Poker Pro Q&A
Since I took it easy this weekend (what an awesome week of football) I thought I would do something a little different here. I'm going to use the post to open up an open Q&A about being a poker pro. They can be general questions or anything more personal about my career. Go ahead and post your questions in the comments here and I'll be happy to answer it.
posted by Ryan Carter @ 3:57 AM
20 Comments
20 Comments:
How'd you get started? When did you realize (at what limit, perhaps) that you could go pro? What sis you play and what site(s) when you first played and turned pro?
Thanks for doing this.
I'm in a weird situation. Since the start of this year, I haven't been able to win a single morning session (12 sessions and counting), but my afternoon/evening sessions show the usual distribution between winning and losing ones.
Before I chalk it up to variance, I'd like to know from you if you've noticed any major differences between morning and evening play?
(Just in case it's relevant, I'm usually 4-tabling 50NL 6max @ UB or FT)
Many of us dream to be a Pro Poker player but only a few of us will succeed.
My question is: if you start with playing Poker (I have read a book about Poker, so I should know something about the seating, when to fold etc...) what are the best tables to play. SNGs or Limit Holdem or anything else?
1. I know you set hand goals for the month. Do you also set goals for the hours you want to get in? Also do you sit down and schedule your week ahead of time, like say I'm going to play from 9:00 - 12:00 on Monday?
2. Do you have health insurance?
3. Are you saving for retirement?
4. Do you have a plan if online poker goes away?
5. This goes back to #1 but how many hours and days do you play in a week?
6. What's your sleep schedule like?
7. How did you family and friends take the news of you going pro and how did you tell them?
8. What's the biggest positives and negatives with this career choice for you? (stress, social life, etc.)
9. Where do you see your game in next few years ($1000+NL, tournaments, etc.)?
10. Would you recommend this lifestyle to someone with a family if they was making more money at poker than at their job and had a long term winning record?
Thanks for doing this and sorry for so many questions.
9.
Reply to Kevin:
After I left college I moved to Chicago with Jared and another friend, this is where we learned poker. I started winning right away and used it to get by for a few weeks before I got a job. When I moved to Texas to work for a ccg company I stopped playing for a while.
After that ended I moved back to MI where I used a combination of pizza delivery, poker, and an eBay business to get by. In the summer of 04 I went on a road trip across the US with Jared and another friend. During that Jared and I decided to move to FL and give playing poker for a living a shot.
During that time I was playing the strategy we created on party poker.
Reply to Kazana:
There are two possible reasons your morning play could be worse than your evening play.
1). Studies have shown that for the first hour you are awake your brain activity is the same as if you were drunk. This is why I wait at least an hour before I play a sessions. Try to eat a good meal and work out before you play, that should help.
2). You might not be practicing good game selection in the morning. If you are randomly picking tables you will have are more likely to find good tables during the peak evening hours than you are in the morning. It' pretty easy to get stuck at a table with 3-4 serious players when you play in the morning. You can still find great tables in the AM, but you just have to try harder.
Reply to Dremeber:
The best advice I can give is to play whatever you enjoy the most. Every single game online can be incredibly profitable. Personally I find NL cash games to be fun and think you can have a huge edge if you do your homework.
Reply to Titans01:
1). I don't really pick a certain # of hours, just whatever will allow me to get in all the hands I need. Currently I don't schedule times specific times. I usually just try to plan it more generally, say a 3 hour session in the afternoon and a 2 hour session at night.
2). I currently do not but am working on getting it very soon. As much of a scam that insurance is, it's still incredibly important. I wouldn't suggest become a pro until you work out how you will get it.
3). I started investing for retirement in 06, and will increase those investments in 07.
4). It's definitely something I've thought of. If I wanted to continue playing poker I would either move to Vegas and play live, or move out of the country so I can continue playing online. Recently I've been studying Internet marketing as a backup plan to poker.
5). Ideally I would get in 30, but my biggest leak is not getting in enough playing time.
6). Currently I am going to sleep around 5am and waking up at 1pm.
7). Both of my parents took it pretty well. My mom doesn't really like the fact that I "gamble" for a living, but she respects that I am doing what I love. There have been a few gambling problems in my family in the past, so a good portion of them don't know it's what I do. Personally I wouldn't care if they knew, but my mom doesn't think they could handle it so I respect that. Most of my friends think it's incredibly cool.
8). The biggest positive is that I am able to do something I truly love for a living. I've always known I wouldn't be able to work an office job while staying sane, so the freedom it provides is amazing. The money is also great compared to what most people can make.
As for negatives, if I'm not careful playing online for a living can get me in a rut where I don't get out of the house very much. While the freedom is great, if you're not careful it can change into full blown laziness. The line is often very thin, but there is a huge difference between enjoying freedom and being lazy, and I know I occasionally fall in the lazy category.
9). I would like to be playing 5/10NL and 4-6 10k live tournaments a year.
10). As long as you have great emotional control I think it's a great option. You need to make sure you don't take out your bad days on your family. If you can do that making more money will provide better for your family, and the extra time you can spend with them is priceless. Since it's not just you you're providing for you MUST make sure you have 6+ months of living expenses saved up.
Ryan thx for your answer. I will stay on the SNG with low buy-ins.
If you willing to exchange links, drop me a line at http://dremeber.blogspot.com
Cheers,
Dremeber
Hello, and thanks for doing this.
What are some of the ways you improved your ability to read players' weaknesses?
Reply to whodatdare:
It's something that comes with experience. Play a lot of hands an pay very close attention. If you do this you will soon find that you are able to pick up on things you couldn't before.
I noticed that your bankroll is around $2800. Do you currently have other sources of income, or do you have more money saved away? I am curious to how you maintain paying your bills, food, rent/mortgage, etc... Do you plan on withdrawing from this bankroll lets say when rent is due? or do you pull money from another source, such as savings account? If you don't pull money from your bankroll, at what point will you begin to make withdraws? thanks.
Reply to calisweetheart:
That's all pretty much laid out at the beginning of the blog. I have savings, but the goal is to make all my living expenses from rakeback/bonus money. I don't have a set cash out time, I just usually do it once a month after rakeback is paid.
Just curious, did you withdraw the $1350 form your br last month? Or since it was the holidays did you not? Just curious, as to I'm on a similiar path (OzzyTilt on your site), being I have soem money saved, but would like poker to paly for everyithing.
Also, wha'ts this Party stradgdy you guys had?
Loved the first UB50nl vid, When's the next one up. (I thought it was going to be a weekly thang :p)
reply to anonymous:
I should have another video up by the end of the week. Now that we have had good feedback we will start producing them more regularly.
Hey Ryan,
I just wanted to thank you for your advice (regarding losing morning sessions). I appreciate your input.
I have been able to break the spell, but I wasn't aware of the 1 hour after waking up effect.
I'm now trying to compensate for that by starting up my tables more slowly. First only one, after 10 minutes add a second, after another 10 the next, etc.
It feels to me as if this works better, since I've got a good general "feel" for the first table, before I add the next. And it's not that hard to pay attention to initially one table than jumping into 4 seats immediately.
Another question:
How do you go about table selection on UB?
I usually try my best to do some table selection, it's just that I find it difficult to do that effectively on UB.
Datamining isn't possible, and I don't play that much (avg ~700 hands per day) to have any significant stats on most players.
I'd typically sit down at the highest VPIP and pot-size tables and take it from there. If it turns out to be too nitty (after 2-3 orbits), or that I caught a bad seat (nits to my left, maniacs to my right), I'll move on.
Is there a better way of selecting if you don't have the filled database that a pro has?
Doh, small correction:
Of course, I meant nits to my right and maniacs to my left by catching a "bad seat".
What are some (3 or 4) of the biggest weaknesses you've seen from the players at this level?
reply to kazana: One of the best ways to do it is by a process of elimination. When you find someone who you think is a decent player take notes on them and start a "good player" list. When sitting down at tables avoid the ones that have regulars on it. You should be able to tell who these people are after a few days, and use pokertracker to help you spot them. Also, when you find a terrible player add them to your ultimate buddy list and try to play at their table as often as possible.
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