Nice post and story. The great news about having made money from poker is that you now have the freedom to do what you want with your life. Sounds pretty great to me.

Unless you have very low living expenses and never plan on having a family, you will need money in your life. If nothing else, to allow the people you love to be comfortable and pursue their dreams. I view money as something that allows me to buy the freedom to do what I want with my life. I am hoping that poker will allow me to do this.

You sound fat and lazy. At least mentally.

Didn't your mother ever tell you to go outside and enjoy life with the rest of the kids instead of playing video games inside all day?

Playing cards for a living... LOL.

So how much of that $1mm did you really get ?

From the people who "say" they are doing well here, i'd like to hear more about whether their success came from continual cash game grinding...or did they just do incredibly well in a one/a few big tourney(s) like FTOPS, Sunday million,etc...

Its an intriguing read so far...hopefully there's a few true stories at least

Working a 9-5 job is a ****ty life!!!

humbunter

Life is great as a pro.

Take a 3 month vacation if you need to.
Or even if you don't need to.

You're your own boss for ****'s sake.

don't you have any better to do¿?

irony?

I felt like I had to make a post to add my 2 cents here and share some of my experience as well.

At first I thought poker would have to be the most awesome job in the world like a lot of the player's out there who dream about going pro. It would be filled with freedom (not so much if your a mtt player but I play cash games), a great amount of cash each year, and I would be able to have it all by just playing cards. Now this is all generally true if you are a winning player and these are pretty much the main upsides to playing poker for a living. However, now I can see that poker can either lead to an extremely gratifying life or a ****ty one as the OP has encountered.

When your on your own as a pro, you often can have a very isolated lifestyle. Where most people go to work and speak with coworkers or bosses everyday, a poker player only answers to himself and has no one to deal with during his work. Furthermore, if you happen to be single, it can be very difficult to be able to go out and meet girls since you will not have the social circle that most people develop from work. So this mainly leaves one with the option of picking girls up at bars or clubs, internet dating, or through friends. However I find it can take a lot of work to go through the motions when your on a bad downswing. On a side note, having a girlfriend though helps a lot as just having someone there to share your thoughts and feelings whether your on a upswing or downswing is nice and the constant support is something that is priceless.

Another problem with playing professionally is a lot of player's cant motivate themselves to put in the hands year after year. It does get boring at times just like any other job when you do the same thing over and over again. Sometimes it IS a grind, sometimes its very hard to want to fire up some tables, so its important to try to think about all the positive things about poker and how it beats a lot working a lot of other jobs out there in order to stay motivated and focused.

And then there's players who are always worried about making money because when they're not at the tables they are thinking that they could be at the tables making money instead of going to a club to try and meet women or going to meet up with family, etc... It takes a very special person to be able to handle the highs and the lows that come with playing for a living as it can be an emotional rollercoaster and one has to be very strong mentally.

Of course not all players are like this and some only have a one issue rather than all of the above but I can see a lot of players getting trapped into a lifestyle where they just constantly spend their time trying to make money playing poker. They aren't motivated enough to look after the other areas of their lives and sometimes it is hard to stop playing poker & making money in order to invest a large deal of time into something that will potentially increase their happiness in other facets of their lives.

These factors often leads to why some people feel the poker lifestyle is ****ty I believe but really its not the lifestyle that is the problem, so much as the person. With poker, you have the freedom to pursue anything that you want to do. If you are feeling unfulfilled, then go find something that makes you feel good and there shouldn't be anything holding you back; no financial issues, no boss, no worries about vacation time. You really can do, whatever you want to do. The only thing thats left to figure out is what that is.

Life sucks when you hate bumhunters so much and still can't afford to play them even if they want to, heh?

This is quite true. The more of your time an activity takes up, the easier it is to get burned out on it. You have to decide why you are doing something in order to have a chance at being at peace with it. If you can't find enough things about poker that you like, you would probably be better off exploring alternatives. If what you say is true, you should have more than enough money to make that feasible.

No job/pursuit is perfect, but it is worthwhile to explore until you find one that offers you enough satisfaction and enjoyment so that you can be a happy and fulfilled person. After a while, you just might find that poker and a mixture of other non-paying activities fits that bill.

OP suck at the pokerz

lots of wisdom itt

aspiring and current pros should read and take notes.

RelaxedPrecision,

The beginning brings us to the end, where the beginning always starts with a single step. So many of your steps have brought you to a place where you did not want to be. You have realized this now and again you find yourself in a place where you did not belong. You, I and others always end up seeking out the place where we want to be. Let the natural and supernatural forces guide us and we will always be right where we belong based on who we are at that moment.

The present leads to the end. Life happens in between.
The end result of our lives is so heavily influenced by our free will which contains the power to create our reality, in essence our lives. When our free will turns in a direction that is counter to our being and our reason for existing then we will cease to have control over the events that make up what we call our life.

Live in the natural but also exist in the supernatural where the mind yields the to the power of our thoughts where we will become, we must become what we think about. The natural protection that we are born with overtime can diminish when our thinking is outside of us and not within.

Supernatural protection has left you at the very times that you sought to harm others. Willfully attacking others at the natural or supernatural level will create openings for you to come under attack from the physical and spiritual beings that were your target. You have become the target.

Move back into the natural state of being, stop the doing and let the existence of the forces that conspire around you do what they were sent to do. Be. Do not do. Just be.

zep