Compliments? (no content)

[swiftrhett]

I've been playing a bit for a few years, and I've started to take it real seriously the past few months. I'm getting a lot more confident about my game and the prospect of playing full time.

It is obvious that most people who succeed at poker are intelligent, hardworking, and could probably succeed at a lot of things. I'm getting some pretty funny responses when i talk to my friends about poker who know very little about the game. My genius friends think that it's a waste of time, and my maybe-not-genius friends are amazed that I'm not broke. Here are some dialogue examples:

Me: Well, my friend makes $40/ hour

Genius: Can I, and the rest of humanity demand that he repays us for what he could have given the world instead?

Other Geinus: I think it's really great how you use all this intelligence, dedication, and creativity . . . towards online gambling.

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Friend: how much do you make?
me: a couple bucks an hour
Friend: Well that's good, at least you're not broke.
Me: no actually, it's not really possible to live on that, so it isn't really good yet.
Friend: Hey, as long as you don't lose your shirt!

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Anyway, I think it would be fun to hear any similar stories

[Jman28]

my most common response (maybe I have dumb friends):

"Can I give you like $50, and you turn it into $500 for me?"

[Newt_Buggs]

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my most common response (maybe I have dumb friends):

"Can I give you like $50, and you turn it into $500 for me?"

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I get that one from some of my friends too

[bennies]

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Every time I take a sucker's money I feel like I'm getting revenge on one of the many ignorant and/or stupid people in this world.

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lol, nice attitude.

[raptor517]

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my most common response (maybe I have dumb friends):

"Can I give you like $50, and you turn it into $500 for me?"

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I get that one from some of my friends too

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the ones i get are more like can i give u 10 bucks and u turn it into 20. holla

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my most common response (maybe I have dumb friends):

"Can I give you like $50, and you turn it into $500 for me?"

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I get that like crazy too.

It is very true that professional poker provides nothing to the economy, IMHO. Although, I think that televised poker is changing that a little.

My 'job' is contract work in the non-profit field, and as you can guess from the 'non', I'm not exactly raking in the benjamins there. Supplemental income from online poker helps me to pay the rent and have some fun during my slow season and allows me to spend my spare time starting a non-profit of my own on a volunteer basis, which may or may not eventually turn into a (barely) paying job. Given the amount of homophobia, racism, and general ignorance that I see in online poker chat boxes every day, I can't help but feel a little like Robin Hood, taking money from some pretty repulsive people and using it to finance something that I do consider of value to society.

Friends think it is pretty cool, except one 'genius' friend who feels I am wasting talent and bound to go broke. Colleagues are envious that I get to 'work' from home doing something I enjoy.

Family is a little trickier. I got an expensive education from a good school, partly on their dime (though partly on poker's dime!), so some feel like I'm wasting a lot of talent. I'm barely a year out, though, so right now I think they are accepting it as 'drift', which may be all it is. My grandmother had been telling her friends I was taking a year off before law school, but she can't really maintain that line anymore.

Oh, and the Lieutenant Governor of Mass. has a crush one me :-).