Has anyone played some poker to supplement income? I don't play much, but decided to play this weekend at a gambling hole not too far away. It's too far away to go too often, but every once in a while it's possible. The game there is pretty weak, much easier than online play, made $1900 playing $1/$2 NL. I went there in May also and won about $750. Very few there are pros, they're mostly dudes with day jobs and no families to spend money on, they play some poker because they ain't got nothing else to do, and don't play very seriously. I'm thinking maybe I could go every Friday after work, sleep in the car out there (at least during the summer months), and come back Saturday night. I'll at least give it a few more times to make sure my wins weren't just a fluke (I don't think I'm that good), but I'm wondering if anyone has had experience with this. Has anyone looked at getting good at poker and playing for some extra cash? How's it worked out for you?
What you experienced was absolutely, positively, 100% a fluke. You can win money at poker, but you don't have to guess what's possible, there are hundreds of pros who are better than you at poker who play $1/2 NL full time and have theorized a great deal about maximum win rates. Read the small-stakes NL forum on twoplustwo poker. The consensus you'll find is that the maximum possible win rate at $1/2, for an elite poker pro, would likely be about $30 an hour. The average "win" rate in the game is about -$15, based on the rake and typical dealer tips.
You admit freely you are not an experienced pro. You are probably a winning player from the sounds of things, but realistically you cannot expect to make more than $10 or $15 an hour on average. To do that, you are not just giving up time, you are also accepting financial risk. You can read more on twoplustwo about how big your dedicated poker "bankroll" needs to be to finance this poker investment/job. For complete confidence, figure it is about 30x what you bring to the table when you buy in -- so maybe about $6000 for your game. Less if you were an established experienced player who knew for a fact he had a large expected win rate over time, but you're not.
The good news is that if you're a winning player, and you enjoy playing, it's great to have a hobby that earns you even $0.01/hr. Most people
spend money on their hobbies.
Just don't go in with an unrealistic idea of your win rate, especially if your sample size so far only includes one bad beat.
You asked for personal experience. My experience was that poker was a great money-making hobby between 2002-2006, playing online. I had spare time and needed spare money. I played low stakes poker, with a bankroll of 20x what I brought to a table at any given time, and made steady profits. I didn't get rich or anything, but was making a good hourly wage (say $25-$30/hr) doing something fun. Why so much more than I said was possible above? For one thing, games were super-soft back then, so the max possible average win rate per hand was higher. The bigger factor though was that with online poker, you could easily play 300+ hands per hour, while in a live game you're more likely to play about 30. In $0.50/1 NLHE, playing 4 tables at a time, I was making about $3 per 30 hands, which would equate to $6/hr at the live game you're considering. My best night, I played for about 4 hours and made $1200. My worst night, I lost several hundred. The difference was not how I played. It's a volatile game.
You've been warned, but if you decide this route is for you, do it more for the fun than the money, and read the small stakes live NL forum at twoplustwo poker before you take this road further.