They wouldn't.

I mean Im open sitting right now HS NLHU, HS HUPLO, HS HUCAPNL, HS HYPER SNG, and I'm in the "this industry is doomed, scale out asap" camp.

i feel like you guys have had it good for too long in the sense that you dont know what its like working for *********** . im watching people getting mba's from decent schools making 80k ( and thats a **** ton of money to most people) a year and having to bust ass for it. maybe if you get into coding theres money but really your looking at around 100k a year ( after learning a new trade for 3-5 years) . the poker booms over but so is the economic boom for everyone else also ( for now). idk what you all got going on for yourselves im just saying why someone would want to get into poker now. i just started playing and its way better than my other options by far , i mean its not even close.

Lol you dodging regs and hoping for a fish? I'm sure Dong Kim would play you any time.

+1

This fact seems to be lost on a lot of people in these forums.

100k/yr real job = 200k/yr poker. how many poker pros are making 200k/yr? what dont u understand

If English is your native language, stick with poker.

ive been earning right around 100k annually for past 6 years, lately making about 120k salary and some overtime puts me at around 140k. I have to say though, it hasn't been a easy way to make it, I had to study hard for years and still work fairly hard.
I think with my career there isn't that much upward mobility, but its a consistent 100-150k year job depending on how hard or much you want to work. I wouldn't trade for poker pro lifestyle unless I could make 250k+ consistently, because the work is just more interesting to me than cards. But some days id rather be at the tables!

I think it would be nice to make 100k off poker, I could live pretty similar to how I do now. I just wouldn't be interested in playing multiple tables at a time or in the casino everyday. All the older grinders at the casino are fat and most don't seem real happy

A good reason to start taking poker seriously in 2016 is to stop losing money at it

I don't know the answer here, I'm curious.

What percentage of world population earns "100k/yr real job"? I haven't found any easily quotable sources, but it seems that something in the order of 0.25% of humans earn more than $100k (I confirmed it by thinking about it)

What percentage of poker players earns "200k/yr poker"? I have no way of figuring either half of that calculation (how many "poker players" are there? nor how many "earn" $200k/yr) but I'd imagine it'd might well be of the same magnitude, especially if you define "poker player" as someone who is primarily motivated by the prospect of winning money.

not a very good troll attempt..

have you been outside the usa? or if you are not from the usa, have you lived in the usa? you realize cost of living is a more important factor than using blanket income figures?

a dentist in latin america might make 2k/month and live VERY WELL. someone making 2k/ mo in the usa is on or close to the poverty line. troll harder

a working professional ie a lawyer/ accountant in latin america might make 1k/mo. They live comfortably. 1k/mo in the usa is poverty.

And Dan Cates can take his poker winnings and live with Romanian cost of living, whereas a desk jockey is tied to living where his job is, so that's +1 for poker.

Also, cost of living differences are often exaggerated. A lot of things (manufactured goods, energy, cars etc.) cost broadly the same everywhere depending on tax - certainly not in proportion with wages.

The infographic Josem links says that of the global 1%, the 60 million people worldwide earning more than $34000 per person in the economic unit (so for a family of four, that means family income of $136K per year), 29 million of those people are in the USA - so $100K for one person's salary obviously isn't that standard in the US either when the US has over 300 million people.

.

for either side poker or real job, you need to study and work hard to excel.
In USA, 100k a year is reachable with a lot of 6 year degrees, and a few bachelors, also working in a few trades without education also. A lot of foreign students move here and put our people to shame. I didn't meet many Indians in school who aren't making 75k+ a few years out of school. My sister in law is a accountant, she started at 75k after getting her masters and CPA, now with bonus makes over 200k, that is near NYC, yes is a high cost of living. Some real jobs though, very tough to make much more than say 80-120k for even these high level jobs. To be truly rich, you should become a specialized doctor, or to be richer still, own a successful business, or be star player and push for the highest limits you can beat, don't be content at say crushing 1/3.

QFFT!

Spot on. Sadly most might miss this key observation.

@Siculamente

I don't know what problems you expect to find in a "developing country" but I'm pretty sure Romania has relatively few of them compared to many places you would consider to be developed.

I live in Slovakia, originally from the UK. It's true that the cost of living is lower, but a few items costing the same can make a big difference if one salary is a fraction of the other.

fwiw here is a comparison between Argentina and the USA http://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living...=United+States

If you're not saying that $100K a year is normal/easy then what is your objection to Josem's post?

I'm not trolling. I've never lived in the USA.

Someone (some people?) were making the point that they imagine that they value earning $200k at poker as the same as earning $100k at a "real job" - because the variance of poker is a significant cost and risk.

I'm simply making the point that the proportion of people in the world who make $100k at a "real job" is probably of a similar magnitude to the percentage of poker players who make $200k at poker (depending, of course, on how you define a poker player).

Thus, I'd imagine that to earn $200k at poker, you'd need to be roughly as fortunate, and roughly as hard-working, as someone who earned $100k at a "real job".... that is, you'd need to be both fortunate, and hard working. Neither are easy goals to achieve when you consider the very small percentage of people who achieve either metric.



I think, however, the underlying question posed by the thread has a whole bunch of poor assumptions. The chance of becoming a professional soccer player is obviously very small for any one individual - but that neither dooms the game of soccer, nor prevents people from trying to become professional soccer players.

I think that poker should be seen in a similar light to other sporting contests: becoming a professional poker player is hard, requires good fortune, requires great self-discipline, huge amounts of hard work, and an awful lot of study and practice.... but at the same time, it's a great and fun game that anyone can play, regardless of their physical attributes. I wouldn't invite someone to play soccer because they might become Ronaldo - just as I'd introduce people to play poker because it is fun and there are opportunities to derive great pleasure from the game, and you might win some money as well*.

Attracting the players who come to the game, and contribute financially because they enjoy the game (that is - rather than spending $15 on a movie ticket, they spend $15 on three poker tournaments) are the future opportunities for online poker to grow, I think. In that world, poker is competing against movies, video gaming, TV, sport, and so on.


*and for those who work hard, disciplined, and so on, there's a chance of becoming a professional too

/thread

Variance isn't the only reason that a poker salary is worth roughly half a 'real' salary.

In regular jobs people get paid more over time more basically just for getting older, in poker we can expect win-rates to fall.

So think of it like NPVcareer[Poker where Yr0 = 2x] < NPVcareer[Regular where Yr0 = x].

My viewpoint of this is fairly simple. I am from Slovakia and there are ~10+% of people whom are unemployed and a large part of employed people are working for 500-800 euros a month (they probably do not like it but they do not have a CHOICE). In our country we call that "lifestyle" from hand to mouth.

Now compare it to me (or yourself in your country). I am 20yr college dropout making thousands of euros (this year may have a chance at $100k). I love what I do. I also have some free time to educate myself in a lot of areas that I would like to do outside of poker when I retire (investing, stocks, real estate, you name it). Long story short, I AM HAPPY.

I do not know about you, but for me and my situation taking poker seriously in 2016 is snap call

Which game and what limit are you playing to make 100k?

Poker is obviously still a viable career choice for 3rd world countries like the one you live in. But as far as 1st world countries go, it's a poor choice of career - extremely difficult to have a reasonable standard of living grinding anything below 200nl online or 5/10 live.

You can easily Google this. Explaining everything would certainly deserve its own thread.

However I will say that it is a FACT that an extremely high % of first world people (in all the professions out there) will never, ever fully integrate/ be seen as equals in a developing countries culture/ mindset.

They always go back home. It's not a question of if. It's of when. There's even multiple sayings/ jokes about this in Latin American culture. And I'm not just referring to poker bums or backpack hippies, or gringos that isolate themselves with other gringos / gated communities etc.

I'm talking about normal people with great professions that learned the language, started businesses, got married, have kids etc who spent a long long ****ing time away from "home". Who ultimately packed up the families bags/ sold the businesses etc to start a new life back in their home country.

And why? Because ultimately, all things considered, life is better living in a first world country (despite having a pretty comfortable life in the developing country).

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Now, let's get this straight. The cost of living is way way lower in comparison to a first world country. But that does not mean it is not a hard life for the people there making local wages.

But 200k apartments, 30k+ cars (normal in first world countries) etc etc are not normal in developing countries. Only the rich people in those countries have the money for those things.

But hey waddya know? People in dev countries are still living in nice apartments and driving new cars not even close to what people are paying for in the USA
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Big objection to Josems post and lol logic by using world income averages (and not accounting for cost of living in different parts of the world). He is clueless about cost of living in first world countries.

While it will be very unlikely that someone in a developing country will make 100k/yr. It is not unlikely for someone living in the USA to make 100k/yr considering a mindless paying job (no degree etc) idk like Costco or something similar pays its employees 20/hr.

The reality is the majority of lol poker pros probably don't even make 60k/yr and on those numbers the Costco employee making 40k/yr is actually making more/ has better life.

Tldr

Shane speaks the truth.

Edit: actually think the bottom is going to fall out in a few years even for the 3rd world grinders. Subject for another thread I guess.

I play NLHE normal tables up to NL1K (ofc they have to be +EV. no ego hu/3handed wars ****) on various sites and when I do not have enough tables I add zoom200. You could say that I play a lot of zoom200 with stable wr and when good tables pop-up I slowly get rid of them that is the GTO strategy for me.

It has to be said that it is indeed funny that 90% of the stars who were hot between 2005 and say 2012 have kind of disappeared.

The likes of Gus, Cunningham, Cada, Ferguson, Matusow etc. etc. Where are all these guys ? Can we infer from the fact we almost don't see them any longer that the game is tougher and that all the famous ones from before are not that special any more ?

We still see Ivey Hellmuth and Negreanu but not many of the others that litteraly were stars some 5 years ago...