Making any money from poker is really tough.
I would guess that less than 10% people playing poker show a regular profit and even fewer make a sustainable income from it.
Boku is a freak, it was a great challenge but how long can anyone play 50 tables a time for 8+ hours a day?
Regular grinders will know that you absolutely have to put the hours in to even out the swings and you need to be playing your A game for pretty much the whole time you play. One or two mistakes can wipe out your entire months profit in no time.
In my opinion poker is a game you can only succeed in if you love it. It cant be like a job where you hate dragging your ass out of bed to go to, you gotta really want to get online and play.
Also you have to play with no fear of losing, you cant do that if you are constantly thinking about how much you win/lose.
Even top pros like Tom Dwan who play the nosebleed stakes have periods where they lose heavy, its inevitable.
Consider this, how many members of PS are there?
How many black members?
I know for sure that there are plenty of online pros who actually make more from the rakeback than they do from the profit, so dont tell me you can play for 2 hours a day and make thousands a week, its not sustainable.
Nothing like that in Latvia though. Oldies can't understand a fucking thing. 
We are all just gamblers in their eyes.
Good that there is Poker rush in Scandinavia countries. In post totalitarian countries, like Bulgaria for example, people still think poker players are gamblers and they should cure this sickness.
If i may...
It's rather simple to choose to play poker or not. For example, i have a sample size of almost 900 games, with 1.4$ profit/game. Let's say 1$. I 9 table and these games are turbo's (Sng), so that's about 20$/hour.
The alternative is to try very hard to get a job (insane competititon) for 300$, maybe 400$ if i'm really lucky. So what do you think i intend to do? Simple as that. ( I have friends working full time for about 250$/month).
If you would make like 2k from poker and 1.5k from job i think the job is best since you expect it to be safer. But 2k vs 300$???
I would guess that less than 10% people playing poker show a regular profit and even fewer make a sustainable income from it.
That's the theory (the same for stock market trading for example), but i think in poker the percentage is larger because a lot of the time there is an optimal way to play.
I would agree more with " 10% of the participants win 90% of the resources", again presumably the same in every competition on limited resources (in our case, money).
Good that there is Poker rush in Scandinavia countries. In post totalitarian countries, like Bulgaria for example, people still think poker players are gamblers and they should cure this sickness.
I'm your neighbour. It's 1 and half hour drive to Bulgaria from here. You are right, but don't forget that some people really have a problem with gambling. Go in a casino and watch some roulette players. You'll see they really appear to have a disease or something.
In my opinion anyone playing roulette, blackjack, makes sport bets, etc. for the purpose of winning money is an idiot. Some do it for entertainment, which i don't really get but it's their money.
I think you can measure the inteligence and despair of a country by the number of people playing the lottery. It is said that it's twice as probable to die tomorrow then to win. Nasty odds!
Conclusion: figure out what you do best and do it until you go nuts!
if you will do anything for money, and your life revolves around money you have problems my friend, like so many others. do what makes you happy not what gets u the most money. i play poker becus i love the game...i find it so interesting and complex and the fact that u can make money at it is a huge bonus...and its why i am going to take it up full time...but its only becus i love it and id far rather do it than a job!!
Originally posted by andreibalint
In my opinion anyone... makes sport bets... for the purpose of winning money is an idiot.
Surprisingly ignorant for a poker player 
Don't see how you can group sports betting with roulette, there are professional sportsbettors but I never heard of professional roulette players 
Don't see how you can group sports betting with roulette, there are professional sportsbettors
If sport betting can be long term profitable please accept my sincere appologies. Really?
I never knew about backgammon. Is it somehow similar to poker in theory?
Man... you can make a very simple calculation. Suppose you were capable of keeping a 5BB/100 hands winning rate at NL100. Just suppose.
Now... SUPPOSE... you played 8 tables SH at 80 hands an hour each. It means 640 hands an hour. You play 5 hours a day? You have 3200 hands a day. You play 5 days a week, and 20 days a month? You have 64,000 hands a month.
If you somehow manage to keep a winning rate of 5BB/100 (and you have to be VERY VERY realistic with this factor), you can make $3200 a month.
If this amount is enough, fine. If you don't think it is too much, you can manage to play more hours, more tables, more days a week or improve your game way more.
That's a nice calculation to "plan" an income... or at least to expect one! ♠_cool:
Originally posted by andreibalint
Don't see how you can group sports betting with roulette, there are professional sportsbettors
If sport betting can be long term profitable please accept my sincere appologies. Really?
I never knew about backgammon. Is it somehow similar to poker in theory?
Sports betting can be profitable for those who are willing to put an unbelievable amount of work in to get it right... The bookies' odds are always against you (a 6:1 is not going to win anything close to 1 in 6 times) but profit can be made with the right approach - Much the same as poker and trading.
I work in the I.T dept for one of the largest bookies in the U.K. and know for sure that there are people out there who make an absolute fortune betting on just about anything they can.... I'll say it again though, they have to work very hard for it.
There is no easy way to make a lot of money unless you get lucky.
@blackops888 You're also forgeting about rakeback. Its quite a bit if you play 60k hands in NL100. You rake about 4$ per 100 hands. Thats about 2400$ and with 30% rakeback you get another 800$ per month. Even more on pokerstars where you get way better rakeback one you hit supernova.
Originally posted by Wriggers
To me it seems all professional poker players are ignored by anyone other than poker players, and anyone that knows you play poker a lot sees you as some degen gamblerEven my friends do...
change your friends Everyone around me knows i'm playing poker and no one mind it.. they work 40+h/week and dont like it, I work 20-30h/week and love it.. they know it and no one ever doubt about me (at least i dont know that :P). It's job as any other, but it's not for anyone.
Originally posted by Kruppe
you can be pretty bad/untalented and make $50/hour no problem imo
THIS!
Originally posted by andreibalint
If you would make like 2k from poker and 1.5k from job i think the job is best since you expect it to be safer. But 2k vs 300$???
change your mind and your life will be changed.. thats all I can say
Originally posted by blackops888
If you somehow manage to keep a winning rate of 5BB/100 (and you have to be VERY VERY realistic with this factor), you can make $3200 a month.If this amount is enough, fine. If you don't think it is too much, you can manage to play more hours, more tables, more days a week or improve your game way more.
or count in rakeback^^
Haha, yeah I don't hide me playing poker from anyone, it's my life and if I want to do something I love a make a bit of cash then why shouldn't I? ♦ But I don't mention it in front of them because they simply see it as gambling and say something sarcastic, meaning I then have to argue back that it's a skill based game. But no matter how good my arguments are there's about 10 of them who just say "No" ♦
I can't wait to go back to Uni, my friends there play poker ♦
Originally posted by opal99
Originally posted by Wriggers
To me it seems all professional poker players are ignored by anyone other than poker players, and anyone that knows you play poker a lot sees you as some degen gamblerchange your friends
Originally posted by Kruppe
you can be pretty bad/untalented and make $50/hour no problem imoTHIS!
Originally posted by andreibalint
If you would make like 2k from poker and 1.5k from job i think the job is best since you expect it to be safer. But 2k vs 300$???change your mind and your life will be changed.. thats all I can say
Originally posted by blackops888
If you somehow manage to keep a winning rate of 5BB/100 (and you have to be VERY VERY realistic with this factor), you can make $3200 a month.If this amount is enough, fine. If you don't think it is too much, you can manage to play more hours, more tables, more days a week or improve your game way more.
or count in rakeback^^
What do you play opal, cash, sngs, mtts? and what limit?
