I started a thread in 2008 asking advice on whether to go pro or not, most (probably correctly, given all they knew about me) advised me not to do it.
Well I did (not straight away though), and so far it feels like the best decision I ever made. It's a lot different than I thought it would be, obviously the swings are harder to deal with than I imagined and it was initially much much harder to live an active lifestyle than I anticipated. I guess I pictured myself just doing whatever the **** I wanted whenever I wanted, but I quickly realised that would lead to me spending all my time smoking weed or in my room and I'd become pretty depressed.
Still, every time I accidentally wake up before 8am I think about how sick it would be to have to get up and I fall asleep a very, very happy man. I've also managed to find a few hobbies and social circles that I can access almost anytime so if I'm ever sick of poker I don't stay sad long because I just do other things that I really enjoy.
I'm sure there will be problems down the road - my current friends (mostly university students) will become less accessible to me, job security might go down (black friday effects etc) and so on. Given that poker is tax free and I can realistically expect to clear 200k+ in the bank each year (after spending, at least in the current poker climate) I'm perfectly happy with my situation though. Probably very naive but I figure if **** gets real bad I'll just become an entrepreneur with the money I've saved up
I mean basically it just depends on the person. Some people need forced structure, others don't. There are many many other factors. For me the money (much more than I could make after graduation), freedom and the fact that I'm enjoying life without a job/structure make it a no-brainer. I've only been playing professionally for around 1.5 years though, so I guess we'll see how I feel in a few more years
Last edited by SoLost; 07-21-2011 at 08:38 PM.