I think it's a healthy discussion to have, so we should embrace the argument side of it, imo. Take care.

OP, no offense but you sound like a recent convert to some new religion or faith and now think everyone is missing the point who doesn't believe like you do.

I guess some people have no clue what it means to work fulltime at something. One guy said he wants to turn poker into a hobby again after working at it a whole 1100 hours total over two years. Guess what--that already IS a hobby. 50 weeks (if you're lucky enough to get 2 weeks vacation) times 40 hours is 2000 hours a year for a fulltime job. So 1100 hours over 2 years is barely a part time job. Another poster claimed to make unlimited money in 4 hours a week, but was burned out because he had to "think about poker" during the rest of the week. Get real.

For those who say there is more to life than money, that is certainly true in many respects. But in real life, the only people who say that are those whose income level already exceeds the expenses of their basic needs. If you are like the vast majority of working people that struggle to simply pay for rent and to clothe and feed the kids, then money is very important. When you don't have enough money to meet basic expenses, the struggle for money and the stress generated by the potential consequences dominates your life. Sure, Tiger Woods doesn't play the game for money, he wants titles; but the single mom working at Walmart during the day and waiting tables at night so she can feed her kids does it for the money, not the self satisfaction.

I think some people posting here should go read some business books about executive life. The struggle for balance in life sure didn't start with the poker boom. Any successful executive or business owner puts in more like 50-70 hours a week into their profession or business, not 9-5. See how much life balance you get when you leave for work at 6am, get home at 9pm and work weekends to get ready for the upcoming week. See how much time you have to exercise, eat right, and go watch the kids play little league. It's amazing to me that some think that those balance issues are somehow tied to poker, when playing poker for a living allows way more flexibility than most jobs or careers.

Now, if you are one of those people who can't get your ass out the door to do social things, or don't have any other interests, then guess what? Getting a "real job" won't change that. That's a personal characteristic that is independent of the fact that you play poker. You may have some fantasy vision of going to an office and then going out after work with the pals. But in real life, most people work late, then face a soul crushing commute to get home and try and squeeze in a few moments with the family. They won't be available to go out socializing with you. Working 40 hours or more a week is a bit tougher than having 15 hours of class a week at college.

Almost all white collar jobs today revolve around staring at a screen all day long. Just look at the Dilbert cartoons about life in a office cubical. It's true that some people find their passion and pursuit it. But for every one of those, there is probably a hundred who found a job and took it to make a living. But the point is you have a job to make a living, not a LIFE. What kind of life you live is up to you.

For those of you who think that the working world is some magical escape from boredom, repetitiveness and the mundane, sorry to pop that bubble. I got a kick out of the poster who said that having 2 ****ty jobs in one year qualified him to speak to what a grind it is. Right. He wasn't even at either job long enough to really feel what a grind is.

Sorry, didn't mean to rant. But I just feel that some of these posters, particularly those who are young and started with poker and haven't been in the "real world" so to speak, don't appreciate how hard it is to make good money, how much work is involved, and how many personal sacrifices people make to get ahead "out there". Whether anyone decides to play poker for a living for a year, a decade or a lifetime is up to them. But don't be fooled by the grass is greener in the real working world illusion. It's just like all pro athletes want to be rock stars, and all rock stars want to be athletes. It's always greener on the other side.

im in same boat

poker has become a grind
im lazy
i seriously dont eat my first meal til 5pm, then i snack til midnight
i feel like i cant stop running terrible
my wife hates it
im starting to hate it
been pro since 2005 and im thinkin about something else

Great post.

This thread made me make a blog post about playing poker for a living. tl;dr incoming:


This might be pretty rambly, but here goes some random thoughts about poker.

I started to play full-time, officially, 17 months ago. Before that I played for 2-3 years, going from hobby to taking more and more time in my day. I can safely say playing for a living has been the toughest and most challenging thing I’ve done… but, also, the most enriching one.

A lot of people have amibitions to eventually play for a living and get free of their 9-5 job and basically do what they want to do, whenever they want to. That’s probably the easiest part of it all and I think that is where a lot of people eventually fail on. Going into it, very few people understand the emotional and physical toll it can take on them over a long period of time. At first it’s all fun and games and to me that was definitely the easiest period. I was just waking up to play some games and make some easy money, and for the most part it was. Then it becomes more of a job, something that is a part of your daily life and really nothing too exciting. The emotional rollercoasters it brings you on will do one of two things: destroy you or make you much stronger.

Over time, I’ve discovered a lot about myself because of poker. First, there’s definitely been an evolution in the way I view money. Quick disclaimer: money is nice but it’s probably the last thing you need to be happy. When I was “busto” all I could think about is eventually having loads of money, making 10k in a month, having 100k to my name, buying a nice car, etc.. I got all of those before I figured out that having a lot of money (relatively to before) doesn’t change much and can actually be a crutch you use to either fill in gaps or holes in your life by buying new toys or a crutch to escape the fact that your life isn’t exactly how you want it to be (not the case here but just an example).

Secondly, playing poker for a living is very very tough emotionally. It has been the biggest challenge I have ever taken. It will stretch you out in ways you never experienced before. There’s a constant battle between your emotions, your brain and the game itself. There’s a lot of thoughts about money, losing (mostly) and a very brief moment spent on times where you win. Eventually, there’s a good possibility your daily/monthly results end up defining how you feel and how much you value things around you and how good you feel about yourself. There’s variance, emotional stressors, bad days, good days, breaking even, periods where you can’t imagine winning again, doubting yourself, doubting your career choice, etc, etc.. There’s a lot of terrible things associated with playing for living. It’s not for everyone and the way you handle it will greatly affect the outcome of your career choice. It will make you or break you at the core.

Thirdly, trying to balance the robotic emotionless mindset you need to have to play poker with actually being a healthy and happy human being is also very difficult. After 10 yrs of doing graphic design and 4 yrs of playing poker, I was really out of shape. My back was starting to be messed up from bad posture and the gym already claimed my right arm in the first session i had (sprained rotator cuff). It’s hard to focus on yourself when your main goal is pay bills, make money and improve so you can make more money. This narrow mindset is easy to have when all you think about it on a daily basis has something related to a dollar sign. It’s hard to eat well and not skip lunches sometimes when you have some good games going. It’s hard to eat well when you’re so pissed off or stressed out your stomach hurts. It’s hard to want to go out with your gf when you feel so annoyed at the day you just had. None of these are easy to deal with if you weren’t prepared for it before.

Fourth, and I think this is where most people fail hard. Playing poker for a living means WORKING HARD. If you think you can just play poker and wing it, forget it. If you don’t work on your game constantly and with gusto, your opponents are. There’s no easy money in the game anymore and whoever works the hardest will win all the gold in the end. Most poker players seem to have this mindset that because they’ve won before they’ll win again and consistently. No such thing. There’s not even a special skill associated with playing poker well, to me it’s 80% hard work, 19% emotional balance and 1% having a brain to work with.

I could probably list more challenges associated with poker and especially playing for a living. To a random observer it would seem that it would be a very poor choice of career for most people. And that person would be right. It’s a terrible choice for a lot of people, yet a lot of people take the plunge and I would bet that most of them are not ready for what it entails. It’s a pretty alluring job, to play cards and make a bunch of money, but for most people it won’t be the case.

So all that being said, am I happy I chose to do what I do? Absolutely. Why? Because it made me a much better person to myself and others.

Having money made me realize it’s not that important and decided to focus more on my relationships and also sharing with others whenever I can.

The emotional downhills of poker made me work on my spirituality and emotions more. It took me about a year before I realized that the way I was feeling in my mind and how I approached life in general was not only going to be beneficial to my poker game but also everything in life now, and in the future. I owe that to poker because without the tilting sessions, the long breakeven periods, the sheer frustration towards poker and how powerless I was trying to control it, the constant thinking about money and stress associated with the game, well, then I would have never seeked to better myself in those areas. I would have never been challenged to.

Poker also brought a much better balance to my lifestyle, once again realizing money isn’t everything in life and that my health, relationships with others and my overall emotional happiness are a lot more important. Without the game and the challenges it brings, I would have never been strong enough to deal with negative events the way I do now in a positive way. I probably wouldn’t appreciate what I have as much as I do now and I would likely always fight against things I cannot control instead of accepting them and turning them into constructive events.

Finally, the hard work I have put into poker has made me proud of having achieved the ability to make a living off of it. It has allowed me to pay for a nice wedding for me and Elaine and hopefully buy a house because of it. It felt easy at first because I hadn’t been challenged yet, but over time I realized that I had never worked so hard at something for so long. Even when I did design work I barely worked on new techniques because I relied entirely on my talent. With poker, there’s no free meals and if you don’t work harder than your opponents, you will lose. In a way, the game showed me that hard work does pay off and that is something I can apply to all aspects of life.

So, in closing to this long post most people won’t read, a little tl;dr: Poker is really hard and will pose a lot of challenges to anyone who chooses to do it. Not many people can do it but it’s important to be aware that it can be a very positive thing to you and your life, as long as you don’t expect it to be easy and that you can approach seemingly negative things in a constructive fashion and turn it into a positive. For some it will be a very frustrating experience, but that is a choice and not a given. In the end, the effort someone puts into it, emotionally and physically, will heavily determine the outcome of choosing poker as a career.

Game select better?

Agree, and thats why I mainly played online and played less and less live as my poker career went on.

Live is just brutal. Everyone which sucks about online x100 basically. Terrible hours. Lots of false friendships with people trying to take your money. Bad hygine in live games.

Obviously to log any sort of resonable volume live involves basically just sitting in a casino all day and eating terrible casino food. Some people like to think they are the life of the party in live game, but in truth being sat at a poker table in a casino for hour after hour gets real old real fast.

Really great post.


Very impressed that you managed to articulate the reasons why playing poker is hard. Its physcological.

Great post

get this **** out of here, you are a shill to anti-gambling or you're trolling. thank you for determining that someone itt is capable of impressing you with their understanding of stuff. you have offered nothing of substance so far.

All great posts guys. As someone who is an executive with a Fortune 500 company (brag #1), I play recreationally. I have a great job which I actually enjoy and it pays pretty well too (brag #2).

I play poker because I enjoy it. As far as I am concerned I will continue to play poker even if I was a break-even player. That fact that poker is a nice distraction from my job and I actually make a small return on it (brag #3) is all I can ask for.

For most of us, playing poker for a living is unfathomable for a variety of reasons: the money we make in our jobs, the security it provides, family and many, many others.

I mean... it should go without saying but you really need to have been on both sides of the fence to understand OP.

Its no surprise people who haven't seen that kind of money would have their opinions, and its no surprise to me that OP has his opinion... 4 years ago I would have said "Christ, quit being such a little bitch OP" now I say "good for you, you can't put a price on peace of mind". Before poker I worked at a sawmill turning trees into flooring for 50ish hrs a week.

Its a cruel irony that the best way to understand that money isn't important (beyond comfort, obv I would never say I'd rather quit poker and live on the street than play) is to make piles of it.

Why are ppl still posting when we all know op did not make 500k

I geuss even though its super obv that OP is full of it, there is some quality posts by other 2+2ers that have saved this thread beyond belief.

@StakeMonster, hats off sir, You jumped in a puddle of **** and came out smelling like roses
This thread could actually have potential with more posts like yours.

Hehe ok . I dont really see why its thats hard to believe but OK.

Whether you believe me or not is irrelevent to the point of this thread though.

Why are you posting if you have nothing to add to the discussion?

Take a break, then give yourself working hours and stick to them. Set yourself goals to keep yourself interested. When you're done, leave it behind and enjoy the rest of your day. Sort your life out, dude, you can't blame poker.

Because it's something that you could easily prove by posting your SN or even a graph. But yet, you haven't and I'm pretty sure you won't. And it's because you didn't make nearly the amount you claimed you did if any at all obviously.

Why would I lie? I have left this poker world behind. I gain nothing from saying I made more than I have.

You are a ****ing idiot and have never worked with the general public. The vast majority of your interaction with the public is negative and, in the case of say McDonalds, would involve some idiot complaining there wasn't enough mustard on his burger and being incredibly rude to you over it while completely disregarding the fact that you aren't even the person that makes the sandwiches.

After rereading my long post about how hard it is to make a living on the "outside" I realized I didn't actually put my bottom line thoughts:

-making a good living at poker is hard; but so is making a good living on the outside

-playing poker fulltime can throw your life out of balance if you let it; same on the outside

-there are financial ups and downs playing poker for a living, and that produces stress; same when you own a business--do you think you make money every single day or control all the external factors that affect your revenue?

-sometimes playing poker for a living gets depressing; same as any job on the outside;

-in other words, the real point from this thread is that doing anything for a living is tough and has its downsides and its rewards. There is nothing inherently negative about playing poker for a living that doesn't apply to any job or career field in the outside world as well. People often talk about security on the outside, but look at how many new business fail within 5 years, and how many people are laid off now. It is all about risk and reward. Those who carry the greatest risk of failure are those that can gain the largest rewards. That's why entrepreneurs get the richest versus the people who work for them. They take the risk of failure.

-so if you want to play poker for a living, go for it. Just do it with your eyes wide open. If you really enjoy it, you won't mind that it's hard. If you quit because it's hard, then good luck finding a career that's easy.

One factor that has not been mentioned in the thread, 'is there a long term future in playing for a living'?
Its becoming doubtfull Id say, unless you have the ability to make substantial amounts of money in the next few years.

Theres no 'easy ride' in life, it doesnt matter which career path you choose to take! Most successful people hate certain aspects of their 'job'.

Making money though is unfortunately an neccessary evil, unless your born with a silver spoon in your mouth.
And its most important that you choose a career that suits your personality, and is likely to give you some job satisfaction.

OP, I wish you good luck in what you do, try to be realistic, & be sure its what you want to do before jumping in, try to think 20-30 yrs.

Very true, the long term aspect is another big reason behind me quitting

Will you still play 4 fun sumtimes?...

Some great posts ITT.

I don't get why people view this in such binary terms, i.e. play poker professionally OR work a job. Why not do both and/or set up your own business / income streams? Trick for me to a happy, healthy life is having multiple income streams and minimising dependence on any one.

I haven't played a ton, maybe 1m hands lifetime, but 20+ buy in downswings have affected me in very negative ways in the past because I was relying on poker for a living at the time. It now seems crazy to me to put all your eggs in one basket when you have no control over your actual winnings unless massively rolled.

Also setting up your own businesses rocks.