my roommate said this and still says this

I tell them whomever told them i play online poker are misinformed.

I just own stakes in Texas and i plan on holding ém.

That actually seems like a pretty good hustle.

"Are you going to be one of those guys on TV??"

I don't even bother trying to explain the amount of luck needed to get televised. They just figure that if you're a professional player, you get on TV, so I just reply with "I dont know. Maybe one day."

I almost want to shoot myself sometimes when I play a home game with my friends. I have come to the point where I just tell myself to let it go.

"Why would you fold pre-flop you don't even know what cards are coming out yet? You always have a chance to make a good hand".

"So you're a professional poker player?"

"uh-huh"

"Like, that's your job, it's all you do?"

"Yup."

"Have you ever been on t.v.?"

"Nope."

"So you're not a real pro then..."

fail

"Do you have to pay taxes?"

"Teach me!"

"Can I give you $5 as a investment?"

haha truth

<_< I dont play poker, I just help a friend with his website.

i finally got asked "but how much did you lose?" and i just lol'd as i thought of this thread.

Well, one the one hand it really annoys if some questions come up but you can't just assume that everyone has to know about that. They see Poker in Casinos with the Pit games and of course they can't tell the difference right away. And the bad media of online gambling and poker is just another point that you can't ignore and is somewhat even justified (superusers/online banking/access-losing)
How ever you have to distinguish if someone is just interested or wants to annoy you and put you off, but you ll need to sacrifice a little time explaining, or your friends won't talk to you about stuff either.

P.S: If you have problems with that, you are ashamed of yourselfs playing poker to make money.

LMAO

Why don't I tell people I play online poker?

Because they smile and nod and say "how neat", then when I leave the room they pull my wife aside and inquire about my gambling problem.

Too true to joke about.

OMFG I get the roulette system thing all the time... I just nod along and agree that it is entirely possible for a game with like >3% house edge to be beaten by this guys expert system.

And the pedant of the year award goes to....

Im glad my family and friends understand poker to enough of a degree not to ask me any stupid questions. I think I would kill someone if they asked me even a tenth of whats been posted in here.

Until this month, when I was talking with people about poker and thinking to this thread I was like "Yeah many people ask/tell me standard stupid stuffs (how much did you lose, could you turn my x$ into y$ and then we share, only the casino can win money) but not as much as the average 2p2er, my friends are probably smarter than theirs friends".

Until now I was increasing my profits every month, and june was my first losing month (nothing really bad, just standard variance and i am super over rolled).

Despite my negative results, I did not stop to answers questions about poker and my results... so their view/opinions changed/have been more clearly expressed... It was ****ing amazing ! I now know how degenerate I look to them.

Guess what ? My friends are as stupid as yours.

ok read the first 40ish pages, found out everything was repeating with the occasional hilarious post, but I skipped the rest, probably missed a few good laughs, but anyway...

The thing I get a lot is "poker is no more than 10% skill and 90% luck".

Me: "what does that mean? How can it be a % of skill and % of luck? Does it mean 10% win? Of course it can't, because we both agree 100% luck would mean 50% win (minus rake), so maybe 10% would be 10% of the winners, being 55%?"

Them: "umm, something like that"

Me: "ok, so if you could flip a coin thousands and thousands of times that was weighted 55% in your favor, would you take it?"

Them: "umm, [insert random crap here about how poker is all luck and they once had their AA cracked for all the money on the table, usually like 2 bucks".

And note this is a pretty good engineering school, so most people here have good math backgrounds.

Luckily most of my friends who know I play actually understand. I rarely bring it up, but since I played in the dorm room, friends would see me play, tell mutual friends, and people would be like "omg how do you play all those tables at once?"

Although I did actually accept a stake once, I regularly play cash games, and this guy was pressing to stake me. So of course he starts with "let me stake you", and I'm like "I have enough money to play, and unless you're gonna give me a couple thousand I have plenty and don't feel like hurting my profits". "Well how about if I give you a bunch of money to play in a higher tourney than you've ever played before? I'll give you $20". Now at this point I didn't have a huge roll, but it was a little under 1k, so I thought what the hell, never seriously played tourneys anyway and I figure worst case at least he'll stop bugging me about staking me. I don't money, tell him, he hasn't offered to stake since. Problem solved lol.

The best part actually was my mom though. She knew I played live poker and such but didn't know anything about how much I'd made and figured it was just all for fun and I may have lost but at least I wasn't out doing drugs or joining a gang. Well I asked her about playing online poker, because I was planning on getting a 24" monitor, and when you're living with parents it's hard to hide a monitor lol. So she's like "well as long as it's your money, I trust you and know you're responsible". Me: "good, because this mail addressed to me from CA is most likely the $600 check from online poker.

Her: "wow, when are you gonna start paying tuition?"

Me: "..."

Her: "so how much do you still have on there?"

Me: "like $200" (in reality ~$3k, I make decent money at micro-stakes, certainly not enough to drop out or anything)

I also emphasized that I played 25c/50c, emphasizing on blinds only being a quarter and 50 cents. Of course now I'm at 100nl and she's sort of passed by my computer and watched for like 2 minutes, and saw the pots of like $4, biggest was like $15, just pray that she's not watching the one $200 pot I lose lol (or win actually). Luckily I don't think she's actually noticed stack sizes and that $100*18 tables = more than $200 lol.

But yeah, most friends seem to understand actually, and most leave me alone after I sort of explain. Once in a while I always get the "how much did you win today?", but they know I'm pretty intelligent and responsible with money, so when I explain it most realize that I'm not actually in much danger of losing a hand for stacks on all my tables.

50 dolla balla

Although the best part is otherwise competent poker players (wouldn't call them great, but I figure they'd be able to beat at least 10nl if they played it consistently) talk about how online is rigged, and it's always BRM. They put $100 online, played 100nl, and had their set beat by a flush. That's happened to them all 3 times they deposited, online is rigged. And then the bad players who talk about donks that won't fold and online poker being impossible to beat.

I get this a good bit.

Or my fav... "So how much do you make?"

lol yeah just thinking about the kind of comments I've gotten just playing 50nl (didn't start 100nl until summer) makes it amazing what kind of comments people playing like 600nl and 1k+nl most likely get. Had a guy tell me I'd go broke playing in a game for "50 DOLLARS". Couldn't imagine some of the comments players sitting with like 10k+ on the tables would get from broke college kids lol.

I get this every once in a while from family and freinds and IM just like WTF, I already told them I play online cash games.

Wow, if this was true Id be pissed and prolly having other mixed emotions. Def. would make me rethink telling people. As of now I just figure people will think what they think and IM not gonna lie/ hide or whatever about what I do. As Popeye always said "I am what I am......"