Cash Game Experiment through 10,000 hands

NickyOD

A few weeks ago I said I was going to experiment with cash games to see if I can make enough money consistently to turn professional. I would normally be able to play 10,000 hands a week`if I was to play full time. Here are the results after the first 10,000. Full details are in my Blog.

Earnings $1,148.65
Bonuses: $200
Rakeback $72.33

Total $1,420.98

Thoughts?

Hectorjelly

What were the blinds and how long did it take you

NickyOD

Hectorjelly wrote:

What were the blinds and how long did it take you

.25/.50 6 handed NL. It took about 42 hours but normally if I was always 3 or 4 tabling, it would take about 32-36 hours. (I played a few tournaments to break up the monotony. Those profits aren't included)

roryc

either way $1,420 is pretty good for a weeks work. Thats over $73,000 a year.

ZZR1100

a great result for 40 hrs.why did you decide to play tables of 6 rather 9 or 10?.got me thinking as i find the the full tables have tightend up to an avarage of 16% VPIP which makes it though and players will have to loosen up on the tables of 6.why not try 2 tables at higher limits to see the differance.i thought limit was the way you intended to go.100,000 hands will give you a better gauge as you say.GL

califano

NickyOD wrote:

I would normally be able to play 10,000 hands a week`if I was to play full time. Earnings $1,148.65
Bonuses: $200
Rakeback $72.33

Total $1,420.98

Thoughts?

How lond did it take you to play these 10,000 hands seeing your currently not a professional?.
This is a very good $ total but how long could you manage if you turned pro and the weekly totals were not nearly as high or even in the minus fugures?. If you felt encouraged to turn pro because you feel you can maintain similar figures how much of a br would you imagine you would need?.

NickyOD

ZZR1100 wrote:

a great result for 40 hrs.why did you decide to play tables of 6 rather 9 or 10?.got me thinking as i find the the full tables have tightend up to an avarage of 16% VPIP which makes it though and players will have to loosen up on the tables of 6.why not try 2 tables at higher limits to see the differance.i thought limit was the way you intended to go.100,000 hands will give you a better gauge as you say.GL

I've found that you get much smaller variance at NL than Limit. (Assuming you are not silly enough to play NL and LM tables where the blinds are the same). I think a good player has a bigger edge in NL ring games. I really only ever play shorthanded because you get in more hands, generate more rake and most players don't know how to play shorthanded thus giving you a better edge. I will take a step up in stakes at some point. It's dificult to say if I will get better EV at a higher limit, but I expect I wouldn't in the beginning because there would need to be some adjustments in my game. The play is always a little different at the next level, even when you're low rolling.

NickyOD

rounders123 wrote:

How lond did it take you to play these 10,000 hands seeing your currently not a professional?.
This is a very good $ total but how long could you manage if you turned pro and the weekly totals were not nearly as high or even in the minus fugures?. If you felt encouraged to turn pro because you feel you can maintain similar figures how much of a br would you imagine you would need?.

Since I currently work full time it took me over two weeks to put in the 42 hours. There's no reason to believe that if I would turn pro I'd start losing. I wouldn't become a losing player over night. I think over 100,000 hands if I can make this kind of money consistently then that would be a fair reflection of how things would go.

I can take a years leave of absense from my job (which I will leave anyway poker pro or not) so the risk factor is minimal.

I would expect to have a bankroll of at least 5K and to have 3 months rent, bills etc. put aside when I start.

jimbling

NickyOD wrote:

I can take a years leave of absense from my job

I would expect to have a bankroll of at least 5K and to have 3 months rent, bills etc. put aside when I start.

I would def think you are in an excellent position to attempt to turn pro, and in your position (not just job and money.... but poker ability) would not think twice at making the attempt.

Can you tell me nicky.... as I am only learning the game, I am reading a lot online, and bought a few books etc. But almost everything I am learning is about been playing tight aggressive etc. (although i find i dont quite follow the rules)

Obviously this is the best way to start out, far less risky. But I would like to learn the skills involved in aggressive shorthanded play. Can you advise me a good place to attain the skills... online advice.. or a book etc.

califano

NickyOD wrote:

I can take a years leave of absense from my job (which I will leave anyway poker pro or not) so the risk factor is minimal.

This is always a good 'out'.
Yeah if you decide to do it then i hope it works out well for you.

on a more jocular note the biggest question is 'will your parents let you'?!!!
I remember you saying before they think youre mad in the first place with how much you play?.

AmarilloFats

Hey Nicky,
Well done...Nice.
What was your BB/100 for the 10000 hands.??
Do you realyy wanna turn pro playing the .25/50 tables.?? Wait til your good enuff, and bankrolled to play the 2/4 or 5/10..More money and certainly more interesting..

I had time off from work earlier this year and played online 6 hours a day..Great results initially..then stagnation. A part-time job would be my ideal situation..Fupp me it gets boring...Your concentration dwindles no end...Good luck with it.

NickyOD

rounders123 wrote:

on a more jocular note the biggest question is 'will your parents let you'?!!!I remember you saying before they think youre mad in the first place with how much you play?.

Well I'm 27 so its not really a factor. The way I see it continueing to work in a job I don't particularly like is a bigger risk. Life is too short you know.

AmarilloFats

11.5BB/100

Nice...

BigDragon

NickyOD wrote:

Well I'm 27 so its not really a factor. The way I see it continueing to work in a job I don't particularly like is a bigger risk. Life is too short you know.

Bad beat normal life!! I'm working hard at the moment to go it alone at work which will actually give me a bit more free time to develop poker projects in the pipeline. Can't wait.

NickyOD

AmarilloFats wrote:

Hey Nicky,
Well done...Nice.
What was your BB/100 for the 10000 hands.??
Do you realyy wanna turn pro playing the .25/50 tables.?? Wait til your good enuff, and bankrolled to play the 2/4 or 5/10..More money and certainly more interesting..

I had time off from work earlier this year and played online 6 hours a day..Great results initially..then stagnation. A part-time job would be my ideal situation..Fupp me it gets boring...Your concentration dwindles no end...Good luck with it.

Actually I'm not sure what the BB/100 is. It's defintely higher than 11.5. I'll check PT later. I'm never sure what a good rate is in BB/100 at NL since I was always a Limit player. I'm always going to try and step up in stakes but I want to be seriously bankrolled for that stake before I do. I don't intend slumming it in the .25/.50 level forever that's for sure but sometimes you get better EV at a lower stake.

califano

BigDragon wrote:

Bad beat normal life!! I'm working hard at the moment to go it alone at work which will actually give me a bit more free time to develop poker projects in the pipeline. Can't wait.

What sort of projects? or maybe you want to keep them to yourself.

karlh

i've had an imposed month trial of being an online poker pro having come down with chicken pox. all better now but was able to put in the hours, from my bed, and was pleasantly surprised. i played about 6 hours a day for 2 weeks of the time and grinded out more than my average normal wage on .10/.25 tables.

very true about jumping up a level, especially when multitabling. i was playing 4 tables and found even the leap to .25/.50 took a lot of getting used to. not scary amounts of money, just completely different attitude towards it by opponents.

the 'drunken time zone effect' certainly played in my favour. i could cream it from 8am til midday on the american sites.

go for it nicky and good luck, as you said, life is far too short!

*warning, itching lead to several misclicks.

Imposter

Over 10k hands is not bad going for a guy who was taking a break from poker for June!!

I presume you are getting enough hands done at Party to get to play for the porsche?

I'm finding there's a huge difference between .25/.5 and .5/1. I can easily beat the .25/.5 shorthand while 2-tabling but not the .5/1. I can beat it (.5/1) when I only play one table. I've started taking a few shots at 1/2 as well with mixed results. 5/10 shorthand Limit seems potentially profitable too. Does anyone know of anywhere with 4/8 shorthand Limit? There doesn't seem to be any at Party or Pokerstars!

And Nicky, good luck with it.

NickyOD

Imposter wrote:

Does anyone know of anywhere with 4/8 shorthand Limit? There doesn't seem to be any at Party or Pokerstars!.

Ladbrokes

ionapaul

You're right, life is too short to not give it ago if you really think you have a reasonable shot at making it in the field that you love. Good luck and keep us updated

NickyOD

AmarilloFats wrote:

11.5BB/100
Nice...

Yeah sorry its about 11.85 right now. I think someone said that 8BBs/1000 in NL is crushing the game so its too early to get ahead of myself. 10,000 isn't nearly enough hands yet.

BigDragon

rounders123 wrote:

What sort of projects? or maybe you want to keep them to yourself.

Not yet but you can guess where I'll annouce things when they happen (...if..)

Samba

I would advise you not to give up the job yet but continue the experiment over a period of 2-3 months. Remember if you want to go pro you need back up money set aside from your bankroll.

Personally I prefer 9/10 seaters as they allow you to play tighter and you don't have to get involved in pots with marginal cards and you can afford to be more patient.

If you have the discipline which very clearly you appear to have go for it but carry the experiment over a longer period of time.

I don't think I would like to play pro for the rest of my life, it's no way to live, I think it would be fair to say that pro players are not the healthiest human beings on the planet, they contribute nothing to society. consider investment options with your winnings for the long term.

An interesting point every pro makes about their career(or most) is that they have all gone broke at one stage in their lives, not a happy prospect.

Put the money in somthing more solid than poker when it starts coming in, even if it just means taking out a mortgage.

NickyOD

Samba wrote:

I would advise you not to give up the job yet but continue the experiment over a period of 2-3 months. Remember if you want to go pro you need back up money set aside from your bankroll.

Personally I prefer 9/10 seaters as they allow you to play tighter and you don't have to get involved in pots with marginal cards and you can afford to be more patient.

If you have the discipline which very clearly you appear to have go for it but carry the experiment over a longer period of time.

I don't think I would like to play pro for the rest of my life, it's no way to live, I think it would be fair to say that pro players are not the healthiest human beings on the planet, they contribute nothing to society. consider investment options with your winnings for the long term.

An interesting point every pro makes about their career(or most) is that they have all gone broke at one stage in their lives, not a happy prospect.

Put the money in somthing more solid than poker when it starts coming in, even if it just means taking out a mortgage.

Well January is the target. We'll see after 100,000 hands. I wil most likely give a lot of notice as I've been working where I am now for over 5 years and I will have to train someone in.

There is much mmore money to be made shorthanded. I prett much never play at full handed tables any more. I wouldn't say I dont' get involved in pot with marginal hands because I believe you should play a lot looser shorthanded and make a lot of plays for pots.

I actually have plans to be invovled at some tax paying level with promoting poker tournaments in Limerick as well as palying professionally. If I do go full time I believe I will be the first player in Limerick to do so which for me is a real incentive to get there.

As for going broke. I don't know any other paly that is as coutious with his bankroll as I am. I mean I really do low roll in comparison to my BR.

bill_ashmount

Nicky,

Can you give a breakdown of the $200 bonus that you received. Can this be counted as regular income, or was this a once off payment for a bad beat or something similar???

Cheers.

Lafortezza

Another question, during the 10k hands did you feel you were running particularly well or badly or normally?

I 4 tabled Omaha for about 6 weeks (while working a full time job) and I managed to work up to about €1200 from a €150 deposit. I was nut-peddling so the variance was very small.

As soon as I get set up with a decent internet connection in my new house I'll be giving it another go.

NickyOD

bill_ashmount wrote:

Nicky,

Can you give a breakdown of the $200 bonus that you received. Can this be counted as regular income, or was this a once off payment for a bad beat or something similar???

Cheers.

$100 was a signup bonus for a new rakeback scheme for which I now also get 28% of my rake back plus a small % of other players I refrer

The other $100 was the June reload bonus on Empire.

I'm not going to make this in bonuses every month but Empire doa reload bonus every second month (I think)

NickyOD

lafortezza wrote:

Another question, during the 10k hands did you feel you were running particularly well or badly or normally?

I 4 tabled Omaha for about 6 weeks (while working a full time job) and I managed to work up to about €1200 from a €150 deposit. I was nut-peddling so the variance was very small.

As soon as I get set up with a decent internet connection in my new house I'll be giving it another go.

For the first 5000 hands I was absolutely crushing the tables which was both good and bad. Bad because it meant I occasionally opened up too much and made too many "plays". Between the 6000 and 7500 hand mark I went through a downswing of about 4 buy ins, mostly from making marginal calls I should have gotten away from, but they weren't terribly bad calls, just incorrect calls.

Its dificult to say how "normal" these results are for me since it is such a small sample of hands but I believe 4-5 buyins a day on average at this level is very easy to achieve.

Hectorjelly

Samba wrote:

they contribute nothing to society.

This always makes me laugh, most jobs contribute nothing to society and actively contribute to the destruction of the environment and are harmfull to society as a whole. Poker at least is fairly neutral.

Dub13

The way I see it if you were to turn pro it would just be like any office job....so you will be fine once you keep active and maybe hit the gym once or twice a week.

Samba

Hectorjelly wrote:

This always makes me laugh, most jobs contribute nothing to society and actively contribute to the destruction of the environment and are harmfull to society as a whole. Poker at least is fairly neutral.

eheheh, good one.

NickyOD

Dub13 wrote:

The way I see it if you were to turn pro it would just be like any office job....so you will be fine once you keep active and maybe hit the gym once or twice a week.

Actually that's one thing I'm worried about is sitting on my ass all day. Although I work in IT at work I'm on my feet for most of the day so its different. I can't exactly do that at home. I go swimming most mornings before work I can see myself gettling lazy, particularly if I'm behind and need to catch up or there's a hi/lo razz tourney on FT calling to me.