I think you could try for a job at a boutique firm for sure, I have a degree in MechE too and if you present your resume with some statistical analysis of your poker career, there are places that will see that as a positive. I put my winrate and volume played as a short two liner at the bottom of my resume and got more interested questions about that in my interviews than the other 90% of the information. I mean if you think about it, it sets you apart from the rest of the monochromatic field because you have something unique to talk about.

I haven't played a sng in like 4 years.

I have literally no idea why the first post needed to be so long (will read second one later). It was an unnecessarily long winded post that just used arbitrary poker incomes in a vacuum and compared it with salaries in other fields, without factoring in any of the other (often more) important variables - to then land on a conclusion that pointed out the obvious. If the main point here was that someone making 30-80k a year in poker is better off $ wise trying to start a career in another field, well assuming they can actually go land a job that pays them that (too many assumptions here, the problem with vacuums) then this is still basic knowledge that didn't really require 20+ graphs to be understood.

Most people trying to play poker for a living aren't shooting for the 30-80k range and money alone is far from the only factor involved for making this comparison. For some people, the freedom/lifestyle of playing poker making $80k a year is worth more than making twice as much at a 50 hour a week job (making $80k traveling in Thailand or Buenes Aires has value that doesn't show up in these #s for example). But this is an incredibly complicated and person specific issue, so trying to speak about it in general terms leaves so many gaping holes in the analysis. Then the whole listing of other jobs and what they pay, not really sure what the point of that was since a poker player being suited for a job is not too relevant as far as the factors that decide their % chance for landing such job.

More like, each individual needs to evaluate their own situation in a far more comprehensive manner based on their goals, values, age, personality, strengths, situation, alternative options, etc before making any decision. For the most part though yes, for the vast majority of the population, going the career route is a better choice -- again, nothing new there. But if there was actual data that showed the average income among poker professionals who decided poker was the better route for them, the income range would definitely not be 30-80k, since in that range people are often still in a phase of trying to see how poker goes while keeping their options open, or even while still pursuing a career. The entire article presumes a dichotomy of either poker or career, but many people have pursued a career and then transition into poker once the #s look right.

Agreed.

Agreed.

The OP gives people a framework for thinking about the issue, no matter what their income is.

So when you've had your fill of Thailand and Buenes Aires, and when poker starts to feel like a soul-crushing grind, come re-read the OP but replace $80k with however many gazillions of dollars you are making, and see what shakes out.

If you intuitively understand all the issues involved, congratulations. The OP was written for people who want some advice.

Yeah, these.

There's even more issues beyond just making more money than the career route. You need to actually make substantially more in order to offset the risks of gambling for a living, keep risk of ruin down, and be able to set yourself up nicely to transition out of poker since making a plan to play poker for life is rather naive in itself. Burnout, legality, deterioration of games, desire to keep options in life open, are all risks that a player would want to have offset in order to justify poker.

Not really. The OP is meant to try to find the cut off point for where it's time to stop playing poker (hence the title) and then passes off a conclusion to a very personalized question. If someone's income in poker is $600k+ and their alternative options are things like posted in the OP then it's a non-issue.

What? The point was that not everyone's focus is only on $ and that lifestyle and happiness are important factors for most. But yeah, if for you poker is a soulcrushing grind then it just means poker checks out negative in that category in your case, being a huge drain on the overall value -- that's not the case for everyone else. I'd say if someone's lifestyle playing poker for a living is soulcrushing though then they are either doing the "poker" or the "living" part wrong and def need to pay attention to the post about resumes.

If someone is smart enough to be playing poker for a living it should be obvious that it is -EV long term to take $30-$80k a year in poker $ wise. Figuring that part out isn't something to congratulate anyone on, it should be really obvious. The parts about other careers and resumes will be helpful I'm sure, my main criticism was just the presumptious #s used and how the conclusions were reached. There wasn't any hard #s or "research" used for poker, mainly just subjective conjecture and assumptions.

If someone really wants advice the only way to get something legitimately helpful is to look at their situation specifically. Most people smart enough to win at poker are analytical enough to have a framework for thinking about this issue, they mainly just need to analyze the decision based on information only they have the answers to, that you won't find in a thread on BFI.

I'm interested in hearing more about this. I've only heard of Strassa really getting hired in this manner based on poker results, but what would you attribute you landing the job to mainly? Not too familiar with finance but I assumed Strassa's case was just an isolated incident and very rare. Did you have any other qualifications/degrees/connections to help you land this job? Or are you suggesting that interviewing well and effectively presenting your poker success can get you a job on wall street?

FYI: An MCSE with no relevant work experience is definitely frowned upon, as there are MCSE mills that cram people for the tests over 1-2 weeks without teaching them much that would be of use in an actual job.

"im gonna be a happy idiot, and struggle for that legal tender"

My applicant pool was made up mostly of Ivy League grads and grad students who were vastly more qualified than me, I was told I had the least amount of applicable financial knowledge. But I also didn't have a chip on my shoulder. I was hungry and showed it well. I think a lot of the other applicants kind of excpected to get a job on wall st so they tended to come of as more arrogant. I think I'm pretty smart and able to present myself clearly; my main points being that I have a highly technical background being an engineer along with playing poker seriously for a few years helps me solve any problem rationally and logically etc. etc.

They would fire questions at me about the markets and while I couldn't answer them correctly, I'd try to always bring it back to a positive note and never just answer "I don't know". I went in fully expecting to not get the job because of my lack of experience but after they gave me the offer my manager told me it was my technical background combined with my personality that got me the job ultimately.

I'm not saying poker was the reason I got my job, but it didn't hurt and definitely set me apart in a positive way from the rest of the crowd. I added a small 2 line section to the bottom of my profile about my poker history and golf handicap (for the record, I thought this was really stupid but a friend who knew a couple of my interviewers told me it'd be a good idea) and got more questions about those two lines than my past work experience or college.

I had a couple of interview rounds before the big one in New York which was 6 hours long and met with 8 different people before taking an Excel test. One of the people I met with was a managing director who loves poker that doesn't normally do interviews but wanted to literally just talk poker for 20 minutes. It was really interesting and I learned a lot from the whole process, the biggest thing being that just because someone appears more experienced/smarter than you doesn't mean they'll always get the job ahead of you. Know your strengths and weaknesses and work on presenting them in a way that will maximize your job acquiring EV. Think about what the interviewer wants to hear and why they ask the questions they do and don't feel back about taking a second to gather your thoughts and answer. I realise to your point it's nothing new, but I hoped that hearing it from someone who literally went through it would be a bit more inspiring than the usual generalities.

Not sure if this sentiment has been posted ITT yet, but it is extremely relevant to a new career. Anyone who has had some degree of success at the tables would have acquired an enormous sense of self esteem. While that trait was not only earned, but needed to maintain their position, it doesn't automatically transfer to a new direction in life. An ability to start from a lower level and rise up is more advantageous than an expectation of status near the apex.

Is the CCNA held in the same regard?

no, the CCNA is actually difficult.

I personally feel kind of 'boxed in' with poker. I make more than OP's figures but not enough to be considered anywhere close to a 'baller'. In my case it wouldn't make sense to focus much on my career, especially since it is one that doesn't pay too well.

Is there anything wrong w/ grinding and saving money for entrepreneurship/ investment opportunities? The word 'Career path' always make me cringe and I'd much rather do everything on my own terms even if it means making less money. This is something I feel very strongly about and I'm hoping I can pull it off.

There's nothing wrong with using capital to invest in business opportunities. My roommate is a poker player who's doing just that, opening a smoothie bar in buenos aires (doesn't exist here), and it spending a lot of his time doing that. The education he's getting out of it money can't buy. Having said that, he hasn't worked in the industry, and managing something with zero experience is tough, even for someone smart with good common sense. There's some things you can only learn by working in the industry first.

I don't think it hurts to work even just part-time in an industry you're interested in getting started. The problem is, there's a steep learning curve involved in business, and the best opportunities always have the highest barrier of entry. As an individual entrepreneur, knowledge is a good barrier to have (look at the tech entrepreneurs), and it took them many years of dedication to reach that point. Using the money to buy into a franchise or a house seems to me to be something with high risk but little chance of big upside unless you're very experience in the industry.

Why not work a career with the plan in mind to launch your own thing once you know the ins and outs? Why jump right in and risk spending a lot of money to get an education when you can get paid to get an education? Let the money appreciate in an investment account, build a network, then strike with insider experience. To me, this represents a more solid plan than just 'im going to be an entrepreneur...' *throw dart at list of ideas*. Entrepreneurs that are successful are great at recognising opportunities. They know their edge and don't start random businesses, which is essentially what you're doing with no skill and just stabbing in the dark with an idea.

Seems like there's a lot of reaching assumptions being made in this post to me. It assumes someone has to throw a huge amount of money at something for the experience to get their feet wet, it assumes that getting a job in a certain industry will translate to the relevant knowledge/experience necessary to prep someone for an ownership role in that area, assumes that someones chances in a certain business can only be a pure crap shoot, and assumes that the path of starting from the bottom up in a career to get the inside knowledge to then start a business will come out ahead EV wise vs someone grinding poker income and trying to explore business options from there.

Using a loose poker analogy since it's a poker forum, it seems similar to me to a high stakes NLHE winner deciding to start out trying to learn PLO/mixed games at mistakes by just jumping right in and playing, while continuing to grind his normal NLHE games -- as opposed to quitting NLHE altogether, buying a bunch of PLO/mixed games books, then hitting the micros for 5 years to really learn the game before then moving up. Even though the second one increases chance of not losing and prevents jumping in "randomly", the experience they would gain for the relevant games they want to be playing in the first scenario, while continuing NLHE would likely come out ahead.

I don't see why the option has to be throwing "money at random businesses" anyway, I mean, it's not like many people are going to take some huge chunk of their bankroll and then try to start some random tech company all by themselves if they know nothing about the tech field. If you have the capital, you should be able to combine your resources/money with someone else who already has this insider experience or go with something where the knowledge barrier or learning curve isn't nearly akin to throwing darts at a wall. I believe the real estate thread in this forum is giving people a lot of information for how to get involved in real estate that most people who have been in the real estate industry for years don't have.

And if someone wanted to open a franchise, isn't the limited upside a function of lesser risk? I thought that was the whole idea behind a franchise, using an established business model that works, where you're assisted, and mainly just expanding their business through finding a location? Clearly there would be risks, but starting a subway or McDonalds in a good location doesn't seem like "high" risk to me. Or if someone like your roommate found someone with a lot of experience in working in the smoothie industry and partnered with them, I don't see why that can't be an option that's not so inferior to working in a smoothie shop for 5 years making smoothies to then now try to start one from the business end.

I agree w/ the entrepreneurship advice. In theory it makes a ton of sense to get some experience in the field before opening a business.

As others have pointed out, the problem with your OP is that most successful mid-level grinders make too much money ($100-$250k a year) to even think about quitting poker now so that they can secure 85k a year when they are 49. In my biased opinion it makes more sense for ppl that fit this mold to keep grinding, keep saving, and "see what happens". These guys should be riding the ipoker gravy train until it falls of it's track imo. Thoughts?

The future is uncertain when it comes to poker. First, poker isn't mutually exclusive to improving your career prospects. You can work on an education while playing and it fits well into poker (a lot of players in fact, do this). Why not work part-time and play poker? Why not work on a post-graduate course or degree? The Don made the best post of the thread, poker is a great base point for jumping into other areas like writing. Working on your skills is essential.

I make the comparison of the poker player to the athlete. You can be the smart one who has side projects, obviously enjoying his talents and the freedom, but also hedging his bets (no pun intended) by setting up for a future life.

Very interesting posts, looking forward to reading the remaining articles.

I'll make the assumption that experience in an industry improves future prospects in entrepreneurship in that industry, yes.

There's also a hedge factor, NLHE could die and its nice to have a fall back skill, for example. You could also argue that PLO/mixed games improves your NLHE game, even though on paper is sounds suspect, I've heard many players saying that PLO has opened their eyes to some realities of NLHE that they never have thought of. Also there's the chance of overall happiness being raised because you like mixed games more than NLHE, even if the profit is less. But yeah, I *think* you were alluding too that this decision isn't easy and that sometimes trying to play it fancy can make you worse off. Always a risk, but I take the view that some diverisifaction is a good idea. Maybe thats the trader/investor side of me talking.

On the first point, I've seen it happen. On the 2nd point, I agree completely, but networking and figuring out who is good isn't easy. Another way to put it, getting an industry job involves 'getting out there', sort to speak, and mixing it up with people who you could assemble projects with. There's other ways to do it, but I also find that smart insiders typically want to work with other smart insiders. These people are at a premium, and if someone's interest in an entreprenuer venture with you is soley based on your bank balance, I'd consider that a big red flag.

Yes, I think so. But franchises have risk, many of the good ones are hard to get into and there are franchise networks that go bust frequently. McDonald's does a full evaluation of the business accrement of all its new franchisees, its almost like applying for a senior position.

Also, you don't need to pour smoothies to work in the smoothie business. But its important to understand the service industry and what quality control is how to deal with suppliers. If you have no idea how to do this then a good way to figure out is to work with a firm for a year. Its not like you can't play poker on the side. Also how does one filter out good partners from bad partners? How do you know who is worthy?

Introduction to Trading Careers is up, enjoy!

Awesome. I decided a couple years ago to stop pursuing poker after averaging maybe 25k/year from 2 years playing some online, and a lot of live. I am now focusing on pursuing something in sales/marketing/brand management. I am now half way through an MBA program.

Question:

My resume gap is only 2 years, but I am currently losing out on all the best co-op jobs in my program because I have that 2 years less of job experience on the resume. I am never put in the tough spot of having to explain the two years, because I was finishing up some part time school in one year, and had a part time job during another. Also, this was 2007/2008, so I have had work to speak of since then.

Would you only address the gap -- and use poker on your resume -- if the gap was larger, or you had more success than I did?

Great post and falls in line of what I've thought all along - poker isn't an advantage over working unless you can get to the upper echelons.

But don't forget grinding your life away making 50k doing backoffice accounting sucks.

Edit : I can't emphasize enough the importance of the line above.

amazing op, tyvm, i can say nothing less than this may have changed my life haha.

the breakdown on variance was eye-opening, but what really shook me up was the simple question "where do u want to be in 10 years?"

and (this may be my downswing talking)...I don't think its poker. I think I'm going to go talk to an academic counsellor at school

Real good post. Interesting topic.