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Originally Posted by Unguarded
I agree that if you started taking poker seriously in 2003 and were a good player, you should already be able to retire if you manage your money decently. The key word is "should". But too many good poker players are masters of lighting money on fire, irresponsible, immature, addicts, financially incompetent, etc. After all, look at all the celebrity multi-millionaires who go broke outside of poker.
And yes, it was quite possible to move from play money to 10/20 LHE online within a year without ever depositing if you had talent and studied back then. There were lots of sites where you could swap your Stars play money for cash.
Nowadays, the ladder to 40/80+ LHE is all screwed up.
So much this.
I have a friend who started around that time who was literally terrible at poker. He borrowed my copy of Lee Jones and taped the starting hand chart to the side of his monitor. For those who don't know that book, it was written to help people who knew nothing about poker... to lose slowly in a soft live game. Given the power of folding, in a few weeks, he's winning 1/2. Then 2/4, and then up to 10/20 on Paradise poker. He was cashing out $ to buy such necessities as fancy brakes and a carbon fiber hood for his Porsche. Good times. A starting hand chart and a beginner's book and he's regularly cashing out. That was "studying" circa 2002.
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True for sure, but part of being "any good" as a poker pro is not being an idiot with your money
Totally get the sentiment, but tons of people have made money from poker that couldn't hang on to it. Some of them must have really enjoyed the ride. Who's to say that's wrong? Heck, I know several people who became IT professionals during the internet boom. They became PC and Unix admins during a time when companies would train anybody who seemed a little tech-y. When that bust happened, those people got laid off and many (most?) never got back into high paying tech jobs. They didn't have degrees. Those folks got used to high salaries and good benefits, so cars with loans and mortgages did them in. Were they fake IT pros?
Last edited by DougL; 05-03-2021 at 09:30 AM.