This is a serious question I often ask myself.
I started playing about two years ago occassionally while visiting a poker playing friend in LA. I lost every time at low limit holdem. I then found the internet and started to lose quite regularly online but continued to study the game. I finnaly broke down and read a couple books (first book since freshman year in HS...37yrs old now..). This changed things drastically. I began winning regularly by playing quite tight and at the most..."moderately" aggressive. But win I loosened up or got too aggressive I was liable to take some pretty big hits on the b-roll.
I never minded losing too much cuz it was not really affecting my lifestyle.
7 moths ago I got tight on cash and decided I may need to quit this poker hobby of mine. I decided to treat each session like the $$$ meant something to me (which, of course, it did). I have not had a losing month since. I play mostly NL$100 and SNG$100's at Party and about 2 or 3 multi's per week.
I play irregularly, avging about 3-5 hours per day. I don't track daily or hourly income.
I made $7,000, $4,100, $3,400, $3,000, $4,500, $1,000 and $7,500 the last 7 months. I finished in the money once in my first 15 or so Multi's but recently started getting better results. About two weeks ago I finished second in a 400 man $30NL, I won a 309 man $50NL two days ago and came 4th yesterday in a 150 man $100nl.
The thing is, my friend who introduced me to the game recently asked me what my "secret" was. I did not have an answer. I am not even sure what "kind" of player I am. I saw a post recently with about 12 options and I did not recognize myself as any of them.
I don't know the names of too many pros. I am not sure I know the majority of poker terms (I asked someone what a "Case" card was yesterday). With that said, I feel like if I really concentrated on the game i could make a steady income without my daughter and myself ending up living on the streets. Am I fooling myself?
If you are trying to figure out if u can make it a living, i think the only way to truly know is to try it and compete with the best. how are you supossed to know if you can make it to the next level with out finding out yourself?
Very nice results from the last seven months. Making $30,000 in about half a year sounds pretty good to me. If that pace continues, you're making around $60,000 a year which is pretty good in my opinion considering you only play 21-35 hours a week.
Poker can be a brutal game when things aren't going your way. Even with 7 months of sucess under your belt, I feel this is still too short of a time frame to gauge things. If you can achieve the same results for a minimum of a year (preferably 2) then you should re-evaluate your situation. Good players can run bad and bad players can run good. Tom McEvoy only made $440 one year as a pro, and I can consider him damn good.
Also, you have a daughter to support. If things go south, how would that affect her lifestyle as she is growing up. I would say keep playing part time and use the money you are making to supplement your current lifestyle. Start a college fund for your daughter or something like that. Also, no one said you can't take a few days off from work and take a shot at larger tournies to see how you do. Until you have played against serious competetion for a few years, I wouldn't even consider going pro in your situation (daughter to support).
My life really changed when I adopted my daughter. I do think I would like to play full time someday. But I think I will take a look at two years of results before taking it to seriously. I make a little under the six figure mark at my full time job so the $$$ I am making now at poker are not quite enough to support our lifestyle, but have been a tremendous bonus.
Funny I made this post after a tremendous week (about $5g's) and as many times as it has happened before I was still shocked to lose $500 yesterday! Like part of me expected to make $5g's a week forever! lol
Anyway..I am very passionate about the game and will continue learning respect for it.
