Yes it is. It's invaluable. As far as enjoyment, did you enjoy poker as much as your day job? For me I battle between 2 HUGE forces. I am a very independent person and I cannot stand the structure of the daily 9-5 grind. I'm terrible at it too. The hours of a conventional work day are probably a bigger problem for me than actually taking orders (which I don't mind all that much if it's from someone I respect). But having to show up daily at 9am is something I fail at consistently. So in that aspect poker has been phenomenal. The bad part about poker, for me, is being cut off from a team (like at work). I'm an extrovert. I can't seem to find a balance. I'm sure there's a great career that fits me, but til now it's eluded me, and because of it I continue to grind. I wish I could just be happy with poker. I make a reasonable living do it. But I can't seem to shake the feeling that I'm missing out on a better quality life. Perhaps I'd be worse off with a day job. At this point there are so few decent paying day jobs that I could get anyway. It almost doesn't even matter as I may be "stuck" with poker. Learning to code may be one of my only viable options to a day job that pays better than minimum wage.

this. poker is simply not profitable now. if it was 2002, then it would be a different story. still, most ppl simply arent equipped mentally to play online poker for a living so I would not recommend it.

I, myself, would absolutely play online poker for a living again if I had to do it all over and the fishy ecosystem was the same. I would have played a ton more hands and tried to win a lot more money.

ofc, the safest play would be to do both.

but right now, playing poker for a living is crazy. esp if you are eschewing a proper career that you are already, or on the way to being, qualified for.

Yes, I loved poker (still do) but I am finding things harder and harder. I'm also a bankroll nit which probably prevented me from making it years ago. While I'm sure I could have beaten $50 games I was playing $10 (now I'm playing $1 games). When I get a bankroll, I tend to withdraw and treat myself rather than keep building. It's not good management but if you don't enjoy the rewards then there's no point playing. Now at most I play 2-3 games per week whereas last year it was 30-50.

If your independent then why not do as I've done and go it alone? I'm 49 and I realise that it would be hard to get in the industry but I'm full of ideas so I'll make it alone. I'm in a manual job that pays the bills but I'm not getting any younger and I'm feeling my age where it comes to the work.

Heres my mantra: Find a problem and create a solution. If it's been created before then create it better.

Look around you for problems. My local football club has an official app but it doesn't have a widget. I created a widget that sits on your home screen that gives an easy reference to the next upcoming fixture. No need to open the official app anymore and navigate through several pages to see where the next game is. It doesn't make me any money (although I can put ads in when I get a big enough userbase) but it serves a purpose. I created it over a week and it was just something to get me a presence on the Play Store.

If your into Data Science (I know nothing of the subject) then find a problem where you can apply your knowledge. Create a solution that no-one has solved before or do something better like I did with my widget. Look around you for inspiration.

If your still thinking about coding after 6 months then stop thinking and start acting. Treat poker as a profitable hobby, nothing else but put your full effort into coding imo.

Yeah man, that is what it comes down to, for sure. I'm right there with you as far as the age thing too, so I can relate. You have a good attitude.

As far as sw development jobs go, how much of a typical 8+ hour day are you actually "working?" The one tech job I did have, only involved maybe 2-3 hrs/day (on average) of actual software work. The rest of the day was spent pretty much surfing the web, emailing friends, etc. It got really boring. I actually wanted more work, though I'm not sure 8-10 hrs a day of coding wouldn't have driven me mad. Can anyone comment on this? What do the majority of jobs offer in terms of actual "work," throughout a typical day, and is there a sweet spot in terms of how much coding is just right?

At a job where I have a lot of autonomy, I will usually work harder/longer hours. But it probably tops out at 5-6 hours of real coding/day. Maybe a bit more of administrative type work - cleaning up comments or some stuff like that. If I am really deep into an interesting project I might work 8-10 hours/day temporarily, but I'll start getting burned out/anxious/etc

When I work from home I tend to spread it out more. This morning I got up and had coffee in the living room with my wife while I fixed some bugs I'd noticed the day before, and sent some emails. I went off for an hour to do some other stuff and then sat down upstairs to work. I'll probably take a bike ride mid-day and then do a little work after dinner, again probably downstairs with my family.

Thank you Rusty. Sounds like a great job/lifestyle. Definitely mirrors how I’d approach my day if I were in a similar position. Good stuff.

2-3 hrs would be a good day. really wish I could code more. but thats life at big.corp where it takes several layers of oversight to make any changes.

One of my chief motivations to ditch poker (as a way to make a living) was to find something more social. It doesn’t have to be totally social. I love problem solving so software development is very appealing. But I’m worried I’d be trading one antisocial job (poker) for another. Do some of you that work remotely (home) still get to interact with colleagues much?

I WFH 3 days/week, and I'm in the office the other days. The other guys are mostly on the same schedule. We go out to lunch, occasional happy hours or team activities. It's fine.

I worked a job for 4 or so years where I was at home all the time, the rest of the team was across the country. I'd go there once/quarter for a week. I felt pretty isolated from that group but that was more or less OK with me. I'm not anti-social but I haven't felt the need to socialize with co-workers since I was in my 20s.

Completely agree with that. Honestly, your current schedule sounds perfect.

Want real freedom? Learn to code, put in your time at some companies and work your ass off learning as much as possible, and start freelancing after 3-5 years. $100.00 an hour contracts aren't hard to find for solid devs. Set your own hours and variance free money (sort of, contracting downtime is its own form of variance).

Handed in my 2 weeks at work, and going the lay-low/grind poker/gym/vacation/code few days a week route for a few months, until I start applying for a new job (Java/Javascript) come March/April id guess.

Made more at poker then my 9-5 in 2017, and expect to make 75~ @ poker hr online/live for the next few months during my job-hunt/break period.

lol no, you could say same wrt software :
phil ivey, daniel negreanu etc. vs .... zuckerberg, bill gates, brin & page, etc etc.

• EV(IT) > EV(poker) for most people (99%+)
• Poker gets boring faster than IT
• With same pay, you get more real-life credibility when you have a real job. Which is quite important when you're looking for a mortgage or a job for example.
• A lot of IT jobs do suck. The better/interesting IT jobs require skills and experience.
• You can play poker anywhere
• Poker will become harder and harder, esp. online.

Maybe look for a part-time IT job to maintain skills and build a resume and play poker on the side.

I choose poker, because I can't work 40 hours a week anywhere else. I am good at poker. I am not good at conformity. Poker is not necessarily fulfilling, but neither is working 9/5. There is fulfillment in learning new things.

How's online poker these days? Is it still becoming more and more difficult or has that plateaued/reversed? How good do you have to be relative to others to make, say, $125K working 40 hours a week?

Difficulty is definitely not going to plateau or reverse. AIs and solvers are continually advancing.

Online poker I believe is terrible. I play live. Some days I am wildly optimistic. Other days I feel like it's a sick day. Hold'em is not that hard to beat live as soon as you start to reduce what you're doing down to a formula. After that it takes less thinking at the table, and more thinking away from the table on what that formula should look like. I am sure many poker pros fight the nihilistic blues.

A company has a mission statement with employees who are on board. This would be okay with me if I didn't have so many sick days in my life. I feel like I could manage if I completed school, worked reduced hours, and I felt like I was doing something unique. There's a lot of pressure from society to do something perceived as more productive.

If I didn't have the nihilistic blues, or disbelief in my abilities, then I would've tried harder in school, and perhaps gotten that dream job. But, I have a disbelief in hierarchies that are perhaps to my own detriment. When you believe in grades you want to get good ones. In poker though, grades don't matter, and in fact they are scrambled when you think about it. You get a good grade after making a terrible play, and visa versa. So, you are left to grade yourself.

To be diligent at poker, you should record at least two hands a session, and analyze them as though they were math problems with the latest technology you can find.

I agree. I believe bots have dried-up the games permanently.

This was a while ago, but when I said “assuming equal pay,” I meant for one individual, not people in general. If you were paid equally to play poker or work in IT, which would you choose and why? And by “equal pay” I mean roughly the same income range. The point was to ask which craft you enjoyed spending more doing (poker or IT).

Poorly composed last sentence (above). Take 2: The point was to see if you prefer spending your time playing poker or programming.

as someone who played a ton of poker and made good money, I think I would need 2x to play poker over a regular programming paycheck. and really, there may be no amount. variance absolutely destroys mental toughness.

It is extremely soul crushing.

Currently I'm in poker mode (read some of my posts above) I expect to make 10-20k a month playing roughly 30 hrs a week and I'm still programming a bit on the side. I was underpaid/didnt really care about my 9-5 salary in the past at my several programming jobs (made extra $ on the side via poker). I mostly play online poker, and can do some coding/tutorials while I play to keep my skills relevant/pad my resume for when I apply for jobs.

But once I get a new job I'll expect to get something more in the average range 80k~ (Toronto, Canada, 5 yrs exp).

I've taken 3 trips during my 3 months since leaving my job, but I anticipate on applying for a few programming jobs come May.

Cool man. What stakes and table type (HU, 6 max,...) do you play, online and live? What are the approximate splits of your income between online and live, like 75/25, for example? Which site do you play online? I see you’re in Canada. You’ll have better options than us living in the states.

At any rate, good luck to you. You seem to have a good attitude about things. Stay focused and positive is my best advice.