If I'd just started w/ a $105K salary I'd spend my extra time at work making myself indispensable.

Treating running a business differently than any other job is a mistake. Running a business might put you on a different spot on the risk return curve, but that's not really what defines the work you are doing. There are many regular jobs that pay extremely performance based (or even 100% if a restaurant owner doesn't pay the wait staff minimum wage even though he might be legally required to) and lots of business owners work on a fixed salary.

~$100k is a pretty standard entry salary for software engineers in Silicon Valley. The average yearly salary for that kind of work is around $120k.

Whale money is good money


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Another way to use my time, as others have mentioned, is to go further into my career. I could make up to 250k-300k(total comp with stocks and bonuses, not base salary) within 5 years if I play all my cards right, so to speak.

http://www.businessinsider.com/silic...w-weeks-2016-4 Here's a former poker pro doing just that, but obviously he is much more of a bad ass than me.

But I think deep down... I still have poker dreams. Can I make it in poker? Not just as a low stakes grinder, but really make it into mid-high stakes, making 300+ an hour? That would be what I would be working towards, if I decide to go this route. I really do enjoy poker, but only if I can crush it. The absolute dream would be to work remote as a software developer, and live in vegas and play the 5/10, 10/20 and higher games at night.

Lucky Chances. Also Artichoke Joe's but they don't really have NL.

It's not a ghost town at Bay 101 or M8trix on Saturdays. If you have Saturdays off, drive down then.

How many live poker players in the US do you think have an expectation of earning 300+/hour from poker (ignore endorsements)? I don't know the answer to this question, but suspect that it's at most a couple dozen.

I understand that but if I were a new hire the last thing I'd do is leave work as soon as my hours are over.

That's obv. true but at most tech companies (no idea where he's at) "hours" aren't even a thing. There's a number in the contract because it has to be there, but that's about it. People know what they have to do and when things are due and act accordingly. That means there might be 80 hour weeks and others where you have plenty of time to play poker.

Pro tip in California the gamble goes on all night long.

Yes, the actual hours are extremely flexible, so long as you get the work done you are fine.

Well, I think I got a lot of valuable info from this thread. Thanks so much everyone. I plan to hit up a casino, perhaps Oaks Club most likely, within the next month or 2 after putting in some study to brush off the rust.

Play it smart.

Similar situation, sent you a PM if you wanted to chat about SFBA games.

It's a lot closer to zero than a couple dozen.

I play both live and online semi-regularly for profit and fun, and note that both can be boring at times for different reasons. Live of course has long stretches of folding, waiting for a seat or a tournament to start, waiting for a rack refill or new setup, etc. But online has the problem of just staring at a screen for hours on end clicking buttons. Unless I'm playing 4+ tables, I constantly find myself unengaged and surfing the web. Doing so definitely hurts my winrate. While live I too spend more time than I should on my phone, at least I still keep an eye and ear to the table and perk up a bit at showdowns. As other people mentioned, being social makes live a lot less boring and a lot more fun. Chat with players, dealers, floors (for the last 2, only if they're not too busy/in a cordial mood). It probably won't help your winrate, other than maybe keeping you off your phone, but at least you should have some more fun. And maybe you can even get some reads (i.e. find out if they're a grinder or a whale).

The best way to find out

Beat 200/400 mix in la. Thats worth at least 300/hr, and runs pretty consistently.

This is probably not what you want to hear, but having a work life balance like that is usually something you earn later in your career after developing a reputation and a more rarefied set of skills. No employer, looking out at the crop of young, entry level software engineers is going to gravitate towards the guy whose heart isn't in it.

Also, just a reality check. To get to your $300 an hour, you need a 45 bb/100 hands win rate against the best players in the world.

Yes, there are definitely performance based jobs such as commission only jobs. But I don't know of one job where you can go to work and lose money for weeks in a row. In a performance based job if you don't make any money you go home even, but if you're a pro poker player you can go home at the end of the day thousands of dollars in the hole. That's why you can't expect to play X amount of hours and make X amount of money. I treat my game 100% as a business and not a job. It doesn't mean I don't work hard, but the expectations are more of a business owner than an employee.

I don't think you have a realistic idea of what it takes to beat the biggest public games in the world. Not only aren't there that many people left who can make $300/hour in those games, but none of those people has a second challenging day job.

You spent $5 on gas, $4 on coffee, $10 on lunch and most importantly, you paid a significant amount of opportunity costs.

Besides that, in a lot of businesses, you can't lose your own money either. Things like poker or day trading obv. present very different challenges than most other jobs when it comes to the possibility of losing money, but if you can't afford a couple losing months you shouldn't play poker for a living. But you also wouldn't advise anybody to work as a realtor if they would go broke after two months of not selling a house.

You're confusing "job" and "business".

Employees need to be paid weekly. Businesses may not see profit for months. Many businesses are looking for big sales that come a long once or twice a year as opposed to thousands of little ones, in order to break into the blank ink on the books.

He didn't but it might not be as lopsided as people think. I was at my regular job for 16 years and I think I maxed out out maybe 28 days. No sick days but you could possibly work from home if you are sick. But at least 4-5 of those days are typically used because my job lacked flexibility to adjust and make my own schedule. And maybe a few more to just get away from certain hideous training sessions or all day meetings and so forth.

If you make 104K in poker you will take home much more than your 105K salary due to tax deductions of running your business.

LOL

this is why bankroll , bankroll management, and separate account for living expense is critical.
I 've encountered hundreds of wanna-be's who fail at this simple concept.

some disappear completely, some end up as dealers to stay around poker.
some casino valets etc.... you get the idea.

It's amazing how much patience it takes. The good news is, most of the people at your table can't fold lousy aces or suited trash.

Umm what is so funny exactly?

My statement was 100% accurate