[TimM]

I quit my day job last February. I'd like to rebut this article based on my experiences, at least somewhat.

Anyone considering playing poker as their main source of income should have played enough on a part time basis to get a good idea of his chances for success long before pulling the trigger. The formula for being a poker pro at cash games or sit+gos is very simple. Learn to play technically well in an ABC style. Start at the bottom and work your way up. Keep studying and improving. Don't move up faster than your bankroll or emotions can handle. If someone reasonably intelligent can follow these rules, they have a good chance of at least making a modest living.

Now if you want to call it failure to be making only 50K per year and not being able to move higher, I can think of worse ways to fail. Certainly one could easily suffer the same fate in a regular job. But there is great potential for someone who can move beyond this. It's like free-rolling if you can make an amount comparable to your former job, but with a chance to make much more if you turn out to be good.

As for getting famous, I know most cash game pros regard this as counter-productive, and prefer anonymity. Anyway the average person has very little chance of getting famous anyway, so playing tournament poker would probably give them a better chance than anything else they could try. But I wouldn't recommend playing poker with the goal of getting famous, while simultaneously trying to make a living at it, because the best ways of getting famous in poker involve spending lots of money on travel expenses and tournament entries with little chance of recouping these expenses.

As for it being unhealthy and dreary, it's only as unhealthy and dreary as you allow it to be. I have to admit I don't do the best job with this myself. I do only play a little over four hours a day at most now. I try to work out twice a week but occasionally skip it, so it comes out to around six times a month. I don't get out as much as I should, but I do have personal reasons for this, and should be ready to change that in about six months or so. I have lost about 20 lbs since I started playing full-time, but I still have a lot more I want to take off. I would be doing much better if I simply ate all my meals at home and never went out.

One other thing I have to work on is controlling the mood swings that go along with the bankroll swings. It feels great to run good and it's depressing to have losing or break even stretches. I think part of this is due to the fact that I am moving up pretty aggressively and am always evaluating myself based of the highest limit I've ever played, which is currently 20/40. My goal for the near term is to reach 30/60 and stay there for a while. For every other limit below that I only stayed as long as it took to increase my bankroll enough to move up. I'm hoping that getting stable at one limit for a while and getting some money in the bank will help decouple bankroll from mood.