Everyone who hasn’t tried live poker before wants to know one thing: how much money can you make playing the game? The answer is never going to be precise because of the game’s inherent variance, but the famous long term can help to take the average if we use certain statistics to make the account, as poker pro Rafael Moraes has explained.
Rafa posted a thread on his Instagram answering the topic everyone is asking, along with illustrations of how certain numbers may be computed and a list of reasons that would be useful to anyone considering a career in professional poker.
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Read below for the complete text released by Rafael Moraes, a member of the 4bet Poker Team who was eager to share his perspective on some issues based on his experience as the manager of a team that has spent thousands of players:
Look at this:
When I started 13 years ago, there were far fewer pros, which is one of the reasons I was able to turn professional in only 6 months. Today, I estimate that it takes a player a year to a year and a half to become a really profitable prof. “First, it is VERY important for you to know that it is normal for a professional poker player to go through some periods losing. The big difference is that the professional stays much longer in the positive than in the negative.
For example, when I won $1,000,000 in The Venom event, I first put $2,600 as a buy-in, therefore my true profit from that tournament was 10%-25%. This is because we have to account for all the tournaments he participated but did not win.
Let’s say I spend two months of my life participating in nothing but value tournaments like this, and I don’t win anything significant. I might easily lose $100,000 to $200,000 in that time.
But is it possible to make money by playing poorly? Sure, but probably not as much as you’d think. There’s a thing in poker called the learning curve, and it varies from person to person. Younger people, with more time on their hands, can move up the curve more quickly than their elders.
Having seen over 5,000 players come through 4bet, I can tell you that a skilled player who has been studying for some time and is just starting out professionally will earn between $800 and $100 per month.
However, professional players who play for higher salaries and are considered middle-tier references can make anywhere from US$5,000 to US$50,000 per month on average. It is extremely difficult to reach these values, and usually takes a good number of years of dedicated practice and hard work.
Also, it is important to realize that I am referring about the professional. This is not the man who gets home from work at 6 o’clock and plays from 7 o’clock to 10 o’clock. The professional player has poker as a career, therefore he spends 10 to 12 hours of labor every day.
