I bet you didn't tell him your online screen name was Dankness3

so when comparing a "traditional job" to playing poker, I think you need to weigh a few factors:

* with a traditional job, you get a ton of additional benefits (health, dental, life insurance, retirement, 401k matching, social security, etc). That stuff probably adds up to $25+K in non-monetary compensation, above the salary.

* with a traditional job, assuming you're above average (which most of you are), you will most certainly make MORE EVERY YEAR, and get promotions every few years. with poker, you will "on average" make LESS every year. Poker is a zero-sum game (negative, if you factor in the rake that gets taken out of the system). I'm just guessing here, but I think for every person who successfully jumps from 2/4 to 5/10+, you get more than one 5/10+ guy who has to take a step down or just leave. I think this is structural because the growth in the number of weaker players at the higher stakes is way lower than the growth in numbers of good players. Obviously, if you're an elite player, this is less a factor.

* with many "traditional" jobs, you will develop a skill set that is easier to transfer over to another job. for example, if you program with a software firm, ten years from now, you'll be looking at much higher profile job choices should you decide to switch in a similar industry. If you play poker and decide to go to work 10 years from now, you will be looking at the same choices in 10 years as you have now.

* with a traditional job, there is less month to month volatility of earnings. You pretty much make the same amount every month. But with poker, you will have some break-even or down months interspersed with a lot of good months. Less volatility is always worth something.

So in a nutshell, if you're making $200K a year playing poker now, I'm not sure if that's that much better than making $75K at a "traditional job" (I'm just guessing here), because in about 10-15 years, you will probably be making the same with either choice, which means the "traditional" job will probably come out ahead. The main advantage of poker is that you can make a lot of up-front cash in case you want to do something with that money. Again, if you continue to get better over time and become an elite player, poker will be better. But there aren't that many elite players.

I guess for an old fart like me who's looking to play like 10 years, the above are not as huge considerations as most of you guys, who are looking at something to do for the next 30+ years. Anyway, just wanted to give you a more balanced view, because it is a HUGE decision.


BTW, Sparky, doing 87.5% of something and not finishing is like wining and dining a 10/10, getting her back to your apt, starting to run the bases, moving over to the bed, getting undressed and insta-telling her to go home. :-)

i bet they coulda figured it out

if you plan to be a family man like yourself, lots of jobs' benefits cover spouses as well

money now is better than money later for investing reasons (which you kind of touched on, but the value of investing it now is HUGE)

the other stuff is pretty accurate i think. i'm probably the most pessimistic person on these forums about the future of poker and why we should all get regular jobs, but even i'm starting to think i have to milk this **** before it's dry once i graduate, assuming i can still make ~six figures in table winnings while getting elite once i'm done

I don't think many college grads make $75K a year before they're at least 27-28, much less straight out of college...and that's if they have an excellent degree in a field that pays a lot of money. Plus, there is a ridiculous amount of value (at least to me) of being able to work 15-25 hours a week at any time instead of 40+ and getting up at dawn.

GM: stay pro.

Hello ranka666,


We are writing to inform you that we have suspended your chat privilege for 1 week
as a result of your chat on 2009/08/03.


The use of vulgarity when addressing another player is not allowed.

When asterisks are seen during chatting, it is a warning that what is being put into
the chatbox is not allowed. Using spaces or other characters, or otherwise defeating
the censor is a violation of the Card Room Rules.

Your chat privilege will be reinstated automatically once the suspension period is
over. There is no need to write to support.

Our goal at PokerStars is to be a fun place to play, where everyone can feel
comfortable. Abuse and other disruptions to the games takes away from everyone's
enjoyment, and therefore will not be tolerated.

We thank you for your cooperation.


Regards,

PokerStars Chat Moderation Team


The following chat was observed
***** STUDBOY

ranka666 [observer]: ***** STUDBOY
ranka666 [observer]: TOOK MY SEAT
Yugless: lolol
ranka666 [observer]: unreal
ranka666 [observer]: called mode
Yugless: gonna have to get your fpps at another table
ranka666 [observer]: stud we will se who is the boss
ranka666 [observer]: mode will kick you out from this table
ranka666 [observer]: I know u dont have chat
Moderator125 [Moderator]: Hello Players!
Moderator125 [Moderator]: Please keep the chat clean, friendly and respectful.
Yugless: ROFL
TRAVO8: ty 125
Moderator125 [Moderator]: Good luck and enjoy your game!
TRAVO8: i will but ty
TRAVO8: 125

.

Didnt realize it added up that much. At the same you could say rakeback for a year will be pretty similar to those benefits.



Have to disagree a little bit here. My parents have been working at the same company for 25 years and theyve def not gotten a raise every year. On the flip side they've had to take (albeit not big) pay cuts on a few occasions in not only salary but benefits as well. Given the structure of our economy downturns in the business cycle like this current, rather large one are to be expected and obviously these types of things come with it. Lets not forget about job security as this current economic situation is a reminder that having a job doesnt mean you're certain to keep it.

As for decreasing $ money in poker, Ive made more every year than the previous. Obviously I had to improve a great amount to overcome the huge decrease in game quality but yea on average $ made will probably decrease slightly

Word (I agree). Resume gap problem

Meh If Im making 250k compared to 50k and I dont care how the **** it comes in (assuming you have $ already set out for living expense which you probably would if you're making that much)

I dont know anyone besides like 2 friends with petroleum engineering degrees who are even coming to close to making 75k out of college. Getting half that is way more reasonable and would be a success as a ton of my friends cant even find jobs. Obviously this current situation is unique but fwiw my parents have been working at the samecompany for 25 years and they dont even make 100k. The middle class is filled with hard working, dedicated people who have been working for 15+ years. Im sure they've had the mind sight of "oh Ill work hard for xx years and then cha ching Ill be making 200k" but I bet the majority arent even close. I have a pretty negative view on working in corporate America so maybe all this is wrong, but I feel like if/when I do start working Ill just be another one of the tens of millions of joe schmos who worked hard for xx years and made a decent but modest salary.

I appreciate your insight doublefly, its cool to have an older perspective on what we're doing

OMFG, u post on 2p2!!1 Holy ****, I think u haven't mentioned on famous adrian's regular list.

ya u gotta remember doublefly is talking about the really high end jobs i think he assumes we are all like elite students and although i agree a lot of us are really bright, i think most of us fall into the ctaegory of incredibly bright but in general without the direction needed to focus it towards school and getting a "wall street" style job.
for me i would be looking at a job worth about 50-60k coming out of uni and i wud prob expect to be earning around the 100k mark in about 6-8 years so for me assuming poker doesn't totally degenrate into unbeatable games in the next 5 years i think it is def more plus EV for me to play poker than to get a real job.

even if it is pretty close in $EV between regular job and poker u really need to factor in the happiness EV that we get from playing only a few hours a week the ability to work when we want and rearrange or schedules at a moments notice to do random balla things.

Every traditional job I've had since college subtracted those "benefits" from your check. You might get them for a discount, but that **** is still coming out of your check.

good points but I think this is a little bit of an overestimate. Most healthy 20some year olds don't need dental (really really ripping you off if you get it), shouldn't be paying more than $2500 a year in health insurance, don't really need life insurance, should be taking care of retirement anyway (tax breaks and planning for the future ldo), and you are paying SS anyway if you are paying taxes. So the only thing you are missing out on is 401k matching which obviously is nice but probably not worth $20k because most 20 year olds are lucky if they are making 50k a year pretax and even if they are making more I doubt the company is matching 20k.

TBH as a 26 year old who worked as a well paid engineer for over a year before quitting to play full time I would say that pretty much anyone that is seriously considering playing full time for a living (meaning they have a lot of long term success and an adequate bankroll) will almost certainly make considerably more money at poker than they will at a normal job. Add in the fact that you don't have to work more than 75 hours a month to make plenty of money, you can travel at will, have ridiculous amounts of free time and it really seems like an easy decision. Obviously I'm biased, but you'd have to have a pretty awesome job opportunity doing something you really loved to leave poker for the 9-5 world. otherwise i think you might be crazy.

i think your off on some of these so im going to chime in

refer to mike kelley's coments, also lol at social security being in there


this assumes two things:

1. While traditional jobs do get increases every year for the most part they dont stay that far above inflation (most typical yearly increases are between 2 and 4%)

2. That a poker player's yearly income stays the same or gets worse year in and year out which is definitely incorrect for people whom you consider will play 10 years+ in this game. I believe people who will play this game as their main source of income and make 6 figures will have well over 5% yearly increases in profits, granted there will be variance in this also, for example a they may make 100k for 3 years straight and jump to 150 in year 4 which totals 450k over 4 years while a 4% yearly increase at 100k would be 441,630.

One more thing to consider is that even if a players winrate doesnt increase yearly or if they stop moving up limits which if they are staying ahead of the game one of the two should be happening if you look how the limits of games have progressed in general over the last five years its amazing, I remember when 5/10 was the biggest game stars had I was 18 then but I remember it was the biggest and then they added 10/20 and then 25/50 and then tilt got nose bleeds and 200/400 was the biggest game and now its 500/1000. Im not saying well see 100k/200k as nose bleeds and that 100/200 will be the new mid stakes or anything outrageous like that but if you think about what games were middle stakes 4 or 5 years ago it wasnt 5/10 and 3/6 thats for damn sure. I mean i wouldnt be at all surprised if 5-10 years from now 10/20 was considered the new 3/6, it may seem crazy but ask anyone who has been around for 3-4 years or more online like too eazy and hell probably agree with me about the progression in stakes.


This is true in most cases so I wont argue it too much but think of all the cases you hear about now where CEOs and wall streets guys that got let go and cant get new jobs (granted the economy sucks right now but imo i think thats due to some variance also and believe something similar will happen again before I have passed on)

If a player cant accept that fact that he makes x amount of dollars more per month then in the best regular job he could get and part of this higher salary is because he is forced to deal with the daily, weekly, and even monthly variance then he shouldnt be involved in this game professionally in the first place


This is where i decided to make the post because this is so far off imo that I felt the need to make an objection. I cant name one job I know of that starts above 75k a year with a bachelors maybe engineers but all the tech, accounting, and finance guys I went to school with who have jobs started at 40-55k (of course no one i know went to Harvard, Yale, or MIT but neither are any of the guys your speaking to in this forum unless im mistaken. On top of that the % of people that end up making 200k a year in the long run is very small I dont believe that even 20% of the people that start at 50-75k end up making 200k a year (minus doctors or lawyers but again I dont think any of the guys reading this are in law or med school) because like poker you rise and fall based on performance meaning getting 2nd level promotion may seem easy but going from the bottom to the middle is much easier then going from the middle to the top (reminds me of poker tbh). I just think you throw out a figure like 200k like its happening for most college graduates when they are in their 40s and 50s but that is just not the case. Here's two articles where the top college median isnt over 150k during mid career.

http://www.payscale.com/best-college...statistics.asp

http://finance.yahoo.com/college-edu...du-collegeprep



Who wants to be playing this game for the next 30 years? I think if 20% of the regs on this forum are still playing 10 years from now Ill be surprised what it comes down to is this, this game is a means to a end for pretty much every player I know (besides ptero cuz hes a sicko) I remember Nolan saying or writing somewhere that he would pursue poker for the foreseeable future until something more profitable came his way and I think thats what most of us are trying to do. 200k a yr maintained over 5 years is a million dollars if you take just 15% of that and use it towards another business or investment via real estate or stocks or whatever then you have a serious amount of money to start what ever side investments you would prefer, like for instance my game plan is to make enough money in poker to start real estate investment so I can become the next spex x or RikaKazak (if you dont know these names spend some time browsing the business, finance, and investing section of 2+2 and ull get what Im talking about). This is just my personal example but if you have 150K to invest in the opportunities will be there.

This is spot on and sparky should seriously reconsider that decision. I mean its 3 months come on dude


Listen doublefly, i think you were just trying to help and had good intentions with your advice but GM definitely seems like hes right on the fence here and I just think your post made "regular" jobs sound way more appealing then poker for his future when I simply do not agree so I thought I would voice an objecting opinion because i think your advice is pretty much one sided. Feel free to let me know if my logic is incorrect at all.

Though I rarely post I will comment here since I have a little different perspective.

To preface I play MSNL on stars not nearly as much as most of you, but I maintain what I consider to be a reasonable win rate esp when combined with fpp bonuses. I am also in my final year of dental school (yes fake doctors ftw). The avg dentist salary is 180k (that is not right out of school but still) and I have a job lined up through family (luckboxing obv). At the same time I had a very good poker summer: currently on a cash heater combined with cashing 11k in a 2k wsop and winning a tourny on stars earlier in the summer for 12k. My dad routinely comments that if I play like that its better than working.

As far as benefits from jobs you can scrap that if you are a small business owner like I will be myself and not all jobs give great insurance unless you work for the government but then your salary sucks. At least when it comes to insurance you frequently can get better insurance for less through your job but you still have to pay for it. My mom is a teacher and spends roughly all of her roughly 50k salary dumping it into 401ks and health insurance etc. But ya as a 22 year old kid (skipped a few yrs in school) not too many of us need a lot of health or dental insurance but some do esp those with family's.

idk much about earning higher salary as years go by in a company, thats what i hear and have read in investment books but idk if thats really the case, if you invest or are a small business owner the more you invest in yourself, your property, etc. the higher your potential for income theoretically i guess.... this also supports a get money now theory so you can invest it asap (read basically any investment book and they spend half the time ranting about compound interest)

poker doesn't lend much to life skills but there definitely is something there if you plan on doing some type of finance/business stuff, as was mentioned before: controlling a large sum of money well is definitely a good trait to have

100% agree, if you cant handle variance quit poker

and right now job market sucks horribly, college grads making 30-40k a year IF they can find a job which is pretty difficult from what i gather from my friends

i remain somewhat optimistic on poker not dying and there being plenty of fish for a while but with other jobs too there has to be at least a little bit of a worry of being obsolete but you always need to involve and re-educate yourself regardless of the field (poker included) to stay up on your ****.

sparky finish college lol, im sure ull never want to do it later. just go back get straight Cs while partying, pokering, etc. it seriously cant be THAT hard if you have gotten this far. I have a friend who is currently struggling with the same thing but is currently forcing herself to go to school while narrowly avoiding academic probation.

Long story short though I plan to finish school and work while playing some poker so I dont burn out on either. My good friend is in his 2nd to last year of law school and also plays MSNL and plans on doing the same thing last time i checked.

grandmelon you are much better at poker than I which makes a HUGE difference in this spot, idk what ur long term goals are but seriously if you guys aren't ******ed about stuff and you dont care where you live you do not need much money at all. My patient told me the other day his cousin bought a 4 bedroom house on a lake in arkansas for 80k. You can't get a 1 bedroom apt in most big cities for that. You can prob dominate poker for 5-10 years and retire Mark Vos style.

cliff notes: tl;dr ...... play poker

i will finish uni for sure i will prob do a night course next year and get it out of the way, the reason i quit was cos it was making me seriously unhappy doing a half assed job at uni cos i was dedicating so much time to poker.
there is no way i don't finihs my degree at some point just for me at that point in time i couldn't motivate myself with school and i haven't regret the decision once, i was immediately happier and felt like a big weight had been lifted.

@GM - why don't you actually go out there and look for a job, do some interviews see what your actual options are, the beauty of poker is u can alter your schedule so easily. you'll know instantly what the correct decision is when your sta infront of a board of interviewers asking you incresingly obscure and pointless questions

If you find a company that giver you a retirment and matches your 401k let me know. Most company's these day's are getting away from retirement plans and allot won't even match a 401k type plan any more.
The insurance issue is getting really bad as well with company's.
As far as the benifits adding upto 25k a year its more along the lines on 50k min if your are getting medical insurance at a reason rate and a retirement plan or some kinda matched 401k. I know this from bargaing day's as a union officer the company had to provide us with cost break downs at negotation time. It really is staggering what companys pay to give a worker decent benifits.

I generally stick by my previous post. I think it may have been confusing when I threw out 200K vs 75K - I wasn't saying these were your actual options. Just that even if you made more money playing poker, the "traditional" job may be better. Your actual numbers will vary. Of course I'm assuming you guys would fit into that lifestyle, are smart enough to do well / get promoted (since you're all college-educated and should be of above-average intelligence if you're doing well at poker), etc. The other thing you have to think about is how your feelings toward poker will change as you get married, have a family etc. Things like health insurance (depending on your state, it could be difficult getting maternity benefits, etc), stable earnings, etc start becoming more important. Also, the job market sucks right now, but it porbably won't always be that way. The main thing I would caution against is that I think it's fairly easy to grow as a poker player up to 5/10. I'm not sure if there's as much room for expansion above that, so projecting your growth past 5/10 probably gets tricky.

But I think the most important thing is that hearing an opposing view will probably help you make a decision. You'll either say, "a tradition job does sound better", or "poker still seems way better". I'm still mulling over options myself, since I want to try and make a decision by the end of the year. So far, I think poker is a better option for me but it's not an easy decision.

just discovered this tv show. summer heights high. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xKK71W3Ft78

you guys are way out of the main raison of having a job..Its just for social purpose..I mean if its just for money stay pro. If your searching for more than money a real job can have benefit like meeting milf and stuff.. Sure you can meet some cool person in poker but its never like in a real job.

bonjour captain irish

errr body know me in the club cuz they smoking me.
http://www.datpiff.com/DJMYSTRO_MD_B...V3.m58840.html

also both tracks with kid cudi are fire, cuz hes my booy!!!

hahahahahaaaa

wish I had seen this, so funny

I wish I could change my screen-name. My new screen-name would be Moderator126

in