Yeah that is one of the main pitfalls. It's all up to you to continue to grow and become the best version of yourself, which can be a lot harder as your own boss. Definitely doable with effort though.

This is exactly how I got into poker. I gave up an financially secure track because I would rather have time and be happy.

None of my friends had a better 30s than me. Everyone talks about being retired and then 'do whatever you want'

well if you love something you should do it till your dead. People are miserable for 65 years to get 10-20 'chill' retirement years at the end of their life when they are unhealthy, maybe dead, and definitely unfukcable.

I only regret that I am about to turn 40 and have never caught a STD. That's the difference between 30 and 40. At 30 I'm scared of herpes and at 40 I'm mad I haven't caught it yet.

All the best.

I am in one month closer to 40 than 30. Two kids every other week. I grind full time, hoping to drop it in 6-9 months if crypto keeps going well and focus on that entirely and free up lots of time pursuing stuff that actually makes me happy.

I hate nearly everything about this post.

It's just so deuchey and arrogant.

Your 29 and missed the boat.

Don't tell me how to live.

Love you too! <3

No anger. Just a warning.


I don't think ******ed is an exaggeration (and would only be slightly so for typical sports fans). Poker tables are filled with the dregs of humanity for a reason.

I'm a bit of an optimist in thinking that not many people would choose the scummy path if there wasn't a very significant financial premium placed on it. That's why it's important to recognize how little the benefit is and the clear cut ethical differences are between one choice and another. It's a dull, repetitive, isolating experience AND you're making the world a worse place, for what adds up to only a slightly higher potential for financial payoff.

And it would be dishonest to the people weighing the drawbacks and benefits of choosing different paths to not recognize that playing poker is inherently parasitic, and almost every legitimate career path is not.

with live I find once you are playing 5/10+ people are happy/good company etc

But surely you can see the hypocrisy in your arguments when you have over 4k post over the last 12 years in a poker forum when presumably you have been playing poker with the intention of hopefully winning money from other players who may be struggling with the issues you have described. Not everyone has had the experiences you have had just like not everyone who drinks alcohol develops a dependency.

All great points shared by previous posts. My take on the matter:

Pros: you already know all of these

Cons: NO retirement
No healthcare/insurance
Variance
Calculate your hourly vs your current job (even winning 5-10nl players only average 50k-70k)
Fulfilment is nonexistent after a few years
Personal note here........having dreams of cards and math calculations lol

There's more but I just I would hit these points. Take a year poker sabbatical and see how you like it! GL

I would never try to be a pro poker player if I had a family to support. Since, I don't have one, being a professional poker player is a viable path for me, if I want to. As it is, I would call myself semi-professional, with poker income becoming more than half of my income as I moved up in stakes. It helps that what I do outside of poker has flexible hours where I am not tied to a schedule.

I'm possibly different in that my instincts are to play a nitty style and I have to force myself to open up my range and be more aggressive. Grinding poker seems like miserable experience if you are constantly having to try to maintain discipline and not play "fun". I don't have an inner degen that I have to feed.

I give you credit for not writing a 3 paragraph attack I maybe expected.

With that being said how do you write that post and not have epic antarctic douche chills? How do the hairs not stand up on your arms? Do you go to every hobby forum and post that same thing with links and bolded stuff?

Don't PM me unless it's 200NL or better strat talk. Ridiculous sick brag.

That's a joke right?

someone stole your password and is posting douchy posts in tony robbins fashion?

The best reason for you to post here is because you are definitely in your 30s or 40s.

yeah I feel a deep sense of regret and shame for taking the time to help as many people as I am clearly not qualified with my 12 year straight winning msnl+stars career at 6mnl.

Might want to stop projecting your depression on me and see a therapist.

was enjoying thread until adam hijacked with ****ty life advice

ah like a white collar serial killer?

So are the boardrooms of half the world's biggest companies and the governments of half the world's countries. What's your point?

These types of threads should happen more often, the only good thing left in NVG IMO is the various experiences and advice from long time winning players. At this point, who gives a F about X player, who is doing well/bad? My take as someone who crushed on FTP 2007-2011 for close to a mill overall, played live for a few years after that while attempting and bricking some start ups, then quit poker and got a corporate job for 2 years which was miserable, and have since put up the last 3 years low 6 digits in online poker: you go through stretches where poker is amazing and where you wonder why you spend so much time gambling playing cards. Unless you have your Zen robot mindset down, you WILL be affected to a certain degree by variance, whether it's positive or negative. Given how the game keeps advancing, the best advice IMO just has to be to diversify yourself outside of poker, doesn't have to be a job but spend time becoming well versed in something non poker related. It does seem pretty crazy to actually think about being older and still grinding fill time. When you are a winning player that's obsessed/addicted which was me years ago but no longer so, the time just passes and you live for the moment. It's the sickest thing ever during that time because it consumes you and you are winning and it's hard to imagine what could be better.

^^^^ then you get older, see the new young kids who r studying Pio and whatever else while you always played on feel and still do, and you are now following the market/real estate/politics/how to run up a business instead of sports/reading negreanu blog/watching YouTube durrr clips, and you begin to see the light....

Where’s your point, since your entire post is complete horse ****

If you're 25 and single, you can get by on a fist date by saying you're a poker pro. At 35, it's a tougher sell, probably still doable if you're well dressed and charming. At 45, you might as well say you have leprosy.

I'm guessing the dating scene has changed a lot since I was 25.

This. I played full-time for nearly 4 years, starting out first couple years I was still living at home and made more than my busto job so quit and made like 30-35k a year with no expenses. Then started making more and moved out, making 50-60k a year. It felt great, I had a lot of spare cash, loads of spare time. But in the end I got super stressed because I was approaching 26 and had no work experience and just a half ass degree from a mediocre university.

The stress of not knowing what to do with my life got too much so I quit and went traveling. Something I probably wouldn't have done without poker. I feel like honestly I'd have been better financially if I'd worked those 4 years in a career rather than play Poker, but I now live in a different country and speak a 2nd language and am on my way to a good career that I enjoy.

I think if you're less than 25 and are making 50k+ then keep at it and study on the side/be super conscious of what you want to do as a career long term. If you're in late 20's and aren't making 100k+ a year from it it seems like a stupid decision when you can work towards a career and make 20-30k on the side playing part time.

I'm over 50. About 4.5 years ago, in May of 2013, I quit my long time engineering job, moved across the country, and started playing live full time. I did that until I got a good job offer in my field in Vegas in January of 2015. I moved there and worked a day job full time again while playing poker part time.

In January of 2016 I got laid-off, and started grinding live full time again, mostly at the Bellagio. I was doing well and planned to do that indefinitely, but I got another offer I couldn't refuse with a start-up in Austin, TX. (I got my PhD at UT Austin in the late 90's) I worked at that start-up for 6 months, until the company went under. So for the third time I started grinding full-time, until May of this year.

I now have an engineering contracting position that I work part time from home near DC, and play poker part time. I'm not wealthy by any means, but I have no family to support, no debt, and some money saved. Poker basically allows me to be very picky about what day job I'm willing to work. It also allows me to take risks working for start-ups, and if a situation becomes intolerable, I know I can at least survive playing poker until something better becomes available.

Talking of pension funds, this might be of interest to some younger players:

"You are never too young (or too old!) to start a pension, but let’s have a simple example of why waiting can damage your retirement pot.

Let’s take Michael and John, two friends, both the same age.

When Michael turns 24 he starts paying €1000 per year into a pension. He pays into his pension for 12 years at which point he hits hard times and he stops paying into the pension. He leaves it to one side and never pays in again.

At age 24 John however feels he is too young for a pension so leaves it. At age 36, the year Michael stops, he decides he needs to do something about his retirement and starts paying €1000 per year into his pension. He pays every year up to his 68th birthday.

John pays 32 years of contributions and Michael only pays 12. Both pay €1000 per year, who do you think has a bigger pension fund at age 68?

http://prosperous.ie/wp-content/uplo...144845.bmp.jpg

Notes
Both funds grow at the same rate of 6% per annum
Both sets of figures ignore inflation and calculations are done on a straight line basis"

*

(I'm not certain that the figures are correct for these days, but definitely the principle of starting saving for a pension as young as possible is.)

+1

My grown sons both got the "Pay yourself first" talk from me. Whether a 401K or an IRA, deposit 10% of each paycheck into savings.

My wife and I did not start until we were mid thirties...and even then 10% was not possible often.....but we are just a coupla years away from a very comfortable retirement where Social Security will account for less than 20% of our income.

It is better to be wealthy at retirement than not.

If being wealthy at retirement isn't an option, is it better to be a non-wealthy poker player or a non-wealthy non-poker player, assuming you will make close to the same money with either path?