This is a good point to remember that life isn't always so simple no matter what your profession. From my experience, engineers in a variety of fields are having difficulty finding jobs right now. A lot of companies have not only ceased hiring, but they are going through significant layoffs. As a comparison, the tables are always running on FTP (even if the player pool is a bit more talented).

To add my personal touch to the subject, I went through college and got a mechanical engineering degree from a top U.S. school. I did pretty well in college (but still had a great time, college was the ****) and was able to find a decent job with a starting salary above the average U.S. household income just as an entry-level engineer. But I graduated two years ago before everything hit the ****ter.

A lot of people at my company that weren't laid off recently at my company have had their hours reduced. (myself included) Since I've had all this extra time, I've been able to approach poker on a level beyond what I had ever done in the past.

I've haven't quite logged 250k hands online, but in the last 6 months I've managed to move up from 25NL to 400NL. I still have a lot to learn and have never even really played the higher stakes games that I feel are the main focus of this thread, but even at 400NL a solid player can make a ridiculous amount of money, I would even say potentially life changing if they are willing to invest some effort.

I know that if I continue to post similar results at just 200NL & 400NL in the future, winning at a steady clip in these games is an incredible side source of income and certainly provides a great balance for when things aren't great in the corporate world. And if everything goes to plan, I will eventually move up and take a shot at the higher games. I figure everyone who has had some success should at least take a shot because you can't know what will happen until you try.

If you decided to go for it with poker instead of going to school, I certainly wouldn't fault you. I think there is something to be said for balance in life, but I don't think that necessarily requires working 60 hour weeks at a job you hate. The cool thing about poker imo is that the income and flexibility a career as a pro-poker player would allow you to contribute to society in unique ways if you put your mind to it. (You could even do stuff like non-profit work and spend time volunteering if you wanted to quench that desire to "give back to society" - not that there's anything inherently wrong with choosing to do nothing of the sort...)

With a B.S. in Chem E, you can easily make 100k/yr, 3-4 years after graduation. The avg. annual starting salary from UT is 68k/yr, and I actually know 3 people who are STARTING with 100k right out of college. If you have a ****ty major, you get paid ****. Also law degrees suck right now because they've been graduating too many lawyers for the past few years.

your other points are correct, but no university has an average starting salary of $68k right out of college, especially not UT.

starting salary at a good law firm in ny is between $150k and $170k, idk what you're talking about, which is attainable for someone in like the top 25% of a top 25ish law school or one that recruits for ny.

edit: this obviously isn't attainable for everyone, but a law degree is just so useful that it makes you much more marketable to potential employer

and the economy isn't making a case for college degrees at the moment. at my graduation they said that only 20% of graduating seniors nationwide had jobs lined up. the averages this year are going to be disgustingly low. it's kinda scary, idk what the **** people are going to do.

They took our jobs

http://ecac.engr.utexas.edu/students/perm_Salary.cfm

The avg. annual starting salary I quoted was specifically for chem e. Chemical engineering is an extremely valuable degree, more valuable than a lot of grad school degrees. It also has an extremely fast scale up. Though, I'm sugar coating it a little bit. It's probably the most difficult undergraduate degree and not for everyone.

Petroleum Engineers actually have an even higher starting annual salary with better students starting with 110 or even 120k, but within 5 years, their salary hits a wall, while Chem E. salaries continue to climb.

That said, hitting 250k before 30 is still pretty unreasonable, and this is one of the most viable options. There is a cap around 200k for having just a B.S., and if you want to get further than that, a PhD or MBA is very necessary. You'd have to be taking night classes while performing extremely well at work in order to reach 250k before 30...

Also my point about law schools was more pertaining to the fact that if you're not in the top 14, you're really going to have difficulty finding a job in this market. The economy definitely has affected the job market a lot and it sucks for pretty much everyone.

Just went back and checked and saw that you bolded the part you were disagreeing with, at first I thought you were disagreeing that a $100nl grinder can make $60k in a year.

As far as Bldswtrs graph.... that's not 5-6ptbb/100 over the sample, thats close to 10ptbb/100.

517,119 = 12928ptbbs (517,119/40 @ 10/20nl)
12,928 ptbbs / 1306.3 (130,630 hands / 100)
= 9.9ptbb/100

Or an easier way to look at it is, at 5/10nl if you have a 5ptbb/100 winrate that's $1/hand, so 5ptbb/100 at 10/20nl would be $2/hand, but he's doing like twice that.. so it's around 10.

Very sick.

this thread is too long to read

but these are very reasonable assumptions to make from an average MSNL grinder

500k hands per year (about 40k per month)

2ptbb/100

2/4 - $80k + $20k rb = $100k /yr
3/6 - $120k + 25k rb = $145k/yr
5/10 - $200k + 30k rb = 230k/yr

this should be easily attainable by anyone who puts any time and effort into playin

easily? this was my undergrad, and only our valedictorians are close to making this money (they also work way over 40/hrs week). if i had to guess an average salary for my class, it would be way below 100k.

maybe you're working in the wrong place. most UT chem e undergrads head to Houston and people are making bank

it takes more than time and effort. Discipline and tilt control are huge. There's a reason everyone isn't making 100k/yr from online poker

lol

he still posts strat in hsnl sometimes and seems pretty good, at least enough to beat 10/20.

if tableratings didn't exist i might still think samoleus/punketty is a fish..just plays a little unorthodox but does some stuff really well.

You are right. This is an easy way to do it too:

- $517,108
- 130,630 hands
- 'all 10/20'

At 5ptbb you win 1 stack in a thousand hands. (easy rule of thumb)
131 times $2K is $262K. He won almost precisely twice that, so almost 10ptbb/100.

Incredible.

more oil there

most ppl i know are in biotech