poker is a way of life vs. poker is just a hobby

[Phil2]

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admit that it's just a hobby, ease back on the hours, focus on finishing my PhD, and treat it as a profitable sideline.

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There we go.

[The_Bends]

To me poker, likeany job has advantages and disadvantages. I certainly wouldn't wantto be a pro player all my life unless I turned out to be a top level pro. However for the next couple of years poker seems like a great idea to me. I'll have my degree and I don't plan to go straight into full time employment. With poker I can bum around the country, visit friends, go skiing etc while maintianing a decent income. Then when I'm bored of the lifestyle/poker I can move on and use my degree to get a job.

[Leptyne]

When you mentioned an intellectual and emotionally satisfying career you failed to mention money. Yet when you talk of poker as a career you mention something like $200K +.

If you were my son I would advise you to find a career that is both emotionally satisfying and intellectually stimulating. If you're going to get up and go to work every day it better be something you enjoy.

Poker is a lot of fun as a hobby, but like golf or bowling, when you have to get up and go to work playing poker it becomes a job like any other. As you get older and wiser you may become a great player but your career options will have narrowed considerably.

The biggest problem that I read about is emotional stability. Poker requires you to play with no emotion. You can't play when you're angry, sad, or thinking about your girl. Many players are very good at this, but I've read about the problems of learning to put the emotion back into your life when you leave the table. If you can't learn to handle that aspect then don't go there.

My suggestion is to get your degree while working at becoming a semi-pro. My definition of a semi-pro is a person that has a job, but makes more money playing poker than he does at work. When you reach that point you'll be in a much better position to decide if you want to quit your job and go see the elephant.

Of course by then you'll have a wife, two kids and a mortgage, two car payments and be wondering how you're going to pay for college. Now that you've got some serious obligations how are you going to handle a losing streak emotionally and financially?

I'd really suggest you go find a couple of pro's that would be willing to tell you what the life of a pro is all about.

On the other hand I know you're young, and if you're single there is no reason you can't take a year off from school to do some serious work on your game and see where you are a year from now. The best time to try this is when you're young and single. What do you have to lose?

[LuvDemNutz]

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Poker requires you to play with no emotion. You can't play when you're angry, sad, or thinking about your girl. Many players are very good at this, but I've read about the problems of learning to put the emotion back into your life when you leave the table.



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I've never heard of this before but it makes perfect sense to me - I can definitely see how training yourself to be immune to the highs and lows of poker could impact other parts of your life.

[Bosox]

This thread should be a book sold on college campuses.
I'm a college student who's taking the summer off to be a short-term pro and ponder the idea of making a career out of it.
The best parts of playing poker in school is that you can walk around with enough money to travel and eat and live a lifestyle most other college students can't. This is great when all you are doing is paying rent and maybe tuition but project that five years down the line and it's not quite as attractive to be pulling your weight squinting at a computer screen until 4 in the morning. Based on the fact that i'm still in the looking ahead and planning stages of my professional life, none of my ideas are supported by experience but I have to say that keeping poker as a part-time hobby while i finish my engineering degree seems to offer the best balance for both future options and peace of mind. I've thought quite a bit about how life would be as a pro and honestly, the only "perfect fantasy" i can come up with is living like a king on a beach in an asian country with a satellite modem where $100 a day will make you a VIP. But even there, you are disconnected from all your friends and family and the realities of good old american life. I'd miss football. Not soccer, football.
So while i can't really speak through experience, my own thinking is this: Balance your life, keep your future open. You can always come back to poker.

[Jeff W]

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I've thought quite a bit about how life would be as a pro and honestly, the only "perfect fantasy" i can come up with is living like a king on a beach in an asian country with a satellite modem where $100 a day will make you a VIP.

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I think you mean nightmare.

[NiR]

couldnt have said it better myself. i dont want to just throw away my life. although poker is where i earn most my money in, i am constantly looking into investing on stocks and soon start realestate. but now basically look into stocks. right now i am a sophmore in college going into my junior year. i am studying Electrical Engineering but my gpa is around 2.3 . not good at all but POLY is hard =/. it scares me alot . not sure how my future looks but i guess only time will tell. this is just something to fall back on. poker/stocks/investing. just something to fall back on....

[edge]

Just something regarding professional players: I find that I'm tilting a lot recently, even if I just swing down 1 or 2 buy-ins. I used to be able to stay calm--for about three months before the school term ended and I decided to play poker full-time during the summer, I was tilt-free. Now I'm going into a rage at every suckout. Does anyone else find that playing professionally brings more tilt? I'm making huge sums of money compared with what I'd make at any job I could get during the summer, but I'm steaming big time if I have a losing session.

[BobboFitos]

yes. i have lost too much sleep over hands where i either played well but got unlucky or played poorly and got what i deserved.

cool thing is i still make more money then all my friends, (except for one, who plays higher limits then I do...) but there is an added amount of stress, so i have to agree with you.

afterall, there's a reason im up at 3 reading 2p2, and it's not because i sleep so easily

[Leptyne]

Don't forget to check with a the IRS or your CPA/Tax attorney. As a self employed individual you'll be expected to pay your taxes like the rest of us poor slobs. Again, you'll need some advice from another pro.