I have never disclosed to anyone how much money I've made in poker. I'm sure it's been mentioned but people always have a basic idea or some number in there head of which they expect to hear. So if I were to actually say how much I've made I'm sure the actual amount far exceeds the number in their head and then it's a bit awkward.

this is why if someone already knows I play poker and asks me how much I've made, I say "a good amount" and leave it at that.

I also wanted to mention I think it depends on your crowd. I'm still in school and most of my friends do not have good jobs or actually have no job so for me to say I'm making X amount when they ask me definitely gets to be a little awkward.

I just tell them I lost all of it and then ask for a stake....

Well I don't but it might be funny. Until I have to assure them it was a joke.

new thing that has been happening lately that is leaving me *?*

"so what do you do for a living?"
"poker"
"oh cool. sooo, do you like, count cards?"
"..."

what exactly do you think poker is?

My wife put the movie 21 in our netflix queue because quote "I know you like poker".

The good news is she does know the difference between poker and blackjack. Pretending to be stupid and see if the other person really meant what they said is a game we play ...

The best thing I can say about the movie is that it gave me some context for when Andy Block (sp?) and Chris Ferguson talk about it on PAD.

1) You watch football. You play poker. I would say televised tournament pros are somewhat comparable to football players. Small stakes online grinders are not.

2) For the football fan, the existence of professionals is required for any experience to exist at all. For the "for fun" poker player, the experience would be much better if it wasn't for the pros.

No... Those are stock investors. Also stock dealers are productive.

Stock traders are not:
Yet I believe anything to do with stock, including these guys, are even respected in our society. Thus it's pretty stupid to try to disrespect poker pros on the grounds of nonproductivity.

What is your problem, guy. I only said it's not productive which is perfectly common and acceptable in other areas of the society, so it would be unjust to scorn online poker for this reason. I'm essentially saying the same thing as you, dummy, with even better justification. Way to attack your ally.

Wrt the whole "how much did you lose?" thing, there are people who confuse "cashed for" with "won", like they come 1st in a SNG for 25 and say I won 25, completely disregarding the 5.50 it cost to enter and the 4 they didn't cash in prior. You get this even more with things like fruit machines,in the bar were I used to work people would always claim to have won £50 or whatever, failing to mention the £45 they'd put in in the first place. The best bit about this was when they'd be pressured into getting the drinks in because they'd just "won" £50.

everyone who talks to me about poker always asks me "made your millions yet"? with a douchey smile, or asks me how much money i have.

i dont ask you how much money you have, so stop asking personal questions like that.

Had this same, once CEO (it's small company, so CEO works as programmer, like we employed) asked me this same after weekend. Here is my answer:
"As you can see, im still at work, so... no i did not.... yet. But when i win, i will send you postcard "

He never asked me again about poker

Eating in the kitchen (university housing block) playing Badugi on my laptop; someone who knows I play a lot comes in and starts watching. He asks what game it is, I explain, he says he plays NLHE, I try to look interested and ask what stakes, he says he plays £5 home games maybe once a month or something.
I see where this is going.
He then gives me some outstanding strategy advice, involving "only playing your own hand" and "playing low cards instead of high cards so nobody thinks you have it". I nod and die a little inside.

A lot of friends ask me how I'm doing at poker. For the most part they understand poker at least a little bit and understand that I'm building a bankroll and working my way up.

I'm thinking about starting a blog; partly for the constructive critiscism I might get that will help my game, but also so I don't have to send E-mail updates to a bunch of friends in other cities telling them how I'm doing.

Telling people how much money you make is a tricky issue. A lot of people's salaries are pretty much known, or at least people have a general idea. This would include public employess, and anyone else under a union contract. And when I ran for local office, I warned my wife that we would be giving up our privacy. If someone wanted to see our tax return, "none of your business" is never the right answer in the political arena, it is assumed that you're hiding something.

I don't make a lot of money 4-tabling $5 DONs, so I'm don't mind disclosing those numbers to my friends. But soon I will be making a lot more. I'm disclosing now, should I stop when I'm making more money than most of my friends?

Complicating this still further is that those who know how to use the poker websites can get a pretty good idea of how you're doing anyway. There are lots of websites that you can use to scout other players.

So, this really is a tricky area, but don't assume for a minute that because your friends don't know that you paid cash for your new car, they won't know that you're a "baller". All it would take is for one friend to hear about these poker sites and spread the word, or even see you on the computer 8-tabling $50 tournaments. Then your friends who made 30K last year will all figure out that you make at least 5 times that.

When that happens, one piece of advice. Change your phone number!

I think I would just say "that doesn't really work in Badugi."

I didn't used to tell anybody, but I'm coming around to being more open and friendly about it, so that people can think of that more or less normal nice guy they talked to once who was a poker pro, and maybe they're not so bad. So far I haven't had any of the ridiculous crap responses in this thread, apart from occasionally people describing their "strategy." Then again I don't present as a typical 2+2er either.

I've found a really good strategy for that: I take it as a question about my self-employment, rather than about my gambling results. I can go on quite a while about how I'm doing at meeting my goals for getting hours in, and what I'm doing for educational development, and how I'm preventing workplace boredom, and so on. People lose interest long before money comes up at all.

Hah, this would have been a great response.

Oh, I always answer people's questions and 99% of people don't stay stupid things (but then, we're not going to post about them, are we?) and I try to politely set them straight on misconceptions.
However, it still bugs me that poker is like psychology - everyone thinks they can have an equal say despite the obviously apparent fact that, just as some people know a little more about psychology than the average person, some people know a little more about poker than the average person

This is a great video but if you want to hear this question asked again skip to 6:15

http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232?video=735160207

ROFL

u anal?


nice

Yesterday I bought a lottery ticket for 1$. I won 20$. I told it to my mom. An she was insta like BUT HOW MUCH DID U LOST. I loled because of this thread.

... Hopefully you answered "1$"

If I found out a friend was 8-tabling $50 tournaments, I wouldn't assume he's making 5 x 30K, I'd probably assume he's a loser. Most poker players ARE losers afterall.

stock traders get more love than poker players because what they do isn't zero sum. in poker, for someone to win someone has to lose. in the stock market, everyone can win, and it is therefore more socially respected.

Since he said he won $20, I'm going to assume he cashed $21.

If not he's a moran and should be mocked.

What SPECIFICALLY stock traders do is zero sum.

In that field... Do you feel casino owners/builders/... are socially disrespected?

money has to come from somewhere...

as I was once told by an airline attendant in England when I was asking about my luggage, "There's no magic going on here."

Them: You play poker? Are you good?
Me: No, I think I suck. But lucky for me most people suck more than me.
Them: Do you play any other games?
Me: No, I like money too much.
Them: Do you count cards?
Me: Card counting in the sense that people do it in BJ doesn't really apply to poker.
Them: You are wrong.
Me: You know in BJ they use shuffling machines now where the discards are immediately put back into the shoe and shuffled in so card counting becomes irrelevant - the count is voided.
They look at me like I'm a moron.

People seem to get some kind of vision of how they think something works. They never investigate and/or figure how it really works. They're content having their view no matter how invalid it is.

lol I get the 'card counting' thing well over 1/2 the time