Answer: In theory yes. In reality, with difficulty! OK, I am still an utter newbie to this TBJ game and the following is almost all hypothetical. The assumptions made are based on my very limited and not statistically significant experiences so far. The purpose of this post is to stimulate discussion and I acknowledge that you could probably drive a good old-fashioned London double decker bus through most of my theorising. Please show me the holes! Well here goes… I’m always hearing about people who have given up their jobs to play online poker and make a living that way. Whether or not there are hoards of “professional” online poker players I guess I’ll never really know but it got me thinking about whether it was possible to become a “professional” online tournament BJ player. Before I say anything else I will acknowledge that it’s not an in-depth analysis, more of a pilot study if you like, to give an idea of what might be required to earn money at online tournament blackjack (OTBJ from now on). I am not that familiar with working with concepts such as risk of ruin and have come up with my own ideas on how to deal with that sort of analysis but I acknowledge that a more scientific approach would be required for a proper study. I’m doing this really to find out what the more knowledgeable and experienced players amongst you think. Has this idea got any legs? The premise: That you can make a living playing Sit and Go OTBJ So what constitutes a living? Difficult to say as it depends on many factors. I chose $3000 per month which in the UK would probably give most people a very modest lifestyle. Not sure what $3000 would get you a month in the States but probably more than in the UK. The games I studied are the 5 seat S&G run by Global Player at both the $30+2 & £50+3 Assumptions Win rate= 45%. This is based on my record to date at Global. Also the proportion of 1st and 2nd is about 60:40. Average game duration = 37 minutes No account of freebies/comps has been taken I also designed a model using Excel to “simulate” 10,000 games. It is a very simplistic model just based on a random number generator and so probably wouldn’t stand up to very rigorous investigation. I ran the simulation about 100 times to get an overall figure for 1,000,000 games played So in theory… To make $3000 PCM assuming a 5 day week I would need to make a profit of about $116 per day. Based on the above assumptions I would need to play 29 games per day at $30+2 on Global to achieve that figure which if I played them in series would take me just under 18 hours. Playing 2 games at a time this would obviously halve. If I moved up to $50+3 it would take me only 15 games and 9 or 4.5 hours to achieve that goal. Actually the $50+3 games are better value than the $30+2. The rake is by proportion slightly smaller and I my case the payout structure is better: You get proportionally more for 1st in the $50 game than you do in the $30 This next bit is probably where I come unstuck and will need your input. How much of a BR do I need? Using my Excel model I estimate that my biggest potential losing streak will be about 20 games on the trot. If I take that 20 game streak and multiply it by 2 to give me plenty of room for manoeuvre that means I would need a BR of 40 X cost per game = $1280 for a $32 game or $2120 for a $53 game. Are these figures realistic or do I need a much bigger BR to accommodate variance? In practice In practice making a living this way would probably be impossible. The biggest factor at present is that there just aren’t enough people to play online! You’d probably need a pool of several 1000 players to be able to play when you wanted and consistently. I think there are about 38 at the moment . Secondly there probably aren’t enough hours in the day. At $50+3 it takes, in theory, 9 hours of continuous serial OTBJ play to meet your playing requirement. In reality it’ll probably take ½ as much again. In addition the assumptions I made on win rates etc would probably decline (i.e. get harder) as more players play and acquire more skills. Also I expect the skill levels to be higher at the higher value games which I would probably need to play to have a chance of getting a reasonable income. Hearing stories from so called professional online poker players it sounds like it’s a very lonely and difficult lifestyle to adopt. I realise I spend a lot of my working day in front of the PC but to be shut away in a room for 10+ hours a day playing OTBJ may drive me mad!!! By the way, I’m not seriously considering this as an option for myself. However if I could get a big enough BR you may see me in Vegas yet…. Cheers Reachy
Reachy, I've been on vacation this week - that's why I can post and read a lot for a change. I can only say one thing! - You have got way too much time on your hands buddy! Your calculations are .....well they're.....calculations. During the week there aren't enough people for a sit and go tourney game! Tonight on BJ21 we could only get 12 people for the 11+1 tourney! Even AFTER Global crashed! Pathetic. We just need MORE BJ players online.
It is practically impossible at the moment! When UltimateBet.com or whoever it is have a combined Poker and BJ site there is bound to be more action. And hopefully lots of it will come from inexperienced poker players!! Actually I'm suprised you're the first to post on this thread. I thought my assumptions and calculations would be so out there that I'd have been destroyed by now! But I do agree, there just simply aren't enough playas online!!! Cheers Reachy
