This guy is a very good poker player, and this is probably some of the best advice I've ever seen him give out. Agree 100% with everything he said.

I can only imagine how frustrating it much be to work 70+ hours a week, but dealing with the variance of poker (much less live variance) is probably a LOT more frustrating than you think it is. It's very hard to guess your own true winrate online when you get 50k+ hands a month, since your game changes and you can easily run good or bad for 200k+ hands, much less live poker where you get such few hands in. You have no idea if you're a winning player, your results indicate you are not, and you probably have no idea how frustrating variance can be (similar to the way those of us who do play professionally probably have very little idea how stressful 70+ hours of work a week is).

You might need a quick break from work due to stress, but trust us trying to be a professional player is much more likely than not a really, really bad idea with all the information you've given.

I agree with this; this isn't a spot where your current job and poker are the only two options. You can definitely try to trade pay for lifestyle by getting a different job.

OP, life is too short not to follow your little dreams. Go for it, but please, do it sensibly.

What's going to be your legal status in the US ?

What sort of health insurance will you have ?

You will have loads of "free" time in your hands. Use it wisely, keep fit and study poker on a regular basis. If you play for 35-40 hours a week try to study at least 8.

Once you become better get a hand in multi-tabling online with rakeback. Some days you won't feel like going to the casino and anyway it might become a steady income.

It kind of surprises me that 2p2 being mainly a poker discussion forum time and time again being or becoming a poker pro is regarded as some sort of evil path. LOL.

if a summary of your poker experience includes bad beat stories i dont think youre ready...

It's not an evil path, just a stupid one for someone who has been playing the game for years and doesn't win.

Hey. My advice is to work hard with a 5 year plan of banking almost all earnings and then quitting to play poker with $1million in the bank.

zero

why wouldn't you choose another career? don't understand why you think you can make a living playing poker when all you've done is lose over the past 3 years.

I hear you BUT :

a/ You have to put time, effort and PLAY to become a winning player. That's something tough to do when you have a super demanding job.

b/ You only live once and it might be better to look back and think you made a mistake but at least tried than wondering what if.

c/ We all have different needs.

d/ In this particular case the OP won't be starving if he fails. He seems to be an educated young-ish healthy individual. He'll be fine.

I'll break down my response into two areas: Career and Poker

Career:

1) Your company gave you a tough job to prove yourself whether you belong in the executive suite. If you follow with your plan, your saying that you don't have it. The letter means little as a) it could be conditional to completing the project or b) if you decide to enforce it without carrying your part of the bargain, it will be a short time before they find ways to move you along.

2) This sabbatical question is always extremely difficult when you are flying this high in the corporate ladder in a large firm. Pending on your company culture, most of the time this is close to corporate suicide unless it's health or family related.

3) You are NOT irreplaceable. Yes, it's difficult to come to terms with that notion but it's the harsh corporate truth. I work in turnarounds/restructuring and I have heard that bravado from many executives days before they were given their parachute.

4) If you decide to quit your job, please realize that in current economic conditions, employment gaps are a big problem and six figure jobs are hard to find. In addition, networking is extremely important and based on what you written, it appears that you haven't had much time to do much of it.

Poker

a) The results are less than impressive so far. However, it's a small sample size and you are not off to a promising start.

b) To make a reasonable wage for your current standard of living, the bare minimum would be to play 2-5 NL +, 15-30 limit live. Bankroll requirements should be high to minimize your risk of ruin.

c) If you cannot consistently make money online, you have leaks in your game. Live has the tendency to hide one's flaws with less volume.

d) Poker as a living will turn into a grind real fast. It's one thing to play a couple days a week vs. playing daily to cover expenses.

So, to be blunt, you are going thru a mid-life crisis where you are questioning what you have done so far and whether it's has been worth it. Poker offers a false mirage of what you should do with your life but the real questions to sort out is what's important to feel passionate on what you do and/or how do you find balance in your current profession.

My two cents of advice is finish your project and take a long vacation after it. In your vacation, you can play poker, write your business plan or possibly find a special person to share your life with. However, you'll have the option to return to your job in good terms.

If you have any comments or questions, please feel free to PM me.

That is exactly the point astrobel.

I am convinced that my current bad results in poker are due to my missing focus on the game. And this missing focus is due to my job. Through all my live I have made the experience that you will eventually be successful if you dedicate all your energies on one thing. This would of course not be a balanced way of life if it goes to the extreme... like I did in the past. But I hope to find a profession in which I can make a good living and work a maximum of 50 hours per week in order to have enough time for other things in life.

I totally agree to point b) and c) as well. Many of the responses here just focus on the six-figures I am currently making. But life and my considerations are not one dimensional. I am not happy with what I do now and I do not see any future positions which are of interest to me as an employee (with my current company or any other company). I have to change things here.

Whether poker is the right thing for me, I do not know... I will get a better picture within the first 6-8 weeks of playing on a regular basis. If I only lose within the first 6-8 weeks I will stop it and look for something else to go for. But then I know for sure and can close this poker chapter. At the moment, I do not know anything about my potential as a poker player because I have never really tried it with focus.

d) is also right. I am very confident that I will land on my feet if I fail with my plans.

Regarding the questions you have posted earlier:

Legal status: My current plan is to get an extended Visa for the US for 5-6 months and go there as a tourist. If it happens that I am successful at poker then I have to make up my mind on what to do after that period. If I am not successful, I will leave anyway.

Health insurance: I have a private insurance currently, which includes travel insurance (see legal status). If my contract with my company is being terminated, I have to cover the amounts not paid by the company by myself, which is an extra burden I have to take into account.

You are right, I should include playing online poker as well.

Agreed. I have to prove that I can win online as well.


That is exactly what it is all about. I have to find that out during my long vacation (see also my comment one post earlier).

Do whatever you feel you need to do OP, but i get the feeling your time will be just as limited and you will be just as stressed out playing poker, only without the financial reward for the effort put in.

If you can do it and then go back to your job then i guess you have nothing to lose. Frustratingly the only way to know for sure is to experience it first hand, but i'd say take the advice given in this thread.

biggest mistake of my life, 2008 selling my shares in my company stock for a 20k bankroll only to have a mamoth company buy out less then 1 year later which would have propelled me to over 100k oh and gg bankroll play better i guess.

didnt finish reading the OP but didnt take me long to come to this conclusion. hope you havent quit already. if you havent quit please dont. you obv have a decent amount of money, use some of it on a coach and get good at poker, play a ton, save a lot of money, and reevaluate in a year.

Just about every average Poker player thinks that the only things standing between him and being an outstanding winning player are Bankroll and Time to devote to playing.

They're almost universally wrong and it is what keeps the outstanding Poker players in business.

Excellent Post Sir!

Not to mention the fact that many average poker players think that because they enjoy playing a few nights a month at the card room, they'd enjoy the life of grinding it out.

I think it's ummmm ... Schoomaker's Psychology of Poker, which describes the life of a professional. That description, if nothing else cured me of any brief delusions that this was for me.

(Well, that, and the fact that I'm an average player who knows I'm an average player).

LOL at people bragging they make 90-100k a year but work 75 to 80 hours a week. So your really working two jobs for 50k a year. No THX but you can keep the job.

I wish I had your problems. I make 20k a year working in retail so I'm incredibly sympathetic towards you.

Don't quit your day job. Seriously. I don't think you are anywhere near where you need to be to make poker your sole source of income.

If it was, it's not a mere question of which-should-i-do, but an easy transition if you so wished.

"The rest I would say, I lost by playing online - where I am not good at as my strength is my reading ability. Hence, I stopped playing online I think about 3 months ago."

Online winners can win live, but live players have trouble winning online... The difference isn't "reading ability".

I really don't think OP ever had any interest in listening to advice that advised him against going for it.

been reading this thread with the last week.

annoyed with what everyone is saying. it pretty likely op is a hard worker who is mentally competent. he is in a very good job so putting in the hours to improve aint going to be a problem

some (alot) of poker pros think that the fact that they are pro's means that they are gods gift. poker isnt as demanding a senior of a company. yes if your playing in bobbys room it would be very stressful but preying on rich average live players in 2-5nl, 5-10nl or 10-20nl games is no where as demanding.

my advice for op is to finish his project and then take the break, you could ruin your CV if the company gets annoyed with you for leaving midway through a project.

I'm looking at this from another point of view

Playing in Vegas/LA/AC over a holiday weekend is fun and easy. Drunk tourists, drunk fish, everyone is having a good time. Playing during the week with 8 nit/rocks with an average age of dead ugh I could not imagine a more boring life.

Quite the contrary. I do have an interest to listen, otherwise I would not have posted. But listening does not mean I just give up my dreams in a second after reading the "Don't do it"-Posts.

I take the advice very serious.

Currently, I am working on optimizing the starting point of my break in order to be able to get back again. Last week, I finished my first part of my project and our CEO was very satisfied with it. I am considering to leave at the end of the second part of the project which will probably be end of January or even into February. That means, that my former goal to start the break already early January is already extended as I do not want to leave the impression with the company that I left right in the middle of the "battle". My objective is to make our bosses fully understand and support that I go for this break - not an easy task though. By the way, the third part of the project is the "easiest" (less critical) part of the whole project and I have already a well accepted successor in mind who can take over the role of project manager. Obviously, I do not want the project go down the drain after I leave...

When it comes to poker, I said before that I have hardly time to play - at least in a rested state of mind. I had two live cash game sessions within the last weeks (which went very well). However, it does not make sense to post results of individual sessions as these are anyway meaningless when it comes to judging my poker skills. So, I will wait until the sample size is a little bigger, although not big enough from a statistical point of view (if anyone is interested). But be aware that this takes some time as I currently do not play often.

But most importantly, do not forget that I will go for an extended break from my job anyway, no matter whether I play poker during that time or not.

I can imagine that this will be tough. But compared to the stress + time I put into my current job, this looks to me currently as the better option. Hopefully, I would have time for other things in life as well to live a more balanced life than I do now.

But after 2 or 3 months of nearly daily play I should have a feeling whether this is a lifestyle for me or not.