i think the point is that poker players are essentially greedy. we dont play the game to survive or make a little bit, we play the game to take all the chips at the table, to destroy the competition as much as we can blah blah blah.

sure u can survive on 25k per year in UK, in fact thats the average wage which probably 60% of the population earn, but that doesnt mean i want to. i could have an office job earning that, work 8-5 every day till im 65, have a mortgage for 40 years of my live for a 3 bedroom surburban house and drive a hatchback.

or i could decided to take poker seriously, potentially get up to playing mid-stakes as a regular, earn like $400 an hour, and make like 200k a year + bonuses. of course thats a risk in the sense of the money isnt guarenteed, but i am greedy. i want to be one of the few people who can outright buy a house, a nice car, and generally live a good quality lifestyle, not grind away in an office like the majority of white-collar workers who end up just complaining about their jobs wishing away their days, living for friday evening when they can have a few drinks and relax until they get back to it again on the monday

You should NOT post here, because you're an arrogant pos, who gives terrible advice .

Well thats reasonable Jake.

has anyone ever considered the fact of what happens during retirement?
you will have to put money aside so you can stop playing poker as a job at age 60 or so, and have enough money to live comfortable for the next 20years.and doing this while putting money aside for downswings and so on, seems quite difficult.

and why do people like benefield still go to college?
even one of the dang says he will make a degree and stop playing in a couple of years.

and appareantly the 200/400 games are almost dead and most people are either playing 50/100 or the nosebleed stakes.
and how many players make it to the top games??

lol benefield goes to college because he wants to, same with the dangs. They've already made more money then some people have in a life time.

I feel it is unwise to equate salaries and poker earnings without some sort of 'premium'.

An employee costs a company 2x or 3x the employee's salary cost; once other charges [insurance, pension contribution, holiday pay, sick pay, training, office space, equipment & materials] are taken into consideration.

Those who are self-employed (plumber, lawyer, IT consultant) charge an hourly rate that is 2x to 3x their hourly salary rate for the same reason.

Then throw in the risk factor (we all know that increased risk requires increased reward, right?) and I think the argument that you should at least have the potential to make more money playing poker than you do at your day job has some merit.

Yeah, I mean I'd personally try to get a PHD or something if I could. I think it's a worthy goal, say what you will about academics.

Not really.. I think successful poker players make enough that they CAN save up a lot of money, even if some players spend money mindlessly, that's life. Some people aren't careful with money... it's easier to be careless with money when it seems really easy to earn it, but that's besides the point.

The point is that a successful poker player -can- save up a sufficient amount of money eventually, invest in it, etc, and plan for the future just as another person can. Perhaps there is less job security and there is ALWAYS the risk of going on tilt not willing to drop down and busting a large portion... or even your entire roll after moving up and running bad. These are risks to be managed, and not the point.

i go to university and plan to get my degree. i dont plan to use it. but like i said about poker may die out/ i may one day just become extremely bored/ i may not be able to sustain being a winning player etc etc. so therefore i may have to use my degree one day even though i dont want to.

Something about an education and a degree. It is the one thing in life that once you earn it, no one can take it away from you. As you get older many of you will come to realize that the things in life you have direct absolute control over are very, very few

The legal environment and society's feelings about gambling and poker could completely change in the next thrity years and all of the sudden it is a criminal offense to play and/or gamble (I'm not saying this is even remotely likely).

For those in college, Stay in school, Stick it out, get your degree because even if you never use it you still become of part of something larger than yourself.

Mate I basically agree with you here. I earn a fair bit more than £25k but not enough that makes me rich, which is partly why I'm playing/studying poker.

I want it to be nice extra income and if I get good enough to live off it then that would be quality.

yea exactly my point. even if u earn like 32k once u take away say 25% tax (i know its more but still), that leaves u 24k. most peoples mortgage is probably £500 a month+, so thats like another 6k a year gone. now u have £18k left or so which isnt that much at all once u consider that A) u pay more tax than that, and B) mortgages are probably more than that.

when u consider that u can play poker in the UK tax free, plus the amount of fpp's u can build up on stars/ other bonuses from playing full time, u dont need THAT much to make substantially more than u would in a regular job.

I agree. I still want to be secure though which is why I need to a) have a year's worth of savings, and b) need to know I can beat the game consistently at at least the SSNL level.

what do u play atm and what win rate do u beat it for?

Thats just not true.

~20% of the population over 25 has a bachelor's degree. So even if half the the high school graduates did go to college the majority won't obtain a bachelor's. I'd still challenge the assumption that half of high school graduates attend college. Even moreso 1 and 5 kids dropout of high school I believe; in some areas it's like 50%. More people are going to college but not at that rate it's just that college students tend to associate with other college student so it clouds your preception.

Close but not quite. We don't really care what the company spends on us in terms of total cost, but we do care what they spend in terms of wage cost. A wage cost (i'm defining) as your salary plus benefits.

for example lets say I got a job offer of $50k a year plus health care and nowadays pensions in the states are few and far between but a 3% dollar for dollar match on a 401k. so the equivalent for a 20something male (health care is only $2k a year) is 50k salary + 2k health care + 3% or 50k for retirement so thats $53.5k a year.

The point is I don't care how much they spend on my office and equipment I might use because I can't take that home with me.

FWIW I do all this math then add a value for things like make my own schedule, joy from work etc.


There is security in success. I always felt poker has much more job security (as long as you're a winning player) than just about any salary job.

Health insurance is only $2K a year? Where are you living? Planet Canada?

And you're leaving out the employer's FICA contribution, which is invisible to the employees on their paycheck but are just as much a part of the cost of paying someone as their nominal salary. (People who scream at the self-employment tax don't realize that this is just what their employers pay.) Depending on the benefits, it typically costs 50% more than the nominal salary to employ someone. When I was an independent contractor, I would typically quote my hourly rate as about 33% higher than what an equivalent full-time employee would be paid.

But when I say I'm making more playing poker than I ever did as an engineer, I'm taking all this into account. I'm making more now than I ever did as an independent contractor during the dotcom boom.

that's not the point......you want a high hourly to cover variance. I wouldn't quit my day job before I was confident I could make 3 times as much per annum playing poker.

ps: Don't turn pro if you have to ask a forum what it takes to do so.

I think the OG OP was asking if people had any advice that would help (books, etc.), and it turned into a whole bunch of "I'm like the smartest person ever and I haven't made it in ten years so you shouldn't even try" advice.

+1

there is no easy route, I chose to go pro because if my estimates are correct, Ill be earning 8x my monthly pay once I go pro, and I can still settle for 4x. But I dont have any illusions that it will be easier, or I have to put in lesser hours. Study, play, review, move up or move down in levels, and suffer downswings without tilting my money away are what I have to deal with everyday. And I dont need to tell anyone here how difficult that would be for the most of us.

I enjoy the game, I put 50 or so hours studying and playing the game, but only for the last year or so. I Know I'm nowhere even close to the thought of "pro"..But, making a little money on the side for something I love to do is ok with me

I don't think you'll get anyone disagreeing with you here

'you are not special nor are you intelligent'

Well anyone thinking of turning pro is presumably a consistently winning player. That puts them in the top 5% or so of players, so to that extent they are 'special'.

And the liklihood is that they are also significantly more intelligent than average.

There are very rare people that are so smart that they don't really have to try to succeed academically or generally in certain professional/corporate jobs, but they are very few and far between. More likely in poker or professional life (as in academia) you will have to work hard to succeed.

I suspect that in terms of hours per week pro poker is quite 'light' compared to say a corporate lawyer. However in terms of self-discipline and motivation (and the general emotional) toughness required it may well be harder.

I've wondered about this.

Would you say you HAVE to be intelligent to be great at the game. There are certainly a few avid posters on this website who are ENORMOUSLY successful players (not naming any names for fear of fanboy flaming) that come across as downright thick in terms of the quality of their posts (ie. content, grammar, spelling and basically just a general understanding of the English language).

These sort of guys strike me as street (poker) smart but not necessarily overly intelligent.

Just the way I see it anyway

I value literacy exceedingly, but I am not going to support the idea that making grammatically confusing posts really says too much about their intelligence aside from the fact that they can't be bothered to work on it.



Anyway, like I said, lots of people I respect or are great friends with, are at least top 2% in terms of IQ (Mensa), and very very possibly better, so I disagree strongly in the idea that we're not special. I don't see who the poster is that he can say such a thing about us when he doesn't know us.