 MTTs and still show a good profit.

Runhotluckbox variance.

Agree with what's been said above, but if you have no commitments and have a 'disposable' bankroll, have a go for a month or so.  Nothing to lose (other than your bankroll and a few months income from a proper job).

seriously i have no idea, maybe it was because i was playing at the lower level limits where all the fish were and as i had no bankroll management whenever i got a bad beat it was usually for all my money, but since i listened to the jesus ferguson way ie: using only 5-10% of ur bankroll at a time to enter mtt's and as such, and taking risks earlier on in the rebuy mtt's maybe thats whats changed, because now 9 times out of 10 i go deep in the mtt's, analyzing my game aswell and not being driven by the money at stake also has helped me get rusults, (lol maybe i do have an idea about it then)

The Chris Ferguson plan was to only ever have 5% of your bankroll on the table in a cash game - it's nothing to do with MTTs. Buying into MTTs with 5% of your bankroll will almost certainly lead to busto. I am overall a winning MTT player, but I've had a run of 43 tournaments without a cash in the past. What are you going to do if you hit such a run?

Can I ask what level of MTTs you're playing? Have you worked out how much you are, on average, earning per hour of playing poker?

Can't really knock Mr Ferguson but the concept of "only" using 10% of your total bankroll to buy in to an mtt isn't going to get you very far.

This gives you just 10 shots at one level of tournaments or you will have to be continually dropping levels after every MTT loss.

Its unlikely that you will get a good indication of your level of MTT capability in just 10 tournaments.

bugger that batman and his quick typing fingers!!  ;tk;

It is such a big difference. On the one hand you play now because you want to. On the other you play because you have to. Sounds to me that you do not like your job. Change that first maybe. It is great to have poker as an extra income and a hobby. As a living????

Actually, having had a search, Chris Ferguson's plan does include MTTs. It's 5% for cash game or STT and only 2% for an MTT.

But the principle is the same - MTTs are not something to be treated lightly - 10% buy-ins will destroy you.

ok guys appreciating ur comments, as far as batmans (sorry couldnt remember ure screen name) comments goes , i havent thought of that aspect yet that was whole point of me asking for advice, i probably wouldnt even had started this thread if i had money commitments, the fact that i have no money going out each month is what made me think of this, ur comments are helping so keep em coming!

What level buy-in are you playing at the moment?

myself and BigArmo agreed with this back in 2005 and said that we would not play the $50 rebuys and $100 freezeouts on a regular basis with a bankroll less than $5k and i wouldnt play $100 rebuys without bankroll of $15k.

Now in 2007 that the fields on Pokerstars are super silly in size i recommend that on their site you will need a bankroll double to compensate for any bad luck variances that you suffer.

If you're still living at home with your parents then obviously there will always be food on the table and a roof over your head even if you go broke. And it is very easy to get into a rut of working a crap job for little money, which leaves you too tired/too little time to properly look for a better job. If you can support yourself playing poker whilst you look for a better job, then it'll be better than flipping burgers.

Maybe you'll get lucky - who knows? Remember though, that with a job, there's always a paycheque at the end of the month. With poker, you can be stuck in front of your computer for hours every day, and yet still have lost money by the end. That will be soul-destroying if you're not prepared for it and may make you stop liking playing poker, which would be a real shame.

dont get me wrong guys i like my job its why i went to college and uni, im thinking for the future really coz i really cant see myself doing a 9-5 all my life, so the more info i get now early on means the better chance and the more prepared i will be when i finally do take that step, for now though i think i'll jus keep plugging away learning more reading more analysing my own game, and give a few thoughts to what andrewt said earlier, cheers guys

Matt have you any idea how much the fields in say the 50 F/O and rebuys up to the 100's have increased since 2005 on Stars ?
Your comments about potential increased Bankroll size due to increased entrants interests me.  Just interested in what percentage increase you feel has justified you reassessing your BR management and levels of entry.

PS is your super hero Bat - Trick Man ?

I was wondering if those who play poker for 10 hours everyday enjoy poker or is it now a just a job?      I read a blog recently and the person writing it made the comment that they play cash games all day and at the weekend get to play the big Sunday MTT's.  From a readers viewpoint, it almost looked like the fun part of the week was actually playing the MTT and the rest of their 'working' week was a long grind.   

I once thought it looked like fun to be a full time poker player, but after reading comments both on Blonde and from other forums written by players who I respect,  it really does seem like a tough way to earn money.  Apart from not having the necessary talent to be a pro,  I would only ever do it if I won the lotto or a rich Uncle left me a few million.  I read comments on forums and speak to people who are 'professional poker players' and I am always amazed that they can only play NL.  I always thought being a true poker player,  you had to be able to play all games including cash games, STT and be able to hold your own in a tournament.  If I ever decided to play poker for a living, I would need to know in mind that I had a strong understanding of all the different variants and also a substantial bankroll . You don't see a golfer turning pro who can only perform on the putting green, they have the whole package.  In the past, only players turned pro who could play every game well. 

Obviously the same names come up time after time on pokerstars winning the big events, people such as Annette15 .  She must earn a nice living, but it is all at NL.  If you look at other players such as Matt from Blonde, he has good results in MTT at a variety of different variants ( sorry to use you as an example mate,  I just know you play games other than NL as well  :D ) .  Surely this is better than being a specialist at one game.  Isn't this a better platform to launch a target to being a fulltime player than if a player can only play NL?     Like I said before, I would prefer to have a matt type knowledge of various games than a Annette15 knowledge of one game.

Up until recently the 8pm $50 freezeout on pokerstars used to be a P/L tourney on Monday, Wednesday and Friday and a N/L event on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. The P/L tourney used to attract between 120-160 runners average with the N/L tourney attracting 300-350 runners. Therefore to cash you were looking to beat approx 100-140 runners for the P/L and 260-310 runners in the N/L

Now they have changed it so that it is a $50 freezeout N/L tourney every night up until recently it used to be guaranteed $25000 so it attracted about 800-900 runners - now it is a guaranteed $50000 tourney that attracts between 1200-1500 runners (the $50 on bank holiday monday attracted 1809 runners). The payout has changed slightly so they are paying top 15% rather than 10% back in 2005 so Mondays tournament paid 270 places - so in 2 years they are paying out the same number as they used to get runners virtually.

And because of the way the prizepool is dished out where they dont take the prize money off the top places but rather spread the lower prizes out further it means you have to finish higher up in the money now to make more profit than you did 2 years ago (percentage wise). On Monday 1st prize was $17700 but finishing between 27th and 45th (which is where i ended up) earned you just $271. So for an outlay of $55 now if i beat 1782 other competitors i make $216 profit - not very good value at all.

Yes if you make the final table you are looking at a 4 figure payout with top 2 being 5 figures - very nice if you make it that far but beating 1800 is a lot more difficult.

In 2005 you had to beat either 140 or 310 runners to cash on a regular basis - in 2007 you have to beat 1000-1600 runners to cash on a regular basis and your prize up until the final few tables is exactly the same then as it is now. Therefore to keep your bankroll ticking over on a regular basis proves more difficult. Thankfully they have introduced 180 runner sng's and tournaments where they cap the number of runners. Also I find that its only the guaranteed tourneys that attract a lot of runners, there is another $50 N/L freezeout on stars at 10pm (only 10% payout) with the same 3000 starting chips. There's no guarantee on it and that only attracts between 400-600 runners as opposed to 1200-1800 for the 8pm.

To be honest thanks to babymonkey i haven't really thought that much about bankroll management basically because i haven't had a bankroll. Now i'm working my way back up i am sticking to smaller tourneys with smaller fields (the occasional $30 freezeout or $20 x180 sng) with the occasional shot at a $50 or $100 tourney because the $5 and $10 freezeouts have between 1500-3000 runners and its impossible to build a bankroll playing these regularly. Fingers crossed the building continues well enough to contemplate going back to $50 rebuys and $100 freezeouts on a regular basis :)

My avatar is Robin briefly because everytime i go to post i find batman beat me too it!! ;)

Dont want to shoot down your theory really mate but $310k of the $350k winnings on Pokerstars has come from N/L holdem. I do have cashes at all other forms but the majority of my winnings has come from one game.

Unfortunately because thats the game where all the money is online this is the discipline most people concentrate on when trying to win decent money

The reason old-style live players developed skills at a range of games is because they had to. If the only game going is dealer's choice, then you have to know/be good at whatever is called to make a profit.

Now, on the internet, you can get away with only knowing NL Holdem, as there will always be a game of that going. Live, for big money, you really need to branch out, but for people just to make a living playing, you don't.

Maybe,  but my point is you know other games.   

I am friends with a guy who plays on Prima full time and he freely admits he only knows NL HE .  We had a friendly game at another persons house recently and tried to mix up all the games after so many hands.  Out of all of us, he was the fish and he laughed about this after . We were only playing for £20 or so and at NL he was killing us, when it got to any of the other games he didn't even know the rules .   Isn't it better to turn pro when you know all the games? 

This is why i like playing the occasional HORSE tourney on stars - its not because i'm a world expert on Razz or Stud "8" but i know i can hold my own better than most of the other competitors. I've even seen players sit out whole levels because they don't want to risk chips at one of the 5 disciplines!! :D

Like Andrew says (grrr) you don't need to know all the games nowadays to become a pro - on t'internet you can easily make a decent profit just playing N/L hold'em - and to a pro profit is all you are interested in.

I am a multi discipline fish and I am equally bad at all forms of poker,  but I at least know how to play the other games  :D . 

Has babymonkeyboy had a paternity DNA test? :)

hmmmm.... finished uni today no commitments..... what could i possibly do???  ;carlocitrone;

get a job? :P

kinda set myself up for that lol

All advice read, and all good, but i don't think that it would be THAT bad if spencer took up poker, which then fails to pay for him and then go back to work.

I was working about 14 months ago, as it happened, i got the sack lol, and left with one months pay (if that). Now, i didn't have no job, no wife/gf, no kid's. I was living, at the time, with Dad and his gf paying monthly rent, and i only had GCSE's, on A levels or Uni qualifications. So, what did i do? I played online of course, if i lose the money i had then i would go back to work, but, touchwood, i haven't had to as yet, and i hope not to!

So, if you want it, go get it! You only live once and all that!

Ps... About the whole enjoyment factor... I love playing poker, i normally play between 3 and 5 days a week, although i have barely played in the last 3 months, you could call it time off lol. I know i wouldn't be this happy in a 9-5 job like i was doing all those months ago.

hmmm, that may explain the receeding hairline..........  ;whistle;

(http://img71.imageshack.us/img71/2618/dscf0727rs5.jpg)

food for thought :D

Not easy, you need discipline in all forms of your life and a huge bankroll. I also wouldnt advise playing solely MTT's for your income, the variance is too great.  30 comps without a podium are commonplace even in 150-200 fields. Small cashes and minor final tables aint gonna help you live. Learn to play cash, build a big big roll, then consider it.

If I was single, childless and mortgage free, I'd be somewhere exotic and cheap with my laptop and an internet connection playing poker.

Thankfully, I'm not :D

I would advise against turning pro for one simple reason, you have no proven record of winning at poker. You have run well for a month and made some nice mtt cashes, the varience in MTT's is massive and you could well be seeing the upside of it. It concerns me that you are losing cash/stt player alot of the skills in these games are also essential in MTT's.

Your circumstances are good for turning pro but you state you enjoy your job and I cannot see why you want to play poker for a living. My advise enjoy your run treat as a side income, continue to work at your game and if you are still coining it in 12 months, then consider giving it a shot.

Nowadays, with the popularity of poker, I think it is very difficult, verging on nigh on impossible to make a living online playing just mtt;s. the fields are too large, and with all the learning tools available in the mainstream a lot of players are really good at tournament poker. There are some exceptions to the rule and these players can be found at the top of the rankings on pocetfives. As you are still considering taking a shot at a full time player, i think it would be a bad decision if you were going to rely soley on mtt's for your income. I was lucky in 2006, I caught the poker boom at the right time and made a lot of money off mtt's, but now i make most of my money from cash games and if i started losing there would probably have to start looking for a job

I don't necessarily agree Mr Pablo. I think good MTT selection and doing your homework will help and you or anyone can (especially if i do ffs!) make a living from MTT alone.

tell me more please

big mac and large fries please

ok lets look at it from a maths POV

not sure what a good expectance from a MTT player is but i imagine that an ROI of 50% is above the normal but for this example we will use it

if you have a $1k bankroll you should be playing not above 20$ comps now stars have 180 man SnG $20 comps on average they take 4-5 hours
good thing about these is at certain times of the day you can get1 running every few minutes so no long waiting

now say you can play 4 MTTs at a timeputting in a 10 hour day you could expect to play about 12-16 (due to the number of times you bust out in first 2 levels) so over a 10 hour day you can expect to earn 160$ thats about £80 or £8 an hour

now that assuming you can make a ROI of 50% (not many people could) so unless you have a much larger roll that $1k and can find alot of lager buy in events running and starting when you need them i would think that a run of the mill desk job would be much more enjoyable and profitable

by good mtt selection im guessing about tourneys where you get a good structure for ure money to make the skill level magrinally bigger. for me its tourneys like the $30 , $50 double stacks on playtech, the $50 3k starts  stack on stars. also blue sq tourneys where they gatantee $2000 , $50 buyin and usually gets around 10 runners. ansl the blonde $50 is good value

Mmm, where can I find one of those lager buy-in events  :D The prize pool could be messy

Partly what i mean ZZ. Yes better structured tournie's for your money, but also there are sites out there softer than others for multi's. You just have to find what you are comfortable with, i have a select amount of tournaments a night which i feel are softer than the average and i feel i have an edge on the players. The maximum buy in is 150. If i stick to these tournaments only, i am sure i can make a good enough return to live from (something which i am trying lately), rather than how i usually enter silly ones where i have no real edge but i just like the look of the prize pool! ;kev; lol

what are these sites you speak of :)up

Lol, if i told you the tournaments/sites, they wouldnt be so soft! Do your own homework ;) hehe

saw that coming rotflmfao

lol, ok i'll tell you one thing... watch out for these things they call Blonde comps... Softest tourney i ever seen. Mugs the lot of em.

LOL so you gonna win the league next month Rodney ... you aint got a prayer !!!

we will see :)

"Its a hard way to make an easy living"

I've just come off the back of playing full time for the past 12 months, this was not a voluntary decision as I was made redundant.The previous 2 years were brilliant, excellent job and serious wins at MTT's and top ups with cash what could be better.

Thought all I had to do was win £100-£150 per day = good living.........WRONG

Cold cards.........bad beats..........and many many hours trying to catch up = fell out with the game.

This year concerted effort in new employment = enjoying my poker, and the tap has been turned on again, serious wins at MTT's and top ups with cash.

This game that we all love can do our heads in sometimes!

My advice, get a job, enjoy you poker and treat your wins as a BONUS