I come from a family of roofers and carpenters and have seen many workers come and go in our businesses, and I agree more with bumpnrun than you here. The ones who were smoking cigarettes and drinking 64 ounce Mountain Dews for breakfast and a 6 pack of beer after dinner every night walked around crippled and bitchy, and the guys who took care of themselves had no issues. Not much different from anything other line of work.

No one with a lick of sense works in the field their whole career unless they really want to, anyhow. Trades are the probably the easiest way to set up a solid lifestyle business for oneself and if you aren't running the show or making legitimate progress towards that after a decade you've screwed the pooch.

Bottom line- there are a lot of people that do manual labor for a living that physically mess up their body's

Yeah and the reason their bodies are that way almost always have nothing to do with their line of work.

You used their line of work to justify poker as a much better option citing their injuries which you’ve just admitted are irrelevant .

But hey....just chuck in “Bottom line” and that will solve your top line contradictions lol. Not too clever are you. are u sure you were good at poker mr casanavo

The real bottom line is justifying the nearly always terrible move to turn pro by degenerating legitimate and honourable careers like trades or calling the amazing networking opportunity that is working for large corporations “soul sucking” is utterly mind bendingly stupid and dangerous. Within reason You can be what ever the hell you want.

Notice how many of the posters talk about long stretches without a relationship? Wonder why? Don’t fall for the life poisoning trap that is full time poker. Play on the side

we could say the same for all the fat people that work desk jobs

Just basic stuff; Dave Ramsey principles...you don't have to agree with everything he says, I don't, but it would do a lot of grinders a benefit to live by just basic spending and investing habits.

Max your IRA every year.
Continue to have a strong safety net (one year of ALL expenses - living, entertainment, etc)
Make sure all debt is paid off first and foremost.
Make your own lunches, don't eat out every day. - Same with dinner/breakfast.
You don't need to drive a brand new, fancy car. Just get something reliable and pay it off in full.
You don't need a bomb-diggity mansion. If you're single, just rent an apartment or find a good deal on some real estate and pay cash if you can afford it. - Better yet, rent a room from someone if you can tolerate living with other people.

I'm generally against purchasing real estate to lease or flip unless you can pay it in full.

As for single stocks, I'm generally against that too. Boring-ass mutual funds for long term growth is where it's at IMO.

If you have a full time job, and poker as a substantial side-hustle, max your 401k!

If there are good business opportunities to invest in start-ups or small businesses, that's great too.

****, even having physical gold/silver as a hedge against inflation is a good idea if you have everything else squared away.

Like you said, don't put all your eggs in one basket.

If I was making saay 150k/yr (cleraing) from poker, I'd force myself to live off of the 50k and put the other 100k to work. - I'd have my investment portion, my "roll" portion (to increase limits or fade variance), my living portion, etc...

Poker is a dirty business and for every Pro there are countless broken people who have lost any direction in life and fall by the wayside.

You don’t suggest using leverage in real estate investing, recommend against investing in single stocks but at the same time suggest investing in startups (which is just an even riskier version of the same thing), and recommend buying gold and silver as investments.

Please tell us you aren’t a financial advisor.

comment heard at the poker table last night

'Life is tough and terrible sometimes, it's worse with poker'

You clearly didn't understand my post, and I'm not going to debate all this ad nauseum in this thread.

Real estate is great, but not if you have to go into wads of debt to invest in it.

Stocks and start-ups or personnel business ventures are three totally different things.

Gold and silver as a hedge against inflation, when all other assets are in order, is far from a bad idea.

Not really sure what you're attacking here. Pretty basic financial principles...live within your means, don't spend wildly, put more money into investments than you spend(if possible).

Sent from my Moto G (5) Plus using Tapatalk

Nothing wrong with the last paragraph, I agree with you completely. If people just lived within their means we’d all be fine.

It’s the rest of the post that is bad advice that shouldn’t be spread around. I work in REPE, so I do in fact understand what you’re trying to get across, but it’s still bad financial advice.

To bring this thread closer back to topic - it would be helpful to cut the bias and just ask the question "has anyone regretted becoming _________" to anyone that doesn't play poker for a living.

The older I get I'm starting to believe that it's all a mindset thing. It's the human condition to just become bored and unappreciative. We are notorious for being unable to look at a glass half full and always assuming grass is greener.

Your a clown. There you go again making **** up. FAKE POST. Show me where I said poker was better than construction, or any job. I didn't. I just agreed with someone that said it takes a physical toll on the body. In my life experience it is. Every job has plus and minuses. I'm not debating them. Feel free to show me where I said that. thank you.

1) Paying off your mortgage [all debt first] is idiotic. It's freakin' tax-advantaged and at 20-40% free rebate on your taxes you should take that every time even with a $10k limit. At 40% that's still $4k free from Uncle Sam.

2) Gold/silver is a TERRIBLE hedge against inflation compare to, literally, every other alternative -- T-bills, long bonds, and stocks.

Gold is up 61-fold since 1900. T-Bills are up 76-fold. UST Bonds are up 292-fold [both guaranteed, no risk to principal].

US equities are up 44,663-fold vs inflation up 29-fold.

Stop giving stupid investment advice, and exhibiting your Dunning-Kruger effect for the world to see.


All data: Global Investment Yearbook, Credit Suisse; goldprice.org

Bottom line is you are bitter. Tried making **** up without any facts to back up your claim and I called you out on it. Now your doing it again. Reading comprehension is definitely not a friend of yours.

I think most of these poker pros that went long stretches without a relationship would have done the same regardless. Seems the posters that made that claim played online. Probably introverts. Idk though. A lot of people work from a computer and have social lives. I dont think it's the profession so much as the people that are attracted to it.

For the record, I believe poker is a terrible way to make a living for most "pros".

I also apologize for having a great time while playing in my youth. You seem very bitter. I'm sorry if your wife/gf was in ac at that time and remembers me fondly. My post wasnt a brag. I am no "casanova". I wasnt going to post at all. But after reading 4 pages of posts and no one mentioning anything close to my experience, I wanted to throw it out there see if anyone else shared in that lifestyle while playing.

Stop with the hate. And do some reading g b4 going on a rant. Happy Easter.

I was married prior to playing from 05-BF and made a bunch and had a bunch of fun with my wife and family in those 6+ years. Had I not been married prior to poker, I'd probably have put more focus in poker with where I was in my life when I found poker and I imagine it's the same for others who weren't in relationships during their ascent in poker. On topic, I certainly don't regret it

you bump

Interesting discussion, this is something I often worry about. I’ve been playing full time for one year and part time for a year before that so I don’t have the long view yet. It seems like the people who don’t regret their choice are the ones who invested wisely and now don’t have to sweat every downswing or pressure themselves with the nature of the grind.

So far I’m happy with the opportunities poker has provided me. I recognize that if I applied myself in another field I could be making more money, but I’m making a very comfortable living right now doing something I enjoy.

My biggest concern is crushing it right now to build up a nest egg and figure out how to invest it because the future of poker is uncertain. If I knew the games would always be this good I wouldn’t have any concerns about poker but I think it’s hard to say with any certainty what the games will look like 10+ years down the road.

Winning at poker is a myth. Pros are just guys who have sun run for years and that's why eventually reality hits and they get sads. Get a real job poker "pros"

One thing that is telling though is how few live pros there are in their 30’s and 40’s. The profession seems to trend very young which makes me wonder what happens to the vast majority of people. Maybe a lot of people make their money and happily transition into something else, but overall I’m going to guess it’s not a great sign.

Looks like anthor poster likes to make stuff up without any facts to back it up. People win at poker. People have made a living playing poker. I dont see where the myth is. Very few make it, I'll give you that.

Im new to 2plus2. Perhaps it's the treads I've read, but never have I encountered so many bitter, nasty, hateful people. This guys comment adds no value or encourages conversation. Wtf is wrong with people.

You could be correct. This tread is only 6 pages and some repeat posters. Too small of a sample size to give an accurate depiction of what's really going on.

I was basing this on my own experiences in poker rooms. It’s hard to know sometimes who is a pro but it’s pretty uncommon for me to play against good players live who are over the age of 30 and very rare over 40. Most of the time when I see someone whose game I respect they look to be between 24-30.

Another possibility is that I play 2/5 and good players in their 30’s and 40’s are simply playing higher stakes games so I don’t see them. They don’t all go busto or burnout, they just move up. Maybe they also find their way into private games.

It does make you wonder why even the very best players transition out of poker after 5-10 years. Does everyone collectively come to the conclusion that the effort to grind/study isn't worth the reward in the end? Is it a profession that burns everyone out? Do other players eventually figure out your game? Probably a mixture of all these things and more.

The common theme those older guys have with the guys who were pros 10+ years ago that are no longer around is they came up in a wildly different period in poker and got "stuck in their ways." Early 1990s and early 2000s to maybe 2009ish was much more wild west of poker where there weren't hand charts and there wasn't **** to study or videos or software. Lot of those guys were terrible by today's standards but made good money bc everybody else was that much worse. Then over time the games got tougher bc the boom ended, and the now available study material meant new hungry players aka competiton were gonna get much stronger.

When you notice that the best players are usually 20s and mid 30s it's because they are the ones who picked up poker right when the age of videos/study material/software started and embraced it. The olds who suck are ones who never faced reality and realized that even though they used to be crushers, they needed to change entirely how they play in order to stay crushing. The saying hard to teach an old dog new tricks basically is tl;dr. no 25 year old ever won decent money at poker with a **** strategy so they never got conditioned to being reward for **** play for years

That's who a lot of these bitter posters are who claim poker isn't beatable anymore and is a bad professional endeavor are. Most maybe used to win when nobody had any clue and now get rekt by ppl who have put in work in their game, which for reasons above are usually hungry young kids coming up. Same thing applies to the nitty olds grinding out $15/hr at 1/3 that Calls himself a "pro". The ones who have embraced the new stuff and challenged their entire previous strategy to adapt, are the ones who continue crushing souls despite being 40+, there just aren't many of those.

My honest opinion and this is just my opinion, is too many people try to be "pros". Poker is the only sport (that comes to mind) were anyone with a few bucks can be a pro. No talent needed.

Some cashed big in a tourney and that sustained them a bit. According to CBS poll 32% of 18-34 year olds still live at home. I'm sure theres a lot of wanna be pros in that figure. Easy to be a pro when your home with mom.

After the money runs out or they realize they weren't as good as they thought, they get a real job?

I feel that too many people try out poker and that is why it seems after a few years they are gone. If becoming a poker pro had a process like the NFL or golf, there would be a lot less people calling themselves pros to begin with.

I could be wrong, just my opinion.