I just kind of fell into being pro waaaaaaaay back in 1996. I was playing in live games and just started earning so much money at $3/6 limit poker that it dwarfed my "meager" salary at my real job.I would suggest that the primary checklist item is that you need to be VERY honest with yourself. Can you stay disciplined with your bankroll, can you take the stress of losing knowing that you depend on poker for your income?Can you treat poker as a job that you must go to even when it's not fun anymore? I guarantee that poker will seem much more like a job than many jobs after a while.Playing poker for a living certainly has advantages, but depending on your personality, the disadvantages may outweigh the advantages.Think also about what will happen if you go pro for five years and decide you want to change jobs. You have no resume to give prospective employers. What will tell them? "I've been playing poker for a living for five years..."?  You may think that others may be impressed, but think again.

Seriously, how many people have a year's savings, whether poker pro or not? That is excellent advice, and advice that I ddidn't follow.If you are disciplined enough to have a year's living expenses saved, from whatever means you obtain (well, at least semi-legal means!), then that is probably a good gauge as to whether or not you can "go pro".Actually, I think six months would be fine, but none of that can be mixed with your bankroll.

And game quality is also a big concern of mine. Yes, you can play live, but really that's not nearly as practical as Internet poker. You will generally need a bigger bankroll, as you will need to play higher stakes as opposed to multi-tabling.Headsup is generally not available as well, if that's your focus.

Having the motivation to adjust to life, both financially and in an overall way should allow you to tackle things like starting a business, going pro or making a major job change without the usual stress people often have.That's what it really boils down to, if you're confident that you will stay open minded and motivated in life, I don't think things like this will be nearly as large of a risk as they could be, and the difference will be drastic mentally.Living expenses are important, but rather than focusing purely on saving up the money to go pro, if the time is right why not cut back your expenses that are within your control so that 6 months living expenses is only 50 or 60% of what it was to you before you made the adjustments?  If you have the discipline to cut spending and save for a month or two, you should be able to tackle any sort of new challenge that others may deem a "risk."And it's not just having the stones to "take a risk" it's more of learning and understanding what truly is a risk to you, because more often than not these things can be done with very little risk.  But the motivation and dedication need to be there, and so does the open mindedness, or your risk does go up, as you can't adjust to misfortune or struggles nearly as quickly and effectively.

Being a poker pro is also great if you have a side passion.  Music and art are common ones.  Maybe you love to teach also.  The most common thing is burnout but I find that with a passionate hobby you can stay sane.  The other factor in my mind is always improving.  Poker has gotten togher on-line over the last few years and alot of pros got left behind.  These were pros who were less careful with their money (buying every toy they wanted) and didn't work on improving.For me the freedom of working for myself outweighs most other things.  I can spend extra time with my girlfriend, travel when I want or work on my hobbies.  Not having a resume isn't a big deal to me because I don't think I'll ever work for someone else again.  If I move away from poker I will most likely start another business and still be the boss. MW

Well, I guess what I'm saying is that...what is your backup plan if for some reason poker does not work out?If you have a cushion of say six months' living expenses and enough money to retrain yourself in another area of interest during that time period, than by all means, if this is your dream, then live it.I think many people, both rational and (mostly) irrational try to go pro with not enough idea of what being a poker pro really means. The edge you have over others is that you are rational.Yes, online poker is likely not going anywhere soon, but it is getting tougher. And what happens if for some reason online poker does become ultra-regulated by the governments at work in today's world who are trying to control every aspect of our lives and tell us what is best for ourselves? Do you believe that poker as we know it will be around in 15 years? Well, if you are one of the best (and yes, we all intend to be one of the best!), then you will saved your millions by that time and have no worries. But what if you still depending on poker for your livelihood and suddenly it's no longer available for some reason?An equally big issue may be the advancement of artificial intelligence. I've been following AI in the poker world for some years, and there are some pretty scary programs out there. These programs have practically perfected HU Limit HE, which admittedly is far more simple than NL. But I would be willing to bet my entire bankroll that in ten years, there will be numerous programs that even the top online players cannot possibly beat. I know...many of you are going "no way! never!" But I assure you that this day will come, and it will come much quicker than most will imagine.What's more, these programs will be able to fly below the radar, going undetected for at least long enough to take down fortunes.If you do decide to go pro, definitely have a plan, both for your poker future and for a future without poker.And by the way, poker is part of our capitalism system. At least for now...

Well, first of all I'm sorry about your father. It's good that you don't make tough choices for the next couple months maybe. It sounds like you can deal with that issue rationally.As for the rest of your situation, I would say that you are in an almost perfect spot to try being poker pro for a year or so, if that's what you feel you really want to do.My advice (if choose to do this), is to allocate one year's worth of expenses out of your savings to living expenses, and figure out a reasonable bankroll, and save the rest, absolutely not touching it.I don't know your skill level at the moment in poker, but plan to use the first four months as mostly a training period. Learn as much as you can during that period. You will need to treat poker as a job during this time and keep a constant schedule, or at least a certain amount of hours per day. Take a day or two off per week.Play a lower limit than you feel that maybe you should be playing while you are learning. Give yourself a challenge. I started at $2.20s (which isn't necessary...maybe $10s is good), and set certain bankroll requirements to move up to the next level. I have progressed two levels and it's satisfying. I can see marked improvement and learning in my games.My point is...during your learning period, don't worry so much about grinding out a profit. Concentrate on learning. Don't let the stakes you play influence your attitude. Play only to learn and get better and to be competitive.Never be afraid to post questions to these forums, as I have not seen one flaming response to anyone's post. This community is very good about that, as we are all here to learn and everyone understands where each question is coming from.

I am interested in hearing Rypac or other pro's thoughts on whether the games will die off. I hear about games being tougher, and in a way I see it, but I still see easy edges against even quite a few of the regs I play. I can sustain a decent living multi tabling micros (I play mid stakes+), so it doesn't seem like much of a worry when at worst I'll 4 table 50NLHU and make $80+/hour, and it's hard to fathom that 50NL traffic will dry up at any point, but everyone's panic has gotten to me somewhat.I am going pro though. Pretty much already have, though I am still studying and not living off it, but I am making enough money for it to count as a consistent and sufficient income. Balancing with school work is difficult though.

It really comes down to personal situations.I have saved up enough to live for two and a half months. I have worked on my game and I know what limit I must be able to beat to make it. In January I will take my shot. I have a coach lined up to do hand historry reviews so I can make sure that my thought process is correct. For me two months is plenty because I can always get a job driving 18 wheelers. If after two months I see I am not ready, I have two weeks to go through orientation and start driving again (orientation at most componies is three days) or I can work on getting my own truck and drive for myself.So even though I would always advise people to have at least six months living expsense saved up, it is not really neccessary for everyone. Plus I do my best work when I stuck between a rock and a hard place (yes I am screwed up).Poker has been around for a long time and you don't have to worry, it is not going away. You might have to travel like the old road gamblers did, but there will always be fish for those who take the time and put in the work to develop an edge.But you must take qattack advice and make sure you have the discpline to put in the hours and the ability to manage your money. I have a friend who goes broke EVERY SINGLE TIME he starts to drive for him self. He just does not have the discipline required to be his own boss. Plus he sucks at managing money. If he makes $10,000.00 in a week he will spend $9,000.00 and his wife will spend $11,000.00 and they are always in the whole. PaulIB_fishingMaking spelling errors while waiting on Ryan to add spell check

Didn't see this until now, "I am interested in hearing Rypac or other pro's thoughts on whether the games will die off. I hear about games being tougher, and in a way I see it, but I still see easy edges against even quite a few of the regs I play."I don't expect the games to die off or become unprofitable for motivated players any time in the near future (multiple years).  With various countries proposing various legislation, I don't know what the climate will look like in upcoming years, but that's more of a factor of the rake killing edges than skillful opponents.I actually talked to some well known professionals in other game formats recently, where I hear "games are dying" a lot more often, and they scoffed at the thought of the games dying.  Access to new information, strategy and ideas has particularly improved for our games in the last 2 years (yes, this site!) and other games have had that same type of quality informational source for much longer.  If anything, that would lead me to believe that the games are potentially better for hard working heads up sng players now than ever before.Before you laugh at me and say "lol fish were so bad 4 years ago" let me remind you that many players that made 6 figures 4 years ago regularly made plays such as 3x open raising and folding to shoves under 15bbs deep, and it wasn't situational.  So yes, fish were much worse in history, but good players today are so much better (and have so much more good information they can efficiently learn and use combined with solid work ethic to have success).Fishing, we had spell check, I think we lost it with our update (yea, that sounds silly but I think it's true).  I'll look into it, it kind of bothers me that it's not there anymore, I regularly rely on this in other places to fix errors of mine.