Joined: May '12
Location: United Kingdom
Age: 38 (M)
Posts: 2064
For a while now I've been wondering how hard it is to turn professional, and how everything will change if I did... Am I good enough? Do I have the patience? the determination? the mindset to cope with downswings, and all manner of bad beats?
Well... I finally decided - what's the point in wondering all the time? Why not find out for sure?
So now, the Pro Experiment has begun.
I want to stick purely to Zoom, as the FPP I earn there far exceeds anything I could on a regular table... and I want to have a very comfortable bankroll - so I never have to worry about it... just have to worry about making the right decisions. So I've gone for 100 buy ins. At the $0.01/.02 level, you can take $2 to a table, so $200 is my starting roll.
I play 4 tables at a time, and aim to play around 10,000 hands a day at the weekends and 5,000 in the week (it's only an experiment so far, so not giving up the day job just yet)...
If I get my roll over $500, I will move up to the $0.02/0.05 limit, but will drop back down if I was to go back to $200 or below.
I'm intending to withdraw half of my profits each week, with the other half adding to my bankroll. If I make a loss, I withdraw nothing. I hope to get to a point where I can make weekly withdrawals win or lose...
A few days in, and my bankroll is currently $347
The swings are crazy - worse than I imagined, which is why the strict bankroll management is so important. If I had started with 50 buy ins, the swings would've affected me more I'm sure.
Some other observations...
AK sucks on Zoom tables - truly horrible hand... I will bet, 3 bet and 4 bet with it preflop.. but don't expect to take too many hands down on the flop when you miss with it.
If you get 5 bet preflop THEY HAVE GOT ACES. Very few exceptions there. Queens should be folded to a 4 bet as there's just no value to call whatsoever... you push all in and YOU WILL BE BEHIND ACES OR KINGS.
3 Betting the button with marginal hands is a good money spinner... people don't like to fold preflop after raising, but will be hard pushed to call a 70% pot bet on a flop they have totally missed. Keep piling up those 3 bets, and the chips will follow.
I'll keep you all updated on how things are going. Wish me luck
------------ The FPP rewards for this are pretty good too I think. I've earned around 800 so far - I am 500 or so points away from my last $10 reward, then it moves up to $50 for 1000FPP... which I can earn in 1 week at the $0.02 tables... After that, the amount of points I need goes up, but won't take long at the rate of 1000fpp per week to knock them off. Once I get to the $0.05 tables, I'd hope to be pulling in around 2200fpp per week... so SuperNova isn't totally out of the question either.
Joined: May '13
Location: Mauritius
Age: 32 (M)
Posts: 2688
Cheers mate , good luck how you make it in the trial phase before you go pro, some people does not do that and come crashing down after a few bad months so good luck, hope you can keep up the good work and have fun in doing the challenge will be rooting for you to come out the winner here. Cheers mate have fun and also be strict and i think you should lower the limit for you to move down. Like 500 dollars you move up, reaching 350 dollars you move down, so less grind to move up again! Hope to see more of your posts!
Joined: Mar '09
Location: Portugal
Age: 57 (M)
Posts: 1703
Same here I will follow your posts with the most attention A nice challenge and very good goldand a hard one too but so far it seems that you are doing pretty good ,the bakroll is growing at a steddy pace so keep up the good work I will berooting for you
Joined: May '11
Location: United Kingdom
Age: 32 (M)
Posts: 97
Hello mate! It's seems you are doing well by now and that is good news for you! Do you see the same players at the tables, and if so, did you get to learn something about their style and how to outplay them? I also played rush poker a while ago but after some consideration I decided that it's not the best game for me, I need something more stable. Anyway, good luck with your quest, may you succeed and keep us updated! Cheers mate!
Joined: May '12
Location: United Kingdom
Age: 38 (M)
Posts: 2064
Hi BubbkleGumTrb - thanks for your comments
Interestingly enough - I do come across the same players all the time... although I'm playing in a field of close to a thousand players at peak times, I'm spotting a lot of reg's.
As I have Poker Tracker running I am collecting a lot of info... With 4 tables tiled on the screen, I have to turn the HUD off, or it gets in the way... but when facing a 3 bet or 4 bet, I can flick it on and see who I'm dealing with. I try not to make decisions based solely on that, but it's something else to help me make the right play.
Joined: Mar '09
Location: Greece
Age: 47 (F)
Posts: 14136
I wish you all the best in your little experiment. I hope all goes right and you can turn "pro" The only think i didnt like here is that you play zoom games. Are you sure its the way to do this. I have mostly read frustration stories playing fast games. I hope yours differs. Best of luck.
Joined: Feb '11
Location: Germany
Age: 31 (M)
Posts: 1859
Good luck with this, one thing I don't understand though - why limit yourself? If you had played bigger stakes before then why not just carry on with them instead of wasting time at the lowest stake where you'll make less money? Because realisticly I wouldn't even think of going fulltime below NL25, even if you can stay motivated enough for 200Khands/month, however this is going to be very hard. I did use poker as sole income for one year (though I surely had by far less commitments than you in terms of money) and I know from expirience you're 10 times more motivated if you do something useful (job) during the day, having poker as hobby.
One more thing I'd recommend - don't do weekly profit chops, set yourself a monthly wage (whatever you need to live very comfortably) and cash that out, if you make more a month just leave it on your account, build your roll with it to have more aavings during a downswing. Otherwise you'll feel troubled if you have several bad weeks in a row (possible even if you can keep up the good volume).
Another thing - definitely remaim a life outside of poker. Go to the gym a few times a week or something and do not invest too much time into the game, otherwise it will make you sick sooner or later.
I wish you good luck with that "journey" and will definitely follow it
I really like your experiment, and that you are sharing your experience with us!
I'm sure a few Mobsters will be wondering about this themselves, and will be able to live vicariously through you... I hope you'll be making serious money before you lose enjoyment of the game, and maybe find a level where you don't have work 120 hour weeks to make a living... Good luck!
Joined: Feb '11
Location: Germany
Age: 31 (M)
Posts: 1859
Is this over already (saw you at PLO100 zoom and NL2-7 last night)? If you got on tilt because you dropped some definitely get away from the whole idea with this mindset. Also,you have to stay realistic. If you really won $147 within a few days solely playing NL2 Zoom (by now I doubt it) then you were on a MASSIVE upswing! Even if you have the level to have a great 10bb/100 (even at NL2 this is a lot,especially for zoom) you would've needed to play 75K hands (meaning you normally need about 70-90 hours of play to profit that amount).
So, if this really is your dream,what I'd recommend you the most is get a professional Mindset about poker first. This might be the hardest thing of all, but it's the most important thing as well. Rarely look at daily results, and if you do then at least don't have it effect you, win or loss, always think in theoretical results (EV,volume,true winrate and so on).
Joined: May '12
Location: United Kingdom
Age: 38 (M)
Posts: 2064
Haha... you did see me at PLO100 and NL2-7... Kinda realised that grinding for hours a day while still working isn't the best plan. So decided to have some fun. I have back-up bankroll if I need it... but IDK... Maybe the grinders life isn't for me.
Just for the record... the $147 profit was from a combination of things - $50ish from the Zoom (at 30 odd BB/100 massive upswing I know... A couple of $10 bonuses I unlocked and a few little tourney cashes too.
I think I enjoy tournament poker too much to stick solely to live - so I'm rethinking how I will go forward.
Bankroll is around $400 now... but I have to stay away from the PLO and 2-7 unless I want to lose it all.
Joined: Jan '12
Location: Tunisia
Age: 31 (M)
Posts: 664
Gl on your challenge mate !
I think that the BRM is too nitty for micro stakes especially NL2 and NL5 and it's really boring grinding those stakes with a NL10 bankroll.
I am very happy to be a part of such a great community, wish you the best of luck at the tables, off the tables, behind the tables, under the tables and in your life in general. Yours truly highyeah, somewhere near the Mediterranean Sea.
Joined: Feb '11
Location: Germany
Age: 31 (M)
Posts: 1859
If you love tournament poker so much, why not just grind it out online? I'm really 100% certain that with the BR you have (I'm similary rolled atm) you'll get forward much faster playing SNGs. I've recently switched to non turbo games (I really love turbos, but the edge at non turbos is sooo much bigger, I'll actually have a bigger hourly there), grinding the $3.50s atm (for non turbos games $400 might even be enough to grind $7s, but I can't afford to go busto on a downswing, so I stick to an at least 100BI BRM). Normal regs (solely playing ABC from what I've seen) make about $0.50/game at the 9 man STTs (can recommend especially the KOs, I'm playing them, you'll sometimes feel like you're playing 10 Cent SNGs), there are also few that have made over $1/game at good sample, but obv. they move up pretty quickly. My EV is at about 25% ROI now after a few hundreds played, and I really am no specialist for poker in general (my postflop play is often pretty bad/lazy because I'm used to push/folding alot after over 30K turbo SNGs played). I'd also say seeing you can play 4 tables of zoom you should have no problem playing 15 tables at once of them, which could make a good hourly. Based on EV my HEM shows me a hourly of $16 pre RB.
Just saying maybe you want to look at grinding SNGs+some MTTs, join me at the $3.50s or something
If you have problems staying away from cash, just go to the lobby, go to Responsible Gaming/Restrict Table Limits and block yourself. I've also blocked myself from everything above NL5 because I used to start tilting alot as well.
