Went home so I could grind Sunday with a set up (home as in England rather than Hungary) so played a short session on Sunday with not many tourneys, think I cashed a little bit more than what I bought in for, so was ok.

Have been recovering in bed from the long few weeks for the last 48 hours or so, but got up late today and played a session. Got 3rd in Party 500 6max and won the $320 6max on Stars. Saw regs doing so much absurdly bad stuff and a lot of perceived borderline stuff incorrectly which gives me a lot of hope for the future of online MTT's. Anyway, woke up late and had a 5 figure day, can't be too bad.

Will do a little trip report for Nottingham now..

So yeah, played WPT UK this week. Last time I was here I came 2nd in the high roller to Bryn and 5th in the main event for $150kish or something total. So was really looking forward to coming back.

In the main I made day 2 with around 60k. Was a little bit tilted though, I started the day really well and after 2 levels had 125k which was 4x average and went to dinner pretty happy. The next couple of hours didn't go so well and I ended with half my stack, its pretty hard to not be sad when that happens, but whatever.

Had one hand I think opponent played incorrectly.

Open, I call, and another good player calls.

763ssc, bet, I call, good player overcalls (his range here is v strong imo)
763Asscc, bet big, I call, he calls
763A5ssccx bet big, i fold, he folds, shows aces.

I think betting the river is a big mistake on the river, think about what calls the river vs 3 barrels here, the reg squeezes jj+ pre so can't bluff catch a big pair and has very few Ax that call the flop after I call. Both of our ranges are super strong hands, straights/sets and then lots of bluffs with no showdown value. When you bet the river, straights/sets will likely just call and bluffs will fold, when you bet the river yourself you allow them to bluff their draws, and you get to get a c/r in vs their value range thus winning a big pot. One of the most important things in these live tournaments is winning huge pots with your huge hands, if you slightly misplay a street you can finish the day with 70k instead of 150k or whatever. Anyway, I had t9ss and was for sure bluffing

Day 2 I had pretty weak table, I was able to win lot of pots. I became friendly with opponent in hand from above who played really good and solid overall. On the turn I bet 2.5x pot on the last hand before dinner with 76s on A92Jhhxx where I was expecting the way their range was formed to fold around 90%, anyway, I said I show if you fold then like 20 people came and started to watch the hand, I hated that I had to show because I looked like cocky bastard trying to make them fold and showing everybody, looks bad, but was meant in good intention.

Anyway, the day went great, I chipped up a lot, almost uncontested to a big stack. I asked a reg on my table where he was from and he said Poland, I asked my polish horses who he was and before I could check he opened and I looked down at two big red aces, I 3bet him and he said "you just asked who i am, is that why you're 3betting me?" he flats

flop QT2r, he checks, I bet biggish, he calls
turn QT24, he checks, I bet biggish, he calls
river QT242, he checks, I jam and he has QQ.

Felt kind of bad about this because with my image here people hate folding these run outs. Was extremely large pot as we both had 1.5x+ average at the start of the hand. Anyway after this I went on a huge heater, winning I think 3 all ins to get back up to a nice stack.

Very last hand of the day my horse opens UTG, I defend 65o in the bb.

flop 234fd (lol) check, bet, call
turn 234A dfd, check, check
river 234AJ, dfd brick, I bet over pot and he calls quickly with 55.

Felt so bad for him that I had coolered him and even worse for me that I didn't check/shove

Anyway, back for day 3. Had an amazing table.

Around 3 hands in, aggro reg opens co, I flat sb with TT and 80ish bbs, bb jams 23?bbs, I call and he has A4o and we get the xxxxA board. Obviously poor jam and was a little tilted.

Over next few orbits had AA/KK/JJ/QQ/88/88/KK and somehow managed to get through the bubble with 10 or so bbs.

Got a lucky treble up JJ>AQ>QQ and then won a few big pots and got up to around 60 or so bbs (prob 5/20) then played very big hand.

Aggro reg opens co, i defend btn, reg defends bb.

Flop A37cc, checks to me, I bet, bb calls
Turn A372cc, checks to me, I stare at him for a minute, he's giving off a lot of tells, I bet, he gives off a lot more tells and jams huge, this is prob chip lead or very big pot, he jammed around 300k+ on the turn and average was prob 500k at the time. I couldn't not go with my reads and made pretty thin call with ATo and he had q4cc, he hit a straight on the 2 river and it hurt haha. I was still in decent shape with around 20bbs.

V aggro reg opens utg, usually I would always always flat AA here but got v strong reads he was strong, I decide to jam AA and he calls AK and we lose on the K32K5 board.

I came around 25th for £7000, was a super fun week, was so happy that my reads were correct in almost all spots throughout the week and gives me a lot more confidence for live poker after successful previous trips in Vegas, Barca especially and more recently Malta.

Caribbean next week which will be absolutely awesome, so many people I know going, literally 1000+ people going. Going to be wild. After that will go to NYC for 8 days and then to Prague for EPT.

Life feels pretty good right now, very content and in a happy place.. today a horse asked the community about whether he should stick with uni or concentrate more on poker. Going to write an article about this this week and post it here, I have very different opinions to 99% of people on this idea I'm sure. Will be interested on feedback.

http://www.bitb-staking.com/2016/11/10/what-if/

I wrote this on the plane. What do you guys think? Bull****? Agree?

good post agree with most poitns made but its also quite clear u re a poker player writing this from a biased pov. there s a lot of guys for whom quitting poker and focussing on uni is the better option as succeeding in poker requires a certain type of character/personality. just saying i will succeed in poker doesnt work for a lot of guys. think the classic answer is 'it depends'

Really hard question. I do think it mostly comes down to the person.
But some q`s I think matter:

1. How many years in/how many years left to get degree?
2. Is he studying something he wants to work with?
3. How much is he making now at poker vs how much will he make part-time.
4. If he plays poker fulltime, can he safe money for x-years?
5. Do he think he can start at a university when he is 3y older then today, 5y, 10y?

So many things, but if someone asked me should they quit uni to play poker I would 100% tell them no without any more info

True story, BUT...
It is different going to uni in your early twenties than going late 20s/early 30s. I'm among couple of players who decided to skip uni 5-8 years ago, now plan to get a degree to move on with their lives. From what I see, uni experience for them is SO much different than the one I had studying in early 20s. Especially the social side just sucks. Everyone is like 18/19 when you are 28-32 - yeah, 18/19 yo girls sounds fun in theory. reality is different.

I’ve spent many sleepless nights thinking about this.

Firstly, I don’t agree that earning the max. amount of $ in life is the only thing you should strive for and more importantly it can be dangerous, if you base your self-esteem or value in society in general around it.

I do agree that chosing the route of studying and then getting a „normal“ job is maybe not the way to go, if you could also sit in front of your computer and grind the game you love all day for the same/more money.
That being said, I think there can be a middle ground of making decent money next to studying and working on other interesting jobs/projects from time to time, taking time off to go travelling etc. There is a lot more out there than thinking about poker 24/7.

The circle of players that will be able to earn very good money through online MTTs for the next 5-10 years is going to be a lot smaller than expected IMO, but could obv be wrong and the numbers will stay same, grow etc.
Having been part of your stable for ~6 months last year, I have to admit that I underestimated how much hard work it would take to be a successful full time poker player in 2015/16. I have max respect for everyone at bitb, would always recommend working with you to someone who wants to succeed in poker.

Now, as I have „quit“ poker I ask myself what if… a lot. But, although I might be closer to broke now I would say I am happier also

This is valid for a super small subset of poker players though. You mention it in the article, but I think it should be stressed more. And working hard is super important, no doubt about it, but there are a lot of players who just aren't smart enough, plain and simple, to make it to the top. It's something that doesn't come up very often, since no one wants to hear he is just dumb, but it definitely happens a decent amount.

Interesting insight that applies to people in a similar position to mine. Even though University will always be there, the drive to study and major will not. In this world, people in general do not truly respect the path less taken and that is a sad reality. Poker players love being optimal, but this requires understanding not only how things work, but how they are perceived. Personally, I agree with parts of both arguments, but it is really tough to pick only one. People want to have it all, such is life.

Really good/smart responses, makes me feel like I'm an idiot lol.
First I'm not a Pro, never was and probably never will be, but not because is not achievable, but because is not for everyone (and by that i mean mentally, he can really **** you up)
@blakkman and @kobmish nailed it imo.
So gl to all, whether they're pro's or not, wheter they choose poker they path or not, just remember life is to short to do something you don't love or makes you unhappy, yeah we kinda "wanted all", cus it is in our nature, but I will quote Biggie on this one and I'm out: "Mo money, mo problems...."
Cheers!
P.S. : Love this blog

Enviado desde mi ALE-L21 mediante Tapatalk

I played cash pretty solidly through uni (undergrad mech engineering) and back then I would have said it's fine to half ass both poker and school (or some other ratio of assing). With how tough poker is these days though, you really can't just casually fire up tables 3x per week, with zero poker study, and crank out 3-5k months like you could 4+ years ago.

This means that for almost everyone I'd say quit poker (or fit it in where you can, not sacrificing school), but your article swayed me a bit that maybe for the top X% of regs who have a chance to bank serious cash, quitting school for a bit can be OK. As always, "it depends" is the right answer, and your long term goals are pretty key too. If you're going to uni because that's what you're supposed to do after high school, and you have no career goals/aspirations then maybe poker is the right call. If you are in a specific program for a specific reason, and poker is only temporary, give it up now and move on, if you're smart enough to make $$ pokering, and you're driven career wise, you're gonna make way more eventually anyways (or at least be happier, if you want to go into a field you love that has lower earning potential)

I took 7 years instead of 5 to grad, taking a few semesters off to grind, and attended <15% of lectures (and have the terrible grades to prove it), but if I could go back and do it again I would focus on school over poker. I got lucky that coming out of school the job market was booming and I got a well paying job without anyone wanting to see transcripts, but that isn't the case right now (or at least not in my field).

People work while going thru school all the time. IMO unless you are just super super sure that nothing you ever wanna do will be benefited by having your degree than just do both. I'm sure it's harder for MTT because it doesn't have the flexibility of cash but you could still put in a few good sessions a week and make some solid money. Poker will probably always be around as a way of making money if you're smart enough and willing to adapt. The opportunities probably won't be online poker in the future but if you're willing to play live and learn other games and are decently smart you'll probably be able to survive. It's already a stressful occupation though with the uncertainty and variance. Not having a more secure backup plan seems like it'll only make it even harder on someone.

This whole post and scenario will be based on somebody who is winning at a decent rate already and earning amounts that are higher than the national average graduate wage.


agree given qualities of hero

Uni itself was amazing. I barely discovered poker and had an awesome social life. Always think to myself that I am so glad I didn't discover poker during this time, because social life would have sucked if I was grinding (saw this more my senior year when I did start learning poker, but was over the party life anyways).

Grad school was the worst mistake of my life- halfway in realizing I wanted to play poker, but just finished the degree anyways for the sake of it. Spewing 6 figures on 2 years worth of education, I think the actual cost of higher education should be considered as well, not just the opportunity cost.

You are also considering things from a strictly financial point of view. If I wanted to be rich I would have gone to wall street, point blank. Being in b-school gave me a glimpse of that life, and I happily ran away from it to make tonnnnss less money in poker. I've been in 7 countries this year alone, and traveled nonstop for the last 5 years. The whole point of poker for me was just to fund long term travelling. It really depends on what your end goal is in life for which decision will apply to you. If you want to work hard and make money, stay the F away from poker.

It doesn't apply to you or many others, but uni also teaches you dem life skillz and independence. Some of the best button clickers out there are basically worthless trying to accomplish any other basic task in life, simply because they went from living with parents to being a balla, with no middle ground in growing up and becoming an adult. Basically all of the legit, responsible, balanced, got-their-****-together poker players I know all went to uni.


edit: I come off harsh. also note if you don't have opportunity to go to a great uni and have a career in finance, medical, high paying job - then poker may very well be the best option financially as well.

..or to be able to call against isildur in the big 55 on Wednesday on T85T8 with 77 correctly is fun...

GL to all heroes trying this at home

P.S. Poker and money are overated imo, of corse is better to be rich and healthy then poor and ill...but there are so much more important things then money that is even apsurd to talk about it imo... We as poker players tend to look at some things from real life at very awkward, monetary, selfish, no emotion way it makes me sick sometimes. If one is smart and has great work ethics and invest 3-5 years styding poker so he can earn as much money as he can imagine what same guy can acomplish if he dedicated that time for ex in medicine or technology... World will definitely be beter place to live

Also i want to add that i think gambling is geting out the worse of most people
When they are winning they think they are the king ofthe world, full of themselves, egocentric *******s (when in reality they had just won some money in some game) and when they are loosing the are loosing their minds and they are gambling with money that they cant afford to loose, borrow money that cant pay back etc and hurt other people that are close to them/family and they get stuck and destroy their/and their family lives just because the cant handle to loose some money in some game with cards ( when in reality they should just loose X amount that they can afford to loose hafe fun and continue with their life/ like paying ticket to watch some soccer mach=> u buy your ticket, you watch the game, you have fun, you go home)

Most of the people cant mentally struggle/handle with money swings that are happening in gambling

I decided to move on to university despite still making good money, probably the best decision I could have made. A richer life full of activities and new friends beats grinding or living with a couple of poker players imo, though it differs from person to person i'd imagine. Learning new skills and hobbies is also really underrated. Especially if you already made enough money to not having to worry about too much about what you buy/how you spend.

Hey Padsy! How You doing? Hope everything is fine with You!

This imo.

As soon as people realise that money donest buy happiness, they will start making move +lifeEV decisions for themselfs.

Money doesn't buy happiness, but financial security certainly does.

nice score in hot 109, saw you raise/folding to ~7.5bb shove etc, whats the max reshove size to call any two when opening 2x?

Strange day, woke up really really late (9:30pm) so wasn't that
Much stuff to play. Ended up winning an EPT seat worth €5.3k and the hot 109 for $16.5k.

Decent day I guess! Going to try and sleep somewhat normally tonight.

Playing poker doesn't have to mean not making new friends or enjoying activities. Sure if you wanna be OTBredbaron you prob need to lock yourself in a room and study but that's the same for the top of any profession. If you're not using the freedom that poker offers to have MORE time for activities/friends/family then you're doing it wrong imo. I'm definitely in support of people not quitting their education for poker though. Sure you probably aren't going to have a six figure ev on the year doing both but you can definitely still go to school and make solid money without having to get a normal lower paying and more time consuming job during school.

Alright, finally gonna get round to replying to people about the whole dropping out of uni to play poker thing. I have received so many different responses here, twitter, other forums etc, but will just consolidate everything into an unorganised 8am post (fml)

Firstly, I know whenever I write something somewhat out of the ordinary or controversial its going to get lots of people with different opinions commenting. Thats completely fine, I understand exactly where everybody is coming from and especially on this topic most/all the feedback/replies I got were extremely sensible.

Lets just start this off with a reminder, this advice is not for somebody sitting with their friends playing a weekly home game, this is for somebody who is currently winning in mid+ stakes poker.

Life is a long, long, road. I'd bet all the tea in China that you'll not be able to earn much money in poker after you reach your, say, mid-forties. By which point you now need an income for the next 30 or 40 years.

I don't think this is necessarily relevant. If we're really thinking about the "long term" and 40+ years of needed income does it really matter if we spend something in our (presumably) early twenties doing that we love. To me, working in a 9-5 and getting 6 weeks of holiday a year is a restriction to your hobbies and interests. Being in a position to do something you really love whilst making a lot of money doing it and seeing the world seems pretty gto.

A good career outside of poker is not only just as rewarding as one in poker, but it carries amazingly good salary & - wait for it - lifetime pension benefits

I get this, but for somebody who has managed to get to a position that they are winning in poker in 2016 then it means that they really love it and their personality is probably way more suited to something like this than a job.

I thoroughly respect & admire your success in poker, I really do. But there are other interesting jobs than poker, & to some of us, "work" is not a dirty word, it is something we thoroughly enjoy, & do with every bit as much passion as you & poker.

For sure and I understand this too. Like I said above though, somebody who has done well in poker has likely spent a lot of time studying by themselves, running simulations, being immersed in the game and thus will very likely prefer this kind of "job" than a desk job. I made a post a while ago about asking the boss to go to take a piss and feeling sorry for somebody serving pizza for their whole life. I worded them wrong probably, but even so, I understand now that some people have different kind of drives and having security in their life and comfort and ease is important to people. It's important to always understand different approaches to life and thats definitely something I think I've worked on a lot this year.

I know a decent number of 45, 50 & 60 year old poker players who have been relatively successful. Not "pleno successful", but, you know, did OK. I am struggling to think of more than a handful who don't need an outside income now. Poker players, for the most part, are gamblers, & I doubt many have squirelled away money for the future.

I mean, its very likely these guys were just gamblers and part of a way different breed of poker players. Friends I know who play poker treat it very much like a job. They are in the "lab" every day, run simulations, seek advice of best places to store their money and treat it professionally. If there is a 45-50-60 year old poker player that played successfully for a decade and can't win anymore (live poker) tis very likely they 1) Didn't ever win (just because somebody plays in a cash game on tv doesn't mean they are a winner!) or 2) Have some huge life leak that just doesn't allow them to compete anymore (health deterioration, gambling addiction, alcoholic etc) again, this could be me looking at it the wrong way, but the guys who have been making money for 10+ years at poker online will very likely be set for a very long time.

A decent % of the long term poker payers I know are skinto, & always have been. Nature of the beast.

Again, respectfully disagree with this, they were likely always degenerates in some way or another, unfortunately.

your ability to pay into a registered pension scheme is restricted if your source of income is 'non qualifying'.

Definitely something I didn't consider and should have (I used to work in pensions Generally though, I'm not sure if a poker players best choice is to put money into a pension. I argue forever with my parents about not investing in property to allow myself to comfortably have bigger pieces in high rollers and general bankroll. If I think I can play 20 25ks/year and keep an additional 20% at 10% avg roi I get to keep an "extra 10k" etc kind of thought.

One other point I'd note is you're at the peak of your powers currently, but when you're 55+, it quite as able at 12-tabling, and Pleno version 12 is winning the lot, you might regret some of the decisions you made now if you haven't planned wisely.

Noted, and agree. Hopefully won't be too many regrets, but I think everybody regrets not doing something or another once they get to 50+. Maybe I'm wrong though.

You give a lot of people far too much credit by assuming they are in the same motivational league as yourself. You have a 'bitb' attitude that will see you be successful in pretty much anything you choose to do. 99.9% of the population don't have that same attitude.

Again, sure a lot of people don't, but most guys who are successful in poker these days do work very hard and have something about them that allows them to succeed.

In terms of salary of graduates vs poker players, average salaries etc

I think 20-35 is the years that you should really try and enjoy as much as possible. Its the time I see as still being free, young enough to be wild, mature enough not to get killed. Average salary for fresh graduates is just really bad for this age bracket I think. Sure when you get to 40 you're likely to have a good salary half way through your career, but most people I know that graduates from good universities, with good degrees and are in relatively good jobs don't make a lot of money. I spoke about it before I think, but the average wage amongst graduates is poor and many of them struggle to really see a good life.

Remember, if you want to work your way up the ladder in lets say England, its very likely you have to move to London, once you move there expenses are outrageously high and thus its hard to save money and really push your boundaries (imo)

As a poker player (if you're able to get to the point of winning 50k+ a year) not only do you not pay tax, but you can live where you want, including a beach in thailand, eastern europe, south america or even if you want England!) Lets say you want to live in Budapest or Prague like many of my friends do, its likely you will enjoy life just as much as in London, you can stay in somewhere almost 2x as nice for probably 2x cheaper, never mind all the external costs and price of living.

I think immediate wealth in your 20's - 30's is underrated and I've seen it from both sides.

In terms of the guys who are very good at poker and the guys who haven't done so well.

Lets think of the UK. I think the following are probably top 10 biggest winners over the last 10 years or so at tournaments:

Middy, Jake, Perrins, Toby, Trigg, Moorman, Brammer, Me. All guys are obviously very smart and will always be successful in what they choose to do, but we're also probably not the guys who will be going to work in some big firm in the city. I think there's a different approach to poker and a different skill set needed. Risk aversion and many other factors are built into a successful poker player and separates small stakes players to high stakes players. Many of the top poker players wouldn't end up being top "career workers" whilst many guys in the city would struggle to be successful at poker. imo.

Say you do ok online, grind your way along, make a bit of profit, whatever. Then you hit a heater, ft some big stuff, maybe win something live. You try telling that person that they aren't good enough to just move up and crush, or even keep playing at the same level and win more. The majority of people who are playing lots of poker and are still at university (myself included in this) are still pretty young and pretty naive to their own ability.

I think this is why a good support system is critical in poker. You absolutely 100%, undoubtedly need a good support system that know you very well and that really understand your situation AND how good you are in poker AND are able to be brutally honest with you. I think being staked for most people is a disaster because you give away 50% of your money. At bitB not only do players make on average 67% more with us than they did on their own, but we offer an amazing and very honest support system that helps the players on all aspects of their life. There's some guys who have been kind of "old school" in UK poker and struggled last little while, we're currently working with them and not only has their game been transformed but they are also being a lot more responsible and realistic, which is the one of the many keys to success.

My classmates at school are oxbridge graduates in big finance jobs in the city, all super motivated and hard working, and at 27/28 I'd be surprised if they're clearing £70k a year before tax. Maybe that number will go up to £100k at 35 and £200k+ at 45? This is all taxed. So net of tax lucky to take home 6 figures in their forties.

The top poker players are pissing on those numbers.

It might not last for ever, but they say every year it's getting tougher and it is, but you've just gotta work harder or look harder for the spots. And I'm sure it's the same in the business world, competition gets tougher and tougher, margins smaller and smaller.

Completely how I see things too (very likely we're biased though)

I think the main question you need to be asking yourself in that spot (although ofc its hard to know at the time unless somebody tells you and you actually listen) is 'Is this the right time to be asking that question?' In Alex's example beating 1/2 live its absolutely too early to be asking the question and anyone thats been pro for a while will tell you that. If you're beating midstakes online and you're gunna commit to the programme you've got a great shot to be absolutely set in 10-15 years maybe less so lets get stuck in!


Yes, very important and again why a support system is very important.

Problem is, the only one who can make that judgement is you. And there are so, so, so many people who will wildly overestimate there ability and come down very hard for it if they follow this advice.

Cant we just get some high stakes pros to come in here and comment?

Again, this is why a support system is so important, having coaches, studying partners, top players you can review your stats against etc is not only critical for choosing your path here (univspoker) but also to being a successful poker player. I doubt theres anybody out there who is a really top successful poker player that doesn't have minimum 3 players he can message that are better than them or offer a different/alternative approach, except for the top 3 best guys obi :P

Unless your one of the few who can find the perfect balance, being a poker player - especially online, is a terrible lifestyle. Unsociable hours, unsociable setting, stress/bad for your health, no respect for money, immaturity... the list goes on.

Again, kind of thing I disagree with. I think if you're that kind of guy its just very hard to be successful, its part of a dna of a successful 2016 poker player to be a little bit more mature, not degenerate etc. Stress/bad for health, unsociable hours, I agree to a certain extent, but then again, having to go to sleep at a certain time because I need to be awake at a certain time (usually very early, cold, grey etc) sounds like the epitome of hell for me

For me being a poker player is a means to an end.. I want enough money to be comfortable in my future endeavors. I've honestly thought about quitting a few times these past couple of years (whilst clearing 6 figure profits in both) and thats playing cash games where I have alot more flexibility than the regs who grind MTTs daily. The one thing from stopping me quitting playing full time is the money. Both that which I can roughly expect to achieve, and the potential there is out there, in forms of MTT binks and the US coming back into the online market... steps have already been taken.

Yeah, I get this completely mate. It just isn;t the right game for a lot of people, so many people fall out of love with the game and one of the gambles of really going "all in" and giving it absolutely everything is that in 2 years maybe you hate it. Definitely something I should have included in the initial blog, but then again, 2 years comes by, you've made a bunch of money but you don't enjoy it anymore, can just go and start uni right? Not a deal breaker imo.

I'm happy at 25, I've got a family/house now and I went to and graduated university alongside playing poker / going out / seeing friends / playing football...etc and I'm glad I did all this. (FWIW I didn't get a 2nd class degree nor have a **** winrate; 36% ROI over ~10k games at ABI ~$60 - ok so ~40% of this came post uni (I dont have a SS sub to know the exact numbers), but it was inkeeping with trend). Maybe grinding fulltime I could have achieved a lot more, but surely this shows that both can done if you apply yourself correctly. I'd never advise someone to sacrifice life experiences when they're young to sit and grind unsociable hours at a PC 6 days per week.

I was speaking more personally. When I was at university I was winning at good win rates, I was doing decent at university but if I had dedicated everything to studying poker at that time I would have clearly played a lot higher stakes. I'm not a genius by any stretch of the imagination, I was just a very hard worker and if I had dedicated the time earlier I would have had quicker success. Some guys will manage to play high stakes mtts with a high roi and get a good university degree but they will be in the minority and they still probably didn't achieve close to what was possible in poker.

I really do respect your opinion on everything poker, however I've gotta disagree with your article. You've got to remember your at the top of the game (having worked extremely hard to do so). However theres people out there who don't have a chance of achieving even 5% of what you have, and would have to have similar drive to get anywhere close to that 5%. Your one of the lucky ones that not only had the potential to get where you are, you also had the mental strength / balls and rungood to overcome all the **** out there. Not many people would have that - I certainly wouldnt have.

Thanks bro and the respect is mutual as you know. However, I do know 95% don't have what it takes, but I was more trying to speak towards the 5% (Y)

The risk of ruin at poker is something most business men are unhappy with, my opinion however is that the risk of being unsuccessful at business is higher and has a more devastating downside than simply running out of money. Spending your whole life aiming for senior management when the whole time you may have had no chance because the boss's nephew is going to join the company 5 years after you and then take the top spot when he finally retires means you have spent your whole life deluded and being used for the profit of someone else and being paid 20% of what you bring in for the shareholders and told to be grateful for it. That doesn't sit well with me at all. For most people it's fine, and that's fine, but occasionally people are unwilling to do that, and some of them find poker a suitable career

Nicely put

There is a big big difference in the mental makeup of poker pros and degens, the fact that degens and luckboxes who win a big comp early or who run above expectation for a year or two call themselves pros does us no favours at all. The real pros treat gambling as a job, manage their time and bankroll effectively and achieve great success and are happy with themselves for doing it.

yep

Final point is that some of the best paying and highest job satisfaction jobs don't require a degree, and startups defo don't, so unless you are at uni to study rather than just as an entry point for a job then it is overrated, and because so many people go to uni these days it is getting to the point that even with a degree you can't get the job you were hoping for anyway.

Yeah, nice point as well.

One of my clients is a law firm and they pay new grads around £70k and they're not the highest payers. If you're a quants guy going into the City then you can double that number. One of my colleagues is a grad, early thirties, salesman in a tech firm and earned around £400k this year.

This is an interesting article. Average salary for graduates is around 20-25k, for lawyers, a first job is 54k (really good!) and after round 10 years (age 35) you get to around £75k/year peaking usually at around £180k for very established lawyers etc. Tech firms etc not sure, but £400k (pre tax) seems decent yeah!


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/p...ally-paid.html

YOLO

<3

I guarantee that for every Fedor earning chunks at poker there will many graduates in the City earning significantly more.

Where do you think the top earning poker player of all time would sit on the list of top earning city graduates of all time? You think he'd make the top ten? I doubt it.

Yeah, these stuff I really don't know. How many people who get the opportunities in those really good roles needed to know somebody, somewhere to get in them though? Who knows Then again guys, this is all UK based stuff, a guy in Brazil (guy from the article) or lithuania, Hungary or wherever else is very different. There's actually not many UK guys who are playing and crushing poker these days (prob all in the city a lot of the hard working guys who are crushing are from countries with low average salary, maybe thats a reason why.

The thing is, apart from your final year at University, it is not time consuming at all - and there is plenty of scope for poker. Not to mention all the holidays etc.

I'm not sure this is true. Sure you can let uni pass you by a little, not do the extra stuff etc, but I think it would be really fun to 100% focus and enjoy university without this other thing in your life taking up 90% of your mental energy, never mind the ups and downs it brings to your focus and happiness.

As someone who used to play seriously through uni and is now nearing 28, I can tell you most of the people my age who ended up sticking with poker as opposed to completing uni//getting a job do not seem to be the happiest people today.

Thats strange, almost all my friends who played poker for the last 10 years or so (and are still playing) are very happy and more motivated than ever.

Really enjoy this blog but disagree with the article. It could potentially steer some young man down the wrong path.

Again, will reiterate, if you're playing poker in your students union once a week and you won the SNG last week, get to your lecture tomorrow morning!

It doesn't really sound like much scope to make a bad call here, it should be fairly obvious that poker is the riskier decision, the lifestyle is dangerous (no-one can argue otherwise), risk of ruin is certainly there (no-one can argue otherwise) but short term upside is massive for him in the climate that he's described to be in, in 3 years time even with £100k in his rocket he's going to be in a very strong position, trust me going out into the world with a chunk of cash is a MONSTER advantage, I would say significantly more advantage (in general) than a uni degree, although that statement could be proven to be total rubbish by the revelation of what field he wants to study...

agree! I know so many different friends who are super smart and COULD do something really good independently by themselves, but tough when the bank balance doesn't come along with your plans and you haven't got friends/contacts who are VC's.

Working life outside of pro gambling is much more complicated and diverse than poker, much, much, much more so and it's easy to lose sight of this when not involved. Its spoken about like the only potential is to get a job and make more and more money p/a of which ultimately 40% of each pay jump goes to the IR, this just isn't the case there are so many paths can you take once you are on the road. It's actually poker that is the completely linear financial path, yes you can stake people, crossbook, play yourself, bet sports whatever but at the end of the day you either win...or you lose... Anyone with a brain knows the guy hasn't "Just won another $100,000" and there a hell of lot more out there for smart people than "just trying to get to £100k salary by 35."

Nicely put amigo.

When I was younger a career at Goldman Sacha was kinda the dream. I read every edition of stock market wizards and was really raring to go. Thankfully at some point I realised that money doesn't make me tremendously happy and the thought of grinding 70 hour work weeks during my 20s and 30s disgusts me now.

I see quite a few of my friends who took a more standard career route and I don't think any of them enjoy their job as much as I do and I'm confident I've earnt more than they will of that is a particular marker. Fwiw I also feel like the career ladder is much cloudier than before. Gone are the days of signing up for x corporate firm and enjoying a 5% wage increase for life.



Also a lot of my friends who do work for such companies think its a huge grind and wish they could go a different route. The "nice wage" doesn't seem to compensate for their unenjoyment working for complete and utter tossers.

A lot of focus on money. Big part of working out there in the world is you get the opportunity to make a difference, make a difference to people and their lives. You matter to people and you can have a positive effect on people, that's a pretty wondrous thing. I imagine a paramedic goes home after work pretty satisfied about saving a couple of lives that day. As a poker player you matter to nobody, it is a very insular way of life.

For sure, and completely agree. That's definitely something that poker doesn't give you. The satisfaction of helping somebody else and going home happy and proud because of it. Quite the opposite actually, I remember playing a fish for 3 hours at 5/10 one night on micro gaming, he eventually didn't top up and begged me to send him back the money as it was his rent money for his family. I remember it really well actually, so yeah its definitely something that we don't enjoy. I try to help others in ways I wouldn't have been able to if I didn't have success at poker, but usually its just close friends rather than people I wouldn't meet day to day.


It is different going to uni in your early twenties than going late 20s/early 30s. I'm among couple of players who decided to skip uni 5-8 years ago, now plan to get a degree to move on with their lives. From what I see, uni experience for them is SO much different than the one I had studying in early 20s. Especially the social side just sucks. Everyone is like 18/19 when you are 28-32 - yeah, 18/19 yo girls sounds fun in theory. reality is different.


Good point, something I should have spoken about. I think though, that no matter how fun £1 jagerbombs at the same student union every night for 3 years is, bottles in vegas or buckets in Thailand will likely trump that. Being a poker player at 18-30 is going to be better than almost anything possible because of the freedom+finance. If you have to go to university at 28-32 and not go out so much to ****-holes its not going to have a hugely negative impact on your life.

Firstly, I don’t agree that earning the max. amount of $ in life is the only thing you should strive for and more importantly it can be dangerous, if you base your self-esteem or value in society in general around it.

Agree.

That being said, I think there can be a middle ground of making decent money next to studying and working on other interesting jobs/projects from time to time, taking time off to go travelling etc. There is a lot more out there than thinking about poker 24/7

Most poker players aren't playing 24/7, but its very hard to do uni+poker+good social life. Playing just poker without a good social life is definitely not gto.

The circle of players that will be able to earn very good money through online MTTs for the next 5-10 years is going to be a lot smaller than expected IMO, but could obv be wrong and the numbers will stay same, grow etc.
Having been part of your stable for ~6 months last year, I have to admit that I underestimated how much hard work it would take to be a successful full time poker player in 2015/16. I have max respect for everyone at bitb, would always recommend working with you to someone who wants to succeed in poker.

ma man, one of the saddest things for us was you deciding not to play poker full time, if only we had one more chance to try and convince you otherwise!

Grad school was the worst mistake of my life- halfway in realizing I wanted to play poker, but just finished the degree anyways for the sake of it. Spewing 6 figures on 2 years worth of education, I think the actual cost of higher education should be considered as well, not just the opportunity cost.

Yeah, in the article I posted above, it showed that graduating from top universities is very expensive.

It doesn't apply to you or many others, but uni also teaches you dem life skillz and independence. Some of the best button clickers out there are basically worthless trying to accomplish any other basic task in life, simply because they went from living with parents to being a balla, with no middle ground in growing up and becoming an adult. Basically all of the legit, responsible, balanced, got-their-****-together poker players I know all went to uni.

Haha, you're probably massively overestimating me, I'm a disaster in almost all forms of life



I decided to move on to university despite still making good money, probably the best decision I could have made. A richer life full of activities and new friends beats grinding or living with a couple of poker players imo, though it differs from person to person i'd imagine. Learning new skills and hobbies is also really underrated. Especially if you already made enough money to not having to worry about too much about what you buy/how you spend.

Glad to hear everything is working out well buddy, catch up soon.

Playing poker doesn't have to mean not making new friends or enjoying activities. Sure if you wanna be OTBredbaron you prob need to lock yourself in a room and study but that's the same for the top of any profession. If you're not using the freedom that poker offers to have MORE time for activities/friends/family then you're doing it wrong imo.

And yeah, agree.


nice score in hot 109, saw you raise/folding to ~7.5bb shove etc, whats the max reshove size to call any two when opening 2x?

it depends :P



Interesting insight that applies to people in a similar position to mine. Even though University will always be there, the drive to study and major will not. In this world, people in general do not truly respect the path less taken and that is a sad reality. Poker players love being optimal, but this requires understanding not only how things work, but how they are perceived. Personally, I agree with parts of both arguments, but it is really tough to pick only one. People want to have it all, such is life.

Good way to end it

Well that happens when you only surround yourself by the top 0.1% ofcourse. Don't get me wrong, I think that's very smart but you will also have a highly biased view of the poker world because of that.

This poker/uni stuff wouldn't even be a discussion if you all lived in Romania and after Uni(takes 3-4 years to finish) You would gen an 350E-400E/month salary , with the chance of getting 700-1k/month in 2-3 years

It's absolutely so easy to choose

GL guys , nice to see so many perspectives around the world