[Nomad84]

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I don't have enough hands at my current level to be able to say for sure what my win rate is, but I am confident that I am a winning player and that I play significantly better than my competition. One of my goals for the next semester is to more up a couple of levels, hopefully, and to put in more hands to confirm my ability.

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I think most people are going to come down on you for this. I've played for just over a year. I'm not a pro, and I doubt I would want poker as a career but I would love to be able to make some serious money off of this. I can beat the small stakes games but have been having trouble breaking into the bigger games. I have had months where I was making $60/hr and months where I broke even, and I'm still basically a break even player. I have a job so when I have a losing month I dont start freaking out, I can move down a level. But those kinds of pressures are what you are going to have to deal with.

I'm sure there are lots of talented poker players that cant go pro because they dont have the skill to handle the pressure. You may be able to beat individual games, but you may not be able to beat the psychological aspects of long term poker. Your lack of hands suggests that you have no idea whether or not you are capable of playing successfully long term. You really shouldnt be thinking of going pro until you have over 100K hands or have played for for 1-2 years. Most people that are going to respond to you are going to say something along these lines.

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Thanks for your response. As I mentioned in my response to Zen, I don't expect to have too much in the way of financial pressure. If I really wanted to, I could take the year off and do nothing and still have enough money to get by, so even if I had to grind it out at the micros, I wouldn't be hurting for cash. Obviously I'd rather not do that, though.

Regarding the last point, I agree that I should have a great deal more hands. I currently only have around 35K total at all limits, which is obviously not enough to say anything conclusive about any particular limit. I've also only been playing seriously since the end of February, and I didn't play much over the summer since I was working full-time. I plan to put in a lot of hands next semester, so hopefully I will have a better idea of where I stand before I graduate. I understand that most people will find my limited experience to be a problem, but that's not what I'm most concerned about. As I said above, I could grind it out at the micros if I absolutely had to, but I don't expect to need to.

I guess my point is really that my ability to make a living playing poker isn't even my main deciding factor. I am really more interested in what effect this might have on my career. How much more difficult will it be to get a job a year after graduation if I have a solid resume minus that year? Is it more difficult to get accepted into grad school after taking a break? Is it more difficult to get a fellowship? These are really bigger considerations. Based on my 35K hand sample, I can say with 99.6% confidence that I am a winning player. I'm positive that I can at the very least not lose too much money playing poker, and that's all that I actually would need to do.