For half of university I played copious amounts of online poker. I viewed it as a potential hobby to make money, so bought a few books to learn the fundamentals. Then I signed up for a poker site, and played free games to practice.
Then the site asked me one day if I'd like $2 for free to play the real money tables. So tried my luck at the 2c/4c tables, had some success, and moved progressively up as I made more and more. Now granted, this takes an education, and you aren't going to get rich. I spent more time on two plus two poker forums then than I do now on RVF. Finally I settled into 3/6 and 5/10, and 10/20 and grinded it out. I stuck with limit as it's more about the numbers than the players, and odds calculations were happening every hand in my head. I tracked every session in excel. Sometimes daily swings of $1000 one way or another. I was basically doing this from a laptop while I worked on engineering homework, so since you should be folding ~75% of hands preflop, it was a lot of "fold" then go back to school work - so less of a waste of time. I played for about 2.5 years from mid '04 to late '06.
Ended finally because I didn't want to sit at a computer after a graduation grinding it out, competition and transaction laws were becoming considerably more restrictive, and eventually you see everything (lost 4 of a kind once, another times 4 Aces 4 times in one night) and the rush wears off. I ultimately came out of it with about 11k US, hourly rate of about $9, some 1200 hours sitting at a computer, and an edge of roughly 4%. Or I could "expect" 1.04 for every $1 put in a pot. Which means ~$250k passed through my hands.
Finally, all that said, while interesting it was mainly about the money. So it's doable, but not easy. I've read almost a dozen books on poker, tracked the numbers meticulously, and would never knowingly take a -EV bet, which unfortunately all of casino games are. I can't help but laugh when I hear someone say "they're good at predicting numbers". I approached this with a actuaries mindset, and forgot the idea of a quick payday.
Edit: Apologies if posting a rare success tale on a gambling addiction thread is poor taste, but figured could help people understand the effort that goes into succeeding, even marginally.
Then the site asked me one day if I'd like $2 for free to play the real money tables. So tried my luck at the 2c/4c tables, had some success, and moved progressively up as I made more and more. Now granted, this takes an education, and you aren't going to get rich. I spent more time on two plus two poker forums then than I do now on RVF. Finally I settled into 3/6 and 5/10, and 10/20 and grinded it out. I stuck with limit as it's more about the numbers than the players, and odds calculations were happening every hand in my head. I tracked every session in excel. Sometimes daily swings of $1000 one way or another. I was basically doing this from a laptop while I worked on engineering homework, so since you should be folding ~75% of hands preflop, it was a lot of "fold" then go back to school work - so less of a waste of time. I played for about 2.5 years from mid '04 to late '06.
Ended finally because I didn't want to sit at a computer after a graduation grinding it out, competition and transaction laws were becoming considerably more restrictive, and eventually you see everything (lost 4 of a kind once, another times 4 Aces 4 times in one night) and the rush wears off. I ultimately came out of it with about 11k US, hourly rate of about $9, some 1200 hours sitting at a computer, and an edge of roughly 4%. Or I could "expect" 1.04 for every $1 put in a pot. Which means ~$250k passed through my hands.
Finally, all that said, while interesting it was mainly about the money. So it's doable, but not easy. I've read almost a dozen books on poker, tracked the numbers meticulously, and would never knowingly take a -EV bet, which unfortunately all of casino games are. I can't help but laugh when I hear someone say "they're good at predicting numbers". I approached this with a actuaries mindset, and forgot the idea of a quick payday.
Edit: Apologies if posting a rare success tale on a gambling addiction thread is poor taste, but figured could help people understand the effort that goes into succeeding, even marginally.
