blonde poker forum

Hi all,

If you had to make $20K a year from on line poker how would you go about it?

Background:

I am a micro stakes MMT player and over the last few years have made about $30k  by just getting a bit of luck one or twice a year. I don’t expect that to change much and am obviously just a recreational player. I don’t play cash or Live.
I am a fulltime college lecturer which I am starting to hate with a passion. I will receive a full Army pension in 17months time.  Am willing to study and learn,
I have 4 lovely grandchildren and they mean everything to me.

Idea:

What I would like to do is give up work in May next year or drop down to part time sessional hours, this would allow me to see my Grandchildren a lot more as 2 of them live over a 100 miles away.
With my pension and other bits and bobs I could manage but obviously it would be a lot better to have some extra income coming in, hence my question.

It doesn’t have to be $20k but it seemed a nice figure to look at.

So what would be the best way to guarantee (I know that is a stupid thing to write) or as best as humanely possible guarantee to do this.

a.   Learn to play cash
b.   Look at rake back scenarios involving multi tabling (rake back pro)
c.   Stars VPP’s
d.   Study and therefore learn to be better at MTT, get coaching
e.   Don’t bother as it is impossible
f.   Stay in job
g.   Find different Job
h.   Any other ideas you may have

By nature I can grind and put as many hours in front of the screen as necessary.  I am willing to view this as a 15 months training period  to get to this scenario but was really was wondering what you lovely people think about it?

Regards

Steve

I would imagine there would be a better form of part time income out there to be honest. Marking exam papers? Invigilating somewhere? I would have thought there would be something.

 Poker is extremely tough way to make an income. If you literally had to do this, I'd work out which game type you preferred sng/cash/mtt. Hire a coach, study umpteen hours of videos, and be prepared to absolutely love the game to pieces. It'll take a good period of long hours for small cash whilst working extremely hard for this goal to be achievable. You have to choose the game type for yourself though, otherwise the grinding will get too boring and you'd stop.

This is going to be tough and you are odds against to do this imo. This is not a slight on you, but I would happily offer odds to the majority of people who would try something like this.

I think you should stick to tournaments it is what you know and have some grounding in. Choose a format you think 20k is realistic for a good reg, sharkscope leaderboards etc. Then pen and paper calculation of how much you would have to play and go for it.

The problems you will face
1) are being good enough, this is not 2005 anymore and online is tough in almost any format.

2) Being able to grind day in day out. I think a lot of recreational players think this is easy cos they love the game and their job sucks compared to poker etc. When this is your job and you pay the bills that way, the swings stress you out, you have to totally self motivate yourself. Playing 8 hours of poker is a lot more mentally straining than any standard job.

3) Bankroll restrictions, now it certainly isn't impossible to make 20k a year from basically nothing but this relates to 1) that it is going to take a lot longer to get there without enough money to ride the swings.

Best of luck, I am rooting for you but would be betting against you!

TY guys this exactly what i wanted, $  or £, i meant $  .

The figure could be $5k  but just $20k was a meaning full amount.

Think i was wondering if by grinding and breaking even it was possible to make  a consistant return with rakeback.

Playing cash is defintely the way to go for 2 reasons which would give u more free time.
Its easier as you can game select
An you can start an stop whenever you choose unlike mtts where you play to the rest of the worlds schedule.

Spend 1000 on a coach and by the end of te year it would more than make up for it.

Stake others and let them AK<AQ all night while you spend time with the grandchildren.

I always found having monetary goals in poker is a bad idea, basically anything that distracts away from trying to play well is a bad idea, imo.

Find a game or format you're used to, have enough money to play and just grind away, if you run good you'll have more money than you're supposed to and if you run poorly you'll prolly break even/win a bit.

If you seriously wanted to grind it out, exploiting rake-back and rewards systems is defo the best route.

Again guys thanks for the replies.

Do you live anywhere near a casino with a card room? Sober live cash on weekends is the way to go.

BRM and tilt control need to be learnt first though.

Al

otherwords play cash right ?

We are taking live?  I can imagine an ex small stakes MTT player will get chewed up and spat out by multi tabling regs at most levels of online cash.   

There may be exceptions on some sites to this, but wouldn't fancy your chances doing this on stars.

I think you should show you are a winner first at the stakes and games you want to play cash in, before making any step. 

This. 

Most of the regs you will be facing online will be at best small winners and relying on rake back deals.

If you go this route you better be prepared to grind a lot of hands/day.

Ye I wasn't specifically saying play cash - I have no idea if that's a good idea or not, instinctively just from my personal experience I'd tend to lean on Doob's viewpoint that without a LOT of hard work (and no making any money for a bit) cash games might not be the best route. Live cash games - like gouty says could be a better option but lots of time consumption there.

$20k a year from poker really really isn't that easy.

Thanks for all of the replies guys. The figure of 20K was a just a thumb in the air figure.

I thought cash online grinding might be the way ahead.

I also thought that the overall opinion would be ditch MTT  learn cash learn from scratch over the 15 month period accepting that i would need to deposit a suitable roll, and accepting a loss for a while.  I also thought that more volume and rakeback would figure for consideration.

No mention of grinding sng's either

Thanks again for taking the time to reply


Steve

Yeh cash games are the best option for grinding a reliable income. If u can learn to mass multi table, put in good volume eg 100k+ hands per month and beat 100nl. Then u can comfortably make a good living from it. Its def still achievable if you put in the time and effort. Mtts and sngs = loads of variance. Still would have to put in a lot of work either way.

stay in your job

If there are decent games near to you, I'd be amazed if live cash games were not the best answer to your issue

100k hands a month? I barely know anyone who plays 100,000 hands a month (outside of rush/zoom), i'm not very good at multi-tabling and play live 3 nights a week (so prolly have similar time if not more time than steve for online) and I struggle 30,000 a month on my good months..

Also, beating 100nl, I bet at least 35 of the top 50 in the world on pocket 5's couldn't beat 100nl if they started at it tomorrow.

I'm not saying this is the best thing for op to do. OP was talking about guaranteeing a decent additional income and being able to put in the hours that are necessary. So playing online cash is the best way to do this imo. But of course games arent easy etcetc. Most likely op has a better chance of making $$ playing online mtts/ live cash and will probably have more fun too.

If you are competent at multitabling and play for a living then 100k hands per month isnt really a ridic amount for ssnl. Dave you play high stakes PLO so cant rly compare the volume you put in to ssnl grinders.

This might be the case but they nearly def could if they wanted to learn imo.

yh 100%. and you're right about the volume, I just dont think steve is going to be interested in 100k hands a month. if you can get competant and get a good RB deal then you're abso right that its the best route for someone who wants to make a decent buck on a regular basis. say 40% rakeback and if you can rake £4k a month then £1600 p/month nearly £20k a year lovely jubbly even if you lose money at poker as long as you have enough in your account to continue to grind it doesn't matter much.

Again easier said than done ofc

This of course is an option at least for the time being. As i am in Education the funding is available almost on a month to month basis so no one feels safe.

But also you are along time dead and i think that i would rather cut my cloth and have less income and spend it enjoying my family than daily to go to a job that i am starting to detest.

I have an interest in poker, i know the basics (ish), and would be pissed at myself if i didn't ask this question posed and get some advice from those who know a dam sight more than me.

Do we think that playing on a site that offers Rakeback rather than on stars with FPP rewards is better for my cause, as Rakeback is cold hard cash whist FPP's at the lower levels is more about buying T tickets, or hitting Stella rewards etc.

Also the smaller fields in these lesser sites have may be an advantage.  I also understand that Stars is generally seen to be tougher for cash than smaller sites?

Steve

Will look into this, thanks

So if my need was 10K rather than 20k, only half of this amount of work  :)

Hate to be a downer, but if you are having to ask this kind of question, it is unlikely you will be successful in turning over a decent profit without a lot of coaching.

Its 2013 and the games not so easy :)

Correct but Steve has said he has a full year if not longer to learn, and he clearly has some idea/motivation. Obviously it won't be easy but if Steve decides what route and really pursues it he is a big favourite. (With coaching/willingness to grind)

Very valid point and tbf i think i have indicated on prev threads that as an older guy i don't easily grasp the concepts that the younger/better players comfortably understand.  But i have been around this site for a little while and am really only asking for some ideas above what i have considered for my self.  I suppose a little confirmation really. ( I am also not the greatest pensman, LDO,  but really admire those that are)

That being said i do not believe that if i applied my self in a mature and organised way that these concepts are beyond my grasping.  As a more mature player it does give me some advantages, i do not want or need to set the world on fire, i certainly don't want to get money to blow on hookers and blow (although i do like to read about those that do :) ) . I can work within a BR which the fact that i have stayed in the micros for so long testifies, in fact when i cash i draw it out and spend it on the family, holidays and the like.  If i say i will grind X  for X  hours that is exactly what i will do. ect ect ect

As a young man i rose through the ranks of the Royal Enginners to become, at that point, the youngest Sergeant Major in the corp. This drive to be the best is in my make up and if i decide to succeed i will.  It is all of these little points that is making me ask for advice that is all.


As a recreational player i read lots but dismiss lots, in future maybe i need to get stuck in more theory and ask more questions.

Thanks again for your response.

Really admire your post here an good luck an I actually even though u are in the older generation ( im stuck in the middle I guess!) hope an know u will succeed with your attitude.

Fantastic post sir, best of luck!

Cash online imo, with good live games thrown in.

I think from what I understand of the games I play and just above me that anyone can beat <100nl with hard work, but beyond requires talent, work, dedication and more work.

People more qualified than me have already given you advice, but what I what say if I was to add anything...

Would echo what Dave says above about not setting monetary targets from poker. It only adds stress, with the desire every day/week/month to be on target all the time. It gives you extra reasons, as if you needed any, to think that things aren't going right and to wonder whether you're good enough to do it. Or alternatively, if things are going well in the short time, to raise your expectations and to extrapolate the hope of greater success down the line. Both of which will tend to negatively affect your game.

Also would say, don't think about rakeback as some sort of 'free money'. Of course, the rakeback deal you can get (or VPP status on Stars or whatever) will influence where you play. But rakeback isn't free money. It's a chunk of your profit that the site agrees to let you keep. If you don't beat the other players at the table, then rakeback is just a rebate on your losses. So the important thing is to find a game where you're better on average than the other players, so that you can beat them and make a profit after you've paid your tax (rake) to the site. Yes, play in the jurisdiction with the most lenient tax policy, if that's where you make most money. But make sure you think of rake, and rakeback, as just that - a tax and a tax rebate, and not of rakeback as some sort of generous handout.

Personally, I wouldn't advise someone in your situation to try and make your money from poker. At the moment, you think you don't have enough time. But at least you know what time you have, and can be completely off work in your free hours. If you make the switch to poker, how much time will you have to put in before you can reliably make £10/hour? How much time will you have to play before you know that you can reliably make £10/hour? How much time will you have to study so that you can still make £10/hour in 2014? In 2015? How much time away from the table/computer will you spend thinking about these things?

The hourly rate is completely arbitrary, but the point is that no-one knows the answers to these questions, and that these questions never really go away, because the games are always changing and evolving, and generally getting more and more difficult. So even if you gave up work and made your target amount for the next six months, you still wouldn't know if you'd be able to make that same amount in the following six months. The danger being that what is supposed to be three or four hours per day of playing poker actually ends up taking over more 'thought hours' than your current job does.

Of course, it's possible that you'd get better and better, at a rate faster than most people playing your games, so that you'd be likely to make more and more money in the future. But you'd need to ask yourself how confident you'd be about that happening, to decide whether you'd be happy to have all the question marks that come with poker hanging almost permanently over your head.

Hope that doesn't sound too much like doom-mongering, and good luck with what you decide to do!

^^^^ Very good post and I agree with all of it.

Great post sir and TY.

Moskvich!

Where you been I missed you :P

Ok I thought that I would post a little note to this thread as I started it and I hate loose ends.

I have been doing lots of reading, studying and trying a few things since this thread started. I had 4 days home alone with the wife away and being snowed in so I just hermit crabbed it and got my head stuck into some study.  You know what it is bloody boring.  It is lonely as hell and it is no fun.  The direct opposite of what I want from my donkaments without the pressure of having to bink.
It’s not like I didn’t know all of the above but when looking at it a bit deeper i have decided that at the moment  it is not the way ahead for me to try and supplement my  income with poker.  So in that respect the thread worked.

I am going to study and try to keep up with the game but I really want to enjoy it and for me that is recreational MTT’s.  I have hit scores before and have been close a couple of times to decent scores and I am sure I can again.  So I am just going to plod on and see where the next 18months’ takes me, win the Sunday a million a couple of times, job done.

Cheers all keep winning the lot.

BTW Blonde rocks,  LDO.

Steve

GLGL.