Becoming a pro

[Neurotoxin]

[ QUOTE ]
could you elaborate a little bit on becoming an internet billionaire?

[/ QUOTE ]

Develop an algorithm like Clark, but learn from his mistakes and don't blow company funds on gambling.

[michiganfan9]

That's why I didn't think I would get approved. I think I'm going to stick with the tournaments i'm currently playing in. I totally agree with you. I was like well when I lose it and I ask for another deposit they will definitely think i'm addicted.

[balkii]

I'd rather get a nice degree and sit at work doing nothing

and you say poker is boring?


50k+ a year

in a 40 hr workweek....why not make twice as much playing 20 hrs a week of poker?


poker is one of the hardest things in the world.

no its not.

[balkii]

i wouldnt make your goal to be a career poker player...but its nice to pay your way through school with and can allow you to save up enough capital to make investments so you dont have to play poker...

[Vash]

Never plan on becoming a pro. You can't count on it. Very few players are that good... and you have to find out if you're one of them before you make that decision. You become a pro when you start winning enough to, and if that never happens, then so be it. You can still enjoy the game.
Poker, unfortunately, is not a sound financial option unless you are VERY good at it.

[chipshuffle]

I just meant he could start up an internet company that becomes very successful and make a lot of money off of it and sell it for billions of dollars like Phil Gordon did.
In no way was I implying that this is easy or realistic.
But that part of my post was a joke so I don't know why you needed clarification. <font color="black"> </font>

[Blarg]

Go to college. Ignore poker if you have to in order to not just go, but do exceptionally well.

First, you are looked at very negatively in today's world without a college degree. Like it or believe it or not, people DO judge others harshly, all their lives, and will take any possible angle to do so. Lack of a college degree is an angle to take that actually has some sense behind it.

That's because completing college requires discipline. That may be its primary benefit, actually. It teaches you to take on major goals that you do not care for and succeed in them. This is what a lot of life is about -- being able to do not just the easy and fun and quickly done stuff, but the hard and dull or aggravating or totally unfun stuff that takes forever to get done. If you can't do that -- basically NO job is good for you. And who would want to hire you? If you've graduated college, you've proven you can do more than what some jerky, impulsive kid can do. There's no guarantee, but you've shown that at least you have the potential to have an adult approach to work and life.

But aside from what college shows to others, particularly employers(and don't forget the opposite sex), college is also an incredible life experience. For the working poor it's a much different one than for the idle rich, but both backgrounds are very sheltered and narrow in their own way.

College takes you outside of the opinions and experiences of your social group, your peers, your parents, your family, your religious structure, and plops you into a place where you are not only free to think, but it's required. The idea of a liberal education is an old one that is often underappreciated today, but the chance to study the literature, philosophy, and cultures of other people, times, and places, even to the small degree one can in a single major, can be enormously broadening and enriching. And sometimes, fun and fascinating. A college education is your chance to "see the world" intellectually, or at least a far broader slice of it than you'll get as a child.

It also exposes you to peers who are also "growing up," or at least growing wider, intellectually and experientially, and makes for an exciting social time. They'll challenge you, annoy you, and form new friendships and new social communities with you.

Even if you have to slog through college working full-time, it's still a great experience to have gone through.

As dull and aggravating as some professors are, college is an experience far too rich to pass up. How much of your ignorance you keep, and how much of an actively curious, more open spirit you take with you, is up to you, but the experience of college will make you a more interesting person to be, and to talk to.

Poker will always be there. And it beats many of the jobs you would have while in college. But don't let it take over college, or take its place. College only lasts a few years, and is a valuable life experience that will mean a lopt not only to you, but to countless others you meet, for the rest of your life. You truly do not want to miss out, or make any less of it than you can.