What do you call yourselves???

[ladykiller]

I've been playing full time as my only occupation for a year now and like a lot of you I'm making a little over 100k/year. With that said, what do you say when people inquire? Do you just say, "I play poker for a living"? And I'm really trying to get at the question, what does everyone consider a professional poker player to be? Is it how much you've made, how much you make/hr, or what? FYI, I don't consider myself to be any kind of a professional.

[ezratei]

I'm in trade school

[bkholdem]

I'm an ass model.

[Sykes]

Statistics specialist.

[CaptSensible]

[ QUOTE ]
I'm making a little over 100k/year. FYI, I don't consider myself to be any kind of a professional.

[/ QUOTE ]

Can you please pass me the crack pipe?! I'm just gonna tell you what initially came to mind when I first read this post.

1. You just wanted to tell people you make over 100k a year playing poker

2. You want to seem modest about it so you say "I don't in any way consider myself to be a professional".

This is why your post SEEMS like a bragging post:
By making over 100k a year doing anything you're in a small percentile of earners. It seems ridiculous to me that anyone would make over 100k a year doing anything and not consider themselves professional. To ME professional means you make a living off of what you do for a living. A professional musician wouldn't have to supplement his income with any other kind of job. A "Working" musician might need a part time job to supplement the money he makes as a musician. You get the point.

Now you very well may be blindly and ignorantly modest to the point of thinking you're not a pro player by making over 100k a year in your chosen profession. If this is the case I think you might have some self esteem issues that are holding you back. BUT since you don't seem to be held back at all in your life I still go with option number 1 that this is a bragging post that you want to seem modest about.

Of course I could be completely wrong since I don't know you at all and only have this post to go off of. If I am completely wrong then I say:

GOOD GOD MAN! Congrats! You are a professional poker player for cryin out loud!!

I just saw that your name here is LadyKiller. Now it REALLY seems this is a bragging post.

[hemstock]

But you still assume it's a bragging post?

[Justin A]

Um, you realize this guy has two posts under an anonymous name on an internet message board? Doesn't exactly look like he's bragging to me.

[NDHand]

I think he might not consider himself a "professional" because today it's possible to make that kind of money multi-tabling small stakes (and thus, soft opposition). If I played 30+hrs/week poker could be my only source of income and id live quite nicely however i'm far from a "professional" poker champ like some of the high-stakes players here.

[Bodhi]

Dude, chill out. You sound like the only insecure one here.

[DCWGaming]

I've got a similar problem. Actually twice over. Since I'm technically a poker pro and i'm also in real estate. Saying either of those things as a profession (especially in your early 20s) is a good way to make people think you're worthless :P

The conclusion I came up with is giving myself the title "Poker Coach". I really dont do any coaching aside from giving friends advice. Some of them wrote me as a referrer and i might get a little rakeback every week, which makes it not a complete lie.

"Poker coach" tends to get the best reaction.