Convince me this is a terrible idea.

[Dick in Phoenix]

Well, yeah, there has been a "hole" in this market the last few years, what with the dot-com bust, the telecom bust, and jobs moving overseas. But I was trying to convince him to finish college ...

I actually lost my job in telecom in 2003; it certainly shook up my life at age 55. I was able to find another job only by moving away and going back to defense work. But I DID find one.

Dick

[mistrpug]

I do agree by the way that he should finish college. No doubt.

[Cerril]

I'm probably just echoing other people here but I'd at least propose an alternative:

Instead of quitting to play, try to up your hours and get better at multitabling. Without quitting school or even school and a job you should be able to easily manage 10 hours a week. Obviously that will only give you a modest income, but it'll also provide you with about 2500 hands a week to look at. Spend nine months doing that, or even now until the following summer, and you'll have 100k or so hands to look at at a variety of limits. With any combination of luck and skill you'll be at 3/6 before you've played half those, and a good sampling at 5/10 before your time is up. At that point you can decide if you want to put another year toward poker, and you'll have all your obligations out of the way.

[amulet]

i did not even read ther other posts - it is a terrible idea!

1. you have 10,000 hands at .50/1. you have so much to learn that unless your born to play poker, and a few are, it will takes years to be good enough.

2. the life style sucks. best games are, weekends, evenings, holidays, if you want a family someday - don't. it might sound ok at 20, it won't at 40, kids, no healt ins unless you pay, etc. and grinding out 1 bb an hour at high limit games is not glamors.

3. get the most school you can get. then you have options. i have started 2 business that i never expected, i make a great living, but i had options. i love my work and i can now take time whenever i want, play at whatever limit i want. read poker, play poker, and life is easy. you might start your own business someday.

stay in school.

[Louie Landale]

Finish your degree. Get a real job. THEN play for a year and see how things develop. You may come to realize that making $65k/year with a real job is better than making $20k/year the "easy way".

- Louie

[pfkaok]

[ QUOTE ]
I think I may have been unclear about this, I'd always wait until 300BB's before moving up. I was very optimistic in assuming I'd be able to hold 2BB/100 as I moved up the limits, but the specific numbers weren't very important. I was just illustrating that with some research I could calculate around where I should be after a certain period of time.

I'd be happy making 20$ an hour as I'm learning.


[/ QUOTE ]

The main flaw here is that its tough to acurately calculate "where you'll be" after a certain period of time. If you look at your PT, take a look at the Standard dev. column. You should realize that at 10k hands, your WR could easily be off by 3 or more BB/100 in either direction. Along those lines, you never know when you might run bad and have a losing 10k hands, which would drastically alter your planned shedule for moving up. Playing 2 tables 10 k hands will take 70-80 hours, a long time of casual playing.

[ QUOTE ]
Right now, while poker is still a hobby, I almost never go on tilt.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is important too, as it'll be tougher to not tilt when its no longer a hobby.

Despite everything though, I think if you REALLY want to give this a shot you should have a part-time job, and just try to play as much as possible in your spare time. My suggestion would be to start off by bonuswhoring to build up the BR, then start playing seriously at $1-2, you should have plenty BR for that. Also I think you should re-re-re-reread SSHE until you understand everything in that book... when you know all those concepts you should have no problem crushing the 1-2 games, 4-tabling... spend at least 2 months or 50k hands at each level, and by the time you get to 3-6 if you're still winning at a good clip (over 100k plus hands) then you will know that you can "make it".

[ACW]

Several people have advised that you stick at college (I agree totally) while putting in extra hours of poker (don't do it!).

I've been playing poker for eighteen months, and now spend a couple of hours a night online. I love it, and with young kids can't get out much anyway. But if I'd wasted my student days playing poker in every spare moment instead of socialising and partying I'd still be regretting it. I did play a lot of bridge at Uni, but no way would I have played more than two or three nights a week - there were much better things to do. Don't waste the opportunity - your social life will never be this good again.

[helpmeout]

I'll add my 2 cents here.

Dont take this personally but 20 year olds are dumb they lack experience in life.

A poker career may sound great, get to sit at home play a cool game you enjoy and make heaps of money.

The reason why a lot of people can become a pro is through desperation, that desperation is used for motivation.

I have a crap job and am unsocial I do not want to be working for a crap wage and have to put up with the daily bs of small talk.

Does this give me an advantage over other want to be pros? It sure does, it gives me the motivation to push on when things get tough because the alternative is having to be social/pretending to have a life (yeah i know i am sad lol).

When I was 18 I use to bet on the horses a lot (mainly cos I had nothing better to do). I did this for about a year, of course I lost money, but I learnt a great deal about the ups and downs of gambling which has helped my poker game.

I have an edge over people with limited gambling experience.
Gambling sucks you in, young people especially will think they are better than they are and end up getting burnt.

The difference now is that I am 25 have had 3 extra years of education and also experience of having crap jobs.

A regular life/working life is not for me I have tried it, now I can hit poker with everything I have got and succeed.

Are you going to spend 4 hours a day reading books analyzing your game and then playing another 4 hours in the low limits for months before you start seeing decent money?

Can you handle the emotional side of going from winner to loser each day?

You going to handle sitting on your own day after day having little social life?

A lot of social people cant handle this type of lifestyle. If you need that social interaction I suggest a regular job.

If you do decide that you want to become a professional poker player I'd suggest ordering 15+ books (over a few months is fine).

Learn about gambling read articles or talk to people, whatever its as important as any poker skill.

Dont set unrealistic goals just aim to keep improving.

Approach poker like a professional athlete would approach their sport.

I am no professional yet, I still work 3 days a week. When I have turned my $400 into $15k I know I'll be good enough.

Might take me another few months at least lol.

I better stop crapping on, anyway gl with whatever you decide.

[Nick_Foxx]

i'm gonna go against the grain here and say you should go for it - why the hell not

i went to school every year until i was about 28 (i have a phd in psychology) and have been working since then... wish i coulda taken a year off when i was younger and just done nothing

mike

[Dan Rutter]

One reason to stay in school would be if your covered under your parents health insurance, you would not be covered after dropping out of school.