Basically the grind of poker is like twice as hard as most jobs, but there is a lot of relativity. E.g. One might be working in Ukranian army for under 200 euros per month, or grinding online (or moving in Ireland or so). Or one might be playing less after getting higher and having a balanced life playing 20 hours per week. Or one might be playing some bigger game live rather than minimum salary or whatever one can get one way or the other.

But generally, these days, counting out some live possibilities, one better get a good education, preferably with a college additional, because it would be unreasonable to think one will score the same year after year the rest of one's life playing 20 hours per week, though there are countries that still might consider it because of poor salaries compared to living costs (as an additional to basic job rather than go to college, though in many cases college is just a couple of years more if one has it half covered already), but still a regular job is the safe bet and maybe one gets to move out (with work experience and language ability).

The only major fun poker is when playing it only when one feels like it and not when one has to. In the long run, one can possibly have more fun in a regular job, and one can play some on the side then, though not much or one has no life but the day job and playing poker. I don't think that online poker is a good hobby for most with a full time day job these days.

I never said playing poker wasn't working. I said that imo it was better than working the 9 to 5. I thought it was pretty clear that by "work" I meant the 9 to 5? I also never said it was an easy way out of a job. I like work. I'm unhappy when I'm not working and on my toes. Not saying this to blow my own trumpet, but when in real jobs I was always probably the best employer and often in tough factory jobs too in addition to professional jobs. I honestly believe that if employed in the workforce, that our behaviour and attitude in the work place absolutely defines us in so many ways. We write our own biography there and leave it face open for whoever wants a read. Not doing your best at work (i.e. bitching, moaning, skiving etc), both for yourself and the people around you, shows weak character imho. Personally I embrace the grind. I just prefer it to be my grind and not grinding for peanuts (or even for "good" money) for someone else doing something I don't care about. Sure poker is tough, but nothing is that tough when you enjoy it and want it. Tedious? There are ranges of tedious. Poker can be tedious but lord God there are more tedious things out there. The loses can be hard but a pro player will have plenty of good days too and they are way better than walking out of work on a Friday evening, good as that is. You find your way out of the tedious and learn to deal with the loses. If you want it bad enough you will make it work and deal with the tough stuff.

This. NVG filled with bunch of complaining donks who just plain suck. There's no free lunches. Work your ass off and study and be in the top 4% or can stand around whining and posting on NVG about poker being SOLVED - just ****ing lol. Anything like poker will inherently have only a top % be able to play professionally for a living. The fact that 95/100 can't do that is just, idk, sorry guise that's life if you don't have the super strong work ethic and discipline you'll be in the 95/100 and there's nothing wrong with that but certainly wrong to project your reality onto the 100

Sure the yoy declines are massive and will continue in the same vain to the point of complete stagnation, and sure that point ain't too far down the road, but those post BF yoy decline figures are not especially relevant when comparing poker to other niches due to poker still being such a ridiculously good opportunity even post BF and probably up until about 2014. It was obviously going to decline massively, even while still being a good opportunity. The fact that it has declined at such a rate only proves how ridiculously easy it was. I'm not dismissing what you are saying and I'm not suggesting you are totally unaware, as I mean this more in a general sense, but really, a huge % of poker players understandingly have a poor grasp of just how good they had it. Realising you had it good doesn't mean you realise just how good. I still don't see how it's an end game situation that is just sooo so hard compared to other walks of life. Nah man, it's just not. It's still easier than most ways.

Nah man, I don't play live. Not into that at all. Too slow, too tedious, don't like the environment and find a lot of the people to be douchey, loud, immature, boring. I know I'm a bit rude and probably a bit wrong to say that, but it's what I feel. I also don't like the face to face human competition. When playing online I feel like I'm competing v myself, but live feels like I'm "against" another person, which I am, and I'm not into that. Takes the fun out of it for me.

Exactly.

4 to 5% are still making it. That is a high percentage! What percentage of footballers or golfers or tennis players etc make it? .1 of the 1%. Also other forms of gambling like sports, horses etc sure as hell don't have 5% overall winners. I don't have figures for sports, but I know for horse racing it's just below 2% and I doubt sports is a whole lot higher despite all those dudes who claim to win as a sideline to their 9 to 5. They don't. That's why they still have the 9 to 5

Absolutely it's not a free ride. Stop moaning and get on with it. Do what you got to do. Give up drinking, curtail social stuff, meditate 2 or 3 hours per day. Get that balance. Become a robot. Work on your game. Do what it takes. If you are not prepared to do that then that is absolutely cool to consider other things more important, (you are probably right) but quit the moaning and move onto something else then.

EDIT: "become a robot" meaning get that emotional balance from meditation or whatever. Absolutely not suggesting to use a bot!

Because there is a lot of room for those who want to "work harder".

Sure, players are getting better, but players are getting better in every competition.

Odell Beckham was recently ranked No.10 as one of the top players in the NFL. His first reaction? ... Wake up at 3am and work harder.

Games will always be beatable, you just have to work harder than your opponents. At low limits ... it's not difficult to do. As the limits progress, the time you have to put in increases, but so does your winrate.

In the Pursuit of Happyness, Will Smith's character cuts out bathroom breaks, drinks less water, and evaluates where he will make the most money.

In ANYTHING, long term results are determined by the amount of work you put in.

So if you look at poker in 2016 ... and see all these 'once upon a time' pros still out there trying to break even without making any adjustments... then you know there is plenty of room to take it seriously.

No, no, no.

That desk job has a guaranteed monthly check coming your way. Not being able to pay your rent because of variance is a ton worse than enduring some aspects of a job you're not fond of.

The guy working a normal career gets promotions and pay rises. In poker you can expect the opposite. You have to work hard just to stand still in poker.

The top of poker is just lolbad outside a couple of nosebleed crushers. People are bragging if they make $100k a year at poker. Go work for a decent company for 10 years in a good field, get a couple of promotions, and you'll be on $100k a year guaranteed, and might be on a lot more.

If you're destined to only be bagging groceries at Walmart then maybe grinding poker is better. Except if that's your future, you probably don't have the skill or work ethic to make it to mid-stakes poker anyway.

Oh yeah and then there's the learning curve. When you start out on poker your hourly will be negative, and even when you start beating micros it'll be like tree-fiddy an hour. On a 'real' job, you'll be on a proper hourly wage while you're starting out.

To say playing 40 hours a week of poker is just as easy as grinding a real job is just lulz to anyone who has played before. I was in a couple of different spin and go stables, so got to see what the average volume was of quite a large sample of players. Many of these guys were supposed to be playing 'full time' and/or have ambitions to go pro in the near future.

The average volume was about 1000 spin and gos a month. Even if they only 2 tabled, that means they played approx 55 hours a month. Many of those guys - most, even - would have no real issues turning up to work 40 hours a week at a non-poker job. Less than 5% of all the people I've seen in spin stables were playing 3k+ spins a month (i.e. full time hours). It's a fair bet that well over 5% could work 40 hours a week at a normal desk job grind.

You speak some truths, but overall I find your attitude to be defeatist.

I understand a lot of people are close to the edge and the money is being sucked out of the game, but if you are so close to the edge that a bad month means you miss the rent, then you clearly are not rolled and/or don't have the game to play for a living.

The guy in a normal job also has to jump through hoops and work hard for those pay rises and promotions. I see it now with family members and friends, I remember it myself too. The more you get paid the harder they work you, the more responsibilities you have. These decent to good jobs are far from easy. Similarly to you correctly pointing out that one can't understand the 40hpw poker grind unless they have done it, one also can't understand the real life grind, week after week, year after year, decade after decade until you are 65+, unless you have done it. It's a hell of a grind. Try asking 6 months in advance if you can get 3 days off next July, wait a few weeks for an answer and then get a firm "No". See how that makes you feel after a few years of hard service. Try NEVER being available or having a business day off to e.g. go to the bank etc

Also, why in poker can one "expect the opposite" to promotions and pay rises? Well, if you don't expect them from poker and complain about having to work for them, they certainly will not be coming your way too often. Poker players deal with loses, but get their bonus too and they are often a lot more lucrative than the working bonus.

You also just casually throw it out there that after 10 years in a good company one can expect 100k+ pa while in poker people now brag about 100k. You decline to mention that that 100k pa poker player very likely made a lot more than 100k pa over the last 10 years, while the office person was earning a lot less and scrounging to save a few k per year. It's also a hell of a tough grind with any company to get to that 100k stage. Man, those are a hard 10 years. I don't know your story, but I can absolutely guarantee you that anyone who has lived off poker for the last 10 years (06 to 2016) has had it multiple times easier than that person who 10 years ago started a job and today finally has 100k pa. In all likelihood they have: aged more, partied less, are more stressed, have less money, owe more money, have had less holidays etc. They have also been wearing a suit all day every day. With their shirt tucked in. Practically always either too hot or too cold trying to adjust to the air con preferences of the adult children in the office who must always have their way blahblah. Okay, the last few lines are a bit negative, but the point is there.

There are a lot of positives to the working life and in 2016 it might now be a good option for many poker players, but it absolutely is not just this place you breeze into every day to pick up a certain check. It also comes with a hell of a lot of challenges, many of which are easier than poker, but many (probably more) that are a lot harder.

I really hope that you didn't just equally compare playing poker to serving in the Ukranian army, did you?

yeah well, average income is 170$ a month in ukraine, which is 5.5$ a day if you grind everyday. Pls tell me how hard it is to make 5.5$ consistently in poker right now with a bankroll from 10$ to 200$.

It is easy. But the main point is that it is not easy to struck it rich with poker anymore.

I have been playing since 2004 approx and poker is nothing right now compared to what it was. You can make money at it but it is a poor career choice.

Yes you can work hard and improve but if you have to do all that work you can probably cruise in any other field and have stable money + bigger longterm potential. Poker declines massively every couple of years and even if you can beat it right now then you probably won't be 5 years from now.

Grinder4all doesn't have defeatist attitude, he is completely right about points he mentions. Roof in poker these days isn't really that impressive anymore.

Poker is a desk job...

there's no right or wrong answer here...it's all internal...my post to cushlash on 06/17/16 outlines some very relevant points from my perspective having lived both lives...

something important that is not being mentioned by those who have chosen card-playing for a career is long-term thinking...for all the freedom that comes with that lifestyle, you pay the price of not getting any employer-paid benefits (healthcare, social security, 401k, pension, etc) and you will most likely never be able to stop working...are you planning to ever have kids?...without good insurance, it's really not a feasible option...the biggest perk of grinding a desk job is the light at the end of the tunnel...when at 62 years old, you can sit back and collect a nice fat guaranteed monthly income...but to each, his (or her) own...

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh...postcount=1625

wow. what is the weather like and are the women there hot?

What about that live poker though? I didn't notice it people talking about it in this thread. Yes online cash will most likely be dead as a doornail soon but isn't it still viable to hone your skills online and actually make money live beating on fish and worse regs?
Also online MTTs seem to be as good as they ever were, someone correct me if I'm wrong.

I'd say 'realistic'. Even for most long-term winners, it's going to be a lot more +EV to get a proper career and play poker when you feel like it.
Anyone can have a losing month. This isn't 2005. You might say that you should have 6 months living expenses in reserve, but you wouldn't ****ing need that if you had an actual job that gave guaranteed money!
In a 40 hour a week job, providing it's a career (i.e. something like a banker/lawyer/accountant/teacher/engineer) to get pay rises and promotions you just basically have to not screw up. It's not like you have to be ****ting rainbows and making the money rain from the sky every day. Just keep grinding away and you'll eventually be making some decent money providing you're reasonably competent and can talk to people.

In poker, you can expect to see your earnings decrease each year (see: all poker long term trends). If you want to earn even the same amount this year as you did last year, you'd better be ****ing good, and continue to be ****ing good, as poker is declining at a huge rate. Being '****ing good' gets you a hell of a lot further in a real job than it does at poker, unless you're an Otb_RedBaron type nosebleed crusher.
Never worked in any company where you have to give 6 months notice for 3 days off and then get declined. Then again in Europe vacation time is a 'human right', not a 'benefit' like it is in the USA.

Re: taking a day off to get tasks done, it's real simple. You call work in the morning, tell them you are ill today and won't be coming in. They'll even pay you for this day, whereas if you go to the bank when you are a 'poker pro', you aint getting paid ****.
You can expect a decline in your earnings because the industry declines every year. Put simply, you have to be working HARDER than the average grinder to MAKE THE SAME AMOUNT.

In a proper job, working harder than your peers will result in more money. Working at the same level as them will result in the same money. But working at the same level as your fellow grinders in poker will result in an income decline. The expectation for all winning players next year is to have less total winnings than this year, simply because there's less money in the game up for grabs with each year that passes.

Yes, but it's not 2006 anymore. The guy who spends 10 years grinding from 2016 to 2026 will likely be a lot worse off than the guy who goes to college, gets a degree in a good field, and starts a 9-5 job.

You can't compare a guy making 100k a year (poker grind) to a guy just starting his career (and making less than 100k for many years). That's not comparing apples with apples. You need to compare a beginning poker player with a guy doing an entry level career job. The beginning poker player starts out with a negative hourly, the guy doing working the job starts with...well, something above zero, depending on what exactly he does.
Disagree completely. I'd make an educated guess (again, based on seeing quite a few wanabee 'pros' in my spins stables) that the average poker pro makes $1,000 a month, absolute maximum.
None of these are substantial negative points.
Then why can the vast majority of the population work a 40 hour a week job, whereas the vast majority of poker players can't grind 40 hours a week? Go ask any stable manager and they'll tell you the average horse doesn't grind for anything close to 40 hours a week.

It's relatively easy to go to work, clock out at 5pm, get a guaranteed check at the end of the month, pay your mortgage, pay your bills, buy your food, and save for your holidays. Poker is a ton more difficult in this regard. Want to book that ticket to the Caribbean in 3 months? Well what if you have a downswing and you can't afford to go? Buy a new car? Same thing. Upgrade your house? Again, who is to say you'll be able to meet the increased mortgage payments? These answers can be given easily by a guy working a normal job. He has his monthly paycheck, subtracts his expenses, and the remainder is what he has left. In poker you can't do that, there's always uncertainty of income.

If you live in a country where you need to make 2-300 a week to earn a living then poker is great. If you need to make 800 or more a week to survive then go get a real job

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=b3eksKKWbTY


What an horrendous notion, sit at a desk doing something you dislike for your entire working life so that you can be "comfortable" when you hit 62. If sooner spunk all my money through life and take my chances when I get old.

As for the op, yes for the most part and for the vast majority poker is effed and its not realistic to think you can make a living at it anymore. There are exceptions but in general poker is effed

You do realize when you're in your older years, 62-92 or ?, that sitting back and collecting a guaranteed check is much better than grinding 1-2 to pay for prescription medicine? You won't be young forever and making the right decisions now will pay off big later in life.
There's nothing wrong with a desk job that gives you a good income, stability and enables you to have a family.

Are players that naive to think they can play online Poker for there Rest of their live?
At 35+ or maybe 40+ i think its so **** hard to sit like 10+ hours a day behind a computer and play A Game.

How much players who have been playing 4 living in Like 2007-2010 are still playing 4 living?

i still do

Lol this thread is literally nothing but salty guys like grinder4all who were never close to being good enough at poker to make decent bucks. Dude is just projecting the fact that he can't win on everybody else. I'm sorry poker didnt work out bro. Do u need a hug? why cant you just drown your sorrows in solitude watching soap operas and binging on ice cream? why you gotta come on 2+2 projecting getting all emo and ****. there's better outlets

If you have to grind 1-2 for the medicine at 62-92 you've propably made something very wrong with your poker career.

If you manage to invest few hundred k to stocks or what ever that should be enough for most people in most countries I think.

Lilu you are completely wrong.

I used to play mostly midstakes during 2004-2010. People playing these days make a lot less money. Stakes are lower. Wr's are smaller. 3-4bb/100 is crushing these days and it used to be a very marginal winrate. I can still beat some stars pools but it is not worth it anymore. It is progressively more work and less money every year.

If this thread was posted a couple of years ago it would be full of graphs showing how much people win. I don't see anything like that now.

The amount of effort right now required to beat midstakes is more than you need to land any decent job that will pay you more longterm.

And it doesn't even matter if you can win right now because 5 years from now poker's economy will be even more grim.