Nothing embarrassing about working any job. Plenty of people around the world would kill to make $18p/h delivering pizzas. If you are better than that then why are you not working elsewhere? There is nothing is stopping you from applying for other jobs and leveraging your pizza delivery job to bigger and better things, since you are better than that.

To make 100k a year playing 1/3 and 2/5, you would have to have a $50 p/h win rate coupled with playing 40 hours a week. On top of that extra hours studying and improving your game. Use some logic and common sense and let that sink in. That is what it would take to make '100k' a year.

Also take into consideration that you are off the grid, everything will be cash. You cannot get any loans since you have no income, no bank will allow you a credit card or home loan with 'poker income'.

Since you hated delivering pizzas and already have quit, I suggest you find a part-time/casual job that would suit your poker hours, if you look hard enough there would be something out there to suit. Less pressure on life and poker if you have stable income on the side.

If sitting and playing with OMC's and degen addicts is killing you now, remember this is the reality for however long you choose to pursue poker as a sole source of income. 40 hours a week sitting on a table with OMC's and scruffy, dirty gambling addicts, that is what it would take to make '100k' a year. Let that thought sink in.

A lot of good advice already in this thread. Nobody here is discouraging you from pursuing your poker dreams but take a step back and apply some common sense and logic.

Dream Crusher dropping truth bombs all over this thread.

OP, you didn’t throw away $300 because you were tired, you did it because you are a degenerate. That would be OK except you are in denial and think working as a gambler is a good idea. I’ve played more tired than I should have and I’ve played bored and I’ve played while getting irritated by the people around me. But I’ve never punted off hundos as a reaction to those stresses, because I have self-discipline which you simply don’t.

Also I’m not a pro, I’m a rec with a decent job who likes playing live poker. I’d rather work retail than be a pro because anyone with a rational mind can see for 99% of people it’s going to be a depressing dead-end job in a horrible environment.

I guess where I’m going with all this is that suspect I’d be a lot more likely to ‘succeed’ at being a poker pro than you because my mental game is more dialled in (or to put it another way, it exists) but I think it would be a terrible life choice.

Really though you should read every single thing Dream Crusher wrote because it’s all on point and the guy is sharing his life experience with you in order to help you.

I did read Dream Crusher's post. There isn't a single post in this thread that I haven't read. And I responded to his post too.

We don't live in a meritocracy. The world of business is full of politics. The ones that reach the top of the food chain are rarely the smartest or the hardest working or the most disciplined. They're simply people with above average skills who have made friends with the right people and took certain life gambles which happened to pay off.

So often I see employers hire one person over another simply because their resume "looks nicer" or the candidate "presented themselves well". The people who give off that little bit of charm tend to do much better career-wise than the ones that are actually the most competent. It's a sad world we live in, but this is the reality.

There's also other factors at play, like minority quotas or preconceived stereotypes. What it all comes down to is that politics plays a huge influence in the world of business. This isn't a meritocracy; the best candidate for the job isn't necessarily the one that will get hired and/or promoted the fastest.

But poker is about merit. Poker, like sports competitions, are all about skill, rather than politics and connections. And that's why I love it: because I am a hard-working and intelligent person, but I simply don't possess the same charismatic qualities that others do that would help me succeed in the world of business. And I'd rather be judged by my ability than judged by how many friends I have in high places.

Lots of things matter when it comes to work opportunities and success but it’s pretty easy for an intelligent person to get a decent job in Australia. No they won’t have it as easy as the guy whose daddy owns channel 9 and has a million important friends but that’s life.

Meanwhile yeah poker is a meritocracy and it requires a combination of poker skills (which you may have) and meta skills, which you don’t have.

It’s easier to get a job and earn steady money, and if you have the skills to ‘make it’ by being a poker pro, 99.9% likely you will earn more money in a real job.

Edit

I mean classic example, you want to be judged by your skills, but that’s literally the last thing a professional wants. You want to be perceived as just another reg, not a killer.

You're going to be disappointed when you find out how much you can do right but variance just gives you the opposite result for months. It's worse than having to make a friend or two.

Merit what. Poker is about greed and handling your game so well that you can get away with it or busting while trying to chase the dream.

Naww, OP is lucky, he will never experience really bad variance. Maybe a few buyins down here and there but that's about it.

This isn't true for live poker above 5/T anywhere in the world.

Who downvoted this from 5 stars to 4 stars?

Instaban obviously.

sorted

+1

Way more politics in hs poker than there is in business op.

Actually to give an example when I used to play there was a regular 2/5 $2k cap game that was first-come-first-serve based like any other table. Then there was this one table that was sort of separated by a glass wall and doors and there was the occasional 5/10, 10/25, 25/50 and so on game. The game depended on a connected player group that could afford to play these kind of stakes and of course it didn't take long for them to basically decide who can enter this game and who can't.

Guess what, it didn't take too long before I couldn't play because I was above their skill level and also because they didn't really like me. Now that happens in casino's, guess what kind of politics you need to be involved in to get into the better home games with these people.

There's a 5/10 game in my room (pretty much the only 5/10 game that runs). It runs every morning starting at 9am.

One guy gets to pick like 6 players and then they fill in the other 2 seats after that. If more than 2 people show up in the morning to play that aren't in this guys "group" then they have to draw cards to see who gets to play. If you dont draw a high card you arent getting in. Nobody will be leaving for several hours. There also wont be a 2/5 game that early so you drove to the poker room for nothing.

OP, have you considered online poker? Seeing as you don't like the "politics" and online poker doesn't involve any of that.

OP schooling the rest of us on business politics when the entirety of his professional experience is dropping out of college and delivering pizza for the last four years.

Get your degree dude. It’s the bare minimum requirement to find any type of gainful employment.

Those affirmative action hiring and promotion quotas at the local pizza place are a *****

lmao

No guys, you're just not listening. Back in our day they just used to hand out houses, cars, and careers. It's not like that anymore. Now you have to work hard. You don't realize how good we've had it.

Sent from my LGMS631 using Tapatalk

Who said that I didn't work a job before my current one? This job isn't the entirety of my professional experience, but it is the majority of it.

I will most likely go back to study after I have saved up about $100k or so. I want enough money to get me through 3-5 years of study without having to work a job during that timeframe. I feel that I could do so much better at uni if I didn't waste so much time working and gambling. In fact, I had a high distinction average during my first year at uni, so I know what I'm capable of. But then my money ran out in second year, I had to pick up more shifts at work, I started to gamble more and more, and I went from averaging an HD to averaging a fail.

Although who knows, maybe I will love poker so much that I won't want to quit. We'll see.

Btw I played 1/3 today and god, the games are so incredibly passive, especially on a Monday afternoon. Here are 2 examples:

Hand 1: I'm card dead and have literally folded every hand for the past 1.5hrs. Then I open to $15 in EP with AQo, player to my left 3bets to $50 and 2 callers. I'm thinking ffs I waited 1.5hrs for this hand, but I sigh fold because I just don't think he's playing back at me like ever. Board ends up coming Axx, initial raiser bets and 1 caller, turn brick, initial raiser jams like $100 and other guy calls off his stack with QQ?!?! Initial raiser showed AKs though, so I was crushed and I'm glad I folded pre.

Hand 2: BTN ($500) limps, SB ($150) completes, hero raises $25 BB with AKo no spade, both call. Flop comes out Js Ts 3c so I decide to just bet $45 into $75 since I feel they're too passive to ever raise a draw here so I can just push some equity with a one-and-done. BTN folds, SB calls $45. Turn is 7h, there's $165 in the pot and SB omly has $80 behind so I just check and give up. River is low brick card, goes check check. SB shows 97o?!?!

And another hand... I saw UTG limp-call a $17 raise with KK. No joke. He limp-called.

My guess is that about 20% of the player pool is 3betting a range of {JJ+, AK}, about 60% of the player pool is 3betting only {KK+} and the other 20% is 3betting either exclusively AA or not 3betting at all.

I guess the fact that this was a Monday afternoon session would've contributed to the passivity of the games, but it was still pretty insane to go back and see the way people play at 1/3 NL.

Looool

lmfao this thread is still going on, keep it up op
you could prob poker vlog and be a v successful youtuber tbh

Totally agree,a player of your caliber shouldnt find himself slumming it at the 1/3 level with the OMC. Youre way too good for that, and should be saved from being desecrated in this fashion. After all you are an upcoming young phenom,wich we will gonna find crushing livepoker for 100K+ every year very soon.

With your kind of skills, youre massive bankroll at this point builded up through years of hard relentless grinding with no blowups/monkeytilts, and plus your massive experience i would at least play the 2/5 at a regular basis+ buyin for the cap everytime.

Shottaking should also be done aggressively in your position. I mean,when youtube fishes like Andrew Neeme and Brad Owen can play 5/10 at Bellagio in Vegas, you should absolutely be able to crush the 5/10 games at your casino pretty easily.

Not sure why I didn't reply to this, but yes, you're right that some jobs are like this - your personality, contacts, assertiveness, general likability and even how good looking you are play more of a role than your actual skill for the job.

However, there are many jobs which rely purely on merit. Doctor, computer programmer, software engineer, accountant - just to name a few. A doctor doesn't become a doctor based on their personality, they become one because they've graduated medical school. Likewise with the other professions.

Of course, if you drop out of university, you will have to rely on those soft skills and "politics" to get ahead. Because you don't have any hard skills to speak of. If you're aiming for managerial positions, then yeah, your personality and who you know counts for virtually everything.

All I'm reading here is 'my gambling addiction screwed my life, so I'm going to be a professional gambler'.

I agree with your general premise, OP's implication is that the world is divided into 2 kinds of jobs, delivering pizza and impossibly-baller corporate gigs which are unavailable to mere plebs. In reality a ton a of jobs are available to an intelligent hard worker and of course pay better and more reliably than poker. But every job benefits from contacts, personality and/or politics, there is no pure merit position.

But yeah, get a professional degree, become a professional, this is not something that requires immense privilege or an amazing personality.