Everytime I come on this board, I see BFI poker players, they say:

1. They all raked in large amounts of money...yet now they need to go to school or into the work force.

2. All went to the best schools in this country to become traders, work on wall street, or investment bankers.

3. The one who are working make 6 figures doing little to no effort and continue raking 6 figure rolls in poker.

4. Majority are extremely cocky and rude about what school/degree/wealth level you have.

I personally think some of the forum users are completely full of s*** a**holes.

You chose to play poker and make money while being job and boss free. Poker isnt like it was before so you need a job now.

Finance is a GREAT major (regardless of what these pricks say). It is extremely hard to get your feet wet without going to a good school with good job placement board.

I am none of the 4 things I listed above. I went to 2 mid tier regional schools in the midwest and now have my BS and MBA and work in corporate finance.

Thankfully, my first school had contacts with a Fortune 500 CPG company so I was able to easily land a position. Now that I have any experience, I am very valued.

I don't make six figures but I think I am doing very well for 24 (going on 25).

As for GPA, I had a 3.66 for my BS and a 3.92 for my MBA. Yours is more than enough.

My recommendation: Work with a headhunter. Start as a temp to hire. Its pretty much a foot in the door. You were out of the market far too long. Employers will be sketchy with your education 2 years old and no finance job.

Think about the future next time before dedicating yourself to a niche market. However, poker players are typically risk takers and dont mind gambling their life away.

My two cents. Let me know if I can help.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I317 using 2+2 Forums

+1 about this entire board.

Why does everyone want to get into investment banking?

Filthy and greedy pigs get slaughtered (like some Poker players).

Online Poker boom happened maybe what 7 years ago. All the fresh, 21+ said "AH. Forget about school, I'll gamble the rest of my life. The fish just give me the money."

Then some big movie comes out about counting cards from MIT. Current players believe they are intelligent because they hustle bums for money and want to get into Elite MBA programs by massaging resumes to say they managed large bankrolls. Huge egotistical maniacs.

Welcome to reality. Enjoy the ride. Sink or swim.

Haters gonna hate. You can flame me because you know deep down you took a chance and road out your 20's in chips instead of security and your knee deep in s*** and its the truth.

Im glad you made your quick cash. The smart ones had contingency plans. The rest deserve what they get.

I love a good debate. We love to hear other sides.


Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I317 using 2+2 Forums

Don't even know where to begin on these posts, but I can't tell if you are actually trying to help OP out or you are just calling him out for making (in your opinion) poor life decisions.

If you think the life of a poker player is/was easy sailing, then you either had the most variance free poker career ever or you never really were a pro.

I believe he is trying to prove his point about some of the forum users....

What's the alternative? To live in denial?

You can still salvage the degree, but to pretend like you wouldn't have done things differently makes it really tough to look at the options in front of you objectively.

There're a lot of lucrative options that draw on your math skills and don't require a 4.0 from a target school but most require that you specialize in something that'll give you marketable skills - ie: actuarial, tax, accounting etc.

By networking you could probably find a job in the field, but the chances of you converting that into a desirable job aren't high. There just isn't enough room for everyone to be a star, and if you're ready to accept that you aren't exceptional (i have no idea if you are, but the odds are against it) then you need to recognize that companies are going to pay you based on the supply and demand for your skillsets.

Nobody is questioning whether you can make finance work.

It's just whether you want to continue down the path of finance just because you happened to major in it. The math component of his double degree has a lot of applications.

The mistake wasn't getting the degree (though i'd say an engineering or science degree is almost always preferable to a pure finance degree) - it was the lack of planning.

You COULD go to a head hunter and be like "derrr help me get a job", and there's a good chance they will find you a company that'll work you to the bone starting at 50k/y but there're other options on the table.

Would you prefer 0 dollars or 50k yearly?

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I317 using 2+2 Forums

there're a lot of middle ground options, and how he'll want to proceed depends a lot on his financial situation and other life issues that we know almost nothing about.

i think the actuarial route would be a good one for him based on the info provided though, and i would be reluctant to work long hours for 50k doing something that wouldn't help me get where i want to be unless i really needed the money badly.

What is long hours defined as? I made 50k out of college working 40 a week through a headhunter. Pretty cush job.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I317 using 2+2 Forums

No one wants to hire a washed up gambler.
It's got a very shady scumbag reputation.
You seen the types of low lifes that hang out in casinos?

Poker players are very polarized candidates. The good ones are f'ing amazing. The crap ones are really crappy. There seems to be no middle ground.

funny, this was a conversation I had the other day

OP, it sounds as if you like the idea of working in corporate finance but don't have the personality to compete with those who actually like the things that add up to working in corporate finance. no social network and no hustle? please. you can't convince another person that they should be impressed that you earned hundreds of thousands of dollars playing a card game? i am incredulous. from investopedia's entry on "becoming a financial analyst":

you can't impress someone in HR? you can't figure out how to convince someone who actually knows things that analysing uncertainty at the poker table is "analogous in some ways" to analysing macroeconomic uncertainty? if you can't convince people to believe what you believe you aren't going to be much of an analyst. smarts and technical know-how are half the skill set, and not the most important half.

so, to make explicit what others have only implied, stop wanting impossible things and go back to school. get an actuarial sciences degree and queitly earn 80k a year. you're a smart dude. don't waste your smarts trying to be something you're not.

also, a bit of free #realtalk: you didnt post here to be told to send out more and better resumes for even more modest jobs. at least, i hope not. you were looking for sympathy and an excuse to defend your self-pity and probably hoping for a job offer or something. people notice. now you know they notice.

You think he 2ants to be an actuary? Believe workloads are insane.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I317 using 2+2 Forums

you're going to have to work long hours at anything if you want to get ahead and he's been pretty clear that he enjoys working with numbers.

if you think you can get into a top mba program (or at least have what it takes to compete) actuarial work probably isn't the right choice, but if the alternative is a mid range (or worse) mba program where you start at 60-70k and have limited upward mobility it's really just a matter of preference. from a strictly financial perspective the actuarial route is likely better.



congratulations. that isn't the norm though, the chances of him finding a "cush" entry level job that's strictly 9-5 are low... and if it does exist, it's probably in a city with a high cost of living. there's an endless flow of capable grads who're willing to work long hours for a modest wage.

Can I know what industry and job you currently hold? Possibly school background and location as well.

Im not sure on elite MBA standards but you think they are going to take their chances on a poker wash up (no offense, srs) who has been out a school with a 3.5?


Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I317 using 2+2 Forums

The problem with resume gaps that are filled with 'esoteric' career choices is that the HR person has no idea if that's true, or if you were really holed up in a dumpster shooting smack for those years (or whatever variant thereof).

Same goes for self employment, entrepreneurship, etc then trying to re-enter the schmuck workaday world. The corporate universe is pretty entrenched in their mediocrity formula. Exceptionalism is deeply resented by the lower level weeder HR decision makers in the same way that IRS agents resent successful entrepreneurs or traffic cops resent the guy they just pulled over in the Bentley.

If you're taking an asymmetric career path early in life, you'd better be the self-starting kind of guy who can hustle your own rent money because at no point can you easily join back with the 'real world'. It's an all-in decision.

Well said.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I317 using 2+2 Forums

Some of the responses itt are pretty funny/out of touch with reality.

The answer to the OP's thread titled question: YES.

self-fulfilling prophecy.

if you want it, go out and make it happen. don't make excuses. hustle.

There's a degree of truth to that.
Same applies to ex prisoners trying to get jobs. Hustle hustle hustle, eventually, you'll get something but the truth of the matter is, you have one major mountain to climb with no guarantee that you'll make it over the top.

Screw them. Go drive a truck, the first year isn't all that great, you'll make about 35,000, but after you have one year experience you are qualified for local ltl jobs with companies like UPS, Gas Haulers, etc open up and you can make 70,000 plus.

i'd also mention that if you get a commercial drivers license in Texas or North Dakota, then you can make $120k a year driving a water truck in the oil field.s

OP,, do you really want a job though ? what i mean is,, are you making a full blown effort ,, or subconsciously you are half assing /sabotaging these interviews ??

I ask because i have worked for a salary/wages for a total of 6 months out of 20 years ..

I have been gambling/trading my whole life and you , like me probably value time independence more than most .

I am a licensed stockbroker, but choose to work at an independent firm with no salary/benefits even though i can easily get a salaried job because of it , and that's when it hit me that i cant work a regular job because i willingly turned down a salaried job to call my own shots. .

So my question is, maybe you have trouble letting your poker career go, maybe you dont want to work for someone .