Pro Poker Players as Job Applicants
 

As a hiring manager familiar with poker, I have to say I would be very impressed by a college-grad applicant that explained a 2-year gap in employment like this:

"At college I learned to master aspects of the game of poker, and I successfully played poker for a living and continue to do so up to the present time. For various reasons I have decided to apply for this full-time, 'real' job."

I'd be intrigued now, because this candidate employee would have some mastery in aspects of personal discipline, personal psychology, statistics (EV, standard deviation, variance etc), mathematics, money management, risk management, game theory, statistics, finance, general psychology, etc. You get the idea...

A successful player will usually be more attuned to how others think and feel. I like this kind of aptitude in employees who must align personal efforts with the efforts of numerous others in the organization.

Therefore, successful poker players, especially young, trainable, moldable ones, absolutely make the best employees.

All other things being equal, if I have any understanding of poker whatsoever I want young, successful poker players on my team, in business terms.

I might be willing to fund the prospective startup business of a young, winning poker player who can prove the annual poker profits with documentation to back it up.

Accordingly I do not see a 2-year gap on a resume (covered by poker) to be a big negative.

Indeed a college-educated player who does support himself from poker, but is now choosing full-time work.... this type of candidate is probably going to be way more successful than average.

Want to argue against these points? Come and get me.

Re: Pro Poker Players as Job Applicants
 

[ QUOTE ]
Want to argue against these points? Come and get me.

[/ QUOTE ]

I play a lot of poker myself, and I'm not sure that I would want to hire a poker player that had played poker professionally for two years. I just don't think that type of person would be a good long-term hire.

I would think that someone who had played poker for 2 years professionally would have gotten mighty used to being his own boss and would not be receptive to taking orders or being a team player. I would also think that they would always be looking for the next opportunity to venture out on their own. In short, I wouldn't think formerly professional poker players would make good employees.

Re: Pro Poker Players as Job Applicants
 

You are not the average person. Until this is a perception held by the general public, not just the poker playing public, it's a risk you take when leaving the marketplace to play full time. The odds of getting someone such as yourself to look at your resume is small, and if you don't, well, good luck explaining the gap to a non-serious player.

Re: Pro Poker Players as Job Applicants
 

[ QUOTE ]
I might be willing to fund the prospective startup business of a young, winning poker player who can prove the annual poker profits with documentation to back it up.

[/ QUOTE ]

Your post is a shred of good light for us players. You may see me message you in a few years to see if you are willing to fulfill your offer.

Re: Pro Poker Players as Job Applicants
 

Substitute pool, chess, backgammon, risk, etc for poker. Add in that you don't know if this person was any good at these activities or not. Still want to hire him?

Re: Pro Poker Players as Job Applicants
 

If everyone were like you, I'd give it a try for a year and come back to working if cards didn't go so well. Unfortunately, many employers would politely tell you to get lost with that big hole in your resume (as well as worries about your gambling, particularly if the job involves financial transactions).

Jeff

Re: Pro Poker Players as Job Applicants
 

Dan, I agree with you 100%, however, as someone quite rightly said above, you are not John Q. Sixpack when it comes to the game and therefore your personal bias (whatever it is) comes into play. I think you'd agree that many hiring managers would not hold your viewpoint OR place such a premium on poker.

Barron Vangor Toth
www.BarronVangorToth.com

Re: Pro Poker Players as Job Applicants
 

[ QUOTE ]
As a hiring manager familiar with poker, I have to say I would be very impressed by a college-grad applicant that explained a 2-year gap in employment like this:

"At college I learned to master aspects of the game of poker, and I successfully played poker for a living and continue to do so up to the present time. For various reasons I have decided to apply for this full-time, 'real' job."

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm willing to consider explanations for gaps in people's work history, but I would not be too excited to hear this.

As FMThe2nd says, I would have concerns about the person's willingness/ability to work as an entry level team player taking orders from others after 2 years of being a self-employed decision maker who made a living being aggressive and outsmarting/deceiving everyone they interacted with and who didn't even have clients or customers to keep happy.

It can be difficult enough for people to make the transition from college to corporate, and I don't think tossing in 2 years as a gambler helps.

I wouldn't refuse to consider an applicant because they spent 2 years playing poker, but it wouldn't be something I would see as a positive. They would have to tell me a good story about why they wanted the position I was hiring for (and they would be wise not to use the phrase "real job" anywhere in their story).

Also, I would have to question the person's second level thinking skills for not expecting me to think the way I think and adjusting their story accordingly [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img].

Re: Pro Poker Players as Job Applicants
 

[ QUOTE ]

Want to argue against these points?

[/ QUOTE ]

No. Good job encouraging college poker "pros" to not worry about that gap in employment. I'm sure they can get letters of reference from the fish they take money from. [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

Re: Pro Poker Players as Job Applicants
 

Your points are decent...but I think you are not properly differentiating between someone who is a 'good, responsible, talented poker-player' from someone who just SAYS they are a 'good player and have played for a living'.


In other words....MANY people who say they are (or have been) a professional poker player are exactly the type of person I would NOT want to hire.

A good poker-player has the discipline to do it.
A kinda lousy poker-player who THINKS he is good is probably more lacking in discipline than most people and likely has some sort of gambling-addiction.


Not that Dr. Phil is worthwhile...but someone mentioned that there was an episode with some guy maxing-out all of his wofe's credit-cards, etc etc because he KNOWS that online-poker is a beatable game.
This guy probably considers himself to be a 'professional' since it is how he is attempting to make his income.
The fact that he is a sucky player and keeps losing has nothing to do with his own declaration of his professional-poker-hood.


I've met some elder folk who claimed to be 'pro poker-players' back in the day.
Their personality nor their play at the tables particularly impressed me.


For someone who is hiring...I hold no grudge against them thinking that someone who has been 'playing poker professionally' is not much more than an unemployed gambling-addict until proven otherwise.

It's not unlike how when someone (friend or relative) tells me that they are 'pretty good at poker' I have serious doubts that what they are saying is true.
Because usually it evolves too, "No...I haven't heard of those poker books you mention. I just play by instinct and it seems to have worked pretty well for me so far."
and then later...
"Oh yeah....I have also figured out how to beat roulette. I'll have to tell you about that sometime because I'm SURE you would be interested. We could go down and play 'team-roulette' sometime and just tear them apart. I guarantee it works!!"



So if I was going to consider someone who did the poker thing I would be more impressed with the way you said it ("at college I learned to master aspects of the game of poker...blah blah blah") and if they couldn't speak in such terms or show me that they really have been winning all this time and not just losing money on their parents' computer in their basement THEN I would start to look at them more seriously.


I think much of the problem is not just the perception that others have of someone like you and me....but also the thousands of BAD poker-players out there with REAL gambling problems who create those perceptions in the first place.

Bad poker-players are the majority. If you are a poker-player then the chances are higher that you are part of this majority.

Re: Pro Poker Players as Job Applicants
 

Yeah any poker player worth his salt (i.e. successful decision maker who outsmarted/decieved others for a living) would leave out the poker player gap and have solid references and an employment history free of gaps lol

Re: Pro Poker Players as Job Applicants
 

what if you had filed 100k-200k on your tax returns for 2 years with your sole income being from gambling. would the employer then be impressed? i know that i would be if i was the employer. although many people have made good points here about how someone who has been selfemployed would probably not be a prime candidate for starting off at the bottom of the barrel. if you wanted to hire them as leaders they would probably be very well equipped if they actually had an interest in the company. you would also have to question why it is that they are leaving their 100k-200k income to come and work a job instead and unless they have a very good answer that is believable, i wouldnt necessarily trust them.

Re: Pro Poker Players as Job Applicants
 

From a recent MONEY magazine article:

"The similarity between poker and investing has long been Wall Street dogma. Some firms look for card-playing skills when hiring; others use poker to train traders. None other than Peter Lynch, the legendary chief of Fidelity Magellan in the 1980s, has said that poker, of all games, is the most like stock investing."

Although for any other job, I wouldn't mention poker.

Re: Pro Poker Players as Job Applicants
 

Dan,

You have written many insightful posts, but I think this one is WAY off base. You forget one extremely important difference between you and most hiring managers: You play poker, and they don't.

You understand what it takes to play winning poker, and you respect those qualities. As I argued in "Nobody Understands Us," most people don't differentiate between poker players and other gamblers. You can read it at cardplayer.com; click on magazine, writers, and my name.

There is a HUGE stigma about playing poker, especially for a living. There have been dozens of posts here about negative reactions from wives, husbands, friends, children, bosses, neighbors, and so on. Televised tournaments have reduced the stigma, but it is still VERY powerful.

Even if someone does not have a negative stereotype, he will want RELEVANT experience for any significant job. How does a poker player prove that his experience is relevant to most jobs?

Because of my respect for you, I would normally send you a PM rather than reply so openly. However, you did say, "Want to argue against these points? Come and get me."

Regards,

Al

Re: Pro Poker Players as Job Applicants
 

I pretty much agree Al.

although I do believe that the reduction of the negative stigma from the televised tournaments has even more significantly made an impact into 'mainstreaming' the game (and those who do it full-time) then we fully realize.


basically...all my friends and relatives pretty much think it's cool and it's something my Dad feels he can talk about openly to his drinking buddies at the Elk's club.
I doubt this would have been the case even 2-3 years ago....but more and more are okay with it now.


now whether it can actually come across decently on a job-application....well, that's a different story.


I specifically remember bisonbison's post in the general forum saying that he was getting out of playing poker full-time and getting a real job at google (g-mail specifically I believe).
He had a friend who recommended him and already had qualifications...but he was simply forthright about what he had been doing for the past year plus and said that "he had been a successful poker-player during that time and found it to be challenging, enjoyable and profitable...but he missed working in a 'team' atmosphere and really craved the opportunity to work with other people in a goal-oriented environment."
something like that anyway.
I thought his quote was pretty damn impressive (I remembered the general idea of it afterall).
He said that google nodded...seemed fine with it...and moved on to the next question. It just wasn't dwelled on.



So....I think it IS possible to do okay with poker in your background. But you have to still do well in the interview.


There is likely a tendency among SOME (not all) poker-players trying to get a 'regular' job to blame any rejection on their poker-background when they simply might have not done very well in the interview in the first place.
Most are not going to say, "they turned me down because I'm just not very impressive." They might say, "I blame poker and their unwillingness to understand ME."


I think of the Robert Varkoni job interviews as shown on the A&E show PokerKings last year.
He complained that the reason he wasn't able to get a job was because he suddenly became a famous poker-player and wasn't bashful about that.
but from what I saw of him on the tube he just wasn't gelling with them in his interview and just did not look like an exceptional job-applicant.



I know I'm going back and forth on this topic a lot.
That's how I operate...I'm kind of back and forth.

But I think there are a lot of things at play...
In short - Yeah...we pretty much aren't understood by the masses.
But many pro-poker players DO have issues that make them bad potential employees. And even the good poker-players fall into this category too.

Re: Pro Poker Players as Job Applicants
 

FWIW -

When I was looking for a job 7 months ago, I put high-stakes poker player on my resume as I am in the trading industry in Chicago and it is usually a good thing. I interviewed w/ two firms - one told me that poker was good for traders but not for financial engineering. The guy was a real a* hole and I didn't interview well there anyway.

The other one thought it was a good thing and I got an offer within the week.

If I have to look for a job again, I think I'll keep poker off the resume, as it really doesn't have much of a positive effect and has the possibility of having adverse reactions, thus not getting you an interview. At the same time, if the hiring manager is a player, then it can make you stand out.

Re: Pro Poker Players as Job Applicants
 

You are 1 of the few who understand that poker is skill based and over the long term luck is not a factor.

[ QUOTE ]
I'd be intrigued now, because this candidate employee would have some mastery in aspects of personal discipline, personal psychology, statistics (EV, standard deviation, variance etc), mathematics, money management, risk management, game theory, statistics, finance, general psychology, etc. You get the idea...



[/ QUOTE ]

How many people actually view poker in this way?

Most of society still view poker as gambling and would look down upon someone who gambled for a living.

Re: Pro Poker Players as Job Applicants
 

[ QUOTE ]

Therefore, successful poker players, especially young, trainable, moldable ones, absolutely make the best employees.


[/ QUOTE ]

not necessarily...how about the 'f* this job, i can make the same money grinding it out on partypoker' mentality? a lot of people stick it out in 9-5's they hate simply because they have no other outs...well the pro player does. he can at least quit and play while looking for a more desireable job.


Andre

Re: Pro Poker Players as Job Applicants
 

Dr. Al,

Thanks for your reply, as I was hoping you might.

OK:

"You forget one extremely important difference between you and most hiring managers: You play poker, and they don't."

Poker has always been part of USA culture- a subculture. Now it's out there on TV. Mainstream. A good poker-playing candidate will recognize this and probe the manager a little bit, maybe speak in a little poker slang, and observe. My basic retort is thus: each day, more and more people (hiring managers) understand poker and respect what it takes to play well.



"As I argued in "Nobody Understands Us," most people don't differentiate between poker players and other gamblers."

Yes. I agree. My basic premise is that this sentiment is changing rapidly, that many successful entreprenuers have always enjoyed poker tremendously and are VERY familiar with it, and that any smart poker-centric candidate will AUTOMATICALLY screen opportunities for a high likelyhood of poker awareness in the hiring manager. This is good game selection, generalized.

Also, I read the article and for reference, others can find it here:

http://www.cardplayer.com/poker_maga...19&m_id=61




"There is a HUGE stigma about playing poker, especially for a living. There have been dozens of posts here about negative reactions from wives, husbands, friends, children, bosses, neighbors, and so on. Televised tournaments have reduced the stigma, but it is still VERY powerful."

Yes. But if a candidate looking for a job practices good "game selection", he will identify situations where poker may actually break the ice. Small businesses, sales jobs, jobs that require real independence and initiative, these are the prime places to look.

Smaller businesses die if they do not adapt. Adaptation means being quick to change your beliefs when they are no longer working. (poker teaches this.) Small business people are some of the most adaptive, open-minded people on earth for this reason. Always open. My advice is if you want a job, target firms under 150 people in size in a new and growing segment of the economy. Here you will find people who are open, and may actually understand poker better than average.




"Even if someone does not have a negative stereotype, he will want RELEVANT experience for any significant job. How does a poker player prove that his experience is relevant to most jobs?"

How does a poker player prove that his experience is relevant to most jobs? Here is my answer: The applicant can encourage the interviewer to give him a typical business-problem scenario involving a group, a team, or customers, and then the applicant can describe his thought process in arriving at a solution. In the scenario the applicant may be cast as a leader, peer or subordinate.

Any open-minded hiring manager (even with no poker understanding whatsoever !!) would be very impressed by the insightful questions, quality of thought, and tremendous attention to detail, and psychological insight demonstrated by any truly **winning** player.



"Because of my respect for you, I would normally send you a PM rather than reply so openly. However, you did say, "Want to argue against these points? Come and get me."

Dr. Al, I appreciate your response to my post.


I will be back to reply to all others who responded by 6/2, Thursday evening.

Re: Pro Poker Players as Job Applicants
 

I think people worry about resume gaps way too much.

Re: Pro Poker Players as Job Applicants
 

i don't think anyone is saying poker players can't be hired for anything ever.

for some jobs, where all prospective candidates are likely to be coming in roughly equal, i.e none are likely to have salient work experience, sure.

e.g. if i'm hiring a car salesman and none of my candidates have car sales experience, i might give an extra edge to the poker player over say, the guy who's been working in retail.

but, if i'm hiring for a more specialized profession & my choices are between:
1. a 2-year removed college grad who has been playing poker successfully and
2. a 2-year removed college grad w/ a successful 2 year track record in the job or field i'm hiring for

unless there's some compelling external factors, i'd likely go with 2. if 2 has been successful, there's likely less ramp-up time to adjust, there's some verifiable track record, and less likely to be a change in work/lifestyle for the hiree to adjust to.

doesn't mean 1. won't or can't be a home run. but you're just more likely to have some-degree of successful quantity with 2.

Re: Pro Poker Players as Job Applicants
 

First, can I get a job, then?

Second..only kidding. I don't know about all of you, but I agree with Dan. I think for the most part poker players would make incredible employees. Bright, adaptable, quick. There is a mile-wide gap between a poker player and a gambling addict. Addicts are desperate people and probably would give themselves away in a heartbeat to any right-thinking regular poker player in a personal interview. I also find it a great thing that hiring managers are open to employment gaps for personal growth. [img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img]

Re: Pro Poker Players as Job Applicants
 

I think an overwhelming majority of people in the corporate world have not caught on to the "poker craze" and don't watch or care about televised tourneys. As poker players who play and watch the game, we probably overestimate just how much the game has gone mainstream. It definitely is fad-ish (I walked into a KMart yesterday and saw a promotional display selling those cheap, flimsy Hold Em sets in a metal lunch box-looking thing), but that doesn't mean that 98% of hiring managers for companies haven't maintained the deeply ingrained image of pro poker players as kind of seedy, balding, Sateen jogging suit-wearing men in their 50's with serious compulsive gambling issues -- that's if they had ever heard of the concept of a pro poker player to begin with. Let's face it, poker players are gamblers and everyone is nervous about dealing with gamblers.

Re: Pro Poker Players as Job Applicants
 

To All:

I will respond to other contra-arguments on this thread by the end of the week. I'm choosing to respond to Dr.Al here and now.

Dr.Al,

Here you go:


"You forget one extremely important difference between you and most hiring managers: You play poker, and they don't."

That's changing... and that's my main point. Poker has been a subculture; it is now part of American pop culture via TV. This increases the respectability of excellent poker players who may also coincidentally be job applicants.

Business owners have been enjoying cards for decades in America. These are the type of hiring people that will appreciate the incredible range of skills a truly good player has worked on and mastered to be successful at the game. Indeed, a poker discussion with a real poker fan who also runs a business and hires people can be a great icebreaker. This can turn a percieved liability (poker) into a winning asset that gets the job. How? By connecting with the boss in a way that other applicants cannot even imagine or think.



"You understand what it takes to play winning poker, and you respect those qualities. As I argued in "Nobody Understands Us," most people don't differentiate between poker players and other gamblers. You can read it at cardplayer.com; click on magazine, writers, and my name."

I examined it, and I see all your articles, here:
http://www.cardplayer.com/poker_maga...an_Schoonmaker

You make some very strong points, but less strong as of 2005. Again, each passing day, that's changing. Poker is now mainstream. A certain percentage of new players actually understand the incredible range of skills required to play well. Also, they have come to understand the extremely high emotional maturity and corresponding "EQ" winning players MUST have. These personal characteristics are highly desireable in any team effort.

As for the interview itself: any good player is going to probe. Any good applicant is going to try to guide the interview. Casual use of a few poker terms in passing can accomplish both goals. If the manager doesn't take the bait, ditch the poker discussion idea. If he signals some understanding, a little more poker talk can be a great icebreaker and prove you are absolutely in the right interview.




"Even if someone does not have a negative stereotype, he will want RELEVANT experience for any significant job. How does a poker player prove that his experience is relevant to most jobs?"

The applicant does it by demonstrating how he can solve complex problems on the fly with incomplete information. And this is my MAIN point: any winner player can generalize his hard-won poker skills to apply them to almost ANY situation. Instantly, because the skills are highly developed and internalized from habit and constant use.

Interviewers want to know the THINKING behind getting a solution, not just the correct answer. It's safe to say a winning player is going to listen far better, ask far more incisive and perceptive questions, and demonstrate way better overall analytical skills than the average applicant. There really is no contest here.

This poker playing guy is exactly the kind of person you want to bring in on an existing team. You want someone who is going to size things up fast and adjust to what's actually going on, now.

Dr. Al, you yourself have said elsewhere in a 2+2 post that poker is about power.

The winning player understands power, and he fits in fast. He does not deny reality. No. He embraces reality. This makes him very adaptable and perhaps even more conscious than the average person. Again I'm talking *winning* players here, the top five percent. These are the very same people that will have a very real 2-year gap on the resume.

So the way the applicant proves that his poker experience is relevant to most jobs is to leverage his full range of perceptive powers and skills during all phases of the job-find process, but especially during the facetime interview, where he has intentionally isolated his prime target, the hiring manager with at least "no judgements" about poker.

If poker is about anything, it's about understanding others. Individuals focused on understanding others tend to do very well indeed, wherever they work, and whenever they interview.

Lastly: I believe long-term winning players are business people... who simply don't yet realize it yet.

I believe learning to play winning poker is the greatest practical training anyone could ever receive about running a business.

Business is, after all, a people game. [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

Re: Pro Poker Players as Job Applicants
 

Dan,

I agree with your general points about "game selection," but must take exception to one point you made.

You used the word "team" in your reply, but poker players are TERRIBLE team members. Our game is extremely competitive, all against all. In fact, if you play as a team, it's called "collusion" and "cheating."

If a hiring manager is looking for highly individualistic, ruthlessly competitive people, poker players are worthwhile. If he wants a team player, don't even consider poker players.

Thanks for raising an important subject.

Regards,

Al

Re: Pro Poker Players as Job Applicants
 

Al wrote [ QUOTE ]
You forget one extremely important difference between you and most hiring managers: You play poker, and they don't.

[/ QUOTE ]

This has simply to do with the fact that most people value people like themself high.

I like to use the term "metaskills" when talking about fields of expertise. Bankroll management and discipline are what I call metaskills of poker. E.g. not only beating other people out of their money. However it takes a fellow rat to acknowledge those skills.

If Al was to hire someone for a job he would also know what kind of person a ph.d. in psychology is and what metaskills are related to that education. Again - he would see through the university degree and know what other skills the applicant possesses.

So make sure your hiring manager has the same background as you [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

Another classic example is military. You not only learn exciting new ways to kill people but also widely respected metaskills like discipline blablabla related to it.

bottom line: most hiring managers will tell you to [censored] off if you tell them you are a pro poker player.

Re: Pro Poker Players as Job Applicants
 

You can convince me if you can come up with a "real" job where a poker player is better qualified. With these guidelines:

1. Name a company, organization, or profession
2. Name a job opening (title)
3. Provide a job description
4. List minimum education (degree/certification)

Describe our candidate poker player's age, employment and education history as follows:
1. Current Age
2. Age completed degree/certification
3. Past work experience
4. Number of most recent years playing full time poker
5. Explain how he is best applicant for position in 2 SHORT paragraphs maximum

For example,
Age: 30
Education: completed BA economics at Age 22
Work Experience: 1 year gas station attendant, 6 months babysitting.
Poker: Spent last 10 years playing poker.
Description: I am best applicant for job because...

I am conceding you the benefit of choosing the company, organization, or profession, job title, and of use of your best personally tailored candidate to apply for said job. Now, convince me!

Re: Pro Poker Players as Job Applicants
 

[ QUOTE ]
I think for the most part poker players would make incredible employees. Bright, adaptable, quick. There is a mile-wide gap between a poker player and a gambling addict. Addicts are desperate people and probably would give themselves away in a heartbeat to any right-thinking regular poker player in a personal interview

[/ QUOTE ]



Go to any poker-room in the country at any time of day and tell me how many players in there fit the 'bright, adaptable, quick' image and how many fit the 'gambling addict' image.

I suggest that the majority convey an image closer to 'gambling addict'.
if you narrow it down to 23-30 year-olds in the poker-room you might do a bit better.
And still better if you narrowed it down further to 23-30 year-old college educated individuals.

But, in general, the perception one can get of the 'typical
poker-player from just looking around the room is NOT one that would likely be attractive to many employers.
And I think this is the image that still persists (and, in many cases, rightly so).

Re: Pro Poker Players as Job Applicants
 

Hi,
I have been quite successful in business. Now I have taken a break from working, just playing poker for a living. What I am noticing is that the logic of the poker game is similar to that of business. It is the kind of fuzzy logic: a player bets on a k-high flop means dependant ont the player a certain % chance he has a king, a king on the turn reduces the chance he has a king even before he conducts another action. I have come to the conclusion that the huge majority of my opponents in both business and poker does not understand this.

Thus, I think that if you manage to convince the employer that poker has proven to you that you have the ability to make good decisions in an environment full of uncertainty and lack of information and this has resulted in substantial profit, some will be impressed.

Remember, you played poker because you wanted to test yourself in a competitive environment and you like a tough challenge (not because it is nice to sleep 3 hours extra [img]/images/graemlins/cool.gif[/img]).

Re: Pro Poker Players as Job Applicants
 

The whole foundation of my argument is that *winning* players are the desireable candidates.

This would amount to 3 to 5 percent of all the players in a typical poker room on any given day.

A very small subset of the player population.

Re: Pro Poker Players as Job Applicants
 

Certainly business aptitude and poker aptitude are highly correlated.

My main motivation in making this post is to convince young winners to take the poker lessons to the world of business, where they can be easily leveraged.

Dr. Al has said that poker is every man for himself and ruthless, and yes I agree. My point is that the winning player is by definition a winning business person. This is an idea that winning college players need to be hearing.

These college guys also need to know that the $100 per hour that seems so hard to achieve in poker is actually pretty simple in business if you apply yourself.

There is an unlimited amount of money to earn out there in business. Unlimited. Young winning players that "think in poker" and adopt this belief can easily outearn all but the very best players.

The business you start and grow does not have to be sexy or techy or hip, it can be as dull as plumbing supplies or HVAC services.

I strongly encourage serious winning players to purchase the book The Millionaire Mind and read it twice. That book provides a roadmap for young winning players that want to leverage their hard-won poker lessons in a big way.

Anyone smart enough to earn $75 or more per hour playing poker is likely able to earn 2,3, 7 times that in a business. The business typically will have far less variance , a higher earn, and more overall satisfaction.

Re: Pro Poker Players as Job Applicants
 

Agreed to all. What they have to bring from poker to business is that almost all common conceptions of how to do success is wrong both in poker and in business. 95% are wrong, if you want to make success you have to be in 5% that dares to think otherwise.

Re: Pro Poker Players as Job Applicants - Tiny Minority
 

Bob, you make an important point here (already agreed to by Dan in a parallel post).

We here on 2+2 have intelligent discussions with expert players, and posting here, it is easy to forget what a tiny minority the experts comprise. I posted, years ago, that of my several years playing 3-6 to 6-12, all games, in the AZ casinos, I could list the players I thought were long term winners on one hand. And at least 2 of the 4 had already moved up. And the low limit players are the vast majority, when you go into the cardroom and look around.

So my opinion on the job application is that you had better emphasize the part about winning !!

Dick

Re: Pro Poker Players as Job Applicants
 

The problem is some people doubt there is such a thing as longterm winners and will think you are a delusional, self-centered person that went broke gambling and now are looking for a job.

Jeff

Re: Pro Poker Players as Job Applicants
 

These are good supporting arguments for why a young pro player would be a good entrepreneuer or business owner.

I have to concede these points to you in terms of hiring a pro player. Poker works against getting hired at a big outfit with say over 150 employees.

However, many small businesses are looking for people like this, making smaller firms prime targets for young college-grad pros who are looking for fulltime work.

Re: Pro Poker Players as Job Applicants
 

A verifiable track record proves the winning player, the diff between a participant and a winner is huge.

As for chess, backgammon etc the human psychology aspect is less of a factor so I see this as an apples-to-oranges compare.

My assertion is that poker skills are much more widely applicable in more life situations overall than skills associated with other kinds of games, and that these skills are useful in getting and keeping a job. Poker skills are in fact very useful in any kind of goal-oriented activity involving people, incomplete information, and a range of possible outcomes.

Re: Pro Poker Players as Job Applicants
 

My reply to Dr. Al states that from 2003 to 2005 the image of poker has improved dramatically, that many people know the lingo, and a few really appreciate what it takes to develop a complete game since they may have tried to do so and found it aint as easy as it looks.

None of these trends can hurt the successful player in terms of selling those skills to an employer who understands poker, in the right spot.

Re: Pro Poker Players as Job Applicants
 

OK. Many hiring managers would not hold my viewpoint, I agree

But any decent player can turn poker from a liability to an asset by practicing good game selection when applying for jobs. Picking a small firm in a growing area of the economy is the first step, followed by a good amount of due diligence. Profile the players.

Now, I actually think that if I was looking for a job and used these guidelines, my goal would be to find an opportunity where the big boss likes poker and may even have a home game going. Playing in the bosses home game quickly after being hired is analogous to getting to play playing golf quickly with the boss. You have him isolated for hours and have access to him in a way others in the org simply DONT.

Most entreprenuers love poker, and they respect highly developed poker skills in young players. It says alot about the guy. Many successful entrepreneurs relate instantly to young, poker-skilled employees and may even identify with them, creating strong rapport and a huge edge work-wise for the new guy.

As the candidate, my goal would be to get into the bosses home game ASAP.

Re: Pro Poker Players as Job Applicants
 

For a sales or trading job, maybe a poker player can be considered.
But for any other type of job (decent job i mean), I would definitely kindly show the door to anyone like you described. My reason is: If I need experience, then it would be much better to hire someone who has had working experience and had some success in the position I'm looking to fill.
In comparison to recruiting someone who spent 2 years getting experience in poker (or any irrelevant job) I think it's better to recruit someone career minded straight off university.
One of the biggest down-sides I see with your suggestion is that someone who has turned pro straight off school has never had exposure to a corporate culture; never went to work at 9am every morning, never wore a suit to work (well, unless they play ni a suit which is unusual these days), etc etc. There's so much they need to get used to at work that it's not worth the risk.
I bet that should you employ someone like that, you will loose them within 6 months 75% of the time.

Re: Pro Poker Players as Job Applicants
 

Kellermann is a player !