[subandi]

The problem here is, in professional poker, the long run might never come.

In online poker, every hand you play is tracked and can be analysed and people have "run bad" over hundreds of thousands of hands; more than a casino-player will ever see in their life at 20 hands per hour.

[im3w1l]

It should be dependent on your edge no? With tiny edge you can run bad way longer than you can with a big one. And in live-play you should be able to find a table with a huge edge.

[subandi]

Both true, but the point still stands:

You're basically the best player. You'll play maybe 20 hands an hour, live - most of which you'll instantly throw away and make $0. Let's say you play 50% of your hands like a (somehow winning) maniac. That's 10 hands an hour you might make money on. Even the best players' "won money in a hand they put money in" stat is way under 50% - lower, the higher %age of hands they decide play. So you'd expect get 4 winning hands per hour, or 40 hands a day if you have the stamina (and the bad opponents to play with!). Now, most of your winning hands will result in relatively small wins (your opponents also try to win and don't light money on fire) and guess what - the bigger wins and losses stem from the more volatile situations (e.g. going to showdown) where luck plays an even bigger role than in poker in general: It's totally normal to do everything correctly and having to root for a 32% outcome in a big hand.

That long run might never arrive for you, even though you're the best.

I'm not "against poker" by any means, I would not be where I am today without it. Live poker is a (nice) gamble though, not a job.