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The difficulty making a steady living is the reason even the established pros look for other sources of income from book sales, endorsement deals, TV contracts, or already made a crap load of money doing something else.

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I'd like to say that this is wrong. The only pros you see are the ones of TV, and then most of them are pro MTT players. MTT players are looking for ways to cut down on variance. People that are +EV in ring games are looking for ways to sucker fish into challenging them so they can win lots of money. You also overlook the fact that doing promotional work will pay more per hour than they can make at a table.

The OP should also just get a laptop with wireless.

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Not sure how my statement is wrong or how your reply helps the OP or any other person thinking of going pro. Also, the fact that promotional work will generally make a pro more an hour sort of reinforces my point and I didn't overlook it but you've generally got to win something before they bother to publish your book or put you on TV.

But going with your argument, wouldn't even the pro ring game players be looking for ways to cut down on variance whatever they may be? Most landlords aren't going to care if you're running bad, they just want the rent. I may have suggested a few methods available only to those on the TV friendly MTT circuit but I'd be willing to bet that most successful pro players have sources of income other than their poker winnings. These could include a job, investments, a spouse with a steady income, or any number of hedges against the inevitable downswings. Any player even thinking of going pro should have a backup plan that doesn't involve luck. No one wins all the time and you can lose even when you don't make mistakes.

And my overall point, which the laptop suggestion sort of counters, is that the OP is most likely better off spending his or her time in the library doing school related things. I just read in another thread here that only 7% of players are winning players. In the off chance the OP isn't one of those 7% (or 10%, or whatever the number actually is), it might be a good idea to finish the degree first because you can always play poker but you CAN'T always finish a college degree (but once you have it, you can't lose it).

Sitting in a classroom and not paying attention is probably worse than skipping class entirely. If you skip, at least you know you aren't prepared but I've come across dozens of students who tell me after they flunk a test that they were in class and they read all the books (and my pet peeve, underlining passages in yellow marker doesn't do a darn thing). You have to pay attention and think about what what's going on. To use a poker analogy, just sitting down at the table isn't good enough to make you a winner.

I make about $29 an hour at my job, which isn't a heck of a lot, but I also have insurance, retirement, and paid vacation (2 months a year [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]). I can get car loans and home loans because I have a real job that pays me on a consistent basis. And I've also got a wife who makes about twice as much as me (MY hedge against variance). [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] I'm in that 7% but I don't pay my bills with poker winnings. When I'm running well at the tables I make much more than $29 an hour (and buy big screen TVs and silly stuff like that) but I've also lost $350 an hour before and I only play 5/10 LHE at the most.

Don't be a tool, stay in school. [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]