[MicroBob]

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.