*plonk*

theres always risk..

hardly anybody pays 50% taxes in the US, not poker players and certainly not a 9-to5 worker who is making 100k in W2 income.

Anyone who is'nt choosing the 300k yr job is an idiot. Good chance the job is less stressful and healthier lifestyle anyway. Maybe 100k vs 150k it might be closer but probaly not.

100k vs 70k is a much better question

Don't forget PTO and insurance.

Playing poker for a living is miserable.

I'm always surprised by the amount of cynicism and doubt in these kinds of threads. It's a great and achievable objective for many to find a career that is rewarding, challenging, satisfying, and that pays very well. Doing so can also earn someone enough money in their lifetime to support a comfortable lifestyle, while at the same time getting to play poker as a recreational without the stress of the pressure or wear and tear of the grind and the inevitable life-impacting swings.

While I don't begrudge anyone choosing to take a shot at playing poker for a living, there's so much more out there to explore, to potentially excel at, to supply enjoyment and deep satisfaction, and to provide great financial support.

a harder question would be 300k a year poker vs. 100k a year other career

I certainly have to dispute this. Maybe you have found such a thing, but I certainly came nowhere near that by the age of 40, when I started playing poker to pay the bills. Not many people have the ability to have a career that pays "very well", and many of those careers are not particularly satisfying for many people. I never had a job that fit either of those categories, and I'm a white male with a college degree in the US. Most people who don't meet those criteria would likely have a tougher time than me.

I did indeed find such a thing (past tense, as I'm retired and over 65), as have probably a few million others as well. I realize it's not a path that will open up for everyone, but to leave it out of the discussion entirely leaves out the life and career experiences of quite a few people. There are plenty of engineers, scientists, physicians, businesspersons, architects, entrepreneurs, lawyers, and on and on who have been able to make a good living and find enjoyment and satisfaction in their careers.

Yeah I’d take 300 k real job over 100 k poker any day of the year

I’m sure OP has such a dream life with his cushy 500k a year job, dream trophy wife with 3 perfect kids that he has enough time to go on a poker forum to preach to strangers about how they should live THEIR lives. SMH

This is a dumb ass thread anyway. Like 300k a year careers grow on trees? Would you rather date a 50 year old 180 pound 3 or a 25 year old 100 pound 9? FOH you take what you can get.

100k in poker also doesn't grow on trees anymore.

15-20 years ago you could have said making $300k in a real job is difficult and requires various talents often including social skills while making $100k in poker was strictly a question of if you are willing to put in the time or not. That's not the case anymore and at least for every poker pro who makes their living through live games the social skills aspects might be the most important one.

Most people I know, myself included, have come reasonably close to this.

As chilirob noted, the "pays very well" is what makes the premise up for debate, and it's where I and several of my colleagues probably come up short. Pays well enough that I live high on the hog? No. Pays well enough that I pretty much never worry about money? Yes. (Buying an inexpensive house 24 years ago definitely helped.) I don't live check to check like some of my friends do, but I also can't afford to take a fancy vacation every year like other of my friends do.

Granted, I definitely know some people who have a high-paying job they don't exactly love, but it feeds them and their families so well that they're hard pressed to want to make a change. (I'm guessing my sister is in that camp.)

Feels like a version of this thread surfaces at least once a year, and I can see the allure and the drawbacks of each side. There are times when I look at a professional poker player and think, wow that would be cool to get good enough where I could play poker all day and make enough to live on. But then I also imagine what it would be like if in my current job, my earn fluctuated so much so that there could come a month when I get a bill rather than a pay stub. And that's where I have my ah hell nah moment when it comes to any dream of being a professional poker player.

Depends on the 300k job, if the work sucks but it's neutral like a network engineer for a construction company or something, whatever I can quit and retire in 10 years, but u couldn't pay me enough to do some jobs. Some things I don't want on my conscience.

And really not that many jobs pay 300k and exclude u from being a piece of ****. Maybe some engineers and programmers, some middle managers who have nepo ins, but besides that, most jobs pay you that much because not everyone can stomach them.

It's close, but I'd probably take the $100k other career