All these college kids who want to go pro

[tytygoodnuts]

As an 18 year old freshman in college, I would like to thank you for this excellent post. I play low limit hold'em online currently and I dream of becoming a high stakes professional player. It was good for me to read this sobering post to remind me of what's really important in my life right now, which is getting my degree.

[Matt Williams]

I know this has been said before, but perhaps it bears repeating. Currently poker is a BUBBLE. Bubbles BURST.


See, I am not so sure about this. More and more people are looking at poker as winning the lottery. Where else can you put down $10 Grand at at chance to win $5,000,000+ ? Not to mention the addiction part of gambling that is associated with it. For me personally, I have always played poker. My family had poker night every Friday night since I was 3 or 4. It is a game that everyone enjoys. I don't think there will be a downswing at all, but that's just me.

[Ed Miller]

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What are your thoughts on stopping for the day when you are up? Do you see it as a sign of low self-discipline or low emotional stability?

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I think that if you do it every once in a while when you have been running really bad to build your confidence, quitting with a win is fine.

If you do it every time you have a small win, you will be doing too much quitting and not enough playing to generate decent income as a pro. Playing for three hours and quitting doesn't get the job for fulltime income unless you play really well and/or play for high stakes.

[Jakesta]

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What are your thoughts on stopping for the day when you are up? Do you see it as a sign of low self-discipline or low emotional stability?

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I think that if you do it every once in a while when you have been running really bad to build your confidence, quitting with a win is fine.

If you do it every time you have a small win, you will be doing too much quitting and not enough playing to generate decent income as a pro. Playing for three hours and quitting doesn't get the job for fulltime income unless you play really well and/or play for high stakes.

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Thanks for the response, Ed. Great book btw. I didn't mean for you to think that I am a full time poker pro. I only play maybe 10 hours a week because I am in college full-time. I just feel better leaving the game after I am up.

[diddle]

great post

I've been a pro for the past few years and I have my degree. I'm 22.

Lately I've sort of stopped playing seriously. I don't think I've avg'd more than 2 hours per day the past few months.

Being a poker pro is lame. Poker is not intellectually stimulating to me at all. Really, it's just a stupid card game, nothing more. I really feel like I'm wasting my life when I'm playing cards for hours on end.

Poker has made me rich. I have a ton of money in investments thanks to poker. I am not, and have never been, "playing for the rent money." Hell, maybe i should just run off to a foreign country, buy a house, and retire for good.

Still, sitting in front of a computer clicking thousands of times per hour is not healthy.

So here I am, as successful a poker pro as any, ready to give it up and return it to its rightful place as a hobby.

To paraphrase others: if you are good enough to make six figures playing poker, you should be doing something else. if you aren't good enough to make six figures playing poker, you shouldn't be playing poker professionally.

Or maybe that's just me

[Alex/Mugaaz]

I'm not sure how to accurately express my opinion on this but it seems both sides are so full of themselves. You read about all these posts about pro players with no money, poor health, no insurance, no retirement, etc. What does that prove about anything?

A person who is unable to plan for their own future is doomed to fail in the long run pursuing any endeavor, even as one as socially correct as getting an education.

I'm tired of people potraying these situations as being somehow directly linked to either path. I know plenty of people with college degrees who will retire on nothing and will be unable to provide for their childrens education. People almost religiously quote that poker players have poor health and no insurance. WHAT THE HECK? Whos fault is that. If you are a successful player there is absolutely no way that you couldn't afford health insurance, so what if it costs more. Just becuase the average poker player is an overweight male doesn't reflect on the career choice. Them having poor health is a result of never exercising and eating fatty foods. The last time I checked poker hands don't have a calorie content.

Anyone who has the psychological make up to be successful at something like poker, sure as heck should be able to plan for their future by putting money away for retirement, paying for their own health insurance, and get to the gym 4 times a week. This has nothing to do with poker. This has to do with the skill of living life. There is no correlation here.

There are legitimate arguments for not pursuing poker as your life's purpose. It is not exactly personally reward to spend your entire life in indrect conflict with others, and the stress it causes IS a legitimate reason that poker can influence your health.

However, how big of an issue is this? How many people feel like a ray of sunshine becuase their hard work enabled their boss to buy that new BMW? Does your average employee feel like a champion on a day to day basis becuase he can make faxes better than anyone else at the office?


Personal Fullfillment is just that - personal. If someone would rather pursue poker as a career than being a patent attorney so be it. Which do you think would give him more fulfillment if he were to exceed at it greatly? If you want to argue against poker as a career this is the reason to do so. Not many people find happiness in being able to beat other people out of their money(or however you want to phrase it).


All of these other arguments against poker would apply equally to jobs like being a high rise construction worker or trying to open your own restaurant.

[ThaHero]

I thought this was a great post. Many people provided important information.

In general, I agree. If someones plan is to drop out of school with the sole intent of playing poker for living for the rest of your life, maybe you should re-evaluate your goals.

However, I think there is a small percentage of players who play now to take advantage of the "bubble" and/or are using poker to set up other opportunities for themselves. Play pro now and use the money to open a business or something like that. Also, some people arent fortunate enough to go to college, or have other circumstances that prevent them from going to or finishing school. For yhem, it could be a decent alternative. I know this is the exception, but did want to make sure people considered this before painting with a broad brush.

[Gramps]

I agree with most of what's written, but it's true of a lot of careers. The average lawyer makes like $50k, but I've known lots of people who borrowed $50k - $100k to go to law school, only to end up out of the profession without it furthering their career much (if at all). Even the "standard" career path carries a lot of risks with it.

It's like anything else in life, analyze the risks/rewards, decide what you want out of life/your career, seek out the advice of others, and make your best informed decision based on all of the above. Pick something, go in head first, and be willing to live with the consequences.

FWIW I think the attraction of poker to a lot of college kids is that they've never had to really work hard in their life (week in and week out), they're coming up on the real world where they'll have to work pretty hard to not make a decent living, and poker looks like easy money/a continuation of the college lifestyle one becomes accustomed to.

[jpg7n16]

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. . . they're coming up on the real world where they'll have to work pretty hard to not make a decent living, and poker looks like easy money/a continuation of the college lifestyle one becomes accustomed to.

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That or we're still in the phase of our life where we want to get paid for doing something competitive. Something we made ourselves... that we accomplished.

Sports in high school went out at graduation. You can't compete there any more. Poker allows you to compete. We all have dreams of becoming professional athletes because we love the game, are good at it, and could get freakin paid if we were able to make it big time. And if we work hard enough, shouldn't we be able to? (Isn't that why we buy the books, post on the forums, etc. to work hard at developing our skills to play this game?)

Poker is a competition of wits and skill... not physical ability. So whereas the college athlete that wants to go pro can get a torn ACL and have that future ruined, the only thing that could stop you playing poker well is losing your mind (a very real possibility for some).

I believe that my generation (or at the very least myself) has a huge desire to not work some sit-behind-a-desk-and-hate-my-job job. Honestly: We want excitement. We want competition. And we want to make a ton of money doing it. We don't want to turn into the adults we see that come home every day from work complaining about how much work sucks.

As long as you can consistenly win... poker "appears" (and I use that word purposely) to be a solution to the monotony of every day "real-world" life.

Gotta love the psychology of all this don't ya?

[Jordan Olsommer]

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I believe that my generation (or at the very least myself) has a huge desire to not work some sit-behind-a-desk-and-hate-my-job job. Honestly: We want excitement. We want competition. And we want to make a ton of money doing it.

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In order to make a "ton of money" doing something exciting, you have to be exceptional at it (otherwise there'd be tons of people doing it, and it'd no longer be worth a ton of money). An entire generation of collegiate chris moneymaker-wannabes can't be exceptional because, well, that's pretty much implied in the definition of "exceptional".

It's like anything else - if you want to make money at it, you're just going to have to be better at it than the people with whom you're competing, and that's all there is to it. And this of course implies that most of the people who attempt to go pro will in fact fail, and then by necessity either find something they are exceptional at (which is of course the preferred route), or get a sit-behind-a-desk-and-hate-my-job job (which is unfortunately the most common route).