I dont really believe any of OP's post at all. Aside from completely forgetting that poker is work too, and that you dont just show up to a casino whenever you damn well please, but rather when you expect certain players to be there, and that there is a whole new level of stress involved where you actually LOSE money instead of just endlessley making it through a normal job, his whole notion of the working world, and claiming to have amassed 150k in profit in his bank account just wreak of utter BS.

For starters, you would have to be making like 300k/year to have 150k in cash savings by the time you're 32 unless you're a doctor living at home with your parents. And I dont know what job out of grad school would be paying you that much by the age of 27/28. Furthermore, if you actually had that kind of money you would already be well aware of how fun your life can still be, taking vacations, buying nice things, etc etc. Basically all the same **** a midstakes poker player enjoys. Basically people who already earn 6 figs/year dont have urges to go play poker. It's just not in them. With that kind of savings you would already be business oriented and be contemplating how not to work AT ALL, rather than 1-table poker in a casino all day. Most serious poker players realize that internet poker is the only way to make a living at it. Only daydreaming ****tards actually fantasize about driving to a casino every day.

So all in all, I'm calling BS on this entire thread until I see some screenshots of your bank account or something.

This is me minus the $150k in the bank. What am I doing wrong?

or have family money or something that you got when you got out of college... Or maybe he just saves a lot because he works all the time.

That's the wrongest thing said on the intrawebs today, with the second-wrongest being just about everything else you wrote. You have no clue what you're talking about.

I should have been more specific; I meant they dont have the urge to become poker pro's and move to vegas, and if they did they wouldnt write and fantasize about it the way OP does. OP clearly sounds like some net loser microstakes player who wishes he were tom dwan and is living his fantasy vicariously through the forums by garnering attention and support to make it seem more real to him.

My girlfriend's younger brother had 100k cash saved up by the time he was 28, and he made approx 60-70k at that point in his career. He was a cheap SOB though.

I'm just saying, don't think 150k isn't possible. Some people are actually very good at saving money. Throw in some smart investing or a little windfall or something, and it's more than just possible.

My best friend had 250k banked cash when he was 22. I saw it. He was a bookie though, so it doesn't count. lol

Javi, it's really not that hard to believe. Being young and working in a corporate environment and hating your life is commonplace. Work sucks. Just because someone makes +1100 dollars than most people every 2 weeks automatically make that work more enjoyable. Time and time again we hear stories of people making quite a bit of money and hating what they do.

I work with guys who make a lot of money. 150-300k range. I'm good friends with one trader and he said to me specifically "Wil, I don't want to do this the rest of my life. It's unfulfilling, but it pays really good. Let's face it, I stare at computer screens all day".

I enjoy my job quite a bit right now and get paid pretty well. I enjoy my job because I don't really work (it's laughably easy) and I enjoy working shift work because we screw around and curse and talk and tell stories during 2/3 of all my time I'm in the office (the night shift and the 2nd half of afternoon shift no one is really around). The money isn't what makes me enjoy it.

Great post, thank you!

where to even start. for obvious reasons i'm not going to post screenshots of my financial accounts. i don't doubt for a second that i am over-idealizing the lifestyle of a live proker pro. but that does not mean it is not realistically better than the lifestyle an office job grinder, money aside in my case.

and your financial projections are WAY off. take a quick look into the starting salaries for associates at bulge bracket i-banks and vault 50 corporate law firms. Say 150k (modestly) x 4 years = 600k x .6 (taxes) = 360k. subtract 50k/year total expenses and that leaves 150k. not sure why you think the 150k is so unbelievable. i have not been a greeter at walmart the last 4 years.

and i am well aware of how great my life can be outside of work. the only problem is 10 hours (minimum) at the office a day plus 2 commuting = 12 hours a day, 5 days a week plus some weekends. that doesn't leave a lot of time for fun the vast majority of your waking hours.

seriously. must be a level.

There isn't any crisis in ur life, poker for living isn't the greatest or smartest thing to do for u at this moment, move to a different city which suits ur life style, look for a job which isn't that stressful as ur's right now, so that u can have lot of free time for all of ur activities n of course u got to go with pay cut for that

Would you be able to get 3 months off, unpaid, from work? Or is it a quit and go or don't go at all scenario?

Personally I'd say go for it. If it doesn't work out, it doesn't work out. Vegas is an amazing place, you're only young once and these are the types of things I believe we'll regret when we get older.

You're quite obviously not enjoying your current life so why stay in it, when you have the opportunity to change it? Rather than living according to society's expectations of you (those of your parents, friends, etc), do what satisfies you because hell, we've only a short time on this earth before we return to non-existence so you may as well enjoy it while you can, as opposed to "living by the book" and kicking yourself for it down the line.

Simply put, you're living to work, when life should be about working to live. You would be better off in a low paid job that you enjoyed going to every day, than a high paid job that you dreaded every moment of.

Keep the thread updated anyway.

OP, with such a great paying job, don't you get vacation time? Take a week off and go solo to Vegas and play 1/2, 2/5 for 10 hours a day and see if you still want to be a poker pro. 150K in savings? What's your monthly expenses? Go start your own business, take a year off and find a new job, get a "fulfilling" job at a non-profit that pays 1/2 of what you need to live on...but don't try to go pro, just play poker for fun...I don't want to be discouraging, but you've got a lot of options and poker pro is probably not the best one.

xibalba, I'm guessing I probably grew up with same family pressures to succeed as you, only I hit the point you're at somewhere during college. I spent a summer going to Grateful Dead shows and another summer interning on the trading desk at the trading firm my dad worked at. I could have easily gotten a trading job, making bank at an early age, but instead I moved to the Northwest with my hippie friends and lived the typical 1990's slacker lifestyle, living on 10k-15k a year, smoking homegrown. All the while, I was smart enough to know that I'd hit 40 and regret it, so I promised myself that I'd always remember that, accept the consequences and not regret it later. Guess what, 40 is a few months away and I kinda regret it. Now, I kick myself for not spending 3-5 years making 100-200k a year when I was young and then running off to live the slacker life. But, I knew then and I still think this would have happened, I would have ended up like you, addicted to the money and I never would have left it, so I've always tried to remind myself of that when I get down. But, eventually I got a decent paying, soul-sucking job and I've spent my 30's building a little savings/401K, so I'm able to hit the local casino once a week and not worry if I lose a few hundred and I go to Vegas a few times a year and I take my shot hoping to bink a miracle so I can go semi-pro. Like others have said, the grass is always greener...
But, what's better about my position is that I've trained myself to live "poor", which makes me appreciate the few extravagances I do spend money on and it also allows me to look at 150K as a MASSIVE amount of money. If I had that much saved, I could easily live for 2 years with no job and be rolled for 2/5 as a part time hobby. However, I'm a slacker. You clearly are not. Your real problem is not your job or your "societal pressures" or your discontent at not fulfilling your true destiny as a poker pro(yes, sarcasm). You just don't know what you really want to do with your life. You have a huge opportunity with that much saved up (and 30 is still pretty young). If you're capable of living on even less than you do now, you can take a big risk and still have a safety net of saved up money to start over if it doesn't work out. I don't think professional poker is the route you should take, but you should realize that you're in great position to take a big risk in life, fail, and start over without being too far behind. And, if you do more planning than just turning off your alarm clock, somebody like you should have a pretty good chance at succeeding. Dude, call in sick for a few days and FIGURE IT OUT, make a plan, take a chance...and play some poker on the side.

Is there a way to block myself from posting after after 11pm my time? I really shouldn't type-while-intoxicated...is there a way to make the submit reply button pop up with a message that says "go to bed! post deleted"?