Poker Discussion
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as a professional poker player 
I am dropping out of college as a junior and moving to Vegas in January with a fellow online player to become a professional poker player. Right now, I live with my mom and step-dad. They have no knowledge of the move. I know my mom is going to be absolutely disgusted with me. She is aware that I play but is not privy to the details of my successes/failures. I have slowly been trying to get my family more comfortable with the idea that this is a profitable source of income, but they cannot fully grasp its profitability. My mom refuses to refer to poker as income, a job, work, instead insists on using the term "gambling". I do my best to explain that at any given table at an MTT there are 7 losing/break-even players and maybe 2 winners, and that in the short-term maybe i will get ko'ed of a tourney without cashing despite doing everything right, but in the long run those correct decisions produce clear results. For whatever reason, my family does not have the ability to grasp that concept. So to them, I am logging on Full Tilt for 8 hrs a night and flipping digital coins for $$$.
I am looking for some advice on what to do or say to show my family that poker is profitable and also anything else I can say to make them more comfortable with the idea that this is what I have chosen to do for a living.
Thanks
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I'm sitting with about 15k life dollars. I def need to move up a level, I have just taken it slowly, especially since I am doing well enough at my level to make 40-45k a year.
A big part of the move is about putting myself in a better atmosphere to succeed. (time, location, people...)
Also, a big part of my plan is to play live cash 1-2nl, 2-5nl, 3 or 4 days a week and still be able to play online MTT's considerable volume. I don't have a legitimate casino within 3hrs, and my local cardroom is not really a consistent option.
I agree with you guys that finsihing shool would be the smartest move, I just cannot continue at this time. It is so hard wake up and drag myself to school when I know I will not work in a office for the next 40 yrs and therefore cannot utulize my degree. Honestly, I feel like failure is just not a possible outcome, maybe I will plateau at some point and not ever be a 200k earner a year, but I can always go back to school and imo it will be more beneficial if I actually wanted to be there to improve upon my self from an academic standpoint. But I'm not just gonna go through the motions.
LOL at the Joe Cada statement, you are silly if you think I am making this decision on the fly... I have researched housing, estimated budgets....
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finish school, then move. i don't say that just because of the degree, college is the best time of your life, you'll never be around as man ppl your age (and especially unlimited hot tail) again. enjoy it, don't end it early.
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OP, you asked for advice. the overwhelming advice given was STAY IN SCHOOL.
maybe the thread should have been "hai guyz this is wat im doing".
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kngsup
(United States)
80
Posts.
Joined
03-31-2006.
11-22-2009 10:52 AM
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In reply to
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First - Good Luck.
I wish you much success but please have a back-up plan or be sure the family is willing to take you back. Vegas is not all it is cracked up to be. Most days you'll end up playing against the same guys who are all going to be better than you as they have been doing it for years. There are literally dozens of blogs up by Vegas Pro's, and probably ten times that many pros prowling the streets.
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during university's summer, i wanted to take a summer off and not work. To try to force me to work, my mom suddenly started charging me rent to stay at home << if youre not in school, u need to pay rent , that includes summers >>. Instead of getting a job, I just grinded harder and started making OK $$ with poker and payin rent with that. Once she tried to refuse my $$ since it was poker$ i told her $ is $. Few years later, I left my govt job for poker and obv she wasnt happy. What did it take for them to come around? It took me doing it for 2years, being very happy, living well (traveling alot, bringing my sister and brother to a week long ski trip as xmas present, etc). Once they saw I could actually be profitable and it wasnt gambling, they came around :)
Its like that for every parent... they dont like it, until you SHOW THEM THE $$ . That or diamond earings would do the trick
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 eman2188: | |
I'm sitting with about 15k life dollars. I def need to move up a level, I have just taken it slowly, especially since I am doing well enough at my level to make 40-45k a year.
A big part of the move is about putting myself in a better atmosphere to succeed. (time, location, people...)
Also, a big part of my plan is to play live cash 1-2nl, 2-5nl, 3 or 4 days a week and still be able to play online MTT's considerable volume. I don't have a legitimate casino within 3hrs, and my local cardroom is not really a consistent option.
I agree with you guys that finsihing shool would be the smartest move, I just cannot continue at this time. It is so hard wake up and drag myself to school when I know I will not work in a office for the next 40 yrs and therefore cannot utulize my degree. Honestly, I feel like failure is just not a possible outcome, maybe I will plateau at some point and not ever be a 200k earner a year, but I can always go back to school and imo it will be more beneficial if I actually wanted to be there to improve upon my self from an academic standpoint. But I'm not just gonna go through the motions.
LOL at the Joe Cada statement, you are silly if you think I am making this decision on the fly... I have researched housing, estimated budgets....
Sounds like you have thought it thru some. If its really what you want to do I say go for it and be smart with you BR live always keep a good reserve.
And remember you came out here to work don't get caught up partying. Its alot easier for me to do as most of my partyin days are behind me , I am old married and have a kid. But if i was 21-22I might have alot harder time staying out of "trouble".
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| FouTight: | |
Its like that for every parent... they dont like it, until you SHOW THEM THE $$ . That or diamond earings would do the trick
I actually moved out here for my wifes job opp which worked out well for her and while my parents gave up telling me what to what to do a decade plus ago hers still wanted to exercise some control and even threatened to not cosign for her last year of law school loans.
They didn't want her moving to vegas "with a boyfriend who gambles" even though I probly made more than her mom during her last year in school playing 100nl and 10rs on stars. But once they started to see the results and understood my risk averse approach to the business they came around.
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| Niceguy: | |
Is it really?
I mean if you want to go full baller it can be, but you can get some sick townhouses for 1200 a month, and if he's putting in the hours at the poker table he'll get comped meals.
I'd say, 600 a month rent, 200 on utilities, then 700 for misc. That's only 1500 a month.
Akin to making $9.37 an hour, 40 hours a week.
That's all relative.....I wish we had the cost of living that Vegas has in the San Fran bay area. But you can't beat the rent living in Mom's basement.....gl dude....
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| eman2188: | |
I agree with you guys that finsihing shool would be the smartest move, I just cannot continue at this time. It is so hard wake up and drag myself to school when I know I will not work in a office for the next 40 yrs and therefore cannot utulize my degree. Honestly, I feel like failure is just not a possible outcome, maybe I will plateau at some point and not ever be a 200k earner a year, but I can always go back to school and imo it will be more beneficial if I actually wanted to be there to improve upon my self from an academic standpoint. But I'm not just gonna go through the motions.
If you think the only thing you can do with a finance degree is sit in someone else's office for 40 years...your school hasn't done a very good job of showing you possible career paths (and honestly, why did you pick that degree in the first place?).
Other than that, I think you're farther along in terms of savings, research, and plan than many others who have posted the same thing. I appreciate that you want to do college the right way, and if you can't, you're not going to.
So, since you've already made up your mind, my advice is to pay your taxes, be smart about your money, and plan ahead for the inevitable time when you go through a burnout stretch. Good luck.
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I actually showed my mom all of my profitability data and explained to her my roi, showed her graphs etc. I basically gave her a power point presentation. she was a successful business woman herself and finally got on board once she saw how much money I was making.
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im old but back when i was in school i decided to half ass it and
get an english degree. in retrospect (and this was back in 2004 when
the profitabilty of poker was 10x what it is today) I would've been
better off leaving school. However, I think I am a unique case and
when I did graduate I had total support from my family to pursue poker
fulltime. with the current state of online poker, its really hard
for me to confidently recommend leaving school. but fuck it, you only
live once and YOU CAN ALWAYS GO BACK AND FINISH. just a different point of view...
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I've been in a similar situation in the past, where I was unmotivated with school and couldn't see myself enjoying a career in my major. I didn't want to be a pro poker player, but I wanted to explore other options so I can relate somewhat to what you're dealing with here. So here's my advice:
If at the moment you're consistently unmotivated to go to school and aren't willing to do the work required, then don't go. You're only wasting your money on expensive tuition and your time on things you obviously don't want to do at this point in your life. BUT, don't make the decision to drop out of school indefinitely right now. You're not in the right frame of mind and you haven't had enough life experience to make that crucial decision yet.
Make a plan. Don't drop out of school, take one semester off. Not two or three or four. Only one. And make the decision now to come back to school the following semester, no matter what happens. Think of your semester off as a life experiment. Tell your mom you're burned out from school and want to take a semester off to travel and clear your head. Move to Vegas for 3-4 months and grind your ass off. Get a true feel for what this lifestyle is like. During this time think about your future and reflect on your experiences. When the 3-4 months is up, move back and return to school. This is important. If you enjoyed your time in Vegas and truly feel like being a pro poker player is what you want to do with your life then use school as a motivational tool to get to where you want to be. Obviously you don't need a degree to be a poker player, but you do, however, need it for a backup plan. Always, always, always leave yourself something to fall back on. If you drop out of school indefinitely now to play poker, then what are you going to do in 10 years if it dawns on you that poker hasn't panned out the way you expected it to? You will have no education and no real life work experience. If you have a wife and children by then, how will you provide for them? Please, do yourself a favor and get your degree while you're young. The future is uncertain, and without an exit plan you are putting yourself in a very vulnerable position.
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I would finish my degree while playing as much as you can. You are so close from the way I read the OP (3 semesters?) from being done that you can finish without substantially delaying your poker career. GL either way
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| eman2188: | |
I am looking for some advice on what to do or say to show my family that poker is profitable and also anything else I can say to make them more comfortable with the idea that this is what I have chosen to do for a living.
Thanks
obv he's not asking for advice on whether or not to finish school.
as far as what you can "say" to your family, from my experiences, not a damn thing. you have to "show" them. you can show your stats and graphs like ape did, but if your mom is like mine you just need to do it and show up on the holidays looking real balla like.
BTW, i'm grinding it out in AC and looking to move to Vegas at least before the series starts, would love to be put on with all this research you did.
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