So you want to go pro

I started my SnG challenge last night. I started out just playing the $10 standards and $15 Turbos on Pokerstars, to get back into the SNG swing. It sure has been ages since I played a lot of SnGs so it might take a couple of days to get back into it. As promised I have listed my results below. I'll keep them updated each day while I play.


As you can see I played 35 SnG's last night for a profit of $41. Nothing startling but a good start and I sure had a lot of fun playing the things. I 9 tabled the $10 standards and 6 tabled the $15 turbos. I'm going to keep playing the $15 turbos tonight, hopefully getting up to 9 tables at once. If all goes well I will move up to the $27 turbos tomorrow. I have no desire to play SnG's long term but it should be a good change for a couple of weeks.

Today's Topic: So you want to go pro

A lot of people start out playing poker with the dream of one day going pro. While this is not an unrealistic goal, it is important to understand what level you need to be at to achieve it. Some people will play NL50 and have a great week winning $600 - $700, and think they are on their way to a new career. They don't understand that variance will claw back most of that $700 in the long run. Before considering going pro you need to have realistic goals and understand what commitment you will need to make to achieve it. The figures below offer a realistic look at what a good player can achieve playing online poker full time. While some people will be able to achieve higher win rates, the below figures are a realistic look at what the average grinders are doing.

• How many hours do you need to play: Until you can beat the higher stake games, to make money from online poker you need to grind out a lot of hands day after day. If you are looking at the long term it is unrealistic for most people to play focused poker for more than about 35 hours per week. This can consist of either 5 hours a day 7 days a week, 6 hours a day 6 days per week, or 7 hours a day 5 days per week.
  
• Amount of tables at a time: To make money at the lower stake games it is crucial to multi-table well. You need to be able to play a minimum of 6 tables at once and most good players will play 9. This will reduce variance and substantially increase your rakeback and bonus payments.
  
• How much money will you need to start with: I'll list the starting bankroll requirements with each level below.
  

The low limit cash game pro:

I'll base the figures on a 35 hour working week. I'll base the bonus structure on being Platinum level at pokerstars, I think that this will work out similar to receiving 27% rakeback at Full Tilt. The win rate I am basing it on is 2 PT(pokertracker) BB / 100. Looking over my Pokertracker database there is extremely few people achieving a win rate of over 2pt BB/ 100 who have played more than 10,000 hands. It is hard to achieve higher winning rates if you are grinding out 9 tables day after day, but with dedication and focus 2 pt BB / 100 is not hard to achieve for most average players. The amount of hands I am basing it on is 65 hands per table per hour, this seems to be close to what I average. Bankroll requirements are 20 buyins which is the absolute minimum. Annual $ earned is based on 50 weeks to allow for 2 weeks holiday per year.

As you can see, if you are able to multi-table then a fairly respectable living is able to be achieved at fairly low limit poker, with the hope of big earnings if you are able to move up to higher stakes successfully. You need to be aware that you will need to possess an extremely even temperament to deal with the variance and suck-outs of poker. You also have to love poker. Playing 9 tables of poker for 35 hours per week can become mind numbingly boring if you don't truly love the game.

If the above is something that you want to archive, then I suggest trying to multi-table 6 tables as soon as possible. Start at low limits and once you are beating that level for more than 2pt BB / 100 over 20,000 hands, keep moving up to the next level.

Tomorrow I'll look at what you need to do to achieve similar results playing Sit n Go's for a living.

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