Can someone make a long-term career at online poker?
 

Over the past couple of years there are tons of players coming in and making $20/hour playing online poker. This is a result of 2 main trends I think: 1. the huge bonuses given away by poker sites trying to be competitive and 2. all the new fish brought in by the WPT and WSOP on TV. There is no doubt that the very best players will always have a level of skill which will allow them to be paid well. But what about the 2nd tier players - the ones who play a mechanical Lee Jones style tight/aggressive game and just use nothing more than common sense to beat four $2/$4 games at once? Will these people still be making enough money to play pro 5 years from now or will the games dry up? Will bonuses dry up as the online poker industry suffers a shakeout from it's huge growth? A few years from now will cash games basically be a bunch of poker book-educated tight players just all breaking even or will there always be fish?

No!
 

Poker is about 3/4 luck, so if you are like me and all you see is bad beats, then you can't really make a living through poker.

if you play 1,000 hours of limit poker you think it is 75% luck?

Still, yes.
 

.....

I don't know if it's a living but a part time job
 

I started playing September '03 for real money when I won $70, then $100 at two different freeroll tourneys.

Since then, with bonuses, I've managed to build my bankroll up to $16,028 without a single deposit.

By playing tight aggressive with premium hands in hold 'em limit games, I started at .50/1, and now play mostly $2/$4 games - 4 tables at a time.

I don't think these sites are rigged, because if you're a good player (patient and disciplined) in the long run you will win. And if I ever feel uncomfortable at a site, I stop playing there and go where the money is. Also, if you know which hands to play, in which position and know when to give up you hand, I think the odds remain in your favor and can't imagine that I've won consistently because I am "lucky."

I'd say about half of my money came from bonuses though... and I'd recommend people try other sites for this reason.

if im a fish then i guess i'm a shark
 

I started playing poker having never played the game in November of 2003 because of the WPT and immediately was hooked with online poker. My initial bankroll on party poker was 250 dollars with a 20% deposit bonus. After losing my initial stake I reloaded with another 250 and no bonus and have since made over $98000.00 winning consistently on online poker.

I won the majority of my money winning two major multitable (43k and 24k) tournaments and have since left nearly every internet site.

I have restarted my stack with a 200 deposit just this last week on Empire poker and have already built it to 2340.

I do not do this full time playing 2 or more games at once- I usually play one table at $25 or $50 no limit. Ive become extremely adept at reading people online.

In real life I have won over $4900 playing in local games and tournaments at a local indian casino

Paynegod
 

And your still a fish sucka :) Wanna play some plo8 kid

Big Bucks
 

Ive turned $200 into $7,000 in 5 months playing cople hours a day online. I'm happy but a living no.

maybe but not playing limit poker
 

I started with limit poker on planet and lost, then to ultimate bet sit and go tourmneys and won a little. I finally figured out the key to the game is cost per hand and average pot size. In 50$ no limit the cost per hand is 7.5 cents and the average pot 10 to 12 $. If not heads up the net is about 8$. This means winning one average pot will allow you to see 100 flops.

To win you must wait for hands you have an overlay just like the casino takes any bet because they always have an overlay. With a hand like AQ and an earlier player raiises 2$, the usual response is to say i have a good hand lets see the flop .
The reality is the opposite: if the raiser is ak, you are a huge dog, if a pair (jj or lower) you are only 50%,if AA,KKor QQ you are an underdog. The hand goes in the muck and you are 7 cents poorer. There is a lot more to it but the key is determing if you have an overlay and in no limit poker this is easier than in limit.

If interisted I can amply if reuested.
Jim Ainslie at [email]Janet1@stn.net[/email]

I Hope So
 

im just new to online poker , i starter with a 25$ stake on ulltimate poker,got it up to 300, then blue it,learend my lesson! started with 25 again ,3 months later i got 2500,not great but easy money for sure,i plan to get better hit more sights,pick up bonuses+eventually go full time,why go to work in a boring job waisting ur life when u can make a living doing something u love!!!!!!!!!!!!
ps:question ultimate bet has a lot of bad beats, it seems to be all about the rake,all sights the same?can anyone recomend the best sights?................... tony THEPIRAT from ireland.............please contact me at [email]tonyrafter@eircom.net[/email] , all advice is welcome!!!!!!!

poker success
 

poker does involve luck BUT...

successful poker is about always making decisions where the odds favor you.
So if you are disciplined and have any sort of skill outside the mechanics of the game (reading people etc).
Then you can always make money in the RIGHT game.

If youre not winning in your current game then do two things:

1 - change to a game that you do regularly beat.
2- study and practice to improve to a point where you can move up stakes.

The only losers in poker play at games they shouldnt be in.

Thank the lord some people egos outweigh their wallets.

Its Possible
 

well ive never played real money on the net but i play on tigergaming.net and u start with1000$ and after 1 month im up to 200,000$ so.. itspossible if u can play

tighter?
 

do people here think the limit games are getting tighter or not?

Well, of course...How else can you win consistently at limit games. You need luck or you will lose. The trick is how to make the most profit when you do get the cards. You have to be very patient in that sort of game.

I see some of these comments as interesting...noone is going to post here saying how much money they have lost. First of all, unless you keep a record of all online and offline play you will never reallly know if your up or down. I know that each site keeps records but i guarantee everyone has taken a loss in some way. If you havent, you have not played enough. Otherwise, run dont walk, to the WSOP and I will see you on TV. Everyone who posts says that I won here and I won there, guess what? someone is losing big and it is not the everyday joe that logs on and says why not deposit $50 and see what happens. These guys lose once and uninstall the software. Sure there are some people that make a living with onlinepoker but it is very rare and sometimes not legit(aka party poker million that was proven to be rigged). Its very easy to forget those times where you lose and exagerate the times that you win. As far as tournament play online, it is fun and I recommend it. Can someone play in low limit and make money.....yes. In the long run though its not likely. Not because of the money but because once someone starts winning they think, that they are better than the hand that is dealt to them. Higher limit is different. If you are a by the book player and can lay down good hands it is possible. There is nothing better for an online player to play in some live tournaments because there is a huge difference. When i play in las vegas I am amazed at the amount of tourists who play, and how easy it is to win. When I play in my hometown, people who play are people who know poker and its much more difficult. This is just my view as I know that people who respond will believe how that they are great solid players that win............

very well put..i was just thinking the same thing before i read your post. especially the one guy who said he could "read online players" ... 98% of people playing poker, DO NOT know how to read someone, and when people think they do, they are way off base!

I totally agree....
 

I have taken some totally bs bad beats online. Also, the quality of play is either too terrible to read or the players are too good to read. I can read people in real games after a while. I am right about 3/4 of the time when I do that. I don't see how you can really read people online accurately though. On top of that, even if you do, you will get the bad beat reguardless. You have to be very lucky to make an entire living from poker. Most of the guys on the WSOP and WPT were either extremely rich or totally broke before and during play anyway.

NO ONE HAS ANswered the question yet
 

It is possible to make a living at online poker!
The question is what kind of living, you would need to have the Right playing skills as well as money management skills to do it.
At small stakes it is possible by playing 4 tables at once, someone that is a good SIT& go player can make $4 a tourney on average... 4 at once =$16. It only take about an hour for these so thats $16 an hour.... Thats not a bad living... but its not great either... The question about it lasting though is alittle debatable. I think the game will always be good at the low limits... So as long as you know what your doing you can get by. I say in 5-10 years It wont be possible to make a large amount at the higher levels, but lower levels will always be good.

I started playing poker online about a year ago. So far it has been trial and error. In many cases I've seen people play cards they "shouldnt" and take down fat pots. I've made a point of paying attention to those type of players and capitolizing on their stupidity when sitting on nut hands. It's still very tough for me to lay down when I should but I'm getting better at it. At this point I'm down about $400 but was down quite a bit more about 6 months ago. I've spent a lot more money on other vices in my life. I don't know if I would ever be able to make a living at poker but that hardly means it cant be done. It's a nice daydream for me, Good luck to all of you. send the fish my way.

poker for a living
 

yes you can and i do il tell you how and where. party poker under step tourneys you buy in at 11 and work your way up to the 5 step which pays out 4900$ all you have to do is sit and wait til a hand. the first step is the hardest since people only pay 12 to play it. here s a rundown
step 1 11+1 buy in top 2 advance to step2
step 2 50+5 buy in or tix top 3 move on to step 3
step 3 200+10 buy in or tix top 3 advance
step 4 500+ 25 buy in or tix top 4 advance(peice of cake just play smart)
step 5 1000 buy in or tix top 4 posotions pay out
1st 4900
2nd 3500
3rd 2500
4th 1900
this is a peice of cake way to make alot of profit if your smart and let the idiots play out. ive made about 40k in 2 months and i have only played about 85 games. you do the math. you will constantly see the same 5-10 players at the final table and these guys are good, they are making about 20 k a day playing smart.
my email is [email]plasticcookies2000@yahoo.com[/email] if you have any questions i would love to answer them for you. you Can and Will turn your 12 buy in into 4900 if you are confident and smart. thought i would let you know about this easy way-i cant beleive more people are not doing it, you will be surprised how few players even try. i suggest putting 200$ into it and only ,and i mean ONLY play small tourneys and the steps.when you win the 4900 if you do dont go playing in big games that 4900 only means that you have that many more tries to make it again. it might take you 10 more tries but thats still a profit of 3900. good luck see ya there Brian

id like to see some income statements that prove so.

as for me, ive lost more than 2k online, at my worst i was down 3k one day and made it up in 25 minutes. im the person the online people make the money off of i guess.

In real games, I do alright, im not the best by any means, i can read some people, other people are just idiots worse than me, sometimes i get string of luck.

the issue i see with online gambling is how lucrative it seems. in my mind when i started playing (and have since stopped) it was that I was better than 50% of the people because i was up a couple hundred a few days after i started. Its been only after about a year of losing bit by bit, that ive realized i have no business being online and that i consistently do well in real games.

i guess the other question i have is, who WANTS to do poker for a living? it doesnt seem like its that glamorous when you look at the primetime players, when you compare it to actors, athletes, and CEOS.

In Gordon's book "The Real Deal" he says that you can play poker professionaly if you play 30/60 hold 'em and rake 1 big blind an hour. 5 days a week 8 hours a day and you'll pull down roughly 60K a year. Sounds simple enough.......GOOD LUCK!! I'll keep my job and play on the side thanks.

poker online for a living
 

I will be completely honest. I lost about 3 grand after being up a grand two years ago on party poker.
I then a year later, lost about 2 grand on planet poker.
This year, I bought in for 100 bucks to paradise poker, and now have cashed out over five thousand, I am finally ahead.
But it has to do with the site and your play.
I went back to planet poker, and have lost a few hundred again, all the while, still winning on paradise.

I think planet poker is rigged a bit, not rigged, but it's so small a lot of the players are using AOL to cheat and compare hands. This is the truth. The other sites are big enough to avoid the collusion.

Truth be told almost 90 % of poker players say they are either winners, just someone who plays recreationally and doesnt care about the money, or that at the end of it all ( day, session, year, etc etc.. ) they end up even .. sorry , but thats not true .. almost 85% percent of all amateurs that play poker are losers. they lose consistently and hope for that one big payout, the WSOP or a great run of cards at a WPT event they can hardly even buy in for. to make it big is a huge investment of time and a lot of patience. to quote Dave Scharf of Canadian Poker Player Magazine " poker is not nascar ..things dont happen fast " as for online, beware of the automaticness of pushing a button and having money deducted from ur Credit card. It can sometimes not feel as real as sitting across from someone and playing a live game. To play poker online for hours at a time can be draining and all that to win 2 BB's an hour ?? it can be done but is it really worth doing ? i think ill keep my job thanks and ill meet the boys on wednesday night like i have for the past 6 years, well talk about the bad beats and make fun of each others play and most of all ... always question how good we really and wonder if well ever get to play in the big one ?
Good luck on the tables and may all ur pots be huge

I guess if you are an introvert you could make a living of it, I myself like poker because of playing the people, i do however enjoy online just to sharpen the skills and keep the game clear in my head. I guess you'd be your own boss though which definitely has its advantages...

<<all that to win 2 BB's an hour ?? it can be done but is it really worth doing ? >>

I agree with your post. But 2BB/hour is $32/hour if you are playing 4 tables of $2/$4 and $16/hour at $1/$2. For people out there grinding it out at a entry level job I think it can have appeal. Most of the people who tell you "I wouldn't sit home and play poker" probably hve jobs they like - but most people don't in my opinion.

Very well put, I couldn't agree more.

NDdude
 

It is very possible to make a living playing online poker. I am one of the most honest poker players you will ever meet. If you are considering playing online poker for the first time, or considering getting serious about online poker, let me tell you this...
From someone who has been playing all types of poker for nearly 20 years, It cost me about 4k to learn how to play online poker. That's right, I lost about 4k before I started winning. Did I have days where I won $1500? Oh yeah, I had hours where I won that much, but overall it cost me 4k to learn how to play online poker. I stopped playing for about 3 months after dropping 4k online. I had to take a moment to reflect what I had done so differently than live play? The answer: Nothing. You have to play incredibly tight in order to make a living playing online poker. Also, you have to track your winnings every single day (whether you are a live player or an online player). I do that. Keep in mind, playing online, there will be times when you are running hot. You may make 3k in one day, you may also lose 3k in one day (both of those things have happened to me, & I don't consider myself that high of a stakes player, max I ever played online was $15/30). Max I ever played in NL was $5/10 NL. You must be patient though, patient & always play tight. In live games I am a much looser player than I am online. That is b/c it makes it much more difficult for people to read me (in live games). Online, there is no read, you either have it, or you don't. End of story.

is anybody really goiin to answer this question?
 

ok...let me take a stab at it even tho i have limited knowledge of the subject...

let's say a decent living is $60k/yr, before taxes. not a whole lot, but a decent living. that works out to $5k/month, also before taxes.

we all know that poker is a feast/famine enterprise, so some months you might only make $1 or $2k (hope you've put your $$ away for these months), while others u may hit a hot streak and win a tourney or two and bring in $10k or so.

how would u go about making the $5k consistently? the beauty of internet gambling is that you can mix your game between cash games and tournaments without the added expense of gas or airfare/hotel. not to mention that you can play as often and for whatever stakes you have the bankroll to fund. with that in mind, i would want to go into each month with at least $1000 available for buy-ins and tournament entry fees available (an additional $12k annually, which would either bring your annual gross to $72k, or reduce it to $48k, depending on how u look at it).

another great part of internet gambling is the opportunity to play free sattelites to qualify for live games, which are great chances to pick up big money.

that's all my brain and i feel like thinking on this subject right now, i'd love to see some more discussion along these lines as opposed to, "i made $100,000 with a $5 investment". there has to be a practical way to approach being a "professional" online player, and i'm curious as to what that is.

making a living online
 

id say probably not as there seems to be alot more badbeats online than in home games, i feel its slightly fixed, but i would say offline games you probably could live off, casino and home games.

Maybe hes not like you maybe he doesn't suck, theirs no way that you have that horrible of luck and as for your question YES , for example Chris Moneymaker, and a couple of others but i don't suggest it

Yes, you can. And luck has very little to do with it.
 

Of course one can make a living playing online poker. Just like one can make a living betting horses or football games. The question isn't whether one can...it's whether YOU can.

The answer is no, for the vast majority of people. They don't have the patience for it, they don't have the guts for it, they don't have the bankroll for it, or they just don't have the smarts for it. Most importantly, they won't do the work that's necessary to make it worthwhile.

But all this crap about "bad luck" this and "bad beat" that...jesus. Some of these people need to play Craps or something. They're obviously dependant upon the mystical forces of life. Why not just pray that money winds up in your pockets?

This game of ours is a game of SKILL and a game of MATH. You had better have a very good grasp of both or you're going to get beat...online, in a casino, or wherever. And you'd better be able to not only deal with the bad beats (which don't happen online anymore than in a brick and mortar) but have them anticipated and planned for. Fluctuations happen...but the MATH always wins out in the end, so long as you're in when you have the best of it, and out when you don't. Knowing when you're in which position is the skill part.

To win online well enough to "make a living at it" you had better start with a very good bankroll, and you'd better know how to bonus-whore. You'd better play the right games at the right stakes, and you'd better be able to do it without a lot of distraction (cause that's the number one killer of your abilities online...the inability to focus and pay attention). And the one thing I positively would get out of your head is the idea of playing four tables at a time. If I am going to call myself a professional, I'm going to play like one. You have enough to do on ONE table...playing four at a time is suicidal. You might get away with it for a while, but you're killing your game. You'll be just another fish eventually, when you get up against someone who IS paying attention. It might take you the other three tables just to make up for what you're dumping stupidly on the one...money you wouldn't be dumping at all if you were just watching what's going on.

And as for these dolts who are claiming "yeah, I played online for just three days, started with fourteen dollars and half a stick of gum, and now I'm up $85,000..." These people aren't lucky, and they aren't talented. They're liars. I guarantee they're lying to themselves, more than anyone. I'll put my poker skills up against anyone I haven't seen on television (and several of those I have)...and I can parlay a pittance into a nice bankroll, too...but these claims of multiple-thousand-dollar victories after starting with next to nothing are a crock of horsehockey. Stu Ungar and Doyle Brunson COMBINED couldn't pull that off. Given YEARS, yes. In a month or two? Bullchips.

living
 

First Chris Moneymaker does not now nor has he ever made a living at online poker. In fact he has lost thousands.
If you are looking at online poker as a career picking the right game is crucial. Low limit games are diffucult to crack because the rake in these games is generally much more than in B&M simply because of the time it takes to play hands. Professionals (specifically...Dutch Boyd) have said that the rake in online poker is way out of line.
If you want to make a living at online poker....host your own site.

Why?
 

Why do people always tend to take a thing that they truly love to spend time doing, and choke the life out of it by trying to turn it into a job?

sure
 

i have a friend who plays poker online and basically jumps around from site to site finding bonuses and stuff like that and he has profited alot from that....so i guess if your good enough and have the time and MONEY the it can be a part time thing because i dont thing that you can be very sucessfull

Quoted for truth.

Personally I Have Only been playing Online for literally 3 days (Brick and mortar longer hosue games since forever) And In Honesty Im Up about 3 bucks. Thats it. Thats a Dollar a day playing $.02/$.04 Limit Hold 'Em. Over 600 hands played now and im only up 150 small blinds. Granted playing higherstakes there would be more money but differant players. I dont play Online for money I play for practice, Only intrested in making enough to keeo playing online.

For now. I Feel sometime in the future I might consider online play as a way to make money, not a sole source of income but as much as a part time job would bring in, maybe more. This seriously isn't going to happen over night. I Still need to learn alot about the differance in Online play(the maniacs sheesh) Everyone can always improve their game. My Bankroll is fairly weak(23 dollars whoo hoo) I Havent done much bonus hunting or grinding. ect. Its possible perhaps even likely I will be at one point but its not so after 3 days.

I keep seeing references to the Party Poker Million being rigged. What is the story with this?

i got a questions is it possible for your poker winings online to not count towards ur taxes...like do you have to file them or is it possible to not do it

Yes, you *can* make a living. Whatever you choose to do -- backgammon, poker, golf, dart, basketball, bonds trading, or playing the sackpipes -- if you are among the best of the best you can *always* make a career of it.

Personally, I'm an intermediate player, haven't played for very long but at least I've done my homework and I'm playing fairly tight and low limit. So far I'm happy to break even. However, even if I turn out to win consistently over, say, the next half year, I would not want to quit my job and turn it into a career, for the following reasons:

1) With poker as a single source of income, I would be very vulnerable to the occasional draughts in income. If the rent is at stake, maybe that would impair my judgement. In any case, I would need a very large bankroll to hedge myself.
2) There is not always a correct answer in poker. How would I know for absolutely sure that I haven't just been lucky for a while?
3) It's a lonely job.
4) Not the noblest of reasons -- but it's easier to hide any poker incomes from our local I.R.S. if I have a real source of income. I live in a country where we pay aboub 50 (yessir, fifty!) percent in income tax

Also, I do have a decent job (software developer). I actually make good money, get good food and a certain prestige from it. There are good days and bad days but all in all I'd probably miss it.

money 2 burn
 

I think it is quite possible to make a career of online poker, But you have to invest the time. I work full time and am not willing to give up my guarenteed pay check for a what if or maybe. After all its still a gamble.