For background purposes, I recently quit my job to work freelance, so I'm not a pro by any means but I do now have flexibility and serious time to dedicate to poker. I have no idea if I would actually ever want to play professionally, but my goal is to get to a level where I make a good, consistent income from the game. I guess you could call that playing semi-pro, with the option of playing full time if I ever needed it. I enjoy the game, make modest money from it, and now feel I have the opportunity to take that further and try to make GOOD money from a game I enjoy.

So with that in mind, in 2016's games do you think it's realistic to achieve that goal while playing 2 or 3 formats, or do you really need to specialize in one and focus all effort on that? My favorite type of poker is MTT, but honestly with my freelance work it's prob not realistic for me to grind these on their own with the big time/volume commitment needed to ride out all the swings. It's pretty easy to have a losing year if you're only playing part time, which to me feels more like shot taking/gambling than grinding an income. I also play PLO and NL cash (at 10c/25c and 25c/50c), I like both and like being able to switch between them, but by splitting my play and study time between all these different games am I sabotaging my own development compared to other regs by not picking one game to become an 'expert' in?

I know there are many pros out there who play more than one format, but I think these players were generally already crushers in one game and then decided to learn other formats, rather than learning 2 or 3 games from small stakes up the way I am. I'll always play NL MTTs when I have time, so NL cash compliments this better than PLO, but then PLO is probably more fun and is definitely softer these days so is likely a better choice as a cash game purely on its own merits. I also see myself playing a fair amount of volume live in the future, so from that angle it'd be useful being able to walk into a cardroom and be comfortable sitting down at either a PLO or NL table, whichever was softest.

Has anybody else worked their way up the stakes in more than one format at the same time? Would you have done things differently?