any consistent winners year in year out regret playing poker/living

[NLfool]

In college I played enough to pay for my housing and misc expenses at UCLA. I graduated 1.5 years ago with a CS degree and could not find a job. Have not really tried hard enough partly because I was making enough to pay off my rent, util, car payments, the stafford loan I took out for tuition, sending some money to my sister and some spending money.

Now I'm grateful I can even make a steady income but I'm good player not a great player and don't see that in my future. I think it does take a great player to make a comfortable living and as of now I'm just making the minimum needed to get by in LA. Now my girlfriend wants to get more serious and it is tough going to family dinners where the first thing people ask someone my age, is what, are you doing now. During this past holiday in between her work party, her family and my family dinner I've had to lie to probably 2 dozen people. Granted I am a poker player but I don't like lying to people.

And though my friends have had to venture into different fields and start much lower than we all imagined they are slowly moving up with connections, health benefits, 401k etc. Eventhough it's only 1.5 years I feel it's a big gap of nothing on my resume and as time goes by it will be harder to explain. Feels like a rut though I can make 25-30k it just seems like an endless not very rewarding circle. Anyone get stuck in this circle and regret it?

[Webster]

Another trap - besides no Health ins and so forth is there will be a time when you will feel guilty for NOT playing.

Just a thought - I know pro Golfers have that problem

[lefty rosen]

Okay if you live your life for others and not for yourself then that's your first problem. Yes to the average person being a "gambler" they envision a scumbag cheat or a mobster or something in between. But you know what you do is really stat manipulation and reading the opponents tendencies. Now if you said you were investing in the markets would you get raised eyebrows around the Christmas dinner table?(I equate the two as the same and being a winning player maybe easier)

[harboral]

You should be honest with yourself about your OWN GOALS and desires. If you can't see yourself moving up to the higher limits, quit. If you love playing and MIGHT move up, then you should keep playing. I've never lied about my profession, but if it makes you happy, buy some cheap stocks and start a small portfolio and add to it each month. Then when people ask what you do - you are truely an investor and are watching your portfolio. I've had a few jobs in the last 20 years - now a full-time player again, and I REGRET not playing full time and being at the $50/$100 level now instead of 10-20. If you are making 30K now, you might want to go ahead and move up and see how you do. If you get busted - then you know to quit.

[squiffy]

My guess is that for the average person, it is easier and less risky to earn $50,000 a year holding down a job than playing poker.

Playing poker, chess, and football are special activities in that they are not inherently productive. People have to pay prize money or wager money and lose it for you to win. So to make $50,000 a year playing football, chess or poker I think is incredibly incredibly difficult.

Whereas, there are any number of jobs that pay well and would allow you to eventually earn $50,000.

Does this make sense.

I think to earn $50,000, perhaps you have to be in the top 40 to 50% of computer programmers in terms of education, intelligence, and work ethic.

Whereas to make $50,000 a year playing poker, you would perhaps have to be in the top 20% to 10% or higher.

Similarly if you wanted to make $50,000 a year as a singer or artist, you would have to be in the top 10% or 20% of those professions.

Because society is much more willing to pay money for computer programmers than for singers.

The top 1% of singers are multimillionaires. But 99% of singers are starving and barely getting by.

99% of computer programmers probably live comfortably.

That's my guess anyway.

So for the vast majority of people it's better to go with the sure thing. Take the 50K a year job and play poker for fun and make 5-10K a year playing poker as a hobby.

I make 70K as a lawyer and play poker for fun and make maybe 2K a year from poker.

I could try giving up my job and trying to become a poker pro, but that would be gambling. I have no idea how I would do.

The big problem is uncertainty. If you go the day job route you are guaranteed a certain steady income if you do the minimum required.

You may or may not have the talent to make a living playing poker. Though now that there is internet poker, making a living playing poker is more realistic.

But will the craze last and are your poker skills good enough. And do you love the game enough. Tremendous uncertainty and anxiety over that.

I would rather start with the day job, then gradually explore poker, than the other way around.

It takes a special kind of person to give up a sure income for an unknown shot at an unknown profit, with very little security and structure.

It would be interesting to know more about poker pros.

Some top pros appear to be independently wealth from business, law, teaching, etc. and gradually found through tournaments that they had a talent for poker.

And although some people took a shot and succeeded at poker, it is hard to know how many thousands of people took a shot and threw away many years of their lives which they could have devoted to building a perfectly comfortable, though non-glamorous, traditional career.

Unless you are certain you can make a living playing poker or unless you can afford to take a risk, why not go for the sure thing first.

Unless you poker playing ability is way above average, then you probably fall into the large pool of people who are probably better off focusing on building a traditional day job career, and playing poker as a hobby, always testing their ability and gradually seeing if they can make it a go.

[jerome baker]

" That's my guess anyway "

-actually its not a guess, thats just how it works

[squiffy]

You do raise an important philosohical question. Society trains people to hold down traditional day jobs.

How did Bruce Willis or Charlize Theron know that they could make it big in Hollywood? How many people have pursued false dreams and thrown away years and years of their lives trying to become stars.

If you are beautiful and talented, is it obvious that you should take a shot?

Is poker any different. If you have what it takes to be a pro poker player or football player or actor or comedian or model -- shouldn't you know it?

Shouldn't your talent be obvious to all?

I just don't know.

But it's a huge risk. And only the incredibly talented or incredibly foolish take a shot.

It was an easier choice for me. I did well in school and on tests. And there was no poker available where I grew up, and certainly no internet poker when I was young. So I never faced this kind of choice.

If you are really curious, you should try to save up some money and give it a year or six months, or however long you think you can afford to.

But before you take your shot, make sure you have studied and practiced hard enough to have a reasonable chance of success.

[lefty rosen]

I wouldn't equate going "pro" in poker as the same as football, after all the recruiting ground in football is the US college system, and you can have a degree and do a regular job if the NFL doesn't pan out. I would equate going pro with being a rock musician or boxer, or minor tour pro golfer. The odds of making the big bucks are long but finding some financial sucess if you have ability isn't as long as you think........

[mosch]

I'm not a poker pro, but I do have a similar set of concerns, fears and risks. A few years ago two of my friends and I started our own business. We had no guaranteed income, no assurances of future profit, and no way to know if we'd accomplish anything beyond blowing a huge chunk of our savings accounts.

Fortunately, the efforts have worked out so far, but it's only been in the past six months or so that we've gotten to a financial state where we could lose any two clients and still be profitable. We still can't afford to lose our big three simultaneously.

Business is a lot like poker, you take bad beats (customers who don't pay), you lose money chasing (you spend $20,000 to get an account, and then they decide that their focus has changed, and you're no longer needed), and occasionally you get a huge fish that will keep you happy, as long as they're happy.

At some point you just have to decide what it is that will make you happy. I made my decision because I realized that a traditional job would never allow me as much vacation as I wanted, would never uphold my principle of valuing happiness over money, and would never put me in a situation where I can make money while I sleep.

Think about what's important to you, make your own decision and don't be ashamed of doing what you truly want to do, even if that means getting a job in middle management [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

[karlson]

I think that the fact that you feel that you have to lie to people about what you do for a living means that you probably shouldn't do it. It may sound cliche, but are you going to lie for the rest of your life?

If you could make $100,000 a year playing poker, would it make you feel much better? My guess is probably not. So I don't think moving up in limits or working hard on your game will solve your problem.

Go back to school, or go work as a programmer for a while. I'm sure you can find a job somewhere. Up to you what you do with your gap on your resume, but I would put down that you were self-employed as a professional poker player. With poker on TV, it'll raise curiousity more than anything, and make for some interesting and memorable interviews.

And yes, I've been stuck in the circle of "I don't want to spend my time doing this, but I make money with it". I think that so have middle-aged people that don't like their jobs.