Let OP discover for himself what he likes/dislikes. Def are pros/cons to playing poker full-time.. if OP enjoys travel/mixing it up/meeting new people I'm sure he will enjoy playing poker full-time. Seems like a smart enough guy to weigh the pros and cons of playing poker full-time vs getting 9-5.

sure. I just saw that I was in a very similar situation and figured I'd throw out my own viewpoint to chew on.

In general, it is my opinion to try for something that is a "long-shot" sooner rather than later.

Also, if this doesn't work out. That doesn't mean you failed. You can mix it back in with a job eventually, your life may become more balanced out. But going all out for something you really like doing is not a bad thing.

Be cognizant as your goals and mindset change and adjust your lifestyle. The posters above are giving great advice based on their experiences so take it all in and use what you can to better yourself.

No matter what it is, if you love doing it, find success in it, and that fuels your passion and pushes you to greater success...that's the opposite of a vicious cycle...we'll call it a glorious cycle. Lol.

Good luck. Game on.

subbed, I just lost $1k tonite too... I played bad and ran kinda bad. Keep up the hard work

please allow me to retort.

I have an engineering degree also (along with an econ one too), got multiple offers out of college, took one, 7 years later i'm still with the same company. i ****ing hate my professional life. its so boring and if i could figure out a way to get the hell out i would, but the economy is in the ****ter, nj hasn't been funding a ton of roadway work (i'm a transportation engineer - think interchanges), so we're slow, every month is a question of if i even will still have a job the next one. i'm not super worried about finding another job, but sitting in a cube all day blows donkey balls. and because my work takes usually many years from begining design to end product build, it feels like i do very little. it's a soul crushing experience and i hate it

but now i have a wife/kid/mortgage/student loans and getting out of the real world is almost impossible. i would need to make enough while playing poker and working to cover probably a full year or two worth of expenses plus a bankroll to even have a shot, but that is kinda difficult if i only get to play a few times a week.

i very much wish before i was settled down i would have taken a shot to see if i could make it.

GL OP, hope you make it...

So based on your personal experience and your personal preferences, you infer that it applies to everyone.

Don't generalize and let's see what you will say in 15-20 years.

There are two points here I'd like to make very clear. First and foremost go down whatever path you choose. This is your life and no one else should tell you how to live it. I'm not interested in trying to steer you in either direction, if playing poker for a living is what you feel will make you happy right now then go for it and don’t let anyone stop you. Second, one common theme from this thread has been that you OP come across as very green and naive when it comes to this business.

I like the fire you have. You have clearly showcased a passion to take a shot. You're going to need it because this is a career that will consume more of you than anything else you might have undertaken. You are going to be more self-reliant doing this for a living than anyone else you'll know in any other career. You seem like you’re dedication to learning the game is genuine and that you’ll be eager to evolve strategically as the game around you changes and as you move up in stakes. All of that is excellent, but that’s only a part of the job.

Your graphs and stats to start off look great. Congratulations on the hot start. It’s nice to see things trending in the right direction for you. My question is what happens when those graphs swing the other way? You've talked already about what your plan for your bankroll is. You'll move down at certain thresholds and that's good to see but it's not what I'm talking about. How do you think you're going to feel after putting in 150-250 hours of poker and having nothing to show for it? How are you going to feel when it comes time to pay some of those meager bills you have and you’ve been treading water the past 10 sessions, or perhaps even losing? What happens to you when you have built up your bankroll to one of your financial thresholds and then have back to back losing weeks to negate the previous four weeks of great work you’ve put in? That’s where the “professional” part of playing this game for a living comes into play. Strategically, this game is not hard to play. If you educate yourself and dedicate time and effort towards keeping your skills sharp and keeping up to date on strategy as it evolves then you’ll be able to stay well ahead of the player pool in the live low stakes games. But how long are you going to be able to play you’re A-game?

Setting goals in poker is great, but what happens if you don’t reach them. I’m not saying that to be a downer, but there will come a point where you set goals and fail to reach them. Maybe it will be some of the goals you’ve posted in this thread, maybe it won’t happen until later on in your career but it will happen. Then what? What happens in January if your bankroll isn’t at $15,000? What happens to your career when student loans kick in and your monthly expenses increase? What do you do about health insurance? If you’re on your parent’s plan now as most recent college grads are what will happen when you can’t be covered by their insurance anymore? I’m not asking these questions to poke holes in your dreams. I’m asking these questions because you want to be a PROFESSIONAL poker player, and the first word in the description means you need to have answers to these questions. You need to find those answers because of the freedom you seek. You are assuming all of the responsibilities of your life, which is admirable because of the tremendous burden that will place on your shoulders. You want to call your own shots and live your life free of overbearing influences (a boss for example). It is because of that ambition that you need to have plans in place for everything that you would have been provided if you were going to get a more standard job. Your goal here is to be self-employed, you just happen to be choosing poker as the platform to do it. You need to do everything a self-employed person does.

The most difficult part of this job is the external stress it causes. Playing poker against bad players like the ones you will find in 1/2NL and 2/5NL isn’t that challenging. What’s really challenging is when people start questioning you about your living. For example:

That is a vanilla statement. There is nothing particularly offensive about it and it’s coming from a complete stranger to you. On top of that, it’s a comment on a web forum that you can just completely ignore and never worry about, never letting it affect your life. Instead you chose to shoot this person down.

You’re not “well aware” of anything if that’s your response to a complete stranger that has exactly zero direct influence on you and your life. There was no reason that post should have provoked you to dismiss what was said out of hand in such a curt manner. Defending yourself is one thing, shutting people out because they have opinions that differ from yours is illogical and intentionally ignorant. You’re going to come across significantly worse scrutiny than that post as you pursue this career and it’s going to come from places you won’t be able to just shut out like some clown on an internet forum. What happens when people close to you are the one’s challenging your life goals? You’re going to come under tremendous scrutiny in this business, especially from people outside of the industry that just view this game as another way to gamble in a casino. You are going to have conversations with complete strangers at the casinos you frequent who are going to question you on your life choices. They are going to scrutinize every detail and if you try to respond the way you just did to BrokeDonk those people are only going to get louder. You’re going to go over friend’s houses and their parents’ are going to do the same thing. They are going to try and keep you from “throwing your life away” and try to “help you get back on the right path.” Your own parents are going to try and “steer you right.” Even if they are supportive of your ambitions, they will not want to see you suffer. You’re going to suffer downswings, you’re going to suffer from public scrutiny, and eventually your parents are going to view your pursuit less as a career and more as an addiction, something that needs to be cured rather than a passion that should be fed. What about a family of your own someday? You’re just out of college so this isn’t a major priority and that’s why I’ve waiting until now to bring up the dreaded girlfriend card, but how are you planning on including someone else in this life? More importantly, what happens when you find someone you do care about and they don’t want to be included in your life because of your career?

I don’t expect any one of the problems I mentioned to stop you, but what happens when 4 or 5 hit you at once. Let’s say you have a bad day, lose a couple of buy ins. That day wraps up a three week stretch that was statistically the worst of your career. You decide to take your mind off things by going to see a friend that night that has nothing to do with poker. You know you can’t spend a ton of money because you’re on a downswing and you’ve got some bills coming up next week that you need to pay. You’re just looking to unwind a little and spend some time with people who care about you so you figure you can get away without dropping a dime. You get to that friend’s house and his mother asks you how you’ve been, eventually getting to talk about your career. You don’t want to, you try mightily to just give the good answers and brush the subject off as quickly and politely as you can but she persists. She unintentionally has chosen the worst day she could to try and convince you what you’re doing is wrong. She doesn’t know anything about poker, you know that, she knows that, but you just can’t get her to leave you alone about it for just this one night. Your buddy then suggests that the two of you go out to get some dinner. You were hoping to just sit around and relax but now your thankful for any solution that gets you away from the interrogation room you were just sweating in. The two of you head to a casual restaurant and your buddy orders a beer so then you get one too, because you want to just unwind and hang out with your friend. The two of you spend hours talking about his life, your life, how cool it is that you’re a professional poker player, how he wishes he would have done something cool like that, how you’re “inspirational” for “sticking it to the system,” all of which is conversation you were hoping to avoid because you can’t help but wonder about a few hands you may or may not have misplayed during this three week stretch. The night extends for a few more drinks, dinner, and then another drink or two at the end. You head back to his place having spent way more money than you were hoping to, wondering now if you may have dipped too far into your bill money and if you’ll need to take more money out of your bankroll to cover next week’s expenses. At this point you decide it would probably be best to just crash at your buddy’s house and try to sleep off the concerns this downswing has dumped on you. The next morning his mother makes the two of you breakfast, asks how last night went and what you boys did. Sit there in that moment. Experience the rough emotions of that entire situation. Find no escape, no moment of solace. Struggle not to snap at your friend or his mother for picking this most unfortunate time to come at you about your job. Realize then that you brought all of this on yourself because you chose to spend a night out, to unwind, and this was where you thought to go. Then in that moment try with all of your might, leaning heavily on that great passion for this game that you’ve shown in this thread, and in that moment be sure of yourself that this is what you want to do for a living. That’s the real test.

Your greatest struggles are going to come when multiple issues start piling up. You seem to have the courage of your convictions OP and that’s good because they are going to be tested like never before in this business. Not once in this post have I said to you that you need to stop pursuing this dream. It’s foolish to try and tell someone else what to do with their life. But you need to understand the gravity of the choices you make. If you want this, go get it, and be ready for the most grueling ride you’ll ever go through. It’s not a guarantee that you’ll run into major downswings, just like it’s not a guarantee that you’ll succeed. It’s possible you’ll go through hell for this, and if it does you need to be ready. It’s easy to be sure this is what you want when things are going well. Measure yourself by how you react in the moments when you have taken your greatest beatings, not by how well your first 70 hours have gone.

Best of luck to you.

Life lessons in this thread lol

Lol

Dtools22 I read your post this morning, good points and thanks for reading my thread. I'll post a response when I get home tonight.

Soul crushing weekend so far, going to finish off today's session and head home tonight to take Monday off. In a gambly high variance game, if I lose this buyin I'm going to short stack for a bit to protect my bankroll. Thinking its time for a change of scenery. Going to Florida in November to live on the beach and grind everyday.

This sounds like it would be a script for an after school special, from back in the day


Although I agree it was a rude response to someone with a corporate job, I do not think there is anything
wrong with taking a shot like this, at ANYTIME in a person's life, yes it is much easier when you are younger
or don't have obiligations. Secondly, the job market sucks right now for college grads there are tons of people
with degree's who can't find work and are just working at Star Bucks or Home Depot with minimal benifits, if he
can make $15 an hour cash he is doing better than all of them, and if / when the job market picks up he will still
have a degree.

Sitting deep in the highest variance 2/5 game I've seen. 1/5 of bankroll on the table... let's go!

hope you don't get coolered. gl

Crazy gambler who plays ATC but has a decent understanding of the game opens uncharacteristically large to $70. I make it $200 with $1500 effective stacks and pocket aces. He folds 72o.

Right. This is exactly what I did until I could find a job. I didn't intend at all to come off like I was trying to talk him down from the ledge and give up on his dreams. I was just suggesting making a lower variance life choice for the time being to make his future less uncertain and thus less stressful based on my own personal experience.

Yes, he can dive in head first and see if he sinks or swims, and if he sinks he can go get a job. But what about taking an alternate line in this hand where he gets a job and plays/studies on the side? Then after x amount of time he can see how big his roll is, see what his winrate is, see if he truly likes poker warts-and-all, and then decide whether or not poker is a better life choice for him.

I was merely making a suggestion to him because he has a great degree that he can use. But that degree has a shelf-life and after 1-2 years there is a great chance it will be effectively useless.

If he didn't have this career potential (i.e. his only options are working at McDonald's or Wal-Mart), then I'd absolutely say go for it, because he has nothing to lose. But he really does have something to lose here. If he doesn't find a job and start building that resume soon, then he's going to have a very hard time finding work without going back to school unless he has some great connections at his disposal.

And just to make myself clear: of course I want to see him succeed at whatever he does. I'm not here to stomp all over his dreams.

Good luck , Pulling for you

I appreciate everyone's point of view but man, you guys are worse than my parents. I have been taking care of myself since I was 17 and am not afraid to sink, fail, whatever. In fact It would be an enlightening life experience. 1/4 bankroll on the felt...

College degrees are really overrated. There are no guarantees in life.

I think as poker pros and engineers a lot of us feel obligated to share our wisdom and advice.

In my opinion, I seriously doubt OP is going to quit poker and heed our advice. So, now that we've dispensed with our advice and he has rejected it, I think all of our energy is best serve following OP on his journey and wishing him well.

And to be fair, OP has some valid arguments. He's young, he has a window of time right now to be young and reckless and reach for the stars and if he fails he can still recover....

So why not?

We gave our advice, he has considered it and rejected it and provided valid counter arguments and showed that he has thought this through, so lets stop and move on to helping OP with the pokerz

Cash out the minute the game gets bad or your focus and thoughts wander from poker and what's happening at your table. Go get 'em!!

IN the beginning our bankrolls are a fragile thing. There is this 2+2 dogma about NEVER leaving a juicy table no matter what as long as you are playing your A-game.

As someone who has literally built up from scratch several times, let me tell you that is not true.

In the beginning, when our bankrolls are fledgling fragile things, the most important thing we can do is grow them. When we are sitting at $4k, $5k, $6k ish sure we have to take some risks and maybe play with 20% to even 30% of our roll on the table. . But trust me, when we get to the point where we have 20% to 30% of our roll on the table, we have to cash it out.

Being at the world's juiciest table doesn't mean squat if you can't leave it while up. Variance works both ways and even AA is only 88% against 72o which means 12% of the time it loses...

Below is a table showing how our bankrolls grow if we adhere to cashing out at 10% and 20% increments, that is, when our bankroll on the table reaches 10% and 20% of our respective rolls.

Below are two tables which show a 10% BRM and 20% BRM winstop respectively

Sessions.... 10% winstop... 20% winstop

......0 ...............4000...............4000
......1 ...............4400............... 4800
......2 ...............4840............... 5760
......3 ...............5324............... 6912
......4............... 5856 ............... 8294
......5 ...............6442............... 9953
......6 ...............7086............... 11944
......7 ...............7795............... 14333
......8 ...............8574............... 17199
......9 ...............9432............... 20639
......10...............10375............... 24767

So as you can see, there are worst things in the world than increasing our bankroll in 10% and 20% chunks. Obviously there will be some losing sessions in there as well... but the point really is about risk vs reward and how much risk can/should we tolerate in building our rolls.

Ten disciplined sessions in which we cash out while 10% and 20% up is not the end of the world. This is a marathon not a sprint.

Slow and steady is going to win this race. I know, being young the thought of being slow and steady is anathema to your nature, but nonetheless it is the best thing you can do right now.

So if you are up $20%+ you need to cash it out immediately, table change, and restart another session buying in for a buy-in. Rinse and repeat a couple of times and you just increased your bankroll by 20%, 30%, even 40% in one day while taking an acceptable amount of risk!!!!

How is that a bad thing???

I am 42 years old. Just quit a 43k a year job because I hated it. I do sell real estate as well, but even that is a f***ing grind. Luckily I have a few dollars saved up, and bankroll is ok. Been on a horrible downswing/break even stretch. Working through it...

I say the OP needs to just go for it. Working 9 to 5 does suck. I hated it towards the end. It would be a picture perfect day outside and I would be in an office with people who sold their souls to work. I just couldn't do it. I decided I would rather have less money, a car that is paid for, and no debts and live frugal than to have to go to an office everyday and put up with that. Some people can do it, or have to do it, but not me. I have no wife/kids, so there you go.

Rock on and be real careful with the bankroll. Your walking a tight line for now.

2/5 stakes starting with just 5700$ Grind up to at least 10k at 1/2/300 first before making the jump. Down 12% of your bankroll on day1 is tilty

Thanks dgi. You are totally right about this. I thought I had a good chance of stacking the action player $2000 deep if I could make a hand in the right spot, which would have a hugely positive effect on my bankroll. But variance is a b**ch, and a cooler spot would be pretty devastating. I'm kind of pushing the limits as to how much I am willing to risk in order to get fast results. From now on I will cash out at 20% roll on felt and table change.

What are your thoughts on buy in, adding on, and rebuy strategies with an $8k roll? ($500)max 2/5. Right now I've been buying in full and topping off to $500 in full bill increments, with a $1000 daily stop loss for mentality reasons. However, it's pretty annoying and -ev when I end up playing shortstacked because of my daily stoploss. Just curious what you would use as a strategy given the circumstances

If I wanted you to just prove my point, I don't think I could have scripted a better response from you than this one.

You're making your own choices regardless of what all of us in this thread say. Whether we're being supportive or not is irrelevant. It's all just information for you to choose to use or ignore. It's part of the reason you posted this thread in the first place, to get feedback, and it doesn't seem like you take it particularly well when it's not feedback you like to hear. You're going make the choice to listen to any of us or not and there's nothing we can do about it.

I said it before, do what you will. It's your life so be happy. Just don't lose sight of what you're actually trying to pursue.

Cashed out +$937 today after a swingy session. Booked a hotel room and am currently chilling on the ridiculously comfortable tempurpedic bed. What a change after sleeping in my car for the last two nights. Weight lifting in the morning, reading some more of Taleb's Black Swan, and grinding an 8-10 hour session. Taking Tuesday off to relax back home, and then playing Wednesday-next Tuesday. Hotel rooms booked for 3/5 nights!

Roll back at $8,000