Big props to those who have come to this realization.

There's no question that the countless hours of playing, studying and thinking about poker will lead to better play and results. But for the majority of us, that only means going from someone being beaten by the rake to someone narrowly edging out a profit. That was certainly the case for me.

It's hard not to fall victim to the belief (or illusion) that if you work hard enough and are smart, you can eventually be a world-class player winning ridiculous sums of money. It becomes an unhealthy obsession.

I can really relate to your comment about being emotionally exhausted. I didn't dedicate all these years, hours, and personal sacrifices to become a nobody grinding out a couple dollars profit per hour. But that's all I am as a poker player.

You deserve a lot of credit for being able to walk away from it. That takes a lot more courage than continuing to chase after something that you know deep down you are unlikely to attain and may not even be fulfilling on the small chance that you ever get there.

If poker has decreased your general excitement about other things in life, it's time to say goodbye to the game. Best of luck to you.

If this is a belief or an illusion, then what do you think is responsible for people who crush long-term? Luck?

I'm not disputing that there are a few sickos who can crush long-term. But what percentage of poker players do you think fall into that category? IMO it's less than 1%. Probably more like 0.1%.

And don't forget about the personal sacrifices it takes to get there. Some people are willing to make those sacrifices. Most find that it's not worth it.

I'm not speaking from the rail, bro.

LOL. You are so cool.

I beat poker; you don't, so yeah, probably. I mean, if you really didn't give a ****, you'd bail from the site and take up bowling or something, no?

It's not even worth replying any more man. A) threads like this prove they won't listen and B) let them stay recreational losing fish.

I have no doubt that a huge part of success in online poker at reasonable stakes is emotional apathy. Not feeling too good when you win $xxxx in a day or feeling too bad when you lose as much. Not losing faith in your game when you go on a 20 buyin downer or 50k breakeven but similarly not feeling unstoppable or better than you actually are when you go on an extended 20bb/100 upswong.

I'm not sure that can really be 'learned'. For that matter I'm not really sure it'd even be desirable to learn as it's not necessarily a great characteristic outside of poker. Literally every successful high stakes player I've known has had some sort of apathetic melancholy towards life in general. It begs the question of whether they were like that before poker and such a trait simply helped them or whether it was developed as a result or adaptation to poker. In any case the end result is the same.

I never claimed to not care. I spent several years and countless hours pouring myself into something that never materialized into what I had hoped it would. That's not easy to let go of overnight.

I sometimes come back to this thread as a way to help my own healing. If sharing my own personal experiences can help others, than it's worth my time.

perhaps poker is fun while one is winning. not so much when one is losing

SO DO WE SEE HIS F***N GRAPH OR NOT??
if so what page?

every1 is different im glad your happy with your decision, but there still are lots of us who still do it for a living and still have a "life" . to each his own gl to you and to the poker world

I agree with this. I do think it can be learned, though, just play a few million hands and swings in either direction just roll off you. They have to, or you become an emotional wreck (e.g., some of the posters itt). Heh, maybe it can't be learned, hence the dichotomy itt...

For myself, I pay myself an hourly rate (based around expectation) so my short-term results at the tables are meaningless. When I went on a horrendous break-even a few years ago, I still collected my hourly wage for months and life went on as usual.

The business was going through a downtrend. Fortunately it wasn't bad enough to where I had to start docking my only employee, but that's because my take home pay is the same when I'm crushing. A simple money management plan that I implemented around 9 years ago that has served me well.

As a sne who knows other snes, I can safely say this is not true for most people.

This is because most SNE's are break-even to slight or even modest losing players that live off rakeback awards. If they become substantial losers (which isn't a difficult task when you're break-even), then they stand to play poker 12 hours a day for peanuts, trapped into having to clear that next $4K bonus to stay afloat.

Literally every sne i speak to is up pre rakeback so far this year, and none play anywhere near 12 hours a day, but please keep using false generalisations to try and make your point, it makes you look very intelligent.

Okay, since you know most all sne's, then you guys must be underrolled to let swings keep affecting your mood.

I doubt most are underrolled. I admit I certainly am underrolled and the swings would affect me less if i had 30k+ in my account, or at least, i keep telling myself the swings will affect me less when i'm properly rolled.

I dont think i handle swings that badly, tens of thousands below ev last year, below ev this year, I feel i've handled it ok, but i'd like to eventually get to the point where having a bad day doesn't affect my mood at all.

It's definitely something that can be learned. I had the worst mental game ever when I started, and although I'm far from perfect, I've improved drastically. I think it's a lot tougher for some people, but as a guy who would get super pissed off from the slightest thing, I've made huge progress, not just in poker, but in life in general, and has resulted in me being much better at handling certain situations, and it definitely has had a net positive on my life.

Your approach to not minding downswings is wrong. The aim isn't to be apathetic, it's to learn to look at things a different way, and think logically and not emotionally. The aim isn't to block emotions, it's to learn how to use them to your benefit. Jared Tendler wrote a great book on this called "The Mental Game of Poker".

Having done both, I couldn't disagree more.

Why isn't apathy a great characteristic outside of poker? That is opinion, Barack Obama is even keeled, stating himself he doesn't get to high on his highs nor to low on his lows; not that he as an example means much. Some people are just that way, it can be an excellent trait in many circumstances. Being apathetic while competing in almost anything is way EV. If you can shoot every golf shot the exact same, approaching each like it has the same magnitude as the last, it's such an advantage. Same can be said for a free throw, a chess match, or a poker hand.

As for your point, This is what we strive for as pros. When u can go about your day outside of poker the same, whether u just had your worst session ever or best session ever, it is a great great thing and something I work on continuously; accept the variance and solely worry about making the best decisions on and off the table.

If you're a winning sne, why are you essentially broke?

But yeah, the smaller your daily wagering compared to your net worth, the less you become interested in daily fluctuations.

I don't understand why anybody would have got into poker if they didn't enjoy it. It's such a painful process of losing money, playing through down swings, etc. To practice and study the game enough, or luckier, to have a natural gift at the game, and give it up to work some slave job? Ridiculous.

Questions like that can't be answered objectively unless you're talking about reproductive strategies. Wait, that probably sounds crazy.

A particular kind of apathy has been clinically quantified by a psychologist named Robert Hare.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hare_Psychopathy_Checklist

There was a thread about it a while back. Suffice it to say that a strong dose of some but a lack of other traits therein listed are necessary if not sufficient for a profitable gambling career. It's fairly undeniable that these traits are at a minimum over represented among trade gamblers and at a maximum as was argued less precisely earlier itt more so previously, requisite.

BTW you can exchange "profitable gambling career" readily with any intellectual/leadership position in any industry and the analysis should hold nicely.

Poker players are entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs, in a sense not too metaphorical, are poker players.

Have read over the last few pages of this thread. I think theres some good advice, but theres a ton of poor advice as well. A few things that I think some people are missing:


1. The poker boom and the ease upon which one could make money from 2003-2008 has given a ton of people here super unrealistic expectations about life, the job world, and what they "deserve." Theres a difference between true unhappiness and the short term unhappiness that comes from hard work and overcoming obstacles. I'm 30 years old now, and a lot of the people in life that I look up to are in the 35-50 age range(guys like Joe Rogan, Louis CK, Tim Ferris, Sam Harris, Jason Silva, etc.). With nearly all of them, they speak about how tough their 20s and 30s were and how pushing through those tough times made them better people in the long run(both in terms of their character and in terms of how good they became at their professions). To listen to some posts ITT, you'd think that the aim of life is to avoid all types of struggle and just be in a constant state of joy. Yes there are parts of professional poker that suck a big d*ck, and yes there are parts of the "real" job world that suck a big d*ck...but lets not be in such a hurry to separate ourselves from all of these things. The process of struggling through and eventually overcoming these things has a lot of value.

2. As with most things, people are letting their egos have too big of an influence. This is most easily seen by most people's reaction to working under a boss. There seems to be this underlying tone ITT that everyone is a super smart young kid who would only be dragged down by having to "be a slave" to a boss. For all except a small percentage of the population, you would be better served to stop thinking this way and instead focusing on how working under someone with more experience than you can benefit you. Yes it is true that perhaps you'll be smarter or better than your boss in one or more areas; However, the ego makes us focus on those select areas and ignore all of the areas in which the boss has superior skills that he could impart to us if only we were willing to be more of a humble student(employee).

3. Although I would never expect otherwise, everyone seems overly concerned with personal glory or personal financial gain. Nobody seems to take pride in or notice the accomplishment of the industry as a whole. Imo people should take a step back and look at how absurdly quickly we, as a group, have advanced poker theory in the past ~10 years. Imagine that in 2003 a company was given the task of "solving" poker....to have progressed this much would be seen as nothing less than a monumental achievement. To have played a role in that, however small, is something that each one of us should take pride in. While poker might not have much direct application to bettering the world, the process by which we have advanced it surely does. It speaks of the great ability of our species to quickly advance concepts and theories, and it provides a great testament to how technology has(and will) helped us expedite the process.

4. Everyone is different, and I strongly disagree with people who give sweeping generalizations about which career path is "better." The secret is to know and understand yourself, and imo the best way to do this is to work on filtering out your own ego and seeing your personal situation for what it really is. Honestly list and evaluate your goals in your profession- and then ask yourself if achieving those goals through years of strenuous work will provide you true happiness. If not, find another line of work.