OT: My mom wants me to be a poker pro

[me1tdown]

Finish school first. Seriously.
(In 2+2 parlance: get through levels 1-3 before pushing).
Some things to consider:
1.Your degree will give you an amazing amount of options. Poker pro can be one of them.
2.You can continue playing online while in school, so you're not missing out.
3. Poker money (except at the very,very,very extreme upper-end) is chump change compared to a lot of other things that a young person with a sharp mind can be doing and earning.. (Homework -- what did Phil Gordon do _before_ becoming a poker pro? What's owning 5% of a $20M company worth? What's it worth if you make a 6 figure salary while your at it?)
4. Shackling up financial needs to a game you love playing changes the relationship. It's fun now making money playing when you can take time off for studying; dating; seeing concerts; going to movies; sleeping 18 hours straight -- you get the idea. Pro means professional -- you'll have to hit hard and not slack off or you'll get smoked -- ie it's a lot like work. The thing to realise is that your progress and efforts are not linear. There will be times when you're not very productive nor very focused and other times you'll be on a tear. When your on salary it's no big deal -- you probably won't even notice it. When you're self-employed it's a tremendous stress and strain. Really.
5. Mom will eventually come to terms with your being a college graduate.

[TheNoodleMan]

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5. Mom will eventually come to terms with your being a college graduate.

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lmao

My mom thinks me being a poker pro would be similar to my sister being a prostitute. She actually said this.

[TheNoodleMan]

yeah, but did your sister make enough to support herself? j/k

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yeah, but did your sister make enough to support herself? j/k

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lol [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

I'm a senior at UCF, graduating in August. I've been seriously considering taking a year off and playing poker. I visited my grandparents and spent 3 hours at Foxwoods up in CT. I made $64~ an hour at 2/4 limit and that was folding every single hand for the first hour because I got dreadful cards. You just start thinking to yourself...what job out of college would give you $64 an hour? And on top of that - would you love it? Even if you make it $50 an hour for 40 hrs/week it comes out to $100,000 a year full time. I'm not trying to toot my own horn but just bring up a point regarding people in my similar situation. My parents have warmed up to the idea but they were so concerned when I started playing. They thought I was going to become a gambling addict and get kicked out of school and all that craziness. There were some good points mentioned above about the lack of benefits from being a poker player. I'm just pretty much confused as lots of us fairly successful college poker players are. A lot of graduates take a year off to go skiing, travel the world and whatever, I guess you could consider this just something like that. Did anyone reading this thread actually do this? How did it turn out?

[psyduck]

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I'm a senior at UCF, graduating in August. I've been seriously considering taking a year off and playing poker. I visited my grandparents and spent 3 hours at Foxwoods up in CT. I made $64~ an hour at 2/4 limit and that was folding every single hand for the first hour because I got dreadful cards. You just start thinking to yourself...what job out of college would give you $64 an hour? And on top of that - would you love it? Even if you make it $50 an hour for 40 hrs/week it comes out to $100,000 a year full time. I'm not trying to toot my own horn but just bring up a point regarding people in my similar situation. My parents have warmed up to the idea but they were so concerned when I started playing. They thought I was going to become a gambling addict and get kicked out of school and all that craziness. There were some good points mentioned above about the lack of benefits from being a poker player. I'm just pretty much confused as lots of us fairly successful college poker players are. A lot of graduates take a year off to go skiing, travel the world and whatever, I guess you could consider this just something like that. Did anyone reading this thread actually do this? How did it turn out?

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RUNNING HOT. Jesus christ, it doesn't take a genius to know that if you were doing $64/hr at TWO/FOUR FIXED.

[Kanchi]

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what job out of college would give you $64 an hour?

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The same job that can give you minus hundreds+ of dollars an hour or 0 profit over months.

My mom hates to see me player poker so I play when she's not at home. She'd rather see me spend my time studying or not see me at all and know I'm outside with friends or something.

[Rick Diesel]

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I'm a senior at UCF, graduating in August. I've been seriously considering taking a year off and playing poker. I visited my grandparents and spent 3 hours at Foxwoods up in CT. I made $64~ an hour at 2/4 limit and that was folding every single hand for the first hour because I got dreadful cards. You just start thinking to yourself...what job out of college would give you $64 an hour? And on top of that - would you love it? Even if you make it $50 an hour for 40 hrs/week it comes out to $100,000 a year full time. I'm not trying to toot my own horn but just bring up a point regarding people in my similar situation. My parents have warmed up to the idea but they were so concerned when I started playing. They thought I was going to become a gambling addict and get kicked out of school and all that craziness. There were some good points mentioned above about the lack of benefits from being a poker player. I'm just pretty much confused as lots of us fairly successful college poker players are. A lot of graduates take a year off to go skiing, travel the world and whatever, I guess you could consider this just something like that. Did anyone reading this thread actually do this? How did it turn out?

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$50 an hour playing 2/4? Are you serious? A great player would have to run hot for the whole year to average $10 an hour. $100k a year playing 2/4, yeah!

[liucipher]

I'm pretty sure you can't extrapolate your $/hr rate when you're running hot + when the casino is at maximum donk capacity to a full 40 hour week. e.g. I've noticed my SNG ROI is better when there are 50,000+ players online than when there are ~20,000 players. Hell, I wouldn't even extrapolate how you're doing this year into a full 30-year career (in ten years, I'd imagine the poker landscape is significantly different).

Second, even if you made $100,000 a year: it's true there are very few jobs out of college that pay that much for 40 hours a week. But there are a slew of finance jobs that pay that much or more for 60-100 hours a week. And those jobs, when you get to your late 20s and early 30s, will pay you significantly more than you could ever make playing poker (unless you're Phil Ivey, but I'm guessing the odds you're Phil Ivey are about the same odds that you're Eric Mindich).

My $.02: poker's a great hobby and an even better career if you're an amazing player. But don't compare how much you're making right now with how much you could make right out of college. The payoffs of a career come much later, whereas the "salary" from poker levels off pretty quickly.