Very inspiring, R. Thanks for taking the time. I want to formulate a proper response, but will do so in a pm when a have a little more time. Cheers homie.

Ok, now time for tough love Stampler.

the original post has a big problem.

it equates "poker" with hold'em.
you say the 'poker world', but you really mean the 'holdem world'
as though its the only game there is.
the future of poker is 100% wrapped up in hold'em?
If holdem dies, poker dies?
the poker boom is over because holdem ( a dumb ass, boring, sucker game IMO)
is played out?
maybe youre right?
Holdem is the beginning and end of Poker.
other games are 'fringe'.

LOL at these guys talking about how they can make more money grinding for SNE than working a job
WHERE IS SNE going to be in 25 years?
can you seriously see yourself grinding for SNE till your 50? (given it still even exists)
so eye opening reading this thread and how ridiculous some of the responses are

"i don't care what anyone thinks of me"
what?
you should care about the people that care about you..otherwise you'll end up with NO ONE caring about you

and please STOP comparing playing poker to the worst possible jobs you can get ie: minimum wage, flipping burgers
how can you put so much effort into setting poker goals (get to NL400 etc) but not be prepared to even put any though into career related goals (not think every job is about flipping burgers)

Being a pro poker player for life is a stupid idea. Even Matusow said it. Go to school, get yourself some security and pursue poker on the side. Profitable online poker is far from guaranteed and poker sites are shady as hell (not that they are rigged, but they can't by held accountable for what they do). If you win a lot of money online, you have no excuse not to attend University and do something productive with your life. Lol at the idea of some 52 year old guy grinding 9 tables to make a living 30 years from now. Making a lot of money at a young age playing poker is the definition of negative reinforcement.

Remember the show 2 months 2 million? It had Ansky instead of the guy who should have been on because that guy was attending law school. I remember thinking how smart that guy was to be as high up in the poker community as he was and have the common sense to keep it on the back burner in favour of a promising future as a lawyer. To all you up and comers and those still chasing the dream, I doubt you are as good as that guy was (I can't remember his name anymore), but be like him.

The smartest poker players in the world are those who realize it is no way to earn a living.

Why do you think all of the old pros focus so hard on acheiving poker fame? It provides the life of security that they can't get from just playing poker.

You guys don't get me at all

I am that guy you are warning me about becoming.
And I agree with you whole heartedly if I was 24, or hell
Even 32.
I graduated class of 84 at steven f Austin high.
Honor roll.
I was on the debate squad and we owned it my senior year.
Our coach was Danny Arnold, director of the Barney Miller show,
Which you wouldn't prolly know about,
most of y'all, considering that in 77 you weren't even a thought yet.
Anyways we owned until we ran into Churchill San Antone
They cleverly researched our tactics, which were borderline underhanded
And used them against us; a fire vs. Fire thing, so the only edge went to who won the race, and churchhill was the better team. 28 years later I'm still not over it. It took me a long time to realize that our downfall was that we got lazy, and because we basically had every opponent literally drawing dead, unless they mimicked our strategy to even the field, we saw no need to practice the fundamentals as rigorously as churchhill did, who were playing it str8. we got soft, and mechanically were less sharp. It ended up costing us. We rewarded ourselves ahead of time. Big mistake. I was tormented that it might have been me that swung the pendulum in San Antones direction, but that's just my ultra self critical nature talking. We had weaker guys on the team, but a few stood out as the lieutenants; I'm sure they are high powered lawyers now.
Anyways, I digress.
The point is that I still draw from what I learned with this experience (in being the first place loser) in poker now, and most every undertaking that I have challenged myself with.
I've always been a perfectionist, and I could say that this cemented it for me.
Before poker for me, what I pursued in life I did 110%, and I didn't take second as an option.
Went to UT, grad school in music in california where I moved in 88.
Now I live blocks away from where I lived then.
I've spent literally half my life now in the same small town where I know all the locals.
The teachers I learned from weren't just at the top of their field, the were the tip top for classical music. I studied for @10 years, and decided to shift my energy towards my career, which was cooking, I realized.
That's really where my heart was, and it certainly wasn't the money.
I'm just a nurturing person by nature, and I recognized that same quality in myself that I saw in the great chefs I got to work with later on. It's f$&@&in rad being around ppl who are the tip top at what they do. There's something they all have in common; that is essential to being at the top.
It's just not possible unless you put your heart and soul into it.
Going through the motions will send you out the door pronto. Literally.
You won't last a minute in that kitchen if your hearts not in it. Gary would make you cry and ridicule you before firing you. I saw countless new employees last less than one day over the couple years I was there. When I quit, he was livid after putting so much time into me. The guy, Sean who was behind me in line for sous position opened his own place in SF a few years ago.
Drew the sous was an ex marine ( I know, there's no such thing. Once a marine...). Working there was as close to being in the military as I will ever get. And I learned even more discipline.



I had to make a living, and I had been a cook since high school (and before, my mothers side is from lousiana; .nuff said.)
I had to help my family pay rent and worked weekends at a fine dining place in Austin when I was a teenager. Just what I experienced there I could write a book about. The characters. I played in a band, and my three band mates worked the nightshift together. Amazing we didn't kill each other spending most every minute together. Thnx facebook. Were still sicko of each other from afar.


When I moved to SF I pounded the pavement because I wanted mostly to play music, but I needed to eat. And what better way than to strive to be a chef in the countrys Mecca for cuisine (NYers yah yah).
Over a period of years I ended up working in different places, but then I caught a break. I met a ritz carlton trained chef ( who im still friends with today, although we prolly tried to stab each other many times, lol.
) and worked with him in technically 3 places, but really 2, because when they hired him at Jacks in SF, an old famous restaurant from the Ernies days of old, he lasted a week cuz he was such a hot head.
Chefs are a loyal bunch, and follow each other. You don't just hire a chef solo, he comes with a posse. He had learned from Gary Danko originally at RC and chateau soereign in sonoma. I had a big falling out with him at the time, and went to work at Gary Danko, and now I was at the top of the food chain in thr cuisine world. 4 star Michelin. That's like "it goes to eleven".
Not only is Gary the best, ( and most insane, and biggest stoner)
But Nick Peyton from the ritz was the floor. Super star.
This was the first couple years he opened. To call Gary a perfectionist is beyond understating it. Work was 14 hours daily of him screaming and having a hissy fit over everything imperfect. At the same time I saw someone drop a stack of villeroy and Bach china on the floor and he didn't blink.
You can replace 3k worth of china. A reputation you can't.


Then came the nervous breakdown.
Splitting every waking hour between slaving and commuting the golden gate bridge was getting old. Literally worked 70-80 hours a week. did i really love cooking?? No more time for music, surfing made me question the life path I was on at the moment. Wasn't life about enjoying life? I enjoyed the art of cooking, but to a point. Now I realize that being someones slave is just not in my nature. I started working in the trades, so I could have freedom.
You made the most plumbing, so that's what I did.
This new phase of my life was about trying to make enuf to spend as little time working as possible. I would save enuf every summer to go to Mex every winter to surf and fish. In total I've spent @ 2.5 years of my life there in the same little town with bitching beach breaks and 2 epic points. Great food, and smiling brown faces. I really learned there that life isn't about bling.
People looked poor compared to the county where I live in cal. which is one of the most affluent areas in the world , but I saw that they were 10X happier than the gringos in spite of it. Stress was unknown. Kids opted with tops in the dirt for hours like it was the 50s in Mex, and in Marin spoiled brats whined about having a 5 year old BMW to drive to Drake high and suffered from depression from all the pressure to achieve.
Achieve what? Status? Wealth? What good was it doing if it made you
miserable trying to attain it?
I realized that the Mexican people were perfectionists at living life to the fullest, and loving thier families completely. I learned mañana doesn't mean tomorrow, it means "don't worry about it, it may or may not happen, and you have no control over it anyways".

So saying maybe I should go to school is insane.
My life has run it's course.
I have no regrets.
I'm stuck with poker now.
In a way, everything I've done in life has lead me here, or prepared me for it.

Many times I've told a smart young good poker player to wake up and do something besides poker. Go to school. I'm glad I did.
Pursue excellence (I did, and I'm glad, even though I feel like if I didn't fail,
I didn't follow through.)
What i meant by "not an end in itself" applies to exactly this.
You don't do something for the result; then you are a machine. A trained animal. You do it for it itself. For ipseity. Because that's who you are.
That's what I mean by coming from the heart.

And that's what I see lacking in these BF refugees that's so saddening.
They have no idea what they are doing.
In cards, sure.
But in life they are stone donkeys.
What business does someone who has never had to pay bills, never had to scrap for thier sustenance, have getting rich.
It just seems like a recipe for disaster.
What's the intention behind poker for this crowd, I wonder?
If you've never known what it's like to need to make a living in the school
Of hard knocks, then you can get sucked into an Alice and wonderland scenario
Where poker is a fantasy world for autistics.
It's a disrespect to the game, I feel, being a red blooded Texan.
I love the game, but also just see it as a tool in my belt, among many.
It gets my bills paid, it buys my organic food. It pays my green fees.
It buys my mountain bike parts. It pays for my vacations.

Now I want to move up where I can take care of my family. My nephew,
My mom, who just visited me in Vegas, when she gets older,
Although she's still sharp as a tack and strong as an ox now, no one is getting younger.

And that includes the young inter-tards.

The cradle broke the bough.
Hit the ground running.
Time to grow up.

^^^^^ Uhh, well, sorry to hear that. Might want to make your own thread

seethomashowl? what are friends for if they cant step on each others toes?

flame away.

1] i can't defend myself and explain why im a poker player for life? instead of being branded as a loser with a stoopid idear?
if i fail, i starve. game over. almost none of you are in this boat, you have options. if you think this^ is tldr, let me try to explain exactly why im locked in. lol

2] Ansky posted that he wants to become a chef, and i believe he is going to culinary school, or is planning on it.
thats so lol, because school is a joke in the cooking world, and a recipe to end up sucking. it was invented for house wives, not chefs, look it up.
all the great chefs graduated from the school of hard knocks.
Gary wouldnt even talk to a graduate about a hire, it disqualified them in his eyes. you got laughed at.

don't do it Ansky... if anything it takes away from watching Top Chef,
I literally wince everytime i watch it, some of them are so bad technically.
sure, thier imaginations run wild, real cool.
thats not what ppl want though... they want down to earth heartiness, not frills.

what people who are at the tip top of their field have you hung out with, and been able to observe and study for years at a time, MrMuck?

oh, I forgot,
youre prolly chillin' with Ivey right now, smokin' blunts.

mdv85, after rereading your post,
ive arrived at the conclusion that you are either:

1] sour grapes about knowing you dont have it.

2] an idiot (not trying to be a d*%k).
How many live poker pros do you know personally?
i mean the ones whose names no one has ever heard of because they are quietly grinding doctor/lawyer money?

take your pick, 1], 2], or both.

I dont think Ivey would hang out with a clown like me. I never touch drugs, and I havnt "hung out" with anybody who was at the top of their field. But I dont value those things.

Between this thread and the "Live Forum 2/5 NL For A Living?" thread, SeeThomasHowl is becoming one of my favorite posters. Great stuff.

great thread op

Thanks OP --- I have a lot of thinking to do...

My wife and I spoke about me moving out of the country to play online again. After reading the thread I am having second thoughts due to the grass is greener ------------> over there!

My wife and I make decent money, have a decent life but the daily grind over the years has me totally hating my life.

Alarm clock goes off the same every day, the same long drive into work. I get to work and count down until I can get out of here. It's sad and miserable...

Online Poker is something I absolutely LOVE doing, and made life bearable (POKERSTARS), gave me balance that I needed. I can beat the game and have been but not at a level that will maintain my current lifestyle.

I must be insane willing to give up a solid, safe life to sit in a jungle in a third world country grinding MTTs 18 hours a day then coming home a week every 3rd month.

Thanks all for your input in this thread, now I have some serious thinking to do...

Sigh, 45 year old going through a mid-life crisis... Do I want to do the 9-5 the rest of my life? Safe? No worries? The hard thing is, my family would survive on her salary alone which makes my decision so difficult.

Stamps has a lot of wisdom and insight to impart. His long post above I do not consider a derail in the slightest. Id suggest checking out his "well" @

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/17...cents-1164110/

His input is always appreciated.