Hey guys.I am just a new guy playing currently at the lowest stakes but i really like poker and want to go pro and play seriously.The problem is family and the fact that i can get a '' steady job'' if i can just finish with my university studies which i rly don't care for.If you've been in my spot i'd love some advice!

Do not "go pro". This is a terrible idea.

Stay in school and get a real job. Your family are right, you are an idiot.

This.

Just play part-time and see if you have what it takes to move up in stakes first.

Juk

pick up a few shifts as a dishwasher and use your first couple paychecks to fund your bankroll, never look back from there

You are an idiot if you wanna go pro in 2018. So go for it Dude!!!!!!!

Pretty standard spot to be in. Most people perceive poker as gambling, which in the short term is true, nobody wants their child to be a gambler.

My advice, keep it recreational. It's difficult to explain but Poker is a game where it's best approached from a spot where it neither matters to you whether you win or lose whilst still maintaining maximum commitment to putting on the best performance possible. You need to ensure that you continue to learn and develop, during and between every session. Once you muddy the waters by introducing the requirement to win in order to make money for things that you need, you begin to increase the difficulty. The game is hard enough in itself without increasing the difficulty.

Get the job as your family are suggesting. Two incomes are better than one. An inconsistent income isn't going to be any good for you without a large sum of money in the bank to fall back on. Poker is TOUGH. Look at Pro's doing their bankroll challenges. Even they are struggling to turn $50 to $10,000.


If you want some REAL advice, go and get yourself another bank account open, transfer £50 a week into it from your job and treat that as your poker bankroll, returning all winnings to that account. Get into good habits early.


In b4 mods move this to the coaching advice forum

generalized idiotism. stick to this if you wanna be like this

No guts no glory

Study hard, play within your bankroll, get coaching

I'd keep playing part time while having a normal job until your part time poker income becomes so great and over a big enough sample that it makes no sense to have a normal job. I was in the same position and became pro. Keep good logs of time put in and session by session wins/losses to figure out your real profit per hour. I kept working at mcdonalds and equivalent around 10-20 hours a week while in school while putting in like 20+ hours a week for poker. I eventually started making about $20+/hr at poker over a year sample or so and gave up my mcdonalds job to put more time into poker. Don't skip your schoolwork for poker though, you'll have to sacrifice your social life. Failing out of school would be massively worse long-term. Vast majority of people attempting to make a living at poker won't succeed long term or at least just burn out and hate it, so fallback options are ideal. I eventually graduated and never got a job because I was making over $100/hr at poker so it made no sense. This was also back in the day when poker was easier though. I'm not sure how doable it is in today's age. Having the fall-back option of getting a real job because of my university degree made attempting to play poker full time less stressful. My family was more open to me being a pro when I showed them the detailed logs I had and the 50k in my bank account (not from one big score), on top of my good grades in college and part time job I had. Had I approached them when I was up $500 and said I want to quit university and quit my part time job and focus on poker, they would have said the same thing your parents are saying. There's a vast difference between a wannabe pro and an actual pro that even my religious family who is anti-gambling could see. You basically have to prove to them through long-term results that it's not just gambling, while also maintaining the "backup" plan called going to university and getting a normal job. Poker may seem like an easy way out of the university grind, but long-term it's 10x harder to survive as a poker pro than as a normal person.

Please go pro.

You will likely lose but the poker economy needs new fish. Win-win.

In street racing, there are cars called sleepers. These are cars that look like crap and seem like they will fall apart at any moment. But under the hood, they are beasts that can keep up with many shiny super cars. The sleepers get underestimated and often smoke their competition in a race.

Try becoming a sleeper poker player. Study, learn, play, and study some more. Get the engine in your head beefed up while maintaining a normal job that pays well. All outside appearances indicate a responsible recreational player with a stable job (which you will be). Opponents will view you as someone who can be reraised off a hand easily and doesn’t understand advanced concepts (which you won’t be). When you sit at the table, you destroy your opponents who underestimated you. Do that. It takes time to study and practice to get there, but you’ll be working a normal job, maintaining a stable income, moving up the ladder in whatever job you take, and satisfying your parents’ wants at the same time as honing your poker skills.

i just wish people that make threads like this will take advice that is itt, more likely hey do what they want to do which is gamble ofc and not study or go to university or work. i am guessing around 80% of this is just them telling their story/current state of mind to a large audience and getting attention rather then genuinly asking for advice and willing to go through with it.

If your broke, but living with parents so cost of living is small/coming from a very poor country where with thousand bucks you can literally go 3 months and/ or you are also very antisocial (dont want a "real" job with lots of people involved),give it a try.


otherwise its just silly. The great days were like 10 year+ ago where literally almost any idiot could manage to earn 1-2k usd every month without learning much.

Put that time into learning a computer language which has way more EV right now. You can work from home too.

OP should read the thread below before making this decision.

https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/1...hlight=6bet+me

dont put in a lot of time with poker if u expect it to be easy. having a job when u start playing would help a lot when u hit ur first big downswing but playing poker professionally gets a lot of undeserved hate. poker has given me a much better life than i would have without it

GTFO

this obv.

The only realistic solution here is to prostitute yourself out to pay for poker.

I don't think anyone on this site can honestly say they haven't done this at least once in their poker career.

"the fact that i can get a '' steady job'' if i can just finish with my university studies which i rly don't care for."

I'll first assume this post was serious.

Secondly, I'm not sure I understand the above statement I quoted from your post. Is it that you dont care for the steady, 9 to 5 routine, or is it that you dont want to get a job in your field of study? Or a combination of both?

I can save you a lot of wasted time and anguish by saying do something for a living which you enjoy. If you dont enjoy the whole 9-5 office routine, dont do it. If you have grown tired of your field of study, dont get a job doing it.

You're going to spend roughly the next 40 years of your life being employed. Dont spend/waste that time being miserable. Find something you enjoy doing. Dont be afraid to fail. Dont be afraid to try different things. Now is the time for that when you are young.

All that being said, spending 5-10 hours a day at a poker table isnt all it's cracked up to be. Most of the time nobody at your table is talking and if they are, there is a chance someone at your table will be a complete jerk. Sure you can always move to another casino or table, but you'll face the same thing all over again.

Secondly, I dont care how much you love poker, it will get boring/frustrating. You have to learn how to handle tilt in a short period of time and how to handle the monotonous boredom that will eventually set in.

The biggest advantage to playing poker full time is making your own schedule along with being located wherever you want. Hell, you could use this as an opportunity to travel and play poker as you go to hopefully pay for it. For most, the being in charge of ones own time far outweighs the negatives of paying poker full time.

My suggestion would be if this is something you really want to do, try it full time for 2 months. Play 40 hours a week for that time period and see if you still enjoy playing. Plus on the upside that would probably be more acceptable to your parents if you just tell them you are giving it a trial run to see if it is something you want to do full time.

gambling for fun is a lot more fun then gambling for living..you will realise this very soon, so just gamble for fun, and i dont agree with above poster, if 9-5 pays the bills and you dont absolutely hate it, do it, its a good deal, then you can gamble for fun with your money and generally be independent, being free and trying things out and whatever is all good but you may find yourself broke and with no prospects, think about working towards making 100k per year by the time ou are 40 yo, so you can retire at 50 if you decide so.

If you become a poker pro how will you ever convince a bank to give you a mortgage when you want to buy a home with your wife and kids?

How will you get a pension when you retire?

How will you make money if you ever get sick?

What will you tell an employer that you were doing in 10 years time if you ever decide to go back into the job market?

Going pro is a bad idea unfortunately.

I blame this mentality on all the scam training sites out there that are taking peoples money under the false promise of making easy money.

If you're serious about this and want their approval then you could do a lot worse than educate your family on the career of Dan Bilzerian.
He started with nothing and through hard work,hard study and determination ground his way up to smashing the biggest games in the world.
Now he sells pot.

Take my advice seriously.
I've been an online pro since the golden days in 2003 and highly advise against going pro. You eventually do not like the game as much. Very few can play for decades and decades.
I also have a masters in electrical engineering and I am in the process of transitioning out of the poker world but have found it quite difficult explaining huge unemployment gaps and trying to convince employers I'd be a good fit since I've been out of school so long. Poker will never be what it once was and you will struggle to profit as much as you'd make in another job that requires a degree

Switch your major to something more interesting to you and/or related to poker.

I was in a similar spot to you but i'd finished my degree so I had a fall back plan but more importantly it was 2007 and super easy to make it as a pro compared to 2018 (i'm immeasurably better at poker now than I was then, but my equity in 2007/2008 was maybe 60k a year and it would be maybe 30k a year now playing full time despite the fact current me would be one of the best players in the world circa 2007 but i'm probably not good enough to play full time anymore). I stopped playing full time in 2015 because the poker economy is really tough these days unless you're really one of the best.

Finish the degree, or if you hate what you're studying switch to something you don't hate that also has real world employment prospects.

Track your hourly rate over a decent sample if it's enough for you to live comfortably off after a year or two sure try playing professionally - but for the time being stick to the back up plan of finishing your degree and/or working.

It won't be a difficult decision to turn pro if you're truly ready and your hourly rate is high enough with a real sample size, you'll know that you're going to make it, you won't be unsure, if you're unsure it means you're not ready - I was unsure when I did it, and in hindsight I wasn't ready, but it worked out for me because again it was 2007 not 2018 and the poker economy was a totally different place where anyone not terrible could make 50k+ a year equity, these days you have to be a very good player to do that and study regularly etc.

If your passion truly is poker and nothing else will make you happy get a job as a poker dealer/pub poker TD or similar and do that as your main job while playing part time until your results say you're ready to turn pro if that ever happens.

If you are good enough to turn pro then you will still be good enough after you earn your degree. At least then when you fail horribly you'll have something to fall back on.