imlach

So why exactly have you just told everyone your very successful concept if so VERY few people know it

That makes no sense either!!!

(just being my usual devil's advocate SB)

imlach

Oh, and the question I ask everyone. If your system works so well, what are you waiting for? If it's as guaranteed as you say, where is the risk of giving up work????? Why can't you go to work tmmrw and tell them where to stick it?

Tiggs

the reason most pros dont make big money is because most people dont make big money!

poker is a pyramid with very VERY few people at the top of the money pile.......for greg raymer to win $5million requires $5 million to be lost by others in the WSOP........its all about passing the money up to a lucky few. Being able to place yourself in that "few" is a matter of luck, skill and bankroll.

And there are plenty of pros playing online to make a "living" but its a different game and the cross over isnt as simple.

Bottom line the more you want to make you more you need to risk....Gus Hanson may make $$$$$$ but he can be up or down $1million a night playing $4k/$8k at the VIP room in The Bellagio.

For me i can make £100k pa working for a job i know i can do......to make £100k pa playing poker requires MASSIVE luck, or huge bankroll.....far more than needed to bankroll my company. There was a time when thought i could make £50k pa net at poker by i have concluded that its not possible without risks far beyond whats acceptable........instead i know try to play in games like the British Open, big buy in festival games, etc to hit that lucky jackpot instead of grinding out a living "kinesh" stylee!

imlach

Tiggs....agreed.
Poker is such an old game....if there WAS an easy way to make money, it'd have been discovered a long time ago and would be being practiced by HUGE amounts of people out there. I admit that online poker is helping to increase the numbers playing, but it can only be a short term thing that there is potentially any easy money to be made off silly/stupid/rash punters. They'll quickly learn.

matt85

But there is a way to beat video roulette.

At least my bank account says there is

Incidentally, im not a profesional gambler although i do make money at it but im still learning my trade, so to speak.


I have a mate whose brother has been recently semingly perfected a blackjack strategy and we reckon he makes upto c.£70k p.a, not a bad return. He has been at it three years so far mind.

My advice for anybody who is considering trying this is making rules and sticking to them religiously. If you 'gamble' so to speak then it isnt for you.

In fact i wouldnt say there was any such thing as 'professional gamblers', because the people who consistenly make money from gambling are just statisticians with the ***** to follow their convictions.

LG John

The concept is simply that you look for situations in life where the reward you get from something is mathematically greater than the risk to get it. Everyone knows that but few people actually understand it or apply it correctly.

Tiggs, the big sites LOVE the big players and especially known pros - there is no way in HELL they would get banned because:

1) People flock to the site to watch the pros and get sucked into trying the game
2) People try to 'scalp' the pros and push and bluff at pots increasing their value and increasing the rake for the site
3) Having regular pros on your site increases its status, marketability and appeal.

As a prime example the lad I talked about earlier from my local casino (mafews) cleans up at the top cash games on ladbrokes having made well over £100k in the last year. He recently withdrew over £30k from the site and interestingly a few days later he got a letter from ladbrokes offering him an all expenses paid golfing trip as he is such a valued customer - they were panicing he was going to leave the site!!

The reasons most people don't flock to play poker and make a living at it are as follows:

1) you will almost certainly lose money at the start so you have to suck that up
2) it requires a lot of patience to learn and master
3) you have to have a degree of natural talent to play poker well and critically some natural attributes such as utter disapline and self-control and aggression.
4) Its hard work, you have to study the game and to a level that you'll probably only stick at it if you truly love it.

Liken it to martial arts if you will: Pretty much anybody could become a skilled martial artist and through that process and hours and hours of sparing become much 'harder' than you average man or women. So why doesn't everyone do it? Simple, it requires you to sweat blood and guts 4 days a week for years and years to achieve and people just don't have the devotion or patience for that.

Now consider someone that isn't naturally built or mentally equipped for martial arts yet puts in 10 years of slog/sparring. They will definately be 'harder' than your average street chav but if they fought another skilled martial artist of the same belt level they would get their *** kicked. The stupidty in all that is fighting someone they know they can't beat - poker is the same.

And of course people will wise up to poker but that isn't a problem. Poker has a cycle of players and when people join one of two things happen:

1) they lose money until they decided enough is enough and stop playing (the good players benefit from them)
2) they lose money until they wise up, learn the game and start to win money (the good players benefit from them until they wise up then the clever good players seek games full of people that are 1) or early 2)) There is a continous pool of poor, good, great and brilliant poker players. If you are good or great and keep pitching yourself against lesser players then you will make money from them until such time as poker become so unpopular that people don't try it or take it up (unlikely).

Tiggs, £100k is a lot of money for a job wage and 4x average. For me I'd be happy to make £40k a year from poker and you have to remember that in order to make the same as the £25k a year I get from my job (which is taxed) I'd only have to make £20k from poker (which isn't taxed). I can see why you don't play poker as to make the same as a £100k job you'd have to play at a very high blind level with a MASSIVE bankroll and likely against good players. To make that much at the lower blind levels where the lesser players are would require you to play mental amounts of hours or get lucky as you say. I'd love to get wages like that and would (as you do) not dream of trying to make the same from poker unless I was very very very very good.

By the way - how big must hanson's bankroll be if he can drop $1m in a night without battering an eyelid??!!!

imlach

As the aincient adage says, "The easiest way to become a millionaire is to start with ten million"

imlach

PS While gambling is tax free, the IR do sometimes chase you for tax IF this is your only income....one to be aware of.

LG John

Oh and if you want a good example of your 'knish' style of player that has made a good regular income look no further than 'Z' from thepokerforum.com. The guy is a text book roll model having started off on the lower limits, learnt the game, moved up the levels, studied every element of the game, moved up more, learned, learned, learned, and moved up to the point where he is now playing very high limits against very good players and has written some very good articles (see said site). He's a grinder: if ever there was a man that plays within him roll its 'Z'

LG John

Oh, and his kids eat

Tiggs

no wants to grind out a living at poker.....why do a job that has a risk of NO income?????

most people playing poker are looking at hanson, negranu, etc and thinking "that could be me".......which is like looking at beckham and thinking "i'll give footie a go"

The story behind most pros with regards to backing, sponsership, debt, etc gives nearly every one of them an edge that most people dont have.

if every pro playing had their "story" stampped on their head most of joe public would quit!

just imagine......all those guys at your local casino with "£2k tonight but down £3k for the month" slapped on their head! Watch WPT and see Gordon and Greenstein going at it with "got so much out of the tech bubble i dont give a toss about the $500k prize"

Hellmuth with a nice big "good....but still went bust and thank god for Ultimate Bet deciding they make more money from their site with me on board than they lose in paying me to play and act up for the TV"

the best one of all has to be Raymer......won £5million...anyone can do it! errr....no, the guy was playing at Foxwoods for years doing well enough to get backing via 2+2 to go to the WSOP....and now gets paid by Pokerstars to eat burgers and play poker!

There are two BIG winners in poker......those that get LUCKY and in a game played by 10 billion people thats a lot of luck and those who own poker sites!

T

ps- SB i never said pros would be banned from the net...of cousre the sites love it.....its like Schumacer going karting and the kart track charging people $20 a time to race him.......except he brings 100 karts and so can push the limit EVERY race with no fear of crashing out for the day.

davyboy

Has anyone said;

"mugs game" yet?

If so I just did.

Dave

imlach

The other thing with gamblers is that they're VERY good at telling you about their big wins, but not so open about their big losses.

ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS take with a pinch of salt what some people claim to be earning.....

imlach

As Tiggs picked up on, just how long could an intelligent person like you Kenny stick out playing poker for a living??

Couple of years tops? Boredom threshold must kick in sometime? You're then accustomed to your (modest) £40k/year, yet can only get a job paying £25k.
What then?

davyboy

I like doing the raffle.

I won some wine and a packet of Quality street the other day at the local fete. I am thinking of spreading my wings, so to speak, and going to other local fetes. I often wonder if I can get a whole weeks shopping just by purchasing raffle tickets.

Dave

imlach

Also, if you're thinking about doing this as a full time profession, why not think like a small start up business....you seem to be convinced the earnings are there, so to go out & get them NOW while you have the inclination, surely you should be thinking of borrowing some capital....you seem convinced enough of guaranteed returns, so surely the ROI is there (even allowing for repayment of the capital).

If the answer to the above is negative, then you're obviously not convinced enough that this can be a profitable profession.

After all, you did say :
That is the holy grail of investment. 100% guaranteed returns

paulr

As long as you like out of date tins of soup and canned peaches.

matt85

Fair point.

I can make a few hundred quid in a day quite easily but its not enjoyable and really stressful so i just do it if and when i need the money. I could have much more money in the bank but i dont need the stress. I definately couldnt do it full-time even if it meant i would be earning 5 times the average wage for someone my age (and 10-20 times that of the typical student.)

Must admit its a nice feeling though knowing that you can turn £600 or so into £1000 easily enough in a day. A good solid week earlier this month paid for my holiday

LG John

Most people but as I've been saying all along these people should be looking to learn from what they see beckham doing and apply that at there local park vs the local pub team (expect the professional diving thing cause if you did that they'd break your legs )

I'd love to win WSOP, etc but to be honest I have no real burning desire to play it, etc. Its currently $10k buyin (will be changed) and a field that this year is expected to be 6000 people strong. To win that you need luck, its just too big a field for skill to be allowed to feature although the final table will still be skilled players in the main.

The problem with the pro's is they are expected or sponsered to play at the top level. I can assure you under the layer of pro's there will be a layer of guys that have no desire to be pro, be recognised or be sponsored but do it just for the money and probably make considerably more than average wage though a source of income that is to many people better than most jobs.

Consider me: I bank around £1550 per month doing a job that I really find boring, repetative, stressful and unrewarding. Assuming I work 5 days a week at poker less 25 days holiday then I have 236 working days a year or 19 days a month. To make the same from poker I therefore need to make £82 per day so even playing 5 hours a day I only need an average hourly rate of £16.50 which is by no means unachievable for a solid player with a good bankroll playing weaker players. I'd much prefer 5 hours a day in front of a computer/at casino where I have complete control over when I play, etc than my current job and provided I have the bankroll for it AND the back up money then it shouldn't be that stressful. I can also chose to put in more hours so that I can have more time off, etc. I could even make my 'wages' from 5 hours of grinder play and then spend another 2-4 hours a day playing multi-table tournaments/satellites, etc from another sub-bankroll in search of the big wins, etc that allow 'bonus' money.

Your problem tiggs IMHO, is that you can make £100k a year from your job which is a heck of a lot of money to most people IMHO. Well done btw

imlach

...and a bad day/week/month?

LG John

Imlach I'm a careful person - I simply won't take that risk (there is risk in ANYTHING) with other peoples money as if I got it wrong my life is ruined. At the moment I play poker to fund other things (the s2000 was heavily funded from poker) and from now on will try to build money so I can play for a living but as I said I would need to have at the very least £30k in a high interest account that is only there to be used if poker went **** up and I need 6 months to get back on my feet with a 9-5 job. On top of that I'd need a £30k bankroll so that's £60k I have to make from part-time poker before I'd consider it and that is the absolute minimum.

Many people have many reasons for playing poker and gambling, etc. I know plenty of people that are amazing poker players and win at the game but then blow the whole lot every single time on the wheel 10 minutes after they have won it. They can beat poker because they are good and have an 'edge' but then they lose to the wheel because the can't beat themselves (disapline, character, etc) and can't beat the edge the wheel has. You have to be a certain type of person and a certain type of committed to make money at poker and not to get sucked into the 'gambling' life. I'm not, I've been in and out of the maybury several times a week for the last year and haven't placed a bet outside the card room or even bought a round from the bar as they give free cokes out

matt85

I have only ever had one big loss really which was about £1000. That was the result of being greedy and chasing a loss. Since then i realised if i was going to take the wins i had to accept the losses as well, so i changed my mindset and as a result no others losses stand out. Occasionally I will have days where i barely break even after 5-6 solid hours but in the whole these are very few and far between.

But as somebody else said, 'the easiest way to make a million is to start with 10', which is something along the lines of what i do. Well, that and a lot of waiting around in betting shops looking sinister.

Edit- The £1000 was one day, never had a losing week so far and the week i do is the day i know its flawed and ill quit.

Tiggs

you cant make proper money playing for 5hrs a time.......look at most pros, they are physical wrecks because they sit all day at a table!

get a job you enjoy and limit your poker to the odd decent buyin tourney at a casino with other humans in it.

T

imlach

Can I remind you again when you said :

I'm not seeing the risk in that statement.
Or are you now saying there is? Maybe I just don't understand then

matt85

Im a 20 year old student and no job i can get at the minute would pay me 10% of what i can earn doing what i do, so i see it as a necessary evil.

The 5-6 hours at a time is usually only a couple of times a month. Usually its just in and out and onwards within half an hour or so when i have reached the days target.

It does bore me sh*tless mind you!

LG John

Imlach read my statement again and note the word longrun In the longrun (a lifetime I gues) I have absolutely no doubt I'll make a good amount of money from poker but I'm not willing to take a risk that could have me f*cked in the short/medium term. I'm not the sort of guy that could recover well from getting £20k in debt by pushing to play for a living too early and then having to spend £330 a month for 6 years to pay it off via a loan.

You'll note that my very first post on this thread stressed bankroll and that is the key theme to nearly all my posts. The bottom line is like a roulette wheel I have an 'edge' over the players I play that will make me money but like a casino I MUST have very deep funds to ensure that a punter(s) can't hit a massive lucky streak a clean me out. Casino's would go bust if they didn't have money to pay out when the punters are getting unusually lucky as would a poker player that doesn't have vast reserves of bankroll to weather the storms that will frequently occur when you play for a living!!!

I can't stress this milo if you are still bothered enough to be reading. You must have a strong bankroll to ensure that the probability of the element of luck busting you out is as good as zero

matt85

Thats what its all about in my book as well.

milo

im still reading bro, and thanks for all your info.

i have been staking 5% of bankroll at the moment. if i were to do this full time, id be willing to only accept liabilities of max of 1% of bank tho. i hear exactly what you're saying here.

i guess id want to have some less risky investments too that provide a more guaranteed income if i were to do this full-time.

imlach

To be honest Kenny, I'm reading all of this and am confused. I'm seeing a LOT of risk, and you agree there is some. There is talk of HUGE bankrolls to cover, potential lucky streaks, deep funds, etc etc. There's HUGE risk in just those. Yet you maintain that you will definetely make money. The two don't go hand in hand. ANY element of risk means you are not guaranteed money in the long term.

You say you have absolutely no doubt you will make money in the long term. Logic suggests that if you have a foolproof scheme, then time is irrelevant. Or are you now saying that time is a factor? Or that the scheme isn't foolproof?

Start with £20k, and if you earn 1% per day on that (the odd £200 you don't care about losing/winning), and reinvest your winnings each day, then in 400 days, you'll have reached £1m.

I'll lend you the £20k right here & now if you can guarantee your system. So - gonna prove it?

LG John

But poker isn't a scheme or system its a game. A game that requires the players skill to be the major component - its not like I'm just repeating a process like pulling a leaver and the money comes spitting back out. I have to be good and continously improve and adapt my game and I have to stay on top of my game and remain disaplined all the time. I believe fully that I can do that but at the end of the day I am a human element within the poker system and if every a system fails its because the human elment f*cks up.

If I was assured the results with very little energy/thought/input from me I'd jump to do it as you suggest but at the end of the day to make good regular money at poker still requires a great degree of skill. I'm confident I have it and will always have/improve it but I'll not take wild chances to prove a point.

It'll be interesting to pick up this conversation next year because at the moment my wages cover my outgoings (just) and I have little/no other money (certainly none in poker) because I cashed it allin to get the s2000