Just looking for some tips if anyone has any. Please no trolling serious posts only. I promise you it's not another dropping out of school for poker thread as I'd never even consider that and have no intentions to do so.

Basically here's my dilemma I'm a 20 year old sophomore in college and have picked up online poker last January and have been playing and learning the game ever since. After learning the basics and seeing a friend grind the micros I deposited $175 and now have built that up to around a $5K bankroll. Poker has taken a major role in my life and its something I'm very passionate about.

The friend who introduced me and a friend of his took last summer off from working the typical job for someone my age and played online instead. They made about 3k and 12k respectively. This inspired me to want to do this next summer, thinking to myself I could set my own hours and have more time for my family and friends along with really just enjoying my time off from school while I'm still young. There's no better time to do it than now since I have no large responsibilities and such.

Now the difficulty here is this idea being respected by my parents. When the idea was mentioned they immediately shut me down and told me to be realistic and that they'd never allow me to do such a thing. They see poker like the average parent as a chance for me to gamble away my money and eventually just become broke. My sister (who graduated from an ivy league school and just got a job in D.C.) got it in their heads that I'm playing online illegally and they all compared the idea to selling drugs instead of working. My dad's biggest issue is that a friend of his played online year's ago and supposedly won $15k then proceeded to lose $30K (I'm sure he used good BRM a) and my mom's biggest issue is that "companies will look at the gap in your resume and ask what you did during those couple of months and it will affect your chances of getting a job if you tell them you didn't have a job or you played poker".

And to sum it up I'm good student and never got into any trouble or been involved with drugs or anything. They have no reason to believe I'd be stupid enough to spend all this time and effort on something without being able to do it profitably. I also have more than enough money to support myself through the summer in the bank if I run bad or something else comes up (over 5 figures).

What's my move here? Any simple way to explain to them the situation and realize how much it would mean to me to be able to have that freedom over the summer? I just want to truly enjoy my life without the hassle of some bs underpaid job that every other kid my age has to carry out during the summer?

Thanks for any help and please only serious posts.

Show them the money

My parents were skeptical and thought it was a scam until I showed them the check that came in the mail

I had the same experience as Toph.

start smoking weed and tell them you'll quit if you can play poker

then dont quit smoking weed and play poker professionally and become a degenerate gambler.

i agree with chawklit

I agree with your parents on one thing.

Future employers will be more impressed with a nice internship on your resume. And some will be negatively impressed if they find out you took the whole summer off to play poker.

How about a compromise? Work at some job for the first half of the summer, then play poker the second half. You have something to put on your resume and you get to try out full time poker (it might not be as much fun as you think).

To stay on the weed thing tell em this:
Say Colt 45 and 2 zig-zags baby thats all we need
We can go to the park after dark
Smoke that tumbleweed

Your ****ing 20 i'm pretty sure its your decision. Lol at them "not allowing" you to decide how you spend your holiday

yeah nuguy, heaven forbid his parents actually look out for his future!

i wish i would have tried harder to get an internship, instead i played poker for 2 summers. sure i enjoyed it while i was doing it, but now i don't have anything to put on my resume

Looking out for his future =/= controlling him iyam

You probably are better off with the internship...Obv. not illegal or like dealing drugs but yknow there's no reason you cant do both this summer.

give them money

<3

I was sort of in your shoes at one point: I played poker full time for one summer. There were a few key differences though:

1) It was the summer before I was entering a PhD program -- so, at that point the contents of the resume for that summer are basically irrelevant
2) The main reason I did it was because I was burned out from my full-time job and wanted to quit in June instead of September
3) I didn't tell my parents

Honestly I don't think I would want my college kid doing this for a summer either; there are so many other valuable things they could be doing with their time. sure not all summer jobs are fruitful, but e.g. I was a Biology major and I'm glad I got in the lab time over the summers.

I guess if it was between poker and bs job as you say, then sure I'd go with poker. But is that really the case? Do you have no prospects for internships or like an REU in your major?

oblige them with a summer job, but just work minimal hours and keep playing poker. i wouldn't tell them because you're an adult now and you should think for yourself. you seem like ur bright and and ur parents are the type that would instill discipline in you, so not playing poker for you is like setting money on fire. but they were good parents, so i say that you owe it to them to respect their wishes to get a job, even though you don't agree with them.

Thanks for the input guys, I'll have to reevaluate the situation and see what's the best option.

Also by bs job I meant I worked at a summer camp the last two summer's for $8 an hour and like 35 hours a week (wouldn't considering doing it another summer). The summer before that I had an internship at an insurance company as a computer technician, but lost it the year after since the economy was so bad they had to cut out their entire internship program. So basically as of right now especially since I'm in the middle of changing majors I'm not sure if an internship will be possible.

An internship right now will definitely get you started climbing the career ladder, and provide valuable experience. If you are interested in your field, I guarantee it will be more enjoyable than grinding all summer.

A lot of internships are 8 or 10 week programs - do that, and you'll still have a month to try your hand at playing full-time.

Getting work experience and something to put on your resume is a lot more important right now than making an extra thousand bucks or so playing poker. Real jobs pay too.

Getting a bs job and also playing poker some is probably the worst option. Its not like a real internship will consume your entire life.

like others have said show them the money, thats the only way, your goal shouldn't be for them to cheer you on but the minimum of understanding, and unless you show nice consistent checks you have no chance. money talks

Your parents are worried for the wrong reasons.

You should/shouldn't do this for entirely different reasons.

Side Note: There are like 900 ****ers on here that stole my avatar and I'm kinda pissed.

What major are you? I've been told big investment firms and such look favorably on competent poker players. Might be an asset instead of a whole in your resume. I imagine any field outside of finance would look down on a summer of poker though.