[QUOTE=Aleksei;40000963] obv grinding >>>>> real jobQUOTE]

I am seeing statements similar to this throughout the thread, and I cannot disagree more. There is nothing obvious nor is there anything inherently true in this statement. No job is alike, but many come along with incremental pay raises that correspond to the knowledge you gain over the years. Sure, "grinding" may be better than the pay and the work you put in at an entry-level job for the first few years. However, other than the pipe dream of "starting your own business," these are also years that just cant be skipped in the hierarchy of many corporate jobs.

I've been fully employed since I graduated with a Mech. Engineering degree 6 years ago. The main reason I've never been able to seriously entertain the idea of playing poker as a sole source of income is the exact point many of you have brought up: what exactly would the future hold? Many full-time jobs come with the "benefits" of health insurance and matching 401k contributions. There are definitely plenty of poker success stories in people that have more than set themselves up for their entire lives before the time they reach 30, but there have gotta be so many more instances of people giving up on degrees and jobs prematurely and hurting their future in the process. I would always recommend finishing school and getting a job if anyone were to ask me. It can also have a two-pronged benefit of helping your poker play (any money made can be thought of as icing on the cake and take away from the stress of relying upon it as your sole source of income) and having poker as a backdrop can help with some of the stresses seen at your job.

really interesting thread, i think what you should do is learning new things .

how to invest money real estate type of thing, start low and grow like you do in poker.

i don't thing that trading is a good idea it looks to much like poker .

leaning how to sell, you can make a ton of money by doing that.

start your own company.

dunno how to respond to this without sounding like a dick, but this is HSPLO forum, lot of the posters ITT play 5/10 - 25/50, most people who play lower and post in this forum are SNE which is 10k a month in and of itself, and the spirit of the thread isn't really about it being too hard to make money from poker anymore - it's about yearning for something else despite still being able to make a fair bit of money hunting fish.

...yeah I totally confused this for a similar thread in LLSNL that I'm also subbed to. Sorry.

I'm a bit older than most of you guys, I studied longtime ago (economics and computers, didnt finish - was too busy gambling ), then I learned a real (business)-job (100% only to make my parents happy) and I never ever worked in it.
I really couldn't ever imagine having fun going up early in the morning (its not my time) and being berated by some donkey chef (its not my thing) - and all that just for peanuts (its not worth it).
(Btw what I found out by googleing is that the average gross-income per person in Germany 2012 was 2700Euros/month, means after taxes/social ensurance prolly 1500-1700Euros left. Those are # the German government published.)
Since I was a young kid there was always a way to make kinda easy money by gambling, way way long time before anybody thought about Texas Holdem. There was a time i.e. for pool, snooker, blackjack, romme, backgammon, NLHE and now its PLO. And after poker (btw I'm very sure poker, esp onlinepoker will be over sooner or later but I fear sooner) there will be 4sure some other popular new game to take fishes money, cause there are 2 things people will for all times spend their money on: gambling and girls. All you have to be is a bit flexible...
Imo most people which are working in 9-5jobs with 2-3weeks holiday/year or so just do it just because they don't know it better, had no other options and/or are to dumb for anything else/better. And paying in the social ensurance just to get pension laters is pretty useless imo, cause it def wont be enough to live from in most of the cases. Better do a private retirement planning if you want to be save.
Starting any kind of own business after poker sounds ok. I just think thats far more work and prolly also more risk than grinding, but it can be fun also. But I fear then there is nearly no free time anymore, no holidays etc., esp during the start-up time.
I think most of the guys complaining bout pokerpro's life/work here just don't realize how good their life/life-standard is in comparison to 95-98% of the rest.
I personally love gambling/poker and I even more love the fact that I can make money out of it, but I also seriously guess you have to be kinda masochist to stand all that pain over a long time

The problem is that most of the guys who where winners 3-5 years ago are not winners in today's game. You need to earn money until you are 65. Do you really think that you can click buttons until 65? or 45?
Furthermore, you have no career opportunities and no knowledge outside poker and a high risk of ruin. Please remember that poker bankroll is NOT life bankroll! And I always laugh about the people saying that they want to open a business after poker. Do you know how many smart people are already trying that and thinking about business opportunities?

Seabeast: I bet most of the guys here in this forum didn't win 500k-1 Million during the last two years.


edit: I love poker but I think it is a really bad decision to be a poker pro after 25 if you don't earn at least 400-500k after taxes and if you are not able to save a lot. If your are 35 with 300k savings, high fix cost, no knowledge / no skills, no income, you are basically fckued.

People in here highly overvalue a normal job and career prospects. I've finished my degree and worked a couple of years before turning pro. Being a poker professional adds so much freedom to your life.
People also seem to forget there is a tonne of variance in a corporate carreer as well. People claiming to make a couple 100 grand/year in corporate job before their 40'th are also usually focussing into the success stories (and forget the ones who failed or "grind"), just like thinking poker professionals all make 300k/year.

I am very surprised as to how many people ITT are worried about pension and retirement. I always thought that getting lets say 5k+ a month for life was relatively easy for any successful poker player that has been playing for at least a few years and who invests his winnings smartly.

at a 2% rate (after inflation and taxes) you'd need to have 2.5mil for that, idk if many poker players make that in their career let alone save it

^So invest at a higher interest rate. Play the market or whatever. Hell, we already have a high-variance job, what's a little variance in your portfolio management? The S&P weighted average grows something like 10% a year.

your assumptions are so unreal, especially considering the extra variance. (I want to see your face 2008 and 2011)
Not what I would recommend to a poker player who already has a VERY high standard deviation.

Yeah I know the market crashes periodically. But I mean, it bounces back to even eventually (the longest "eventually" took was like 10 years during the Depression -- this time around it took 3, mostly it takes a year or so), and if you're a poker player you should already be used to nasty swings in your net worth.

http://www.investorsfriend.com/return_versus_gdp.htm

Inflation is higher than that though, so by Buffett's method (and Buffett has made billions playing the market, I'd be inclined to believe his advice) RoR on big-cap stocks should be higher than that.

That said I'd recommend BRM for a high-variance investment same as you use for poker, for roughly the same reason. Like, keep some low-risk investments like bonds or CDs in your portfolio, and keep a big bunch of your money stored up as gold and silver coins.

Ya youre right the numbers I gave maybe a little ambitious but still, the way I see it, buying small rental properties gets you lifetime income and protects you against inflation. I would think most professionals could achieve a comfortable pension like this if they wanted to.

+100

No job is perfect, poker generally is better than most, being able to sleep in for example, is something most people only get to do twice a week. Being able to choose your own vacation time is something most people cannot do. I see these threads fairly often and I'm always surprised by the expectations of a lot of poker players. The majority of jobs involve doing long hours of ****ty work for not that much money.

The poker economy is doing better than I would have expected post Black friday. Winrates are capped, by the quantity and quality of fish playing. Currently there are less fish than ever because US players can't play and a general downturn in the overall economy, however pokerstars is still running business as usual. EPT Barcelona is goig to pay out 1 million euros for first place a in a few days. For the past 5 years everybody has been saying on 2p2, the games are dying, while they certainly are getting tougher, expecting them to get consistently more difficult until nobody can make money is a ridiculous assumption, that shows virtually no understanding of human nature.

People play poker for many reasons, some to make money, some because they like the game and competition, some because they like to gamble. Furthermore people are extremely good at self deception, meaning even people who should win, can easily become losers due to tilt, poor game section, and poor bankroll management. Poker is also a game where your skills deteriorate without practice, meaning there are a lot of skilled players who were big winners at one point in time, that step back into the game as a fish.

If you are currently dissatisfied with poker, I'd suggest taking an extended break, and make an effort to pursue other interests, but when all is said and done you'll probably stay with poker, because frankly its better than most alternatives. Consider the amount of effort you put in to get great at poker, and now think about how much time it would require you to catch up in any competitive industry, it may be worthwhile if you find something you are passionate about and have a good opportunity for, but success is never easy and finding it in a new area where you need to start from scratch is extremely challenging.

edit: Last thing, far and away the worst part of being a poker player IMO is lack of social interaction, you need to make sure you have non-poker friends, to avoid going crazy

While I agree the games are worsening much slower than most expected, I'm not so optimistic about the potential of serious money making at online poker in the future. Barriers to entry are extremely low which should mean more people joining in as long as it makes a lot of money. There will always be fish, sometimes more sometimes less, but the influx of new people with the intention to make money should steadily increase till a saturation point where nobody is making a lot of money anymore.

Bolded parts are true, the rest I couldn't disagree more.

You don't need to earn money (well "big" money) until you are 65. Just put big enough % aside and invest them wisely, don't party / holla balla your money away & buy useless stuff and you'll do fine.

The second part; no career opportunities? Are you serious? Yes, you probably mean that you don't have good enough resume etc usual sh*t but there are many great examples from poker community (FatalError, to name one) who have used the skills / knowledge / contacts they've learned from poker and made a career out of it.

8-16 / 9-17 is probably not an option for every poker player but that's not the one and only way to secure your future.


Winning poker players aren't stupid. Many of them are lazy and after realising you aren't a winning player anymore they just keep on hitting their head into the wall when they should quit or move down and do something else with their life.

I'm convinced that poker players have great potential as entrepreneurs and are capable of finding to niche markets (probably wrong term) / profitable ideas and aren't afraid to take the risks needed to start a business.


Agreed but I wouldn't put the number that high.

Ps. Sorry for my english, not native but I hope you all got the point.

yeah, sure. tell that 95% of 35 year olds please. if you are capable of turning basically 0 into 300k and have that saved at 35, you are probably smart enough to do fine enough to not starve whatever you chose. just lower your high fix cost.

lol dont feed the troll

having just read the quoted bit, i think hes kinda right. lots of big boy expenses come in, and 300k would go very fast with kids/car/house payments if you arent making any money or relying on that 300k to make money

there was a stat a few years old now, in america at least, the AVERAGE kid each cost $160,000 to raise from 0-18

You can always marry rich

yeah but how much can you earn if you put them to work starting real young?

don't blow all your seed money on hookers and blow and when you burn out (if ever) figure out how to make it capitalize.

Do you guys actually want to retire at like 35??? I guess not. So assuming no income at all for the rest of your live is pretty silly.

assuming this is serious, ill assume 12 sounds young enough? pretty sure you dont get minimum wage til 14, so $5/hr 20hr/w 40w/yr for 2 years = 8k
14-18; $8/hr 25hr/w 40w/y for 4 years = 32k. so i guess under 25% if you do that, but that seems pretty extreme and not ideal.

personally, i played sports almost every day of the year my entire childhood, so i didnt get any job til i was 18, and im sure i cost my parents way more than the avg kid, and i have 2 sisters that were the same or more costly in sports

lol