Poker is just a really stupid career choice if you’re intelligent and driven enough to crush it. The would be crushers are making fat six-fig salaries working for Fortune 500 companies. Meanwhile the poker players are broke, still grinding in their 40s/50s, and look like they are 60/70. Why on earth would they ever want to play poker for a living rofl.

There’s more people than you think ‘making fat 6 fig salaries’ at poker. Not even that rare to be clearing 7 figures if you’re playing 25-50+. What if you thoroughly enjoy being your own boss and working at your own pace? What if you like taking weeks or months off? Everything isn’t black and white. Some people would rather make 100k working on their own ham 300k working for someone else. You come off very condescending

I don't know why everyone always says this like it's obvious.

> introverted poker player running sims all day (eg. Linus)
> extroverted corporate high ranking fat cat

If Linus didn't get into poker he would probably be a code monkey or smth, not a CTO, certainly not in his 20s.

I generally agree with the rest of the post though.

"You gotta throw your hand away when you know you’re beat. It doesn’t matter how good you are, everything can change when those cards are near. We don’t stop playing because we get old, we get old because we stop playing. That’s poker, folks."

No offense but you sound so out of touch with reality. Like what % of players ever play a single hand at 25/50+ lol? Clearing 7 figs? For how many years? Poker looks so much more attractive when you only consider the short term and aren't planning for the future. I'll just take the yearly 300k and the flexible schedule because I have marketable skills in a high demand industry. Add in the 401k, consistent earnings, career longevity, and opportunities for upward mobility and it actually is kind of black and white. Poker players have a small window of time to make a lot of money and it's rare for a player to have a long, consistently successful career. Nothing sadder than seeing a washed up/burnt out poker player with no outs or exit strategies.

What you write is true, but poker is not like being a serious athlete, playing a musical instrument, or researching physics in that if pursued with the all consuming passion necessary to do such things well it becomes boring as hell because it is insufficiently rich in and of itself to justify dedicating so much time and energy to it. Someone can be happy studying condensed matter physics or playing the clarinet because there is much reward from the activity itself. Playing poker has no such reward. It's not that difficult, it's not that interesing and it has no corollary benefits like, say, performing music does, or educating students. It requires hanging out with degenerates or hiding behind a computer.

Also bots.

The ecology is completely different to 10(even6-7) years ago. In 2010 you could move through the stakes pretty fluidly, a good 2/4-3/6 bankroll plus a little heater you could shoot it up a bit at some soft 10/20, if it goes well your note happily rolled for 5/10 and a chance for a little 25/50 shot, it goes badly - no problems back to 2/4-3/6 for a little while grind it up and go again.

Totally different these days, because there's far far less action at the highest stakes there's way less inventive to shoot up, turning a 5/10 + soft 10/20 BR into a 2/4-3/6 BR is a bit of a disaster. So people don't move up any where near as aggressively, the result is guys who's relative skill level in 2010 would be playing 25/50 and looking to go higher, are today sat happily grinding 5/10, guys who'd be playing 5/10 are playing 2/4 and so on. It's much harder and the upside is much smaller than it was to fire up stakes, hence why it's not seen much

401ks are a scam. I thought that was obvious.

becarful with that, I thought not having insurance would hurt me for my jobs background check. I figured it would look bad if I didn't comply rules. So I bought the silly healthcare that I didn't need when I was 23-24 years old, picked the cheapest policy, paid like 10-15 bucks. Well government paid the rest, and guess what happened when I got that job. I get rid of the "free" healthcare and next thing you know that premium the government was paying, well I owed taxes that year when I switched to my employers health insurance.

Depends, an employer who matches your contribution, I don't see how that is -ev in life. It's free money with the potential for a return in profit just being passive. Factoring in different taxes depending on the account and you make more than their match if it's tax free.

Obviously depends what happens with the market in the future. but I forget who said it the most wealth was made in the stock market. So can't be too much of a scam.

my mom always told me I was gifted.....

Always a good idea to tie up assets in the expectations of future tax breaks.

Don't let go of the dream

Don’t tell these guys the truth of their situation D, they get so butthurt

This is true too except not completely, introverts can lead eg Gates. There are 4 categories of introversion and some are capable of being well connected and articulating their thoughts well

-Playing 25/50
-Taking months off
-7 figures hahahaha

good luck man.

The best way to maximize success in poker is to just look at Doug Polk. He is entertaining and charismatic but also smart enough to beat most players. You need both to make the most money.

This guy is going to make like 2-3 mil off Dnegs and then twice that on his side bets. Not bad for 4 months work.

instant 22% or 24% tax break, gains at ~7%/year on average, and you have the ability to manipulate your income in retirement.

seems pretty good to me. you going to let us know what the superior alternative is or just continue to spout nonsense?

Just yolo your funds into alt-coins and shungite obviously.

lol. Yeah man, just casually crushing 25/50 from a laptop on the deck of the Thirst Lounge yacht in between sessions of banging hookers and vacuuming up blow. Its not that hard really.

USSR.

Is the tho? He just seems like a douche for the last 10 years. I guess that entertaining to peasants.....

There's no money in poker anymore, everyone's solid.

It's like showing up for the Gold Rush 15 years too late.