I'm interested in going into business myself and am curious how appropriate of a goal this is for a 30-year-old with eight years of experience in the actual casino industry (non-poker however) and a solid knowledge of probability but a newbie knowledge of poker. I was recently fired from my job, which is frustrating because I had just assisted in a high-profile case and was then canned for the most minor transgressions imaginable.

I'm also interested in any comments you have about the legality of playing (at PokerStars) and whether or not the website will be shut down by litigation.

Although I now know this is an overly complicated way of thinking about it, I originally signed up here for someone to check my math. I was trying to calculate the odds of completing a flush if you start with suited hole cards in Hold'Em. Are they .063998 (if you use your two hole cards)?

I came up with .0577 to finish with exactly a five-card flush, .00607 for a six-card flush, and .00021 for a 7-card flush, for a 6.39% chance overall.

In short, 11*10*9*39*38 / (50*49*48*47*46) * 10 ways + 11*10*9*8*39/(50*49*48*47*46) * 5 ways + 11*10*9*8*7/(50*49*48*47*46)

Thanks!

Online poker is still in the grey area right now, and looks like it might be for a while.

I'm busy playing poker right now but this link always had some good info when it comes to odds
Poker Odds, Poker Probabilities, Common Flop Odds & Charts

About playing poker professionally, it takes quite a bit of time and study to improve to the point where you can consistently make money. If got some money on your hands you can start by signing up to deuces cracked (at least for the trial) or various other training sites, and you can also hire coaches (expect 50+/hr) to help you improve your game more quickly. Still going to take quite some time and effort on your part though.

Read the books too. Lots of them.

If your going to go pro (and steve may disagree with me here, he's been doing this pro way longer than I have), I'd start with the Theory of Poker. Get to know where all the other stuff in the poker world comes from, what it's based on. And then read read read, and play play play.

I'd start small time, few hundred BR to start, something you can afford right now, work a part time job in the mean time. But learn the game, learn YOUR mistakes, fix them, aplly those fixes, rinse repeat.

Knowing the math is a good thing, but what makes you a player is the ability to apply that math.

Well it's encouraging I've already got the book sitting next to me. I gotta figure out what I'm going to do in the meantime, though, I don't believe that I can accept the level of risk of doing this without something else in the short-term.

I keep hearing this "read books" stuff. Marm, can you reccomend a list of books maybe? I will start with Theory of Poker, anything else you recommend?

Are you playing already? can you tell us which stakes? casino? strategy? Youre gonna get decent advicing here. You should start thinking about a poker tracker to track your own hands and other players as well (that might be illegal in some casinos tho) but tracking yourself is the best way to improve your playing

Why not try first in a free play game, as you hone you poker skills you can jump into a real money betting. If you want to read books, I would recommend you to read the David Sklansky's Small Stakes Hold 'em: Winning Big With Expert Play. A very easy to read and easy to apply in the game.

Deposit a very small sum (like 25$) and start grinding the smallest stakes. When you've beaten them and your bankroll is larger, move up the stakes and repeat. If you're able to keep doing this, you will eventually be able to play professionally. If not, you've only lost 25$.

The beauty is that when you've learned to beat the smallest stakes, you'll never go broke, as you can always drop down to a lower stake if you take some hits.