One wife for the past 20 years, no kids. Definitely made my life easier that way!

Thanks Gamboool. As I say, I've been very lucky, getting shares in a PE company that exploded in value. Retire 'comfortably' may be an overstatement, though I have inexpensive tastes in general. Look forward to seeing you at the tables in a year or so!

Hello im new here, and i have a question about this.

What about other countries? lets say Mexico, here if ur VERY good at ur job and have 40+ years old u will be making around 3-5k monthly, but most ppl are earning around 1.5-2.5k/monthly, and working 50hours week, in poker u can make this amount and have more time for ur self, u think in this cases poker can be a good choice?

(sorry if this its dumb, im jsut gettin started at this threads and have some questions)

I'm in my 30s but i agree I wouldn't want to be grinding low stakes with no savings in my 40s (or 30s for that matter) hell I hope to be done and retired from poker in about ten years.


If you're 40 years old with a tiny roll no savings making 15 bucks an hour, a bad run away from being in big trouble you're doing it wrong.if you can only beat 1/2 nl then it makes for a profitable hobby not a job.you don't wanna be the trooper.

If you're getting higher stakes and you're smart with your money you can make your money work for you while you also play.

To me 2 weeks vacation would be utterly miserable.im not cut out for a 9-5.
Bw last year and this year I'm going to have almost 30 weeks of traveling for fun.
I play a lot during tournament series where I can get lots of volume in good games for a few weeks then I take some time off.it is what works for me.

I agree it sucks seeing the same degens and scumbags all the time.thats why these breaks as well as playing in different places is good for me.

It's true I'm not creating anything for society through poker.im fine with that.most jobs are worthless in that regard anyway and a ton of people are absolute drains on society where at least I have nuetral effect on it at worst.

do we really want life to be easy though?

This part does not make sense. To be successful, almost a universal truth is you need to treat poker as a business. You "free" time is not so free. Add in that you must play when the fish play....you have now lost freedom of your nights and weekends.

Goes without say that it's way more attractive of an option for people living in mexico or other non western countries with a comparable earning capacity when moving to a western country would be impractical/impossible.

It still has a high rate of failure though.

+1

eh, it's still your choice when you play when u don't. I'd wager there aren't many poker players who treat poker like an actual business, we all **** off for days and weeks at a time occasionally etc. I take your point insofar as you need to put your time in, esp early on in the learning process, but being able to choose that time completely is the "free" part of poker as a profession that makes it unique imo. Honestly it's probably the biggest reason I can't quit it.

Yes and no
Like I said I play a ton during tourny series get get in lots of great hours in great games

Anywhere from 70-80 hours a week

But most weeks in higher stakes games you aren't getting in close to that many quality hours so this works for me

Personally I'd rather play 250-300 hrs one month then take a month vacation than put in 40 hrs a week

But the real difference bw poker and most businesses-

Yes the month I don't play I generate zero income BUT

When I start playing again I'm reteshed and playing a lot better poker than I would be than if I just played 40 hours week in week out .this may not be the case for everyone but I'd get bored put of my mind doing this.

Contrast that with a regular busiess-if I dispaeer for a month especially if it's a small business that largely depends on me I make no income plus I lose customers bc the business goes to hell.

Am I maximizing what I can make from poker year in and year out at this point? Probably not but life is short and I'm going to enjoy it.ill also last longer in poker this way.

If I was 22 and grinding 1/2 nl my appraoch would be much different.id be putting in tons of hours every week so I could actually save money and move up stakes plus build myself a finanial cushion. It's hard to get anywhere with 40 hoursa week at 1/2 nl.life expenses eat up too much of your money,you can't save as easily and if you lose or break even or a while you're ****ed.

I don't really follow that rule and I'm doing just fine

It takes a pretty skewed worldview to ask that kind of question. It's probably shared by an unfortunate number of people.

Here's one way to answer it. Consult the Forbes 400 list. Exclude all the names of the people who have inherited wealth by various means. Now, name all those who you suspect of being miserable. Start with Jeff Bezos and just work your way down the list of names.

Lol, congrats. Is Sinner/Tyler Winklevoss still posting around here? He's looking like teh NVG resident financial genius at this point.

Bezos has probably spent about 80 hours a week since the late 90's indulging in ultimate commodity fetishism. I'm sure he loves his life, but If I had lived his life I never would have made it to billionaire status because I would have offed myself after a few months. Every central nervous systems is different.

their names are Tyler and Sinner, Sinner, Sinner ****ing Winklevoss(nope, had to google, Tyler and Cameron)

Anyway, I didn't know either of them posted around here or used to. It kind of makes me feel inclined to ask his screen name so I can hit him up for some btc.

I wonder what a decade+ of “grinding” is like for the central nervous system

^ Probably better than a decade of data entry, telesales or other hard sit-down jobs, but worse than stuff based more on human-human contact. Probably slightly worse than coding.

lol seriously? Lektor. Your love for poker has made you somewhat delusional

It's funny that Bezos was mentioned to me since I recently got a part time job at Amazon, so I will be able to contrast the misery index of it to live poker. And yes, I imagine Bezos would have spent at least some time doing every single drone job on site to get a feel for the process. In the future everyone will work at Amazon after they buy out everyone and all restaurants will be Taco Bell.

I was just being a smart ass. I seem to remember the poster Sinner with the trollface avatar plugging btc and being shouted down by skeptics as far back as 2013. The best trolls, it seems, always tell the truth.

Yo, 2+2ers. I am in my early 60s, grinding 10-20 and occasionally 5-10 at Commerce and Vegas during WSOP. Not exactly what I wanted, but live games are still so beatable and if you are an old guy you get credibility you can't get if you are 27 with a hoodie and can rob people once or twice a session. Coulda shoulda mighta run my life differently in hindsight but taking 75-100K even as games get worse is not so bad for a hobby. Yeah, gotta spend 10+ hours a week rereading Juanda and struggling through PIOSolver but wtf not so bad no complaints really live games still work. Hope I'm not doing this 10 years from now but still kinda fun. Hate to see these young pros who are super talented but despise playing poker. Would not want to be them as poker declines but for the rest of my play8ing lifetime live poker will probably still work if I keep my game up. Hope I know when I've lost my edge. Peace out

Credit to you my man

can't be real^^^^

I am 45 and have been grinding an office job since getting out of college at 22. I have done well for myself. I have a family 2kids. In 5.5 years my youngest will start college. I have been devoted to my family this whole time. At one point about 4 years ago I gave up golf and my only hobby is poker. I attend no sporting events. I don't go to bars. The only time away from my family is work and poker.

My plan is in about 6 years I will start playing 10-15 hours a week ramping up each year. I want to get 3000 hours playing cash to see if I am a LT winner. If I am able to make a bit of money from the game eventually my wife and I will probably move to LV and I would play 100-120 hours a month looking to grind $1500ish a month. Maybe take a few shots a year at some decent tournaments.

I have decided to wait until later to really take up my passion of poker. At least I get some learning experiences between now and then.

I fit in this category and can relate to most of the posters here. I would advise all the young players to have other backup plans in case you don't make it in poker.