Well you are a goddamned fool.

I have had multiple people try to kill me. I have been carjacked at gunpoint, been in high speed chases guns at the losing end, over 140 mph, northstar ftw. Robbed by gangs. Gone off to collect money from felons who had no intention of paying me. Paid in full.

Those things never frustrated me.

Poker will kill you.

Mc Donalds.

looooooooooooooooooool

Well that's not only complete and utter bull**** , but also completely bizarre and irrelevant and you also need to stop furiously jerking off to the wire

Bullsh*t? Time and place.

I'll happily jerk off all over your face.

....... Well I feel confident in saying you're completely full of **** and a strange human being, if by some bizarre chance you are a drug dealer then you're A) an unsuccessful one , b) basically a ****, c) bragging about it on the internet, congratulations on your train wreck of a life

P.S my uncle is the author of Judas Pig

It's something special in terms of stress. What other job features the nearly perfect detachment of results from fundamentally sound practice? What other activity has poker's near supernatural capacity to delude its participants to their own ability relative to others?

People who have matured as players will not experience this to anywhere near the extent of new players. Someone learning the game who has decided on whatever insane impulse to pursue this as a career and who will not accept defeat, can happily expect a pyscho-social experience roughly on par with physical torture.

And they'll be a better man for it.

stress, whether present or not, comes more so from your habits away from the tables, directly or indirectly. Approach poker like a true professional and its really not that stressful. I have experienced black friday, i have lost 17k in a pot, i just had merge yank my rake back and leader boards, you over come these things. no stress bros, 10 years in the game and im still relevant, its a blessing.

If you find poker stressful, then you're not doing life right.

I think a military general, they have to make short term decisions that are not +EV in the battle but will be +EV in the war. such as sending a soldier to fight, Risking your stack trying win chips...

There is no right way to do life ofc. Only competing models.

Poker is stress, pure.

Poker is two opposing wills seeking to own all of the other, capitalism pure.

If by staking your life's recompense on a mechanism of chance you don't experience stress then congrats on being a textbook psychopath.

Aren't you Pablo Escobar though ?

It shouldn't be stressful at all if it's recreational. Unless I guess you're hyper competitive or the money is a substantial amount to you in which case you possibly shouldn't be gambling with it to begin with

I think poker should ONLY be stressful if you're a professional, even then it's mostly just frustrating, I dunno im still running decent so w/e

Great, another thread where some degenarates try to talk up one another about how great they'd be at other things in life if they weren't degenerates.

Here's the truth, you'll all find out what job is comparable within five years after you start running like ****, go bus to, and your mom throws you out of her basement because she's tired of explaining to her friends why her 28 year old loser son still lives at home.

Just wow.

+ 1 . " I've never done a single one of these jobs which are all entirely subjective in terms of stress but I feel qualified to comment " , the stupidity of people amazes me

Yes, because pushing a few chips into the middle of a table is akin to risking your life on a daily basis. Massive facepalm, so much ignorance ITT.

i think its most like an overpaid actor. because outside of your profession your like a little baby, little stupid baby dont know nothin. with little cute balled up fist , ignorant to the world. blowing spit bubbles and fartin in the bathtubs. and getting hungry everytime you seen a big ole pair of buggy bumpers. and when things dont go your way you get flustered and drop a big ole poop in your huggies......... ok im done.

I personally like the day trading comparison for most aspects. Being an independent day trader working from home resembles many aspects of playing for a living.

Besides the obvious of how its similar its also similar in how other people perceive you. For example, when I meet a "day trader" I am immediately skeptical and assume he is either new or barely makes money {you would think a pro poker player would be more open, so imagine what others think}. This is also similar to how people think about someone when they say they are a professional poker player. [hence the dumb "do you actually make money?" or "but how much do you lose" questions.

Pretty much the same thing as a day trader (still talking about society). For example when my friend who day trades tell me about huge bet he made that paid off (for example, 100K on the nikkei last year made him about 500K in 6 months ... but my immediate question is how many of those bets didn't pay off and he is not mentioning to me).

Anyway, I know I digressed because this wasn't about society it was about the job/stress but I think the similarities of how society sees you matters.

Besides the obvious (you work for yourself, manage your own money, and do your own accounting) its actually not that similar.

To be honest, owning a small business is probably way more stressful for anyone who wasn't already successful first.

What I mean by this is MOST small business owners are usually extremely levered (by banks, under the table loans, or borrowing from family members) and if it fails the long term consequences are usually more severe.

If your a cash game player, with your own bankroll, the worst thing that could happen is you lose your entire bankroll, go broke, and get a job.

The worst thing that could happen with a small business is you lose everything, go into massive debt, your family losses everything, your kids don't go to college, and now you can never get a loan again to start a new business.

If your a good player, and use proper BRM, you will never go broke unless an extreme circumstance happens. Many many small business owners go broke due to no fault of their own, just way more variance in business.

Anyone who equates being a professional poker player with being a soldier is obviously neither.

Those might be very close to polar opposites in almost every way.

Well I've never really played poker professionally, but I've played it for years during uni and often considered it a part time job, so my 2c:

I've always liked how little responsibility you have when you play. When you play a hand badly, nothing really bad happens. You lose some money or bust a tournament, but if you play within your bankroll, it's a drop in a bucket. You think about the hand for a while and move on. I guess you have to be responsible enough to not tilt away your br, but I've never had a problem with that and if you do you probably aren't a professional poker player anyway.

When you do something poorly at work it usually comes back to you. I work as a programmer in a small team so when I design something poorly or make a mistake or something, it causes a problem and I'm gonna have to fix it later. The bugs always come back. Also you might get yelled at or fired if it was something important.

I'm not really comparing the two, I'm just talking about one aspect that I don't think many people think about. From this thread I liked the comparison with a salesman working commission.

Easily the best post in the thread.

I thought it was the 2nd worst behind the military posts. His post read like someone who didn't make it as a pro and is bitter.

Also, I wouldn't consider someone who is living with their parents a "professional poker player". Unless your taking out 3-4K a month from your bankroll for life expenses then you truly don't understand the difficulties of being a pro poker player. Being a pro anything is much easier if mommy/daddy are paying for everything.

a hooker with an angry pimp