I think that earning a 100 a year playing poker is significantly more difficult than earning 300 a year in several career paths. 100 is what the top .1% of poker players vs. top 5% of jobs (probably 7-8% due to business owner tax strategies). Now both personalities won't overlap, but 300+ has a ton of predictable routes that don't involve risk. For example, 1) major in accounting with a 3.8, work for big 4, work hard for a few years, become a manager and transition to a larger company or make partner (or at a smaller firm). 2) get into med school, work a decent speciality. Doesn't even need to some high end speciality like card, neu, or orth. And there are so many other routes that simply require slightly more than the minimum amount of work during your 20's with discipline. This is not rocket science folks. Take AP courses, attend a state school, get a 3.8 and plan on 5 years at 50 hours per week. Yes, most people are too lazy to follow these paths, which is why it's still easy.

MBB, IB or a business is more difficult and risky and requires elite schools and/or risk. Engineering/CS I think is more bifurcated? I know less about this path.

Although grinders who make 100 a year playing poker may lack the self-discipline to follow these predictable career paths or that those in these paths may not succeed in poker, but that obscures the basic reality.

I would love to hear a few grinders say that they prefer earning what they do rather than having the security of predictable income. And when they are in their 40's 50's and 60's when mental facilities slow, most of them will not be able to beat 1-2.

Kids, poker is a waste of time. Study and work hard for like 3-4 years. Don't be -EV and chase one-outers.

Alternate cushy route is skipping school and getting into insurance underwriting

Or the top 1% of insurance salesmen. But I'm talking top 5%. My buddy who's an actuary makes like 200 and actually went to a top 5 liberal arts college. He'd be making more if he did accounting or premed.

Can't disagree too much. I have accounting and finance degrees and started making >6 figures within 5 years of graduating and I specifically went the "I don't wanna work hard" route.

Given that the median annual income in the United States in 2020 was US$40K/year, I think you may be overestimating how easy it is to attain a stratospheric income like $300K/year

I was an actuary once, best job ever actually. I don’t buy at all he would be making more if he did accounting. Actuaries have just as much upward potential and are generally more highly regarded.

Obviously being a doctor is a completely different thing and there’s zero overlap.

So he went to swarthmore, but I guess he didn’t go beyond that. Have so many buddies who went standard state schools but worked harder for a few years and ended up making more. TBF, I don’t know much about actuaries and he is smarter.

And let’s not make the equivocation between accounting and big 4

Point of this post is that I’m not and that you’re misinformed about how attainable it is. This is firsthand knowledge

Imagine thinking it can only be one or the other

Point of this post is to highlight reality, regardless of what you consider stratospheric. Facts are facts.

I know a few examples, actually. But we’re not talking outliers.

I don't think he's remotely claiming it to be easy.

• The OP cites one tenth of 1% making $100K per year. I don't know if that's true, but this is his assertion.
• When President Biden announced a tax plan that would target households making $400K per year, this meant the top 1.8 percent. To get to the top 1 percent, that threshold increases to $458,894, or did back in 2020. [Source: IRS, Statistics of Income, ”Individual Income Rates and Tax Shares.”]

Thus, the OP is saying 10 times as many families pull in $458K for all professions combined compared to those who earn $100K playing poker. Lower the requirement to $300K for the general population, and that widens the margin even more.

So yeah, granting the OP's assumptions about how many make six figures playing poker, it's hard to disagree with his take.

of course if you have any long-term planning skills and work ethic, investing in a career is going to pay off way better than poker in the long run. people were making this case 10 years ago and it's just a truism today given the poker climate.

but if you took someone with decent smarts off the street with no work experience, making 100k in your first year of pokering is probably easier than attaining a six figure career from scratch year one (barring connections or a niche but coveted skill like salesmanship). that is the appeal of poker... you rely on yourself and don't have to go to med school and serve as a resident slave with no sleep for years to peek six figures. not saying it's the right or better path, but it's a very apples/oranges discussion, and "oranges are more fruitful in the long run" is just ldo.

This was definitely true x years ago (not sure what value to put for x, 5-7?) but I think today even the no work experience guy has a better chance making 100k year 1 by hustling the job market than hustling poker.

money isnt everything.. as a poker player you can make your own time which may be worth more to some. The obvious problem is the insecurity of the future. Also, as an accountant you come across less superusers and botrings.

I mean it’s a something people do for fun, like a combination of chess and roulette. It’s not supposed to make money though some of us have made a living off of it for decades.

Personally 20 years out of undergrad I’ve got the lowest take home pay of my friend group and I’m a recognizable cash game grinder,

If you want actual cash go to Wall Street or management consulting. The service jobs (lawyer, doctor, actuary, accountant) pay okay in the I want a wife two kids and a garage in the suburbs sort of way.

Poker pays more like I rent a room in my buddies house and I am constantly at risk of running bad, getting cheated, the site raising rake or government banning the activity.

I would think money would be a necessary motivator to being successful at poker.

There are loads of paths with less financial risk that allow for flexibility like poker. Heck, an insurance salesman who works on commission and collects annuities for life.

What's funny is that the majority professional poker players are among the least spontaneous and most chained to the table, always looking for that next good game.

And if freedom brings happiness, the premature balding I see suggests a life of extreme stress.

Even during the last years of Supernova Elite on Stars it got more difficult because you had to be good enough to not lose too much at the table while grinding. It's been >10 years now since you could just auto-pilot click buttons and make 6-figures by simply putting in enough time.

That said, 100k might mean very different things depending on where you live. Not only between grinding from Bali, Vietnam or Thailand compared to the US or Europe but also within the US (or Europe). 100k is a lot of money if you live in Mississippi. That same 100k gets you nowhere in lots of places on the West Coast. When we recently started looking for options for my wife, the same job in California pays 50k/year more than in the Midwest.

I go way back to the days when the big card clubs opened in Los Angeles County (1982 or so) and my observation is you are spot on here.

I always see posts like you can make so much more money in life outside of poker - while this is certainly true it's extremely hard to make over say 150k in the real world, without trading away all of your time. First off finding a job where you can make 150k or more is extremely hard unless you live in a super HCOL area. When you get paid a good salary they own you - you are usually traveling, working long hours, weekends, etc - you're a slave. You also get killed by taxes - you have much better shelter when you work for yourself.

Actually untrue. Don't let your life experiences dictate reality. Get a 3.8, work for a big 4, make senior manager transition to corporate finance. The reason a lot of people don't do it is because they're lazy, it's not for lack of opportunity. Are you really saying that getting straight A's in HS, a 3.8 in college is "extremely hard." Come on, dude.

I'm not an accountant, but so many of my friends followed this route. They weren't exceptionally bright or hardworking, either--and certainly didn't work as hard as a grinder would need to.

Now of course I'm speaking as a US citizen where these opportunities are far easier than other places.

There's obviously a big difference between 100k and 150k. My wife is a biochemist at a big pharmaceutical company. That would be the most 9 to 5 job in the world if people in fact even averaged close to those 40 hours a week.

Back when I had my >150K job there was a five year span where 80% of my 40 hour work week was home cuddled up with my dog on couch watching Ancient Aliens

I don't understand the point of this thread. It seems like you're giving advice to people who are 14 years old - even telling them to get straight A's in high school.

I'm pretty sure there aren't many people in high school deciding to be a professional poker player. You have to be 21 to legally play in most places in the US. By that time, if you aren't already in college with a very high GPA, it's already impossible to follow your suggestions.

I figured most people who become poker pros either do it because they really hate their jobs and need a change, they got laid off or otherwise lost their job, or they have started making more money at part time poker than at their job so don't see the point of continuing with the job. Basically all three reasons applied to me when I was about 40yo. If I had ever made $100K per year in my career, I would have had enough money saved that I could live without earning anything for the rest of my life. Despite graduating with honors from a decent state school, I never made more than $40K, but do have a lot of money in the bank from selling my house. It works for me, but I have no family depending on me - if I had that, my requirements would have been a lot different. But I don't think I have ever known a poker pro who supported his family either.

Um no, it's not untrue that many high paying corporate jobs (particularly in the United States) have insane demands on your time, and not just when you're fresh out of school. 500k a year is a great salary, but if you're working 100hrs a week, it's effectively the same as making 200k a year on a regular 40hr week.

YMMV with any job in terms of the hours required to attain a certain salary, or in other words, your actual hourly. Your advice seems to be to find a relatively high paying job with reasonable hours (or at least hours normalize after a few years) to maximize your hourly. It's hard to disagree with that, or with the broader point that real world jobs on average, assuming you have a college degree, will offer a better hourly that's more sustainable over time.