Self mastery and the never-ending pursuit of it.

Idiotic response trying to twist your comments as well as mine - not even worth arguing about. Good luck.

Yes, if there's sufficient competition. But that doesn't change the fact that greed is rewarded. If there are few pizza stores in your area with minimal threat of competitors opening up, you can raise your prices to a point where your net profit is maximized. Even if there is a ton of competition and prices are forced to be low, it isn't out of good will.

Also, did they remove the ability to multi quote? I swear that was a thing back in the day.

You nailed it with the whole "alternative to success if mainstream success is difficult" idea. Some of us have a hard time with the traditional 9-5 which severely limits our options. I mean asides from trades, bartending, starting a business, etc what the hell else are we supposed to do that is gonna at least give us a shot to live a middle class life in a world where middle class is increasingly out of reach?

However, I think it's important to acknowledge that yes it is indeed a game meant to be played for fun. Not an alternative to a regular job. Some people figured out how to make it an alternative to having a job, but it should never be taken for granted because the people who make decisions such as governments and the poker rooms do not care about them. In fact they have a love hate relationship with them at best (they do help keep games running), and absolutely hate them at worst (taking money out of poker ecosystem, not contributing to society in significantly meaningful ways). So the way I look at it, if you play poker for a living with no other source of income, you are always on borrowed time. You never know when you will be accidentally "fired" due to changes in the poker room, ecosystem or government policy.

All valid points, but living on "borrowed time " is no different re a "regular job", and being fired in never an accident, it is a foreseeable consequence of working/playing in the absence of a binding agreement to the contrary.

Gotta love how you're so defensive about poker, and when someone proves you wrong, then you just discount them. You sir, are a tool.

I dunno about that. If you get fired as a bartender for example, and it's not cause you suck at being a bartender, you can very easily get another bartending job. For other fields, maybe it's less easy to find a comparable job, but you can do so as long as you have the credentials. And if you don't suck at managing money, you're probably not gonna become homeless during the transition period.

For poker, if you can no longer play cause the government makes it illegal, or if you can no longer win because the games got tougher faster than you got better, you're fked. Always good to have a backup plan or another source of income imo. Unless you are really REALLY crushing it (> mid six figures per year).

Agree with this. I'd say, even if prohibition came back and it was impossible to be a bartender, you could transition into something else with a long history of steady employment in customer service.

I might be wrong, but I doubt many employers at all want someone who has been a 2/5 grinder for 10 years. Even if your skills could translate, the employer is unlikely to understand this. He might also worry that you've been spoiled, keeping your own hours, no boss. Or that, as soon as you rebuild your BR, you'll quit. And he'd probably be right. Going back to a normal job would be extremely difficult for me, and I think most.

Getting off topic, but if you are gambling full time, you should be kind of a financial survivalist for these reasons. Buy a cheap place for cash or pay it off asap. Live way below your means with little to no debt, etc.

Enjoy the luxury of controlling your own life. Eat like a king off comps. Travel, especially to good poker destinations. But your house, car and clothes should be modest for your income level. This way, when you can no longer make good money gambling, you will still be able to live comfortably as a pizza delivery guy or substitute teacher or whatever, if you need to.

You really don't want to go from 60-100k down to 30k with no place to live, car payments, cc bills and $150 in the bank. 30k with a paid off house and car isn't so bad.

Not defensive about poker - hell I haven't played in years - he took my words and twisted them slightly to start arguing. Thanks for calling me a tool - like I care what some rando loser on 2p2 has to say.

I think poker players are maybe a little bit paranoid that if poker doesn't work out then all of a sudden their life is over.

Becoming a business man is extremely difficult.

It requires you spotting a gap in the market and putting your money where your mouth is.

Poker is very similar.

Any business man worth there salt would respect a person that was able to make a living on their own initiative.

If the business man isn't able to respect that there's no point in working for them. They will be bust soon.

Steve Jobs wasn't looking for someone who played by the rules.

Being an employee with a crapy degree that everyone else has and collecting a pay cheque every month is easy.

Taking initiative and making a living on your own from something like poker stands out more and commands more respect.

Your life isn't over but it's gonna be very difficult. Picture this scenario.

You graduate with an engineering degree at the age of 22, worked in tech for two years, then at the age of 24 you tell your boss to go fk himself so you can play poker full time.

First year you make $80k. Second year you make $120k. And for the next few years you make between $100-$250k a year. You never quite make mid six figures or more cause you hit a plateau like most poker players. Then the games start drying up due to a combination of economic downturns, advances in RTA that make it more accessible while harder to detect, and better players overall. You make less and less until eventually you can't even make $100k a year in future inflation adjusted dollars. After fifteen years, when you're almost 40, you quit. You are married. You have two kids. Your bills are enormous compared to when you were 24. Your wife isn't happy. You aren't happy cause you're constantly stressed about how you're gonna make money now.

Your old boss is retired. Not that he would be much help anyways cause you told him to go fk himself. You try to have your old tech friends get you jobs. They actually manage to land you a few interviews. But the world has evolved and your skills have eroded to the point where you are less employable than a first year student on a summer internship. You bomb the first interview. Then after lots of studying the second interview you actually do OK technically, but the interviewers are not happy about your fifteen year resume gap. You talk about how you were a hard worker who put in 150 hours of playing a month. You talk about how you studied solvers religiously on top of the 150 hours. You talk about the "transferable" skills. Surely if you can understand solvers you can write good code right? You hope the interviewers would be like Steve Jobs and your years of living life on your terms would command respect. They're not. While they find your story interesting, they go with a more conventional candidate.

The other interviews go similarly. Eventually you are forced to settle for an even more unfulfilling, low paid job.

Pretty pessimistic scenario. Of course, if you work hard and have some natural talent (100% takes both) you can rocket your way to nosebleeds like Mariano. But I like to be realistic. I genuinely see this as an outcome for many full time pros. Not that I'm bashing full time pros. I have a huge amount of respect for anyone who has the balls to go full time pro and actually make a decent amount of money. I'm just saying it's important to zoom out and look at the long term picture. Just cause you made 100k last year and you make 100k this year doesn't mean that it's long term sustainable. As much as I would like to think a businessman would respect someone who grinded poker and lived life on their own terms for years, I think a businessman would only care how much value a candidate could bring to their business. Clicking buttons and working with solvers isn't gonna translate to providing value to their business in their eyes.

Yeah, Max is being extremely optimistic, I think. Youth?

I'm closing in on 50. I look at my friends from HS, college, grad school, friends from my early dead end jobs and my family. It's just all over the map. Some people were bright and hardworking and followed the classic trajectory. College, maybe more school, a great job, a nice house and a family. But other bright hardworkers never got a break. While some lazy dopes found their niche and do well.

Also, lots of successful business men are not like these freethinking innovators. For example, many are just borderline psychopaths who lie, cheat and steal (see any given lineup on HCL). Others are great at networking and schmoozing. Others inherit everything and just tread water. Others are very detail oriented, nuts and bolts people with little imagination, which is why they can focus entirely on the banalities of running a chain of dry cleaners.

I knew a very smart guy who was a lawyer, an MD and made millions off designing software. Yet one of his mottos was "life is a luckocracy."

I've lived around the poverty line for years. I've made over 200k. I was trying just as hard in both cases. Well, really, I was trying much harder when poor. But nothing went my way.

I've never tried to get a job off gambling. But I started a website for fun many years ago and it kind of blew up. Our best year was about 10 million views. It didn't really make money but I thought for sure, some employer would find this impressive. I applied for lots of writing, marketing, advertising and media jobs. I had proven I was able to reach and entertain a large audience with no budget at all. I was good at writing, identifying and recruiting other good writers and guerilla marketing. I applied for scores of jobs. Never even got an interview.

I'd strongly advise anybody who is doing well to lock up the win. Being poor really, really, really sucks. While driving a nicer car or living in a nicer house is really not that big a deal. But if you're doing well at something like gambling or athletics or entertaining that can vanish very quickly without leaving you a path to something else... like I said before, you should be like a survivalist preparing for nuclear war.

Poker feeds off of misery.
Was there any good ambassadors for the game? Are there now? Not seeing many good souls, except maybe Brad Owens. Stay away from Polk my man.
Well, think Polks ok.....just a rich guy with rich guy problems.

it is a good game for the brain because it involves planning, memory, reacting, learning mathematics, constant revision, etc. (assuming you do those things)

it is addictive in the same way that video games are addictive, except in call of duty if you lose the game you arenÂ’t down $10, $20, $50, etc.

because the game depends on financial risk the negatives and positives are more extreme, but thats why lots of people play it.

Everyone wants to be a success in unconventional but convenient ways and poker is just another means to an end for them.

its not good or bad its just a thing people do.

why I quit video games