A Blantant OT Post: Is Poker a Career goal or just a side job?

[mtdoak]

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Maybe he's the smart - too lazy to finish the simpliest assingments type.

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You've hit the nail on the head there..

[PhatPots]

For me poker is purely a hobby. I would never play online poker for a living. Although I do fantasize about winning the WSOP, I don't ever think about 8 tabling 30 hours a week like some people do.

One thing to think about is that if you were to go "pro" then your attitude toward poker would change. Most people don't love their job. If they had the option of staying home and getting paid or going to work and getting paid, what do you think they would choose. Of course that isn't the case.....ne wayz....I lost my train of thought.

Pots

[DocMartin]

Poker is a perfect way to supplement the crappy pay but great hours of this college prof. gig.

[jba]

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Maybe he's the smart - too lazy to finish the simpliest assingments type.

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You've hit the nail on the head there..

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this describes me to a T.

i'm a 26 year old college dropout, successfully broke into IT industry during the dot com boom (the impetus behind leaving school actually -- after 3 years of C.S.), was fortunate enough to have the right opportunities and abilities to stick through the bad times, and I now have the skills and contacts to make for a very secure professional future. The lack of degree is at least a theoretical ceiling, of course, but not one that will keep me from having a very successful career.

The way I look at poker right now is that it is a pretty damn fun way to make a couple g's/month, and a way to take cheap/free/moneymaking vacations and long weekends to vegas, foxwoods, etc.

however... the thought of taking a few years off and getting an MS degree (something unrelated to CS -- finance, history, film have been thoughts) at somewhere like UNLV (hint hint) has been on my mind a bit lately. financed by ~3 months/year of software contracts and poker. afterwords I would most likely return to writing code.

[flair1239]

For me it is just a serious side job. I kind of need the money, not in the sense that I will starve to death without it, but in the sense that due to my present situation... poker let's me eat something other than Ramen Noodles for dinner.

As far as making a career. I did the math one day and decided that I would have to make about $135,000 a year playing poker to make it worthwhile. As time moves on that figure gets higher, due to inflation, greater earning power in my present field, realising I really hate variance...etc.

Anyway the way I came up with the number was to figure out how much I would have to win (pretax) to equal my present package (after taxes), then I threw in about $10,000 in the name of needing a pay increase to accept more financial instability, I think I then threw in another 7,000-10,000 as an attempt to compensate for things that I had not though about.

[crunchy1]

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Myself, I'm a 22 year old college dropout who is trying to break into the IT field with no degree or any certification, just experience.

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As a current IT professional I'd just like to wish you good luck with this. The market is already flooded with people who DO have degrees and certifications. IMO, you're going to need to get very, VERY lucky to find a good job with only experience.

Best advice I could give you here - get back in college and finish that degree!!

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is poker, to you, a side job or a career. Do you honestly see yourself doing this in 20 years? Or is it just a job?

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Side job, yes, no.

[thejameser]

side job, baby, very lucrative side job that i can pick my own hours and don't have to drive 1.5 hours round trip to do. also, when it loses its fun i can start playing backgammon....

[crunchy1]

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Maybe he's the smart - too lazy to finish the simpliest assingments type.

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You've hit the nail on the head there..

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If you can't find the internal motivation to complete an easy school assignment then how do you find the motivation to become a better poker player? Or a better computer technician? Or a better person?

It's my experience that unmotivated people are unmotivated in ALL aspects of life. Sure, you're excited about poker now but, I'll bet that back in middle/high school you were excited about college. Your excitement for school obviously declined to the point where you decided you'd had enough. What are you going to do when that happens with your poker career? Cart jockey at the local grocery store?

[crunchy1]

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i'm a 26 year old college dropout, successfully broke into IT industry during the dot com boom (the impetus behind leaving school actually -- after 3 years of C.S.), was fortunate enough to have the right opportunities and abilities to stick through the bad times, and I now have the skills and contacts to make for a very secure professional future.

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Those contacts and opportunities are no where near as ubiquitous as they were 5-7 years ago.