Exactly

thats what its always been for most of the players playing..

Are you not decent solid human?

it wouldn't be a good idea to get into poker full time unless it's truly a passion of yours.

you could make close to six figures in other careers with no degree and being self-taught. they would give you a lot better long term options as well.

Yes it does. im making a little more per month from poker than i am my real world job. But my real world job covers all my life expenses with little left over so poker is giving me the ability to enjoy a new level of extras in life which i am thankful for. job security + poker income potential is the perfect mix for me.

WTF, PM me and Ill roll you for 25nl

Move up to where they don't respect your raises?

In other words it's a baller salary if you live in your parents' piwnica somewhere in a part of Poland similar in both appearance and level of conservatism to the south and midwest of the USA. In that case it would be hard even to spend that much but the world is full of empty land (unless you live in the UK) where people don't want to live - if you do want to live in one of those places and you don't want a family you do have a lot of freedom of choice in life. A basic 70 square metre socialist era flat (which is the minimum to bring up a family in) in Krakow costs 400K zloty or 100K dollars, so paying off that as well as covering living expenses on a $1K salary - forget it. About ten years ago I lived on 1000 zloty a month in Krakow and that was close to a realistic minimum for just one person even then - a whole family needs more.

I'm bringing up my family in such a flat in a city the other side of the Tatras and you need way more than that to be in any way comfortable. Nobody is going to sell you are car or a DVD player, or a child's car seat or children's clothes or a million other things you need for significantly less than they could get for selling them elsewhere. So many things cost the same as they do abroad. It's true that median salaries are way less than these numbers we're talking about but then look how a lot of city people live, in my block you see three generations in a flat with two bedrooms and a living room.

The most important difference though is the $1K is "respectable" here, and sometimes that's more important than consumer items and things, particularly if you are looking for a partner.

Or maybe fighter pilot, brain surgeon or secret agent.

You lose.

I'll be by to collect (everything that you own) tomorrow.

I'm not whining, I'm actually pretty happy I live in the US and not a third world ****hole.

in a perfect world, hard studying should not be required before nl50.

You don't have to be that clever to become a commercial pilot. Successful poker players tend to be quite clever. They could retrain for £60k-ish ($90k). That's just a SCOOP, WCOOP or WSOP to them.

i said ''dead'' not dead. its beatable of course but its not that super easy like it shoud be.

a new player in learning process would be crush for sure. you cannot make few big mistakes no more or you will run at -3bb.

and thats why you ALL moving down. because ukrainians crush new players at the lowest stake.

A little offtopic:
How to find this kind of money bro when:
A teacher where I live earns 350$ a month.
A supermarket cashier gets around 300$
A waiter gets around 350$.
After expenses like any kind of bills,taxes,paying monthly for renting an appartment/flat,you are left with like 100,if you are lucky 150-170.You have barely money to live till the next month.Not to mention that the minimal pension,which like 500 000 people live by is 90-100$ which is insane.
You'd say become lawyer,surgeon etc.
Since our educational system havent been changed for like 50 years(I think on purpose-for example in all schools we cannot choose what to learn-we have like10-12 subjects),studying for those professions is really hard and I am 90% sure that if you want to play poker while studying for those professions is impossible.
I am not complaining just asked a question

well, 1k$ is close to 4k zloty these days. I actually happend to live in Cracow and I make around that from poker - it's enough to rent a room close to city center, pay expenses and not worry about the money. Of course, it's not exactly enough to start a family (though many start one few 3-4 times less income), but none of people my age can that I know can really afford it - that's the economy here at the moment.

Of course, it's not exactly a dream situation, but for me and many people I know it creates opportunity to follow their aspirations - for example, I'm working on a PHD and will be applaying for a position at the university once I'm done. Others may take this time and travel (to non-expansive parts of the world), write a book or whatever it is that you wanna do with your life. If it wasn't for poker, I'd probably be stuck in some lame corporate job for pennies, or try to make a living from grants and teaching at the university, which is honestly more stresful than playing poker if you're only starting and don't have pension.

To some people including myself poker is about freedom more so than money. Many players could make way more in other professions, but they will still have to answer to someone other than themselves and there is always a present element of being fired or unemployed for some other reason.

With poker you can go state to state and country to country and always find work no matter what your background is criminal or not as long as you have a bankroll. The same cannot be said about traditional jobs if there is no work being offered in your field your basically sol to no fault of your own.

Fwiw most people that play poker as a side income seem to enjoy the game more than those playing poker as their main income. An extra 10-20k/year takes a base salary of 40k to 50/60k per year. That being said I can understand why someone would choose to play seriously full or part time.

So what have we learned?

A: The games suck because there are is a huge contingent of people from lower income countries folding QQ to 3-bet at 2NL because it's long term +ev, and they are playing for life money.

B: There are still people out there for whom sitting in a darkened room all day clicking buttons appeals more than a "real job".

C: No-one has the slightest idea how many actual "big" winners (100K USD+) there are world wide. Like within an order of magnitude even.

I think a fair summary would be: The vast majority of people lose money hand over fist every time they log in. A largish, pretty highly skilled, fraction lose money at about the rate of rake-back, or maaaaaaaybe grind out a bb/100 at best. A tiny tiny TINY minority "win". In some countries these guys play 2NL, in richer countries they play 200NL.

We already knew all this. You can just substitute "poker" for "backgammon" when asking about your "chance" at winning IMO.

The only interesting things to me are the facts that for the "winning" guys to continue winning, you need a constant supply of people who believe that they could one day win themselves. You also have to keep them in the dark as long as possible about their true chances. Hence "work hard", "improve your game" etc. This is also why these threads keep popping up. Cause the sites know how impossible it is, yet have a code of silence amongst themselves to keep any hard data on true winrates/incomes hidden. You can be 100% sure however, that if P.Stars actually DID have "thousands" (or even hundreds) of people churning out 100K/year at poker, they'd be publishing that data in their advertising every day. The fact that they conspicuously don't gives us enough information in itself I feel.

Poker is dead only a jew can save it.

Not really. Its funny that you pick airline pilots. Do you realize that there is a FORCED retirement age in that field? What then?
Again, there is A LOT to be said for the self-employed nature of poker players.

+1 this should be a sticky on the main page in replace of the dutch boyd letter.

I would add that another factor is not what you make in one year, but what it works out to over something like 5 or 10 years. Even I can have one good year once in a while.

+1.

To be fair my comment was geared towards somewhere like USA UK Germany where you can generate $750 disposable income in a month fairly easily.

In lower income countries playing poker is more viable as you can generate the same amount of purchasing power playing several stakes lower. However you should never forget the long term and dedicating a lot of time to a declining industry is unlikely to be a good investment.

You don't have to be a laeyer, surgeon etc - few are cut out for that but look to work for a company with good career prospects and if possible get some professional qualifications. In 10 years or so you should be sitting pretty compared to playing poker.

People need to stop discouraging the evolution of poker and encourage more people to play. It's easy.