This. 3bb/hour is awful for a "pro". I wouldn't even get out of bed for that.

You can get hustled when you take a cab ride, buy a new pair of shoes, rent an apartment, eat at a restaurant, work at a job (in fact you're almost certainly being hustled if you work for someone else). Yet none of those things entail entering a casino.

So tell us how "Everything is a hustle inside of the gambling environment," but not a hustle inside of real estate, small business, car dealership showrooms, attorney offices, and on and on and on.

Number 2: "It's a lonely existence."

What does poker have to do with a person's loneliness? You can be a lonely poker player, but you can be a lonely bartender, mailman, airline pilot, schoolteacher, or anything else. Poker players, actually, should basically never be lonely, at least not in the shallow sense of the word. You go into a poker room every day and greet, whatever, 20 or so dealers and floorpeople with whom you should be friends, dozens of reg who might be pretty cool people if you stop blindly hating them, and a handful of other live pros you've become friends with despite your sometime rivalry.

You can drop my 100-year-old-ass off in any decent sized poker room in America and within a month I'll be friendly with dozens of people, and within a year probably have a few good friends there. It's on you, not the game.

14. You will be so focused on money, nothing else will matter.
15. You will become a slave to poker and it does not care about you.

I'm less focused on money than any human I know because it's my nature. If you were obsessed with money, it was because of your nature.

People with jobs, they focus on money. They're living paycheck to paycheck, most of them, and sweating the status rise and fall, almost all of them.

And 15 doesn't mean anything rational. Poker isn't a sentient being.



We see these posts all the time here.

1. 1000 schmucks try poker.
2. By normal distribution a few win easily and think they're great.
3. Because they're unhappy with their lives, they see poker as a ticket out of their misery.
4. Because they were never very good in the first place, and were merely being fooled by randomness, they quickly start hating life when the cards break even.
5. Because they were never very happy in the first place, they find themselves still unhappy even after trying poker.
6. They quit and post on 2+2 "I was a big winner but was miserable but it wasn't my fault, it was poker's fault."

Anyone miserable and lonely, no matter their occupation, will continue being miserable and lonely until they recognize themselves as the sole source of their problems.

I have sympathy for you. Being young sometimes sucks. But your anger at poker is misplaced and self-defeating.

"OMC" Couldn't have said it better myself....Some people have the mind for poker but do not have the mental stability it takes to do it day in and day out. A lot of people who try the life style do so for the freedom that comes with it yet along the way they forget why they are doing it in the first place and find themselves at the tables every day playing to many hours burning them selves out when in reality they are no more free then they were sitting behind a desk or working in a factory.

I played for three years, I did not go bust once. I actually survived and made a living at it. I did not make a good living at it....I do not think 95% of the people who come out here can do better than me. I would say I pretty damn good at it, relative to the population.

I'm sorry, only very few people get "freedom" with poker. Very few have the mental stability. Very few have the mind for it. Very few have the discipline for it. An extremely small have all three that is required and an even smaller portion of them are "free".

The biggest issue with being a poker pro is that it's not a very scalable and unlike most other jobs, income increases come with greater variance and risk of ruin.

The other issue is of course if you do a bad job at any other job, the worst that can happen is that you get fired, they can't take what you've already earned. If you do a bad job at poker, you don't immediately recognize you're doing a bad job but not only are you not earning money, you're losing what you already earned.

Braves2017 are you leaving something out cause you seem to have some deep seeded anger issues and frustration with the game or at least that is how you are coming across. your whole post in negative!!!Anyone who has serious intentions of doing it already knows the ups and downs, the risks and the rewards but why do you feel the need to be such a self righteous egomaniac.

I think you and others have a problem wrongly associating my mental health with the reality I presented. Its unfortunate that you cant even consider my list as examples of reality as a poker professional and instead have to find some reason why it cant be like that. My guess is you and others do this because it destroys the illusion of a great lifestyle that has been perpetuated by examples of very rare cases.

I doubt that very much and I refute the premise that sharing the cold hard reality is being self righteous egomaniac. You sound like someone just told you Santa Claus does not exist.

How many people actually make 50$ an hour at 2/5 live really?? I think OP has a point and some of you are just bad mouthing him for no real reason. He is basically saying "Poker is a hard way to make an easy living" The fact that you are disagreeing with him seems a little strange! Granted 14$ an hour at 2/5 is on the lower side and he might of made double that at 1/3, I still think that he make's some good points. Most people thinking they are the next Phil Ivey are in for a rude awakening!

You were FANTASTIC at poker relative to the population. Most of the population loses at poker

HOWEVER, you SUCKED relative to pros. This must have been demoralizing for you. Busting your ass for 13 bux an hour incurring a ton of variance had to have been a miserable existence. I have played a TON of hours in my time and have experienced long flat periods - and that is painful. I can not imagine only winning 13$/hr playing 2/5...I would most likely be bitter and jaded too.

Glad you got out of poker and found greener pastures

Most of the "pro's" do too. Seriously, how many "pros" do you know at low-mid stakes that have done it longer than two years? If we are generous, its no more than 100 and I'd say its more likely to be closer to 30-60 and again thats generous. I did not see many grinders in my time and I put in heavy volume at multiple locations.

Unless you start with a great bankroll or get extremely lucky and run extremely hot, progression is non-existent. I also think anyone who say they are making more than 3-4 BB an hour at 2/5 is lying or their sample size is too small. If games were always good, I can see it but the volume you get at those kind of games is small, maybe 10-15% my volume I would consider a "good game" where I could earn upwards of 10-15 bb an hour and that's mitigated somewhat from the 15-20% the game are garbage and you'd be lucky to break 2bb/hr. The game selection is just not that great.

You are right, I was not elite at poker but I also know I was not the worst because simply I survived a helluva lot more than others. Consider me the middle or lower-middle class.

I always thought about LA but the cost of living aspect made me never try it.

Many/most people who try poker for a living just aren't as bright, emotionally stable or socially skilled as average people. Many/most are extremely gullible and have an inflated sense of themselves, including their ability to understand basic probability despite never having bothered to learn anything.

It is a selection problem. Most could not make it in the highly competitive field of fry cooking.

You bring up some valid points OP, though there are some positives to go along with all these negatives. But never the less it's called a grind for a reason.

As someone else alluded, most people shouldn't try to play poker for a living. Pretty standard advice.

That's actually quite impressive and I commend you for that. I think most players would have gone busto with that winrate.

Since leaving poker do you find yourself much happier in life? Do you struggle with depression/unhappiness at all? Do you tend to look at things negatively in general or just your poker career?

I'm assuming these numbers are just for Vegas? I know lots of players who have played longer than that outside of Vegas. I only have one friend in Vegas and he's been grinding the 1/3 for a few years now.

Or you're just very good.

What you consider a good game and what others consider a good game are not the same thing though. You seem to have very high requirements as to what a good game is and that probably relates to your level of play. I have never played in Vegas on the weekend but played a lot on weekdays a few years back and have played a lot of weekday games this month and continue to find the 1/2, 1/3, 2/5, and 5/10 games to be quite soft on the weekdays. I can see how others might not view some of these games as soft though.

Respekt! Now you're retired though.

Unless you were playing 500/1000😀😀

It all depends on what you mean by freedom. If you are talking in only financial terms then you are correct, but that is true when it comes to almost any career path that someone would take.

I also believe you are not properly thinking about the vast majority of people that will try to make a living at poker. For the most part in my experience you are not talking about people that come to a fork in the road and one path is law school, medical school, etc... and the other is become a 1-2 grinder. The vast majority of people that look at playing 1-2 or 2-5 as a viable career path are not turning down opportunities to work on Wall Street, but instead are tired of working as a car salesman, waiting tables, working retail, etc...

They are not leaving six figure jobs seeking to climb the poker ladder by grinding it out at 1-2 and moving up. They are tired of working for their ******* boss, waiting on ******* customers, etc... for 40, 50, 60 hours a week just to make enough to get by on. In their situations, playing poker 50 hours a week and doing something they enjoy would be considered freedom if they can pay their bills even if they are not breaking the bank.

I disagree. I think most of those trying and failing at poker might actually be smarter than the average person, and are not at all more gullible or egotistical or devoid of basic probability skills. Those coming from or only trying online poker, yes, are clearly less apt at social interaction (but better at the math), but I think we're talking about live poker here.

The problem is that, to make it as a pro, you need to be, on a scale of 1-10, a 9 or 10 for intelligence and emotional stability. Mere 6's and 7's will fail, whereas those same people are destined to rise through the management ranks at the local shopping mall.

Clearly I don't think much of the average intellect, but that's only because talking to almost anyone except a professional gambler reveals amazing shortcomings in probability appraisals and egotism. This includes business people, lawyers, doctors, etc. Behavioral psych and all that.

Poker just doesn't allow for incompetence the way that other careers do. The weak in poker are beaten down instead of brought slowly along from accrual of years in the biz.

Excellent comments . . . from one who really does know.

Here are some real tips from someone who has either played for a living or as a supplement to other income over the last 11 years:

• 1. You have to love the game. I mean love it. You have to be jazzed as you drive to the poker room, itching to sit down and buy some chips. If you don't, you will be miserable.
  
• 2. If, like OP, you are only making $13 an hour playing 2/5 over a large sample size, you need to do two things: study your ass off and get some help, because you are not good enough to survive as a pro...and, GET A ****ING JOB. You can still play poker, but believe me, the stress of having to make that nut will be immensely lowered.
  
• 3. If you have packed up and come to Vegas instead of going to college, at least take a few classes, Dude. You need a forward motion to your life, some goals, that are not tied to the size of your bankroll. One day, poker will be over. What will you have to show for it?
  
• 4. If you're over age 30 and you're giving it a shot, go for it - as long as all you have to be responsible for is yourself. You do not want to be put in a position where you have to choose between playing poker and paying for your daughter's ballet lessons. Because, really, that ain't no choice at all.
  
• 5. Find a significant other who understands what it is you do. If he/she does not, be a man and move on to someone who does.
  
• 6. Stay out of the pit.
  
• 7. Take advantage of comps.
  
• 8. Make your main room one that does not have a jackpot drop. You might think it doesn't matter, but one night keep track of the dollars that disappear down that drop on the pots you win. Trust me, you won't want to play in that room again.
  
• 9. If you like drinking while playing, limit it to one night a week and have fun. Don't drink the other nights.
  
• 10. Exercise daily.
  
• 11. Find another hobby that is not tied to poker. Golf, cross-fit, church, bookstore readings, guns, comic books, whatever. Poker will not fulfill your life if that's all you have in it.
  
• 12. Put down some roots. If the place you live is just a room with a bed that you come to when you're not playing poker, you will be miserable. Make a home. A comfortable place that you could actually entertain friends in. You know...if you actually had some friends.
  
• 13. Make some friends.
  
• 14. Do not pass on the other great things this town has to offer (concerts, shows, great restaurants, outdoor activities, etc.) because you "have to play poker." Poker will always be there, any time of the day. Go do something else tonight. It's ok.
  
• 15. Tip. But don't over-tip.

^

This.......

is so much better than OP.

Great job Dominic - this post should be made into a sticky thread and the original post should but put back in OPs diary where it belongs.

Nice post Dominic, well said

Yeah, Dominic's post is very good.