I never said a person shouldn't consider the balance of money enjoyment and time. In fact that's exactly what I was implying to.

Time is one of the most valuable things a person can have imo especially if you have a family.

60+ hrs/wk (job + poker) vs 40 hrs/wk for roughly the same pay doing a less enjoyable job. its a no brainer to me.

If you enjoy the 20h playing poker then clearly ...

well, if u live in Thailand, poker can still pay pretty well due to low cost of living. but if u live in western Europe, its pretty difficult to "make it" in 2016 compared to 2011

It will but 5 years ago the bellagio woukd have had at least 4-5 nl games bigger than 5-10

Not NL, limit only yesterday, so sad. We did however get a 10/25 going at the Wynn late last night.

Sad to hear of the lack of action in Vegas atm.

What casino(s) are best to play Slots in Topdollar? Just wherever you get the best perks?

Vegas slots died about 5 years ago.They increased the hold significantly at many properties & have lost virtually all their players. Overall I would say Ceasers Group are the best to play overall.

You totally missed his point

Online poker will get good again guys, just you wait.

It's certainly still worth splashing around in online poker, even if just occasionally, so that you keep your game sharp and are ready to take advantage once things get more sustainable.

What makes you think another boom is destined to happe? it really is government legislature that needs to change to reverse the ill effects.

It's never going to happen. The people with the influence and interest to make it happen are the exact same people that would **** it up.

A long series of very specific things would need to be put in place that would just never fly. What poker players want does not equal what politicians and poker sites want to offer. They are too greedy, there is too much money waiting to be skimmed off the top.

Not really. This fork in the discussion was started by:

Which is basically a good point. We wouldn't say "There's no reason to take golf, chess, football, computer games seriously because you can't make enough money at them." and the fact that the others cost money whereas poker if taken seriously as a hobby can have a cost below zero is relevant.

However this led to a lot of discussion on whether the top 0.1% of computer game players make more money than the top 0.1% of poker players - to which I pointed out:

After which Siculamente wrote (either in reply to me or Royal Rumble)

Apart from the rhetorical "main reason", i mostly object to his second sentence. Generally the cost of doing things matters, better jobs are sometimes hard to come by, and the whole 20th century philosophy of earn as much money as possible through the week/year doing a stressful job you don't want to do, and spend as much money as possible on compensating yourself through the weekend and 2 week holiday, because you've earned it, is a bad way to live.

and later

"60+ hrs/wk (job + poker) vs 40 hrs/wk for roughly the same pay doing a less enjoyable job. its a no brainer to me."

Which only makes sense if the poker is a part time job, rather than a hobby, and you are comparing 40 hours of unpleasant work vs 60 hours of more pleasant work.

...better jobs are sometimes hard to come by...

This is the go to excuse for poker players. "I only have two choices. Play poker or pump gas" really, it's pathetic.

...philosophy of earn as much money as possible through the week/year doing a stressful job you...

You are the only person who went on a philosophy tangent.

life isn't perfect. It's full of compromises and tough choices, each having their own pros and cons. Most people choose somewhere inbetween what they like doing and what pays the most.

If somebody has a job they really like but is poor and ends up stressed out irl because of it, and one their main concerns as to choose a hobby or not is how profitable it is- yeah id say that person is doing something wrong / making life more complicated than it has to be (but at least they have a job they like!)

....

And tell me, how many new players out there are playing a few hours a week online and making decent profits? Close to zero. Don't be ignorant. They are the fish. I think a good guess is they would have to put in somewhere around 20 hours a week and treat it as a part time job in order to actually get anywhere.

Your argument falls apart.

Lektor and his usual BS



Notice how no one else pulled him up on it? Large %'s of these "pros" are welfare thieves and tax dodgers. Goes with the territory and is considered pretty normal tactic "to build your roll / move up and most never quit doing it .

It varies by the person obviously but your situation of being able to just "get a better job ffs" as a solution to having to consider money in free time is hardly standard, even in America.

Again you seem to be talking about poker as a job rather than a hobby.

You're talking about an edge case though if the person is stressing about money - George Orwell makes your argument very well over hundreds of pages in Keep the Aspidistra Flying, about a man who gives up his job writing advertising copy to become an impoverished poet, and spends his time worrying about money and finds he can't write - obviously more conventional employment was better for him. People who are not stressed shouldn't take your advice though

I was a computer programmer in financial markets until I went to Eastern Europe to teach English as a foreign language. I don't stress about money but of course I don't have the same choice of hobbies I had before. The fact that you can make the occasional withdrawal when you play poker is an extremely positive benefit compared to e.g. chess.

What are "decent profits" but still less than part-time earnings then? I don't play anything like 20 hours per week fwiw.

Nobody restricted it to online. When I started I read the stuff on the pokerbank.com and then Kill Everyone and I could beat the local nightly tournament which is played for hobby stakes, even by local standards.

That doesn't mean I was actually good - I remember one time I raised pre-flop with KJo and it was K high, and I bet pot 3 streets and got called by K2 - and I remember thinking "yes, it's right what they say about K rag being dominated a K like mine with the strong, broadway kicker" - it just means I was good enough to beat other people who were also at the casino playing for hobby stakes after work.

Most of the 100 million people in the world who play poker (or chess) don't do it seriously and if you study a little bit you can beat most of them - (in the case of poker) not by enough to make a living, but for something, because most of them quite sensibly aren't playing with enough on the table for you to make a living off them.

I believe that government legislature will change to help all the poker players out there.

The more games they can spread, the more money they can make. Hopefully they will see sense eventually.

this.

I like to comment on this.


How many regs from 2008 that are winning players even playing in 2016? I played in the mid 2000s but didn't play full time until late 2009 till early 2011 until BF hit. I was then able to play a while after BF when i relocated. The games on stars are so tough. Either that... or i gotten a lot worst. But i know i played a similar style compared to BF so that was probably why.


I still play now but games are so tough. I play mostly 180 mans and mtt. I recalled back then pre BF... lot of ppl made money playing 200nl though i was never a cash game player. I recalled winrates were so high especially back in the mid 2000s where i didn't really play much at the time.


I'm curious how many players there are making say $50000 a year nowadays? I recalled haralabob mentioned he use to play high stakes 50-100 and 100-200nl and up on full tilt and he is a sportsbettor. Mentioned how he probably couldn't even bet 100nl now. Though i dont think he even played that low back then. I think he just played high stakes because he had a ton of money to not bother with lower stakes.


I mean how many players from back then in the pre BF days are even winning much now? Did majority of those players quit? I dont even see much regs that i played with back then on stars anymore it seems.


The other thing is its pretty amazing how even low stakes like 25nl or 50nl is tougher than maybe 200nl from back in 2008? It surely would be tougher than a live 2-5nl game. And when you hear winrates being so low... i mean... i can't imagine thinking from back that something like 2-5 zoom poker would be very hard.


I mean is it even possible to make 50k a year playing 100nl now? I dont play cash but i recalled that was pretty easily done for players back in 2009 when you factored everything.

I made this thread

54/poker-beats-brags-variance/poker-dead-1082589/

back in late 2011.

At that time, I was extremely depressed. Some of the things I said in that post were probably exaggerations, and at the same time some of the things I said were closer to reality than I realized until now.

I'm more convinced than ever that quitting poker was right for me, and I think that it applies now more than ever to the vast majority of people still grinding away hoping their hard work will pay off one day. It likely won't.

Since quitting poker I've devoted my time and energy to a trade, and I made $140k before taxes last year. Not a huge sum by any stretch, and not anywhere near the amount of money I always expected to eventually make at poker, but never did, but enough to not worry about money so much. It's a different kind of money too. I feel like it's mine. Like it belongs to me. I don't feel like I stole it or worry if I got lucky. It's steady and enough.

My life is profoundly better since I quit in so many other ways as well. I went on a long wanted trip to Europe last fall. I met my soon to be fiance there. I am no longer stressed about money and bbs and buyins. No more endless scams and con artists and worrying about getting my bankroll off shady sites. No more relying on exploiting people with gambling addictions to put money on my tabe.

I work 40 hours a week. More if I want to for double time but that's rare. My mental health is better. I still hate my job some of the time and i absolutely despise the shift work i do, but I don't hate my life all the time like when I played poker.

If you're just getting into this now and you even have amorphous feelings of one-day greatness, get out now and don't look back. It's not going to happen. To all the grinders actually making honest money, well, no advice one way or the other.

Poker is so ironic in the sense that so many people have to work so hard to make such an easy living.

tl;dr I haven't played more than 1000 hands in the last 5 years and am happier than ever

i have only one thing to say to everyone who thinks you cant make decent money in poker these days.

You just dont work hard enough. Tons to be made. really. But you have to really want it. And make all the sacrifices. Its not easy money. But its possible for sure.

^^that right there. drop mic, end of conversation

+1. Ideally, poker should be used as an additional source of income IMO. Poker being a sole source of income is scary. Pursue a career outside of poker and use poker as the icing.

good post. its brutally honest and realistic.

i dont have any numbers/ facts- but i'd say the number of "poker pros" who make more than idk 60k/yr is tiny. astronomically tiny. like trumps penis tiny. which means they're living like a person making 30k at a real job. not a great life imo

i prefer my opponents to not take the game so seriously