10 years as a live pro, mostly 2/5, approaching $1 million lifetime profit, AMA
As the title suggests, I thought it would be fun to do an AMA for the 2+2 community to see if I can provide some insight
Hi everybody! It’s been a long time since I’ve posted a long form update to my thread, and after looking at the first page or 2, I realize a lot has changed in my life
Since making this thread over 1.5 years ago, I’ve
-Gotten married
-my wife had a baby
-we bought a house together
Big life changes indeed! All of which have shaped my career in some ways
For those wondering, the house buying process was absurdly smooth for a poker player. I had been preparing for this for years, expecting the worst, so I had my finances in order as much as I could.
I worked hard to keep my income very steady (and increasing) from 2021 to 2024, I had good documentation, and we closed on our house in just a few weeks. Having a wife with a normie job definitely helped, but if any pros are reading this, I assure you it IS doable buying a house. And we got a pretty darn nice one too!
As for poker, I’ll share my 2/5 graph and chart since I made this thread.
Volume is way down, especially since having a baby. Even when we were newlyweds, I took off a lot of time for honeymoon and just to enjoy life. After my wife gave birth, I barely worked for 3 months, and after that, a lot of months were under 100 hours
Despite the lack of volume, you’ll see I’m doing quite well. In addition to the image, I’ve made about $10K in promo money, as well as small profits in tourneys. Probably approaching $1.2 mil lifetime from poker
Things change once you get married though, I think much more in terms of “household income” and I would say as long as we make over $150K household a year, we’re doing fine.
My wife works 40 a week with great benefits. Corporate benefits are absolutely sick, I would really hate to have to pay $2K a month to insure the 3 of us, and that is only 1 of many bennies she gets.
In the future, I expect most weeks that I’ll play between 20-40 hours, probably 30 on average, and I don’t see any reason why my hourly should dip. Players are just as sucky as they’ve ever been!
Thanks to everybody who has read my little thread, it’s fun to share insight into my almost 12 year poker career, even in anonymity
I just read the 5 pages of this post. Congratulations on your career. My questions are:
Is Vegas a good city to be a 2-5 pro? There is 24/7 action, many rooms in the same place. Or is it better to go to Florida (Tampa, Miami) or elsewhere?
My second question is about taxes, on 100k profit in 2/5 how much do you pay in taxes approximatly ? Is it in your own name like a self-employed person, do you just deduct the winnings from the expenses? (what expenses?). Thanks 😀
I just read the 5 pages of this post. Congratulations on your career. My questions are: Is Vegas a good city to be a 2-5 pro? There is 24/7 action, many rooms in the same place. Or is it better to go to Florida (Tampa, Miami) or elsewhere? My second question is about taxes, on 100k profit in 2/5 how much do you pay in taxes approximatly ? Is it in your own name like a self-empl
I’m really only in Vegas during the WSOP, the sentiment seems to be that Vegas is very tight and reggy, so probably not. I actually like Vegas a lot but I doubt I’d ever live there full time. I have to imagine Florida, Maryland/DC, Texas, Colorado, Cali, and a number of smaller markets are all much more profitable for 2/5 than Vegas
Taxes are pretty simple, I’ve had them done by a professional and I’ve also done them myself. Schedule C like a sole proprietorship, on the schedule c all of my business related expenses come off like travel and vehicle mileage.
The roughest tax is probably the 15% self employed tax, but at least that’ll pay off when I’m old collection social security and Medicare.
On $100K I’m usually paying low to mid 20’s in taxes, the standard deduction and QBI deduction really help. Again it’s a little different now that I’m filing jointly with my wife but I typically make quarterly payments in the $5-6K range
$7300 is not terrible, especially if you are playing in deeper action games. I can pull that off in 2 sessions if I run badly enough 😀
Good luck turning it around!
Make that a $12700 downswing.
Spoiler
New manager raised my hourly while lowering my tipout % without talking to me first thinking it would net the same, but it results in a $5400 annual pay cut that’s going to be difficult to fix.
I work door at a bar. She was trying to shift tipout costs from the servers to the owner, didn’t know what I was making and did the math wrong anyway. Very surprising as she had worked there before previously as a server & bartender and is very smart. She sincerely apologized but it’s a good thing I quit drinking thirteen months ago.
You mentioned 2-5NL games in Las Vegas are tougher. Did you play there? what was your hourly win rate in Las Vegas only? Sample size? What do you think you could win if you played there full-time? Thanks.
I can’t really endorse Crush Live Poker, I liked Bart a decade ago but imo he teaches people how to be “good nits” and I think upswing would be better
I dont disagree with you about barts general teaching approach but i would be interested in just one or two examples of how your advice would be unlike the "good nits" stye of coaching.
You mentioned 2-5NL games in Las Vegas are tougher. Did you play there what was your hourly win rate in Las Vegas only Sample size What do you think you could win if you played there full-time Thanks.
I’ve never played any significant volume of cash in Vegas. I’m sure the hourly would be modest compared to where I live. Maybe $35-60 at 2/5 and $50-80/hour at 5/10 but that’s truly just a guess. Also I left the range on 2/5 very wide because of uncertainty.
I dont disagree with you about barts general teaching approach but i would be interested in just one or two examples of how your advice would be unlike the "good nits" stye of coaching.
Sure! I’ll preface this by saying I haven’t consumed CLP content in probably close to a decade. I also want to be clear that I don’t think his content is “bad”. I loved listening to him when I started, I think he’s a very good poker player, but I remember his content being dumbed down.
I don’t recall any strategy covering how to not get owned by very good players. Understanding where you are within your range in spots, and having the proper frequencies with different parts of your range.
Playing live low stakes cash is an exercise in basically playing a deformed strategy based on the population consistently doing predictably bad things. But it’s still important to understand what strategy at a baseline looks like.
It obviously doesn’t happen that often, but I would say at least a few times a month I get into spots where I’m able to really own a mediocre reg because they do not know how to shift into a strategy that is not so population exploitative, and it’s because they’re mediocre and they don’t know what that even looks like.
I think any good content out there would help players have very solid fundamentals first, and then understand WHY you deviate so much at live low stakes.
I don’t recall any strategy covering how to not get owned by very good players. Understanding where you are within your range in spots, and having the proper frequencies with different parts of your range.Playing live low stakes cash is an exercise in basically playing a deformed strategy based on the population consistently doing predictably bad things. But it’s still importan
how many "very good" players are in a $5 big blind player pool? In los angeles it prob 3 players out of about 15 tables running constantly across the city. seems like the best advice would be avoid the tiny number of very good players as they are sucking up too much money out of any game that are sitting in to make it worth while to choose that table over all of the other tables available. or couldn't you just sit to their left and basically solve everything? (i know this is lazy and not very "balla" advice lol) Obv if you move to $10 big blind level this changes dramatically as there are very good players at every table.
how many "very good" players are in a $5 big blind player pool? In los angeles it prob 3 players out of about 15 tables running constantly across the city. seems like the best advice would be avoid the tiny number of very good players as they are sucking up too much money out of any game that are sitting in to make it worth while to choose that table over all of the other tabl
I think LA is quite different than the east coast. 5/10 is a lot more abundant in LA than most places. A lot of rooms don’t have games bigger than 2/5 regularly, and very good players can be more common than you might think. I’m guessing Commerce 5/10 is only slightly tougher than some east coast 2/5 games on average. With cost of living differences, I think it makes sense why this is the case.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s still somewhat rare to have a bunch of snipers at 2/5, but being completely unequipped to handle a formidable opponent can be costly.
It’s also good to have solid fundamentals for when you have an unknown player, who either might be good, or you don’t know what their tendencies are yet.
But I do get your POV. I suppose I’m mainly arguing for more comprehensive coaching if you want to having any chance to be elite. If you’re struggling to win at all, or maybe you’re a rec hobbyist who just wants to plug big leaks, CLP can easily be the way to go for you.
I certainly didn’t mean to throw excessive shade at Bart, I just think there is better training available now
I certainly didn’t mean to throw excessive shade at Bart, I just think there is better training available now
pretty sure even bart would agree there's better training. for most people theres a pretty big gap between what they can be told and what they can actually implement. bart tells people things they can actually do which is why his "training" has found a solid following imo. Youve recognized that people (even winning players) play at a certain level and sort of stop there or get comfortable there and you can exploit that by playing one level above them in their weakest spots. Teaching someone to do this is sort of impossible, it would be like teaching someone who can physically only throw 80mph to throw 100mph. Youre better off teaching the 80mph guy to throw knuckle balls, there are ways to accept your limitations and still outwork your opponents in non "balla" ways.
What do you think has contributed to your win rate going from $56/hr up to $84/hr?
How often do you look back on a hand for a big pot and think you made a signifant mistake?
I'm a regular player and stuck at $50/hr at my 5/5 game, but still identify frequent mistakes that I make in big pots. Mostly overcalling when I should fold - paying people off on the river, or yesterday calling a 4 bet preflop show without enough equity. It's frustrating.
Hi everybody! It’s been a long time since I’ve posted a long form update to my thread, and after looking at the first page or 2, I realize a lot has changed in my lifeSince making this thread over 1.5 years ago, I’ve-Gotten married-my wife had a baby-we bought a house togetherBig life changes indeed! All of which have shaped my career in some waysFor those wondering, the house
What do you think has contributed to your win rate going from $56/hr up to $84/hr?How often do you look back on a hand for a big pot and think you made a signifant mistake?I'm a regular player and stuck at $50/hr at my 5/5 game, but still identify frequent mistakes that I make in big pots. Mostly overcalling when I should fold - paying people off on the river, or yesterday call
I think it was several factors. Possibly the biggest was most of the east coast 2/5 games increasing to a $1K cap. Most of the time when my hourly was in the $50-60 range, the buy in was smaller
I think some of the increase is me getting better at poker, naturally.
I also think that games becoming a little bit tamer over the years has actually been to my benefit. This is kind of a contrarian take, but when a game is “super duper good” with people cold calling 3 bets all the time, every pot is like several hundred dollars multi way, the difference between myself and a “competent nit” is gonna be fairly small. Sure I’ll size better and do a bunch of little things better, but in games like this, it’s mostly about just making hands or flopping big equity and getting money in, which lots of people can do reasonably well.
When games are tamer but the whole table still kinda sucks (a mix of player types) that actually maximally benefits a player of my caliber because I exploit players for being both too tight and too loose in different scenarios. I also can simply play and win a lot more hands.
Lastly…inflation? 2/5 isn’t as big of a game as it was 10 years ago, easier for middle income fish to come donate, I think that plays a small factor.
As for your other questions, I certainly will make mistakes, but it’s pretty rare for me to look back on spots and think that I really torched. Like it’s rare for me to call off otr in spot I’m never good, or for me to radically misread a situation.
I could easily see preflop mistakes capping your hourly, and also maybe lacking mental clarity when you enter large pots. This is something I’ve gotten way better about. When you’re in a big 3 bet or 4 bet pot, try to work on staying calm, assess if your thought process is as coherent as it is in smaller pots, and try to focus on fundamentals and not worrying about the result of the big pot 😀
How do you still remain excited about poker after so many years?
Haven’t bumped this thread in a while. Solid year. Including high hands and other promotions, I will likely end up in the low $100K range with about 1300 hours played.
I also had a brief foray into playing online back in February, I grinded a bunch on coin poker, was top 3 in their daily cash leaderboard a bunch of times, and I made maybe $5K online as well, although I decided to hang that up because the games were extremely tough and regged up.
So a very low 6 digit year while working way less because I have a lot more family responsibilities these days…I chalk that up as a pretty solid year!
Investments have done well (minus the recent crypto tank), I’ve made improvements in health, everything trending up for me.
For 2016, I do hope to be a little closer to 1500-1800 hours. We have good child care now and I can ramp up my play, definitely want to make well over $100K next year.
It’s really not hard at all for me. I enjoy playing the game, I enjoy busting people up, I love the freedom and flexibility poker offers me. My situation is way better than most, and I am full of gratitude. Also, as I’ve mentioned a lot, my wife works full time (corporate benefits FTW), I have a well-balanced life where I spend a lot of time with family and friends, and only playing like ~30 hours a week just doesn’t burn me out on poker at all 😀
What was your CoinPoker Username? I played quite a bit in February as well and was on the leaderboard, but I was playing mostly 100NL & 50NL with a small bit of 200NL. Not sure if we may have crossed paths. That would be cool.
Hey, how much do you think "one big beautiful bill" will affect your after-tax profit? Do you think that on, say, 120k net profit you'll pay significantly more taxes than before? (In the sense that you play 100% cash and 0% tournaments).
Hey, how much do you think "one big beautiful bill" will affect your after-tax profit? Do you think that on, say, 120k net profit you'll pay significantly more taxes than before? (In the sense that you play 100% cash and 0% tournaments).
Honestly don’t know man. It’s very troubling. I gotta see how this next year plays out. Thankfully we’re not hurting for money at all. Poker pros have good reason to be concerned though, especially tourney players
Just wanted to hop in and say congrats on crushing so hard. This thread gives me motivation. Keep updating it once in a while!
1)I take off a Friday or Saturday (or both) almost every week to do something with her, and honestly I don't even care. I actually believe a lot of times the weeknight games are better. I know everybody thinks "You have to play Friday night!" but do you know what happens when every decent/good player thinks that? Every one of those players is in the poker room on Friday! I zig
You can easily see if this is true by filtering your tracking app by day and hourly. As a former live pro with a lot of volume as well I highly doubt your hourly on a Tuesday is as high as a Friday.
You can easily see if this is true by filtering your tracking app by day and hourly. As a former live pro with a lot of volume as well I highly doubt your hourly on a Tuesday is as high as a Friday.
Hey, one of the big pros of his poker career is that he has somewhat flexible hours and can spend time with his family. I am sure that's worth some EV.
Also when I used to play 2 5 quite heavily in certain Philly games, I noticed a similar trend. A lot of action players would play in Philly during the week and go to their shore/beach house and/or spend time with their families on the weekends, so at times weeknight games were in fact juicier.
You can easily see if this is true by filtering your tracking app by day and hourly. As a former live pro with a lot of volume as well I highly doubt your hourly on a Tuesday is as high as a Friday.
I do think Friday is probably the long term best day, but as you can see over the last 5 years of 2/5 (I filtered starting at 1/1/2020), it is only my third best day, and Saturday is my stone worst day (although I play way less on Saturday than any other day of the week)
There ya go!
much smaller sample but i've found this to be true as well
at least where i play - the real spots are the guys making 400k+ a year and they are usually at their cabins with the family or golfing on the weekend
How has the scenario of online poker changed for you over those 10 years?
Inspirational thread, thank you.
Can you pleade share information on the typical rake structure you are playing in?
Are you able to estimate the impact on your hourly with a rake structure of 5% 20$cap (everything else stays constant).
Thank you, best regards
