Guys, is it real to earn at least 500$ /month playing poker? May be even less, if I could play just 3-4 hours per day?

Hi Jazz.

The specific goal you have mentioned there is not only real but very achievable indeed with the number of hours you mention to play. The way poker works is that you play in cash games etc at a specific stake level or blinds level. You have to know you can beat your level over a certain quite large sample of hands to confirm that you can 'beat' that game.

The amount you beat a game by determines your winrate. It is said that good to crushing winrates are 8-14 ptbb/100. In in this case its twice the big blind so if you have a winrate of only 3 ptbb/100 at say .25/50nl which is the lowest of the micro stake levels you would be earning about 3*8*4/1.6 or 60 dollars every 4 hour session playing eight tables at this level on average (3 dollars times 8 tables x 4 hours then divide by 1.6 as most cash game table will not run at 100 hands per hour). So if you work that out over a month you would make about 1800 a month doing this on average.

The difficulty is that so many people do not build up to this in the correct manner as I make it sound almost as if anyone can sit down having just learnt the basic rules and just grind out 3bb/100 at .25.50 which is not the case. Although its certainly achievable you must work up to it using the 50 buy in rule and remember that the winrate I'm qouting is conservative there are .25.50 grinders who sustain a much higher rate than this.

The 50 buyin rule means you need 50 buyins to any cash game before moving up a level and it is essential to your growth. To start with you will almost certainly be a losing player and so you want to lose as little as possible and learn as much as possible about all the aspects of what is a complex game with lots of different scenarios.

The buy in rule protects you when you move up to more difficult stakes by offering a money buffer whilst you learn and adjust it also protects against variance.

Variance is a big deal in holdem as it theoretically possible to always see the card you least want to see you could in theory go on a bad run for life and this would make grinding very difficult.

However what is more likely is that you will have some minor and some more major swings and your 50 buyins gives you great protection against this.

As long as you earn more on average than you lose you are a winning player at that stake when you have a large hand sample and you can work out your winrate.

For the .25/50 stakes I have mentioned you would need to have 2500 dollars to be correctly rolled although people do use 25 or 1250 dollars some others use less than this but I would strongly advise against it. You have to be patient and disciplined in poker and say you only used 250 dollars you could easily have a 5 buyin swing and its all gone.

There are posts on here detailing how people have lost 600 dollar bankrolls in one hand when they were 80-90 percent favourites such is the nature of a probability game.

If you start with 100 dollars and play .1/.02 cents tables or lowest possible and build it up to 200 you can then move up. Yes these table will be dull and yes your initial winrnings will be tiny but this stage is absolutely vital in your game development.

The game is about learning a winning process the results of a single hand are not your focus you want to play each hand in the best way you can and worrying about how much money you have in your bankroll is not good for this.

If you enjoy playing and want to play the best you can start at .0/.2 cents with 1 table and as you start to win increase your number of tables slowly it is also a good idea to get holdem manager to help you work out your winrate and you will see what effect adding tables has etc.

Don't move up in stakes when you are tilted, bored or on a winning streak you have to reach 200 dollars before doing that then its okay. It doesn't matter how well you play if you ignore bankroll management you will defeat yourself.

Are you a winning player or a losing player? Do you know the answer to that? It's a fact that most players lose playing poker.

You said nothing about your experience. Do you play live or online?

Are you a winning player or a losing player? To answer that question you need some history. Anytime you play you should have a record of it. There's programs that will keep track of this for your online play, for live play you will have to do it, I use a spread sheet.

If you are a winning player, have patience, and employee good bankroll management (Peterpetrovski went into that), then $500 a month average win is doable.

$500 a month is doable, but be warned that the poker world of 2012 is not what it was in 2005. Making your way as a professional in today's poker climate is tough, but if you are just looking for a slight monthly profit (say under $2,500) you could easily accomplish this with a solid understanding if the game (strategies, bankroll management, and so on) and picking up a good rakeback/cash-back deal.

Yeah it's possible but I wouldn't quit your day job if you only want to make $500 a month from poker, you should try and prove yourself while working, and save up enough money to give yourself a couple months to play poker, and have all your bills paid so you can test yourself to see if your ready to play poker for a living. Good luck!

3-4 hours a day probably wouldn't be enough though for $500 a month.

If he were to play something like heads-up Hyper-Turbos he could easily do this, enen in tournaments that are like $5. In 4 hours he could easily play 50 of these, make $.50 on each one ($25 total) and collect another $4-$5 in rakeback. about $30/day. It would be a boring existence, but I think any capable poker player could do this no sweat

Definitely doable but if you played 3 hours a day 30 days a month that's 90 hours. You'd be making less than minimum wage. Now this is the US-centric point of view. If you are in say Thailand and 500/month is a good living then yea go for it.