How to explain to parents.

[The4Aces]

Just some information
There are 4 of us that want to do this
We will be playing 6 hours a day.
We will all be graduating High School this year and attending college in the Fall.
We will all be a8 by March.


I am wondering what would be the best way for me(and my friends) to explain to my parents that we want to play poker this summer instead of getting "normal" jobs. Each of us are planing on contributing $220 for our starting fund for a total of $880. We will each meet at my house and play for 6 hours a day. We will have a set up for 8 tables (Empire account and Party account). We will start at $10+1 tournaments and work out way up in time to the $20+2 and 30+3 and hopefully 50+5 and 100+9. We will be working together to keep each other off tilt. Does anyone else think that this could work? Or do you guys think we are just dreaming?
I am wondering because our parents are wanting us to get a job but we want to play poker. How can we convince our parents to let us do this?

[Voltron87]

Don't dismiss this advice. Get a job. Your enthusiasm and determination is good, good for a winning player. But to be a good player sometimes you have to lose a lot first.

Get a job. Trust me.

Once you are winning steadily it and can approach the game from a winning point of view it will be easy to tell your parents.

Another point, where you are in your game right now, 6 hour days are not a good idea.

[zephyr]

Get a real job and play in the evenings. Do any of you have any poker experience?

[The4Aces]

yes we all have poker experience. We have been playing scince we were 13 together. There is a think in our town called APL (amature poker leauge) and have been doing pretty well in it. Also 2 of us have set up PP accounts already because we are 18 and have been doing pretty well. (31.92 ROI but only 120 tournaments which is probably not statistacally significant). I think we could maintain a 20% ROI. My plan was in like April set up and play on the weekends to see if we can actually maintain our ROI.


Any reason why 6 hours a day is not good?

[Voltron87]

Because you're inexperienced, trust me, tilt will be your biggest problem playing online. By hour 3, or if you're lucky 4 you'll be playing terrible. Plus to play SNGs you want to 4 table, which increases the time factor.

[The4Aces]

Our plan was to have 4 people. 2 of us will be working on one computer playing 4 tables. 2 of us will be on another computer playing another 4 tabes and every hour or so switching up the groups to prevent tilt and preventing poor plays.

[Voltron87]

I know you have a plan and all, I really don't know how good you are but trust me, it never starts well. 4 tabling for 4 ours is like learning to dive off the 10 meter board. Bad idea. PM me.

[zephyr]

30% ROI over 120 tourneys means that you're likely long term winning players. Why don't you find normal jobs in the day and play poker in the evenings. The games are noticeably tougher in the days anyways. I'm thinking, work 4 days a week (mo-thur) from 9am to 3pm (24 hours/week), and play poker from 6pm-10pm (mo-we), 6pm-2am (th-fr), go out on saturday and have fun, and take sunday off. Thats 24 hours of work a week and 28 hours of poker a week.

Only a suggestion,

Zephyr

[The4Aces]

Voltron i sent you a PM but they are not listing in my sent PM box. Can you confirm if you got it or not?

Thanks for all the replys so far.
We are thinking about getting a job also, but just wanted other opinions. are the times listed above the times that are easist to win on PP? Thanks

[eastbay]

Right on the money, IMO. There's a lot to be said for a zero variance paycheck, especially one that's funding beer money for your first semester in college. Kids these days have no priorities.

eastbay

[captZEEbo1]

Well, despite all these nay-sayers, here is what I did. I'm 20 right now in my 3rd year of college. This past summer, I couldn't return to my old job, job market was scarce, so I settled for...you guessed it...McDonalds. What a crappy job. Paid like 6.25/hr. During the summer, I started playing poker again, and made about 1200 during the summer (not a ton, but a decent amount considering I was doing the $5 sngs, and towards the end of the summer, the $10s). My parents were very very hesitant of letting me gamble for the summer and gave the same advice as the rest of the message board. They said, poker is a great way to make EXTRA money, so I continued working at McDonalds, and playing poker at night for fun/money.

That being said and done, I've been playing poker online this whole semester, gradually moving up the limits. I also have no part time job at school (I had part time jobs all the previous years). After about a month, I brought up to my parents how I really wanna do this for the summer, because I had already made x amt of dollars playing poker, which was more than I made the whole summer at McDonalds. I've been keeping tabs on an excel spreadsheet, recording all my earnings by buyin level, or limit, or game. This has been to see which has been the most profitable/hr.

After I said how much I was earning, my Dad got interested in my poker earning ability and asked for my party/empire passwords. So every morning, he checks my daily progress
Now, about 4 months later, I can make a pretty good amount in a day's of poker work. Actually, it's an absurd amount compared to what I was making at McDonalds. So I when I brought it up again they pretty much had to agree. So this summer, I am GOING to be playing full-time poker as a job. My dad has realized how much I can make in one day, and realized it just blows out of the water how much I can make at McDonalds. He's also noticed I am profitable about 6 days in 7, if not more, so there is very little risk of having a bad run, which was one of my parents concerns (thinking I MIGHT just be having good stroke of luck).

So in summary, if this is REALLY for you, start playing as MUCH as possible now, keeping careful track of your stats. Bring it up early and continue bringing it up. They will know you are serious if you bring it up this early. But you first have to PROVE to them that you can CONSISTENTLY make more per hour playing poker than you can working whatever job you normally work.

Just try to think of what it would sound like to someone that doesn't have much of a concept of poker. Most people think poker is just gambling or dice-throwing. You have to show that you know HOW to throw the dice BEFORE they will agree to it.

[rjb03]

I wouldn't rely on others to make sure I have money coming in, which is what I assume you're doing (splitting the profit 4 ways?). Also, if you have to pay any bills or room and board it will be hard to move up in limits if you're withdrawing for this or other stuff. Do none of you need to withdraw funds during the entire summer? You should probably get a job after school to build a bigger bankroll if you will be doing this for a living or just build it by playing poker. You can play the $10+$1's now and be ready for higher buy-ins by the time summer rolls around.

[SmileyEH]

The worst part of this idea is the fact you will all be working "together". It is inevitable that their will be vast differences in skill within your group, and this will only be exacerbated by more hours at the table.

My advice is to do it alone if you want to do it at all. Seriously though, having a real job for now is a much better plan. Play in the evenings, develop your game, and work up the limits without having to worry about busting out.

I plan to play exclusively over the summer, but I have almost a year's experience, a large bankroll and absolute confidence in my ability to make a good hourly rate. All these things you at this stage are lacking--of course you can overcome them, but I recommend you go more slowly, get some experience in the real world and put in the development hours first.

-SmileyEH

[spentrent]

Agreed. There's NO REASON to do this as a team.

[gaming_mouse]

I just spoke with your parents. I told them that what you need is a good spanking.

gm

[Johnny69]

I think the team effort is silly. You say it will prevent tilt, but I can see it being a major cause of it.
Imagine your buddy tries a bluff with 3,2o going ALL-IN and gets called. That is an extreme example but more likely u will see someone make a play u disagree with, and if it loses money then a fight could occur.

Why not setup a network and play in the same room but not share money?
ie. Someone plays empire, someone plays stars etc.

[kidpoker22]

Bad idea. You'll end up a bunch of adolescent poker degenerates like SDouble. You don't want that.

[Voltron87]

And your advice is....?

[Voltron87]

Especially in SNGS where you sometimes have to make less than optimal calls and pushes. Someone watched me play a SNG at 3 players and thought I was insane.

[The4Aces]

I have confidence in everyone in the group. 2 of us have been making good money on SNG so far and the others havent started yet. I am sure everyone could be very succesfull on their own but i think we can be more successfull if we are together. Almost everyone at our school plays poker (small private school) with a 10-30$ buy in every weekend. Over the past 6 months we have had 40 10-14 person tournaments and in 35 one of us 4 has won. I have thought about doing this myself but i think we could all learn from each other and if one person starts playing bad we can straighten them out.

[zephyr]

If you manage to succesfully play as a team then you'll have developed communication and team work skills that will take you very far in life. I honestly don't think it will work though. Your record in High School means absolutely nothing, and the fact that some of your team has never played online before is of concern. Play as individuals and have a 1 hour cram session every night where you all meet, have a couple of beers and discuss hands from the day. Learn from each other, but adopt your own style and pace.

Your only experience playing sng's is a 130 tournament stint where you had a +ROI. Once you run into a 200+ stint of -ROI, then you'll understand better how easily your little group will be able to tilt.

Zephyr

[jedi]

[ QUOTE ]
Play as individuals and have a 1 hour cram session every night where you all meet, have a couple of beers and discuss hands from the day. Learn from each other, but adopt your own style and pace.


[/ QUOTE ]

Other than the advice to get a job, this advice is spot on. If you really want to play poker, I suggest getting a part time job at least. There's no reason not to get a job, and you'll get some valuable experience in dealing with people, many of which will not be friendly to you.

Play as individuals, but have strategy sessions as a team. From playing against my friends and talking strategy with them, I've concluded that I play my friends' styles very poorly, and they play mine poorly. Stick to who you are, listen to advice, and don't try to play outside yourself.

Good luck, play well.

-Jedi

[Benholio]

I am going to go against most of the crowd here about whether or not you should get a real job or try this. I say screw a real job, give it a shot.

I'm 26 now, and I remember countless hairbrained ideas like this one that I had with my friends, and regret that we never followed through on them. Looking back now, I wish like hell we had given a few of the ideas a shot when I was still young and relatively responsibility free. Do it now while you don't have house/car/kid/wife/etc to worry about.

Having said that, I DO agree that you shouldn't try to team-play the tournaments. Having 2 people play the same tournament isn't really better than 1, and will often be worse.

Rather than play at the same time, play in shifts. Playing for several hours consecutively will bear down on you bigtime, and you can avoid that by setting up a rotation where you relieve each other after a certani amount of time.

Everyone will still be around when you need a second opinion on an action, but someone won't be over your shoulder making you second guess your every move.

The second guessing comes later, when you play back some of your hand histories (which you saved as .txt) in the Party HH Replayer (http://teamfu.freeshell.org/replayer.html) and discuss them together, when you aren't in the heat of the moment.

Now, as far as convincing your parents, you are on your own. It really depends on the views / attitude of your parents I guess.

[Jason Strasser]

The answer is simple. Volunteer. Public service. Help out at a church/soup kitchen for a few hours a few days each week, and then play poker or whatever the rest. I promise that'll work with the 'rents, i've been there before.