When should a poker player decide to go pro?

[Rolling chances]

This is not relevant to me in any shape or form but for the purpose of bouncing some ideas of the logical thinkers here its worth getting some idea of what kind of BR you would need, living expenses, buy ins at a decent limit (200 or 400 nl) and winrate, would it be worth to start entertaining the idea?

My thoughts would be 6 months living expenses taken care of, steady 2BB per 100 hands over a large 200k+ hand sample size over 1-3 years to show consistency. Obviously if you have a girlfriend, car or a mortgage, these requirements will go up as dead weight costs will incur a higher minimum requirement

[robbyd86]

those seem like decent guidelines, i didn't follow any of them however . I moved to Thailand tho, where stuff is cheap and I can afford to take a shot.

They're many other things to consider as well. Jamesma and BW05707 both wrote some nice blogs related to the subject here and here.

From personal experience and from what friends have shared, it's definitely a lot of added pressure when going pro. Downswings feel 3x as bad, winning a little bit just isn't good enough, and putting in volume becomes mandatory instead of just whatever.

If you're young, single, debt free, and been winning then I think it's a no brainer to go pro. Just have to be well prepared and work hard.

[Probability]

Kind of on topic, I was watching some Ted talks the other day and one discussed how financially incentivized people had the worst results. The task that the speaker analyzed was teams building structures out of straws and marshmallows and some other stuff. With no prize pool teams built structures that were 16" tall on average. With a cash reward all the teams failed (none of the structures stood upright) because all the teams tried to overextend and build too tall. Money did not improve performance.

Also interesting was who did best. Architects came in first, followed closely by children. After that CEO'S were next but only if paired with their administrative assistant. Without their assistants in the group CEO's went almost to the bottom of the rankings.

Anyway, I think this relates to playing poker for a living while living abroad because there is a large downside to not doing well. You would have to go home and you are broke. Conversely, there is a big reward for doing well. You get to stay where you want and live on your terms, making decisions because you want to.

This is the ultimate type of pressure and can contribute to very poor performance in a lot of cases. It's important to be aware that there is often significant pressure to achieve significant rewards which leads to poorer overall performance. Generally much poorer than anyone would expect.

[Probability]

LINK to Ted talk

[JamesMa]

I would say its important to have a poker BR and a liviing cashflow so that if you end up going bust that you do have some time to find another job instead of worrying about being evicted the next month. 100 BI for poker is sufficient and having at least 3 months living expenses if you go busto is good but may need more depending on how hard you think it will be to find another way to make $

[Rolling chances]

yeh cheers fellas, i think if someone were to determine to go pro they should either consider the medium of going casual in a job they are in, cutting down hours worked to focus on poker and progressively transition over to poker being a full time job.

Theses days the player pools are fare tougher than they were 3-4 years ago when any decent TAG could run the tables at 50 to 200 nl. now you find sharks playing as low as 10 nl.

based on the added pressure of poker being the sole income i would want to be well clear of those requirements mentioned. id have to be living pretty comfortably, so if a downswing were to occur at say 3-6 or 2-4 i could handle it over a longer period of time without throwing too much good money after bad

[rachelwall]

Interesting thing to read here. If you would decide to go pro, it would be a whole lot of new level in order to really got things done in the long run. I really hope that things would work out if, and only if, you plan in order to make things work.

[Prologion]

Originally Posted by robbyd86

those seem like decent guidelines, i didn't follow any of them however . I moved to Thailand tho, where stuff is cheap and I can afford to take a shot.

They're many other things to consider as well. Jamesma and BW05707 both wrote some nice blogs related to the subject here and here.

From personal experience and from what friends have shared, it's definitely a lot of added pressure when going pro. Downswings feel 3x as bad, winning a little bit just isn't good enough, and putting in volume becomes mandatory instead of just whatever.

If you're young, single, debt free, and been winning then I think it's a no brainer to go pro. Just have to be well prepared and work hard.

How is the situation in thailand?
I will move next year myself out, into a poker-friendly country.
Atm gibraltar is my favourite b/c poker there is legal and taxfree, though in thailand the living costs are way way cheaper - so can you mb tell me how the situation there is?
If you do not wanna discuss it public, we could mb talk about it via pms or skype?

Would rly appreciate some infos here

[Rolling chances]

ive heard Monaco is a great country to play poker professionally because it is seen as a "legitimate" and "reasonable" way to make a living.

Its also a really nice place to live ive heard, Gus Hansen and Patrik Antonius reside there

[robbyd86]

Originally Posted by Prologion

How is the situation in thailand?
I will move next year myself out, into a poker-friendly country.
Atm gibraltar is my favourite b/c poker there is legal and taxfree, though in thailand the living costs are way way cheaper - so can you mb tell me how the situation there is?
If you do not wanna discuss it public, we could mb talk about it via pms or skype?

Would rly appreciate some infos here

The situation in Thailand is good. Rather than answering off topic questions back and forth in this thread, you can add me on skype: r0bbyd