I currently am 23 and in commercial real estate banking at a major bank in NY. I really love poker and have done well over the years at it. I have strongly considered doing it for a job as I really love it and think about poker everyday for probably 10 years now.
I enjoy what I do at work and have a decent reviews etc. However, even though the pay is decent, I cannot see myself doing it for the rest of my life I do not think. I like who I work with and everything but moving up takes a lot of hard work and my heart isn't totally in it. The corporate live just isn't enjoyable and feels fake.
One major concern I have, however, is how women respond to professional poker players. It is important to me by the age of maybe 30-35 to be married and eventually have kids. It's a character flaw, but I will feel bad about myself if I feel my peers have moved on and done this and I haven't.
In NY, and maybe throughout US, I feel do not like the unpredictable nature of poker and do not get it. I have not had too much trouble with women, I am not great looking but good enough. Though, I feel when it comes to marriage, it may be something to really rule a guy out.
Even though I am young still, in order to marry women you usually need to date 1.5-2.5 years before. So, I am just not sure what other's experiences have been and any input on any of this would be really helpful.
Note: I will likely be mostly a live tournament player with a good amount of online (American sites etc).
Note2: I sometimes feel anxiety about not having anything stable so because I also made a good amount on crypto so I plan on using much of the money to invest in stock market and possibly buy commercial real estate properties in order to have some stable income (maybe buying small apartment buildings near popular casino's I want to travel to anyway).

christ

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I tried.

Have you tried joining social groups?

just find some easy recently engaged ***** at work and go from there

How are you going to support a family if you gamble all the time with no job?

C- story line, B for execution. The plot line of going from NY real estate banking to live tourney pro makes it a little too difficult to maintain suspension of disbelief. The subplot of having zero idea of what a woman who wants marriage and children wants in a man does help the believability though.

Op,


If that’s true then you can just ignore everything else you wrote in your post. You’d be a great catch in your 30s as a successful real estate investor who plays poker as a hobby.

Maybe you didn't get the memo but playing poker for a living is a type of hell. Among many reasons the game consumes so much of your time it takes over your life and then spits you out. Poker is a great lucrative hobby but a absolutely terrible profession.

Not sure why there's so much hate. The weirdest part is a 23 year old heterosexual male admitting he doesn't know what women want, not the actual not knowing.

Poker doesn't offer the stability that most people (men or women) want in family life. Like you're not going to take your wife and 3-year-old and 1-year-old to every major tourney and you're going to fight a lot when your income is $500,000 one year and -$50,000 the next. Poker has a horrible reputation in the general public and if you want a career change, banker is way better than poker.

Cash games are probably better than MTTs, but you still deal with irregular hours and income variability.

To be fair, some of these these drawbacks are probably common to banking (albeit on a different scale). You might get a $100,000 bonus one year and only make base the next. You might have to work long hours and miss dinner every night.

Without painting all women with one brush, let me just advise this: poker players will find themselves with a smaller pool of potential partners to draw from. They not only have to agree to have sex with you for the rest of their life, and put up with all your **** (which is what anyone in any profession is going to face), but also understand variance, accept you working in the same building as hookers and drug dealers, and totally trust you handling bricks of cash.

Maybe find a woman who enjoys poker as well. Different women want different things.

Depends on the woman. You're already envisioning failure.

I believe writing it out just goes to show how insecure you feel about poker as a means for stable income and thus a stable life.

Date a degenerate gambler? I'd pass on that plan.

Appreciate that. That is the plan and will work well at outset. Likely if relationship develop they will realize where my passions really lie, but thats ok lol

Do you play professionally? What makes you say that? I really really love the game, and yes likely will take over life for a few years. But what better time than when I'm young?

It can spit you out true, but hopefully have skill and work hard enough to not feel 'spit out'

Haha yea, lot of trolling- I appreciate the genuine post.

About the stability- agreed. I would definitely do good mix of cash and MTTs for more stability and also will use some capital I have in real estate ventures to provide more consistency.

The drawbacks are true. I wonder how much smaller this pool truly is if you are not constantly traveling (that is tough to maintain relationships with). I generally hope to frame myself as a real estate investor and play poker sometimes for side income and develop a relationship and hopefully 'fall for me' before they realize I'm really full time poker, part time real estate.
It is just frustrating to be ruled out instantly bc I'm seen as a 'gambler'.

Youll feel bad about yourself if your 30 year old bros have a wife and kids and you dont?


Seems really easy to do. Pretty sure I could have done that 3-4 times over by now if it were my goal. However I take constant measures to the contrary.

Stop spending money on **** (you don't mention it but I know you do) and try to save as much as you can over the next few years at your desk job.

Be a full time real estate owner and part time poker player. It will be better for the poker too.

I bailed from my career at 24 and became an English teacher so it can work out but only if you go abroad. You don't mention going abroad as a goal so I'd tend to say you're better off getting a stronger financial base first.

Just buy 10 apartments, rent them and then live the rest of your life at maximum.