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Originally Posted by Duncelanas
I would rather travel around the world working 25 hrs a week playing a card game than do the 9-5 grind for a mid 5 figure salary back home. Seems pretty straightforward, really. Also very straightforward for a bunch of guys in Eastern Europe, for example (shoutout to all the Hungarians, Russians, Ukranians, etc in the streets). Also, I personally still think poker is pretty fun.
I doubt that it will really get better in the future, but I'm hopeful that things will stay static enough over the next 3 or 5 years (after which I'll hopefully either have shipped a huge mtt or will likely be looking for other opportunities anyway).
Not sure why you felt like sharing your life story in this post, but...cool, I guess?
I was just curious to see how people felt nowadays in the format that I used to play since I haven’t been active in a while. I gave my example because I wanted to say that before in my time, for many, it was a no brainer decision, and even in my case, I felt that way for several years (I still think it was a good decision, but regret my complacency from 2014-2016). I spent a fair good of time in Europe and eastern European countries (have dual citizenship), and had friends/randoms ask me if poker was worth pursuing a lot. Back then I would say with any bit of hard work it was relatively easy to make significant money, or significant to one's respective country there.
But nowadays I would never recommend anyone getting into it, which was not the case 3-5 years ago. Not even for those in Eastern Europe. You can get relatively good paying jobs in most countries, or if not elsewhere, esp in fields such as IT or becoming doctors/dentists/pharmacists and relocating elsewhere, which many still do I guess. Sure you can still rise to the top in some format and make much more money even nowadays (albeit much less than before), but the same can be said for other non-poker related fields. Especially since now only the very talented will do so, not as before where you had more margin for error in your ascent.
Getting to travel the world is nice of course, but you also forego opportunities elsewhere in order to do this. At this point, I’d feel more confident about the future of someone doing this being Instagram famous and living off promo content than someone playing poker.
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Originally Posted by gdaviezz
I started playing poker 2 years ago, dreamed of playing the highest stakes, 2 years later im playing 100s spins and i have a big love for the game, i was a bastard at school and joined the army shortly after for 5ish years so i dont have any real fallbacks, i have my lorry licences and the most your going to make working like 50 hour weeks is probably like £2.1k per month, i can make much more than that from poker while also working whenever i want and having freedom
That’s great and congrats, but what I’m getting that is before you had many more people doing so, and hell if you knew about kickback/rakeback deals you could have done that in months while still not having a solid understanding of the game. Nowadays that would not fly.
However I get that for some it still makes the most sense at the moment, even though I would still recommend always having a backup just in case (or looking into something). But I'm sure many realize this.
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EDIT: "Losing your edge" is just pure bull**** unless you get lazy, aslong as you keep working you will never lose edge and its only the same as not working hard in standard jobs, dont work hard then you just stay average like everybody else
No, that’s a naïve thought as edges are constantly shifting even over a single session. Losing your edge does not mean to go from a winning player to a losing player over night (although that can happen too), but any sort of changes that can affect it, like lower rakeback, legislation, either in the form of taxes/bans of certain countries that directly impact your bottom line etc.
Something like only being expected to win half as much as in the previous year would be a significant loss of edge. For example you would not be able to play the same way if you had a cushion of being a SNE before with 75% rakeback as you would nowadays. Especially in games with low edges that are headed the way of huhu back in the day imo.
You had this happen not only to poker, but in other areas such as casino bonus whoring (you could make 2-300k a year in 2011 still just having a skrill/neteller account and playing optimal losing blackjack and clearing bonuses, which by 2013 was mostly gone). Hell, going back before my time you were allowed to bet correlated parlays at many sites until some guys fleeced it industry wide.
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Originally Posted by ChicagoRy
Few jobs require you to be constantly relearning and improving though. Even doctors, you see plenty of older doctors that are stuck in old ways but still make really good money. You can't do that in poker and still make money for long, you end up losing money, which makes it so much different from other jobs. It's almost like running your own business. But the poker site vig is so brutal for professional poker players.
Yes, but even as an old doctor you are still required to renew your license every time, and also attend CME’s in order to maintain your license, no matter how old you are. It’s just that in North America once you are in the system you will usually remain so (unless you continually do something grossly incompetent of course).
I would say a lot of jobs in the same vein as poker require you to constantly relearn and improve. E.g. e-games like LoL, Starcraft etc. Then you have other games like chess, backgammon, bridge, darts, etc. At all those you can make a living. But to me poker right now is akin to being let’s say hypothetically a darts player, but in a league where players are improving and sponsorships diminishing every year. At one point the effort will not be worth the reward.