Home
(0 votes) 
December 11, 2013
Offline
Hello All,
I want to go pro. I started in early February of this year with a $200 deposit on Bovada. I have run that deposit up to a bankroll of about 15k at the time of this writing. Throughout the year I have gotten much, much better at Tournament poker and NLHE in general. I have about a 40% ROI in Bovada MTTs over about 1050 game sample (I know that's not very big). I have also done well in 6-max cash games up to $1/2 online and all levels of HUSNG on Bovada. I have gotten several hours of professional coaching from Danny Noseworthy and recently set up some hours with Marc Alioto. I have met some great TPE members and have had countless strategy talks and HH reviews through skype.
Currently, I work 45-50 hours/wk at an engineering firm and also grind 20-30 hours/wk and study about 3-4 hours/wk. Working this much is very draining and hard to balance. I have def gotten better at it, but I am very eager to quit the day job and grind/study full-time. My goal is to quit by June 1, 2015. I hope to have at least a 20k roll by then and will have 6-8 months living expenses saved up on the side. I think this is on the bottom end of what I need to have to take a shot, but is also conservative (there's a good chance my roll would be well over 20k by this date).
I don't really know how to go about calculating the kind of variance I might encounter playing exclusively US sites (Bovada, Merge, etc.). I know it will be much lower than that of Stars, …..p://FTP. Most Bankroll requirement and variance discussions I have found are focused on average field sizes of 1,300+ players where edges are more thin than the edges we can enjoy as US players. I have calculated an expected yearly income from grinding a 5-day bovada MTT schedule at a 35% ROI and it comes out to be just a hair under what I make at my real job currently (this also factors in 4 weeks off in a year). This schedule is at an ABI of 62$, which means I currently have a 250 ABI bankroll.
I guess what I am hoping to discuss here is some way to approximate the bankroll needed, variance, and how much I can make. I have also been grinding some Merge and plan to add WPN to my schedule soon. If it were possible to quit sooner than next June I would love to, I kind of set that date because I would love to hang out in vegas for 2-3 weeks @ WSOP next year grinding $1/2 and some of the small stakes daily deepstacks. I don't have a lot of Live experience, but have played 6-8 live MTTs this year. The last one I played was a WSOPc $365 where I lost a flip for 15th and a small cash. I felt very comfortable in the tournament and think I probably have a good ROI in <$500 Live MTTs.
If you've read this far thank you for reading, hope we can get some discussion going!! 
December 11, 2013
Offline
So I stumbled upon a great tournament variance calculator tool here
Using this tool, I lumped all my Bovada MTTs into one MTT type which loosely represents all my games. I set the parameters as follows:
# Players: 350 (this is probably significantly more than the real avg. # players in my games)
structure: 36 places paid (Bovada's payout structure actually tends to pay MORE players than this)
Buyin: $50 Fee: $5 (This is pretty close to my actual ABI and bovada's juice is generally 10% or less)
ROI: 35% (Theoretically my ROI should actually be slightly higer than this)
# MTTs: 3600 (In a full year of full-time play I should play 3600 or more Bovada MTTs)
# Samples: 10,000
Here are the results:
Total Buyin+Fees: $198k
EV: $69,300
Average Net profit: $69,190
Probability of loss: 0% (1 out of 10,000 samples)
95% Confidence interval: 30k-110k
These numbers are extremely exciting/motivating. This makes me really want to go pro on Jan 1, 2015! I don't have a ton of overhead and could survive on 30k in my first year. This also does not take into account the fact that I would also be playing some on other US sites, and also playing some cash as a winning player. If US DOJ decided to doomswitch us again and shut down Bovada, Merge, etc., I would have to become a 1/2 live grinder for a little while which would suck but is doable. If CA ever legalizes I would likely move there. To anyone else in a similar situation, these numbers should give you a huge boner! This is basically like grinding 180's but with double-triple the ROI, am I right?
TPE Management
April 6, 2010
Offline
married? kids? mortgage?
December 11, 2013
Offline
No, No, and Rent is $500
January 16, 2014
Offline
Years and years ago I played live 1/2 in hopes of building a bank roll and eventually not having to return to work (I was let go a few months before hand). I had the worse run of cards imanginable for 2 weeks, then capped off flopping top set and losing to runner runner quads for a huge pot, a signifigant chunk of my life roll. With only a few more weeks left on my unemployment claim I had to go back to work. My point is don't trust hourly, ROI, or variance estimations. People do hit the run bad lottery, and it's best to be prepared for it. Again this is just my experience, but I would say save up a years worth of expenses. And I wouldn't be too high on California either. I'm sure the regulators will find a way to screw it up, and there's a good chance the laws will be written in a way where Bovada and Merge would no longer be options to California residents.
With all that being said I've been able to grind out a living (barely) for almost 2 years mostly playing Bovada (at much lower stakes) and a little bit of live. I started with much much much less than what you plan too and what I recommend (in the range of 6 months worth of expenses in the bank and maybe $300 on the site). I didn't plan on being a “professional” player however, especially with my history of hitting the run bad lottery. I was just playing hoping I would be able to make enough so I wouldn't have to go back to work, cause jobs suck and I really hate working for stupid people and having to go back to works would really really suck and I would hate my life.
TPE Pro
August 25, 2012
Offline
The main thing I would say about playing for a living is, be prepared for the amount of money actually in your bank account to affect your mental game more than you expect. Doing something for a living changes the way you perceive it, and playing poker professionally will test your mental strength and passion for the game more than you expect.
Don't plan for the 'average' scenario, plan for the worst case scenario. Plan so that you'd be okay even if your first year went worse than you ever thought possible. Paradoxically, that'll set you up for success, because you'll never have to worry about what happens if you get 6th in this tournament instead of 1st, or what happens if you lose this flip you're about to get into.
TPE Pro
December 30, 2013
Offline
“95% confidence interval: $30k-110k”
not to be a downer, but my advice is to plan for the $30k and maybe hold out hope for better. if i'm interpreting this result correct (and its been 3 years since i've picked this stuff up) we can say w 95% confidence that your actual results will fall between 30k and 110k net for the year over 3600 mtts. obviously, this is a very wide real-world distribution, and i think the human condition is to branch off the 30-45k estimates and say “that's not going to happen to me.” i had this very thing happen to me over about a 12-14 month span around 2012, and although some off-the-felt leaks in my mental game hurt me, it's not all that uncommon for the bottom of this range to happen to you (or anyone).
as a result, i would plan to try to accumulate 8-12 months off-felt expenses min. this would help extraordinarily for your mental game (as ging pointed out). i played lower volume online bc I split time with other endeavours, but in that 12-14 month span I probably ran thru 14-18 months worth of expenses (obviously a faster rate than I expected given travel and WSOP-LV). By the end of the downswing I was near my wit's end bc I had like 2-3 months of expenses left, and was constantly worried about such a problem. in short, please also factor in your EV(sleep) and EV(peace of mind) into your decision-equation. If it's close between poker and engineering, and you sleep well as an engineer, I'd be inclined to stay at my day job—and this is coming from a still-poker professional.
December 11, 2013
Offline
Matt, Chris:
Thank you guys for the valuable advice. I really appreciate it. I guess I kinda forgot about this post after a while and haven't checked it recently. Regarding planning for the worst case- I think this is a great idea and I am constantly thinking about “will I be fine in the worst-case scenario”- the answer is yes. I've basically been broke my whole life, worked my way through college barely making rent and expenses, but got through it and am stronger mentally for it. Having said that, I am in a better financial situation today than I ever have been before, and there's no way in hell I want to go backwards.
Regarding EV(sleep)- I do NOT sleep well in my current job. I am sure that being an MTT pro can be very, very stressful- but I am willing to wager that I would be significantly less stressed grinding full-time than I am currently at my job. I do not want to underestimate some of the things Matt touched on WRT playing for a living effecting my mental game. I certainly could see that happening in a major way. I am pretty happy with how my mental game has progressed this year and definitely tilt much less than 12 months ago or even 6 months ago. Even if I didn't go pro I would need to quit my job and find something else, and since my OP in this thread I have been thinking about going pro near constantly and it doesn't seem to make sense to get another engineering job just because it's the more “safe” route. I would much rather go for it, lose my bankroll in a year, and have to get another job than to never give this a real shot.
One thing I want to say about EV(peace of mind)- I want to make a distinction between EV(peace of mind) and EV(happiness) and change it to EV(financial peace of mind). Working at my current job means I get the same paycheck every other week and can always rely on that, and I also get great benefits. This makes for great financial peace of mind and allows me to grind without much worry about winning/losing, but my happiness EV isn't very high at my current gig. Also, it doesn't matter whether I work 40 hours or 90, I still get paid the same. It doesn't matter if I come up with some great ideas to make my company more efficient and develop good standards and best practices- the company could still easily fail in a few years through no fault of my own. I am very attracted to the idea that in poker, we are theoretically rewarded more if we put in more work and our earning potential is essentially uncapped. I have talked to a few friends/associates about my plans to go pro, and even told my Mom recently that I plan to do it. A lot of people think this is a “crazy” idea, but honestly I think working for someone else is what is truly “crazy”.
Thanks again for the Pro insight guys. I know that at the end of the day this is a decision that only I can make and only I can know if it's the right decision, but your feedback is invaluable!
Most Users Ever Online: 2780
Currently Online:
65 Guest(s)
Currently Browsing this Page:
1 Guest(s)
Top Posters:
bennymacca: 2616
Foucault: 2067
folding_aces_pre_yo: 1133
praetor: 1033
theginger45: 924
P-aire 146: 832
Turbulence: 768
The Riceman: 731
duggs: 591
florianm1: 588
Newest Members:
Tillery999
sdmathis89
ne0x00
adrianvaida2525
Anteeater
Laggro
Forum Stats:
Groups: 4
Forums: 24
Topics: 12705
Posts: 75003
Member Stats:
Guest Posters: 1063
Members: 12008
Moderators: 2
Admins: 5
Administrators: RonFezBuddy, Killingbird, Tournament Poker Edge Staff, ttwist, Carlos
Moderators: sitelock, sitelock_1
