[killfish]

I have been playing for a living 3 years now,
you should play limit hold'em ring games,
that is the easyest and safest way to earn your daily bread, no-limit is to volatile,
I have seen even great players loose their intire bankroll and you need to be very good to suceed,
if you want to go for no-limit anyway, you better be an expert limit player first,
SNG's and Tournaments are in my opinion for loosers, those games are all about luck and timing where anybody can win, ofcourse, you need to be a great player to, sure, there are pro tournament players aswell, but they have an backed up bankroll, that is, they dont play with their own money, 500 times the buyin is to small for no-limit, I would recommend 1000 times atleast, for limit play I would say 300 big bets would be a prooper bankroll, but that asumes that you win 3 big bets each hour for limit, if you only make 1,5 bb then it's 600, it's all about your hourly expectation, you need to log your play for tousands of hours if you want to know your hourly winning rate, even your losses, I know it can be hard to log your losses, but that is a must, a normal pro limit player make about 3 big bets an hour, so if I play in a 10/20 game (20) is the big bet, I make 60 each hour, (in the long run) in one day that is 480, in a month about 14000 if I play every day for 8 hours, ofcourse I could also loose 20 an hour for several days or weeks but it all add up over time, what you need to suceed is stamina, dicipline, calmness, and you must have alot of experience playing poker, you must be able to play for hours and hours even when you are loosing badly, you can never allow your self to go on tilt or be upset by another players actions, you need to play every hand perfect even toh you are loosing,and ofcourse ,you need to know all about odds, and I dont mean to use an odds calculator, you also need to know your implied odds, reverse impied odds, your effective odds, I recommend "The Theory of Poker" book,so you can learn this, you must know your oponents, if you sit in a game where everyone is equally good, nobody will win, you must play with bad players only, game selection is very important, if you find your self going on tilt or stray from your regular staringhands after a bad beat, then you are not ready, then you need alot more playing hours, this things will come over time toh, loosing is a part of the game, people seem to think that pro players can come sit in a game and totally destroy the oposition, blszing at every pot, it is not like that, we win about 3 bb an hour over time, and that is a good figure, we dont play many hands at all, and at last I want to tell you that pokerlife isnt so glamorous at all, it can be very booring and frustrating, sometimes you loose badly for days, even weeks and it's hard all over,you will start to wonder what you are doing, you might be really worried if you will have money for the rent and food sometimes, and you need to sit for hours and hours and hours, and fold fold fold, day after day,also you can't have a bank loan cus you have no job, are you really up for that? try first at home and se how you are doing for one week, if you think its fun and interesting, then this profession might be for you, otherwice you are better off at a regular dayjob,
I say this not to be a wiceguy, but because it is the truth.