With the beginning of the new year, I'm trying to decide if I need to change paths. Leaving poker as my 1st source of income and doing something else, some other job, going back to school (PhD), whatever. Been playing poker since 1997, leaving my college professor job 3 years ago to supposedly play more poker (the opposite happened), and with the games getting tougher (at least for me) maybe it's time to leave poker or at least to send it backstage.

I made this post hoping somebody could share their experience about leaving (or playing much less) poker, why you did it? How is your life now?

Or for those of you like me considering doing it, what's your reason? what do you expect? Please share !

Obviously, if you decided to leave poker, most probably you decided also to stop reading 2+2, but I'm betting on those addicted to 2+2 still reading the forum despite not playing much of at all, and of course if you're in the brick of doing it, you're still here; I would love for you to share your story.

maybe you missed it, but Strassa2 shared his experience on switching from poker to option trading here: http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/19...t-like-289600/

maybe try starting your own business and put poker on the back burner. I don't know what sort of financial situation your in. Did you go busto or close to it and is that why you want to potentially leave poker because of the grind or ??

Yes, starting a business is an option, I'm not busto (never have been), probably it's more because of the grind or maybe I realize I'm not that good to compete anymore at a high level or maybe a it's just a middle age crisis

Jason post is pretty good, still I would like to hear from people leaving poker after playing it for a long time, Jason is probably old for the teenagers over here, but still a pretty young guy.

My situation is a pretty different from yours, I guess, but I am around 30 and maybe bits and pieces of my experience could help you. I haven't been playing poker nearly as long as you have, but I have been playing for several years and went through periods where I played a ton, despite always having a full-time job. Last year, I decided that there were more important things to do in life than sitting at the computer all day, so I drastically cut back on the amount I played and took full months off. Instead, I got married, bought a condo, focused on my full-time job (my work has never been better or more rewarding) and am now expecting a daughter in the near future.

Although in the short-term I could have probably made more money by playing more poker or even by quitting my job and playing full-time, I have never really regretted my decision to stop focusing on poker. In the long run, I'm sure my profit-maximizing strategy is to focus on my full-time job, in any case. And I just find that working with other people, on issues that have a dramatic impact on millions of people, is much more rewarding and intellectually stimulating for me than sitting at a computer outsmarting 18 year olds all day.

And the time that I have been able to spend with my wife and which I will hopefully soon be spending with my daughter is something that I didn't even realize I was missing when I was grinding online poker all night before. Happy to respond in more detail, if you think that would be helpful. Feel free to PM me or AIM me on TWPinDaHouse, if you'd like.

I am the exact oposite. I was laid off last Jan and decided to give poker a try. Lots of job offers so I figured what the heck. I played part time paid the bills. I was also new to NL as played Limit only but the games dried up. Loved the free time and never slept better or enjoyed life as much
I took a job in October that sounded really appealing from a buddy whom bought a company. I have been at it three months and hate it and am close to heading back to the poker. I am also older at 44. I will be surprised if I am not back at poker giving it a full time shot and seeing how I do

when u say playing poker .... are you playing mainly online or live i can understand the online aspect because there are so many players playing nowadays making it a real grind to win and make it worthwhile ... i am becoming a bit disillusioned with poker myself so i know wer u are coming from tho i play mostly online and not alot live... i imagine live play hasnt changed as much as online has over the last 4 years

The title is misleading once you start playing poker you can't stop
It will always be a part of your life OP.
changing careers or main source of income a better way to describe it wich is always possible.

i don't think that two plus two poker forums is the place to go to find people who have quit poker OP.

I was in my late 30's when I started getting the poker bug back in '01 and I was lucky enough to befriend and play with many players that become poker celebrities in the following years. After taking a parachute from a company buy-out, I felt confident that I could probably handle the poker pro lifestyle. Thus, from 06 and 07, I took the route of playing live in LV, LA and the Northeast at the middle stakes as the thought of constantly staring at a screen remind me too much of a normal job.

The experience financially was very good but after a while the lifestyle become trivial. In the end, there was very little intellectual challenge left for any of the games and truly I wasn't contributing anything meaningful to anything or anyone.

Thus, I decided to get back to the business world and found work that besides being sometimes maddening, it leaves an imprint beyond the loss or gain of clay chips.

I still love poker in its many forms but engage in it at my leisure and the funny thing is that once your learn the game, it's relatively easy to pick up where one left off. There are times that I miss the daily shuffling of chips in my hands, needling a respected opponent or just sharing silly poker war stories with a fellow poker degenerate but overall I am happy with leaving it behind.

My only advice that I feel qualified to give a stranger is that you have to honestly ask yourself whether you are happy and fulfilled with what you do with your time now, does it fit with your values, are you getting the most out of your own personal potential?

Best wishes with whatever choice you make.

Well, out of 9 replies he's received four good stories from those in similar spots in their lives. Seems like a helpful start.

How many hands do you play a day? I am amazed at those you put in 3,000 - 5,000 a day! Cutting that n half still turns a good profit. Isn't it more the quality one plays and not the quantity?

true dat.

Im shocked at how helpfull everyone has been so far. there is hope for NVG after all.

Well i've followed a simular route but im a few years younger. Started playin 6 years ago when i was 18 and after playing poker full time for a living for 4 of those years. At 24 i thought it was time i settled down and lived a more socially active life. I've found work more enjoying and also this might sound strange but the structure of a 9-5 job 5 days a week a lot more rewarding. I will still play poker every so often but never to the full extent as before, unless a another poker boom kicks in.

Best of luck in the future

Your right this is very strange. Doing the same thing over and over day after day for the same money. I hate it but dont make enough at poker in order to quit so gta stick with it. Sigh

Maybe you have the wrong job. In my job I very rarely do the same thing even one day to the next and never from one month to the next. And the money increases basically exponentially year to year.

Wow, how do you get a job with a salary that increases exponentially?

Stay in school and don't do drugs

IMO

FYP

Hi Sirio -

I think we are falling back to the place where, as Sklansky described, anyone who can make good money playing poker, can make *more* money doing something else. This was not necessarily true in 2004-2006, but things have changed and the opportunities today are certainly not what they once were.

I urge you to be confident in your decision and remember that smart and hard working eventually takes the cake, but luck always helps.

I'm on the wy to doing the same thing (quitting poker) but I guess I've been procrastinating for about 2 years. Inertia is a bitch. I'm a little nervous about it. While I used to happily work 60 hours a week in a kitchen, I wonder how I'll feel working 8 hours a day, 5 days a week. I'm also a little nervous that my skills have atrophied. Why do I want to quit poker? It isn't very rewarding in all the other ways. I suppose I also feel I've taken this as far as I can. While I'm sure I can sit at the highest limit tables out there, I'm equally sure that I'm not the best nor can I become so. I'm also sick of variance and disgusted by the sheer absurdity of win rates and standard deviation (making $.45 a hand in $1000 swings). '08 was possibly my best year since switching to full time though I didn't work 1/10th of the hours I worked in '05 (first year of pro). And no, it had nothing to do playing better, I just had a very lucky year.

GL to you, David.

Oh, I'll still play every once in a while, possibly play a WSOP event or two this summer.

i was playing 10k hands a month, but never really built up a BR above 30k. so yeah, i have stopped playing for the most part. the games are noticeably harder.

i still read 2p2 for the quality of posters.

i read about 20 or 30 different forums, and 2p2 is far and away the most interesting/best.

Ive been playing for about 2.5 years and im thinking about quitting or atleast taking a long break. its probably for different reasons then other posters here, TBH i just feel like poker has turned me into a worse person then i used to be. i remember when i started playing poker i was a pretty honest and genuinely nice guy(for a poker player lol) and i dont remember intentionally trying to make some other person feel bad for no reason. but recently ive just noticed that ive turned into kind of a dick at the poker table. i despise almost everybody i play against. i show people bluffs only to **** with them and make my opponents feel bad. ive noticed myself become more greedy and selfish over the last 6 months or so. u can just see what poker does too people when u play live, all the douchebags that u see at the casinos at 3AM. i mean it just cant be good for somebody to be around these types of people.

It also just makes no ****ing sense to spend your 20´s in front of a computer grinding 12 dollars an hour when i could get a job and make more then that for half the time and probably feel better about myself while doing it.

i think poker has just turned me into a really miserable person and i would be doing myself and everyone around me a favour if i quit or take a long break or something.

Transition to fantasy sports full time?

i quit once. 3 hours later i decided to win my money back instead though