(Way OT) What are you graduating seniors doing?
 

I'm just wondering what you graduating seniors who beat midstakes are planning on doing next year. Obviously we make far more money right now than we could with any job. But with current online poker climate, are you guys looking for jobs? Just planning to buy/rent a place and grind it out? Anyway just generally interested, I'm personally considering playing poker full time, taking a full time job, and going to law school. Interesed to hear other opinions.

Re: (Way OT) What are you graduating seniors doing?
 

poker full time for atleast 1 year

Re: (Way OT) What are you graduating seniors doing?
 

law school

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poker full time for atleast 1 year

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Re: (Way OT) What are you graduating seniors doing?
 

Non-profit in Northern Ireland for a year, then joining a management consulting firm in NYC.

Re: (Way OT) What are you graduating seniors doing?
 

management consulting in Chi town

Re: (Way OT) What are you graduating seniors doing?
 

i think this is a very interesting topic. i'm right on the borderline but have gone down the job route.

i had 3 categories of jobs i applied to: trading at banks, big 4 accountancy firms for audit, lesser accountancy firms for audit.

in hindsight i should of expanded my application horizons. if i got offered trading, no decision, i take it. if i get offered big 4 but not trading, close, but marginal take it, if only lesser firm, i go pro for a year and reapply.

part of me wishes i'd deferred my acceptance of an offer, reapplied (secretly) to banks for better paid jobs such as consultancy, trading etc and have the big 4 auditing job to fall back on. also means i can go pro for a year, win $200K or so, then i can put down a $300K-$350K deposit down on a nice house with another $150K-$200K mortgage and get something good (i live in london so anything less than $500K kinda sucks pretty hard). One other problem is that I'd of turned 27 by the time I get my chartered accountancy qualification assuming I pass first time (not at all easy). Most people do this by the time they turn 24 (I took gap year+4 year course as studying in scotland+then a online poker year). It's a year older I'd rather not be.

instead im accepting the offer. i think i want my life to move on from the whole online poker thing. its been great, but the ultimate goal i think for me is to be in a decision making, well respected, decent paid job in my 30s. Not sitting in my nice house thinking what the [censored] am I going to do.

I guess the career/rat race gives us a challenge that as humans we need. Challenge gives us something to do.

Trading always gave me a shot outside the accountancy route given my poker experience, but not knowing anyone who had applied, I didn't realise I actually needed to know a [censored] load about markets etc themselves, not just rock up and say im a decent poker player i understand risk etc.

There are so many variables in life it's impossible to know what to do. Whatever end goal we hope for it'll never be as good as when we longed for it. The most important factor I think is just to enjoy the ride.

Re: (Way OT) What are you graduating seniors doing?
 

This is a topic i m really interested in.I m 25 and studying informatic engineer in italy.Actually i m making like 8k month without playing full time just 30k hands midstakes multitabling .
I ve stats on about 2 years of play so i can define myself a winning player but i also got swings of 8-10 buyins like everyone else.
I think also working like an engineer will not get me so much money here in italy they get like 1300euros at the beginning.
So after graduating i could play more and see what happens also higher stakes.
I ve friends who play also and they say there is no reason to work 8 hours a day 7 a week for less money than how much u make online at midstakes level.what u think?

Re: (Way OT) What are you graduating seniors doing?
 

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lawl school

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fyp

Re: (Way OT) What are you graduating seniors doing?
 

I graduated last year. Taking a year off (now it is turning into two) to travel the world and see various countries while playing poker. I really recommend it. I have learned more bout the world through traveling after graduation then during my whole University life.

Re: (Way OT) What are you graduating seniors doing?
 

this is a great topic, i am not graduating yet but wanted to chime in, i am on an internship right now with Johnson & Johnson, i have 2 years left of engineering at Penn State and they offered to pay for my grad school. I am going to play as much as I can until I finish school, then maybe take 1 year off and play full time to see how it goes and make a decision from there.

Re: (Way OT) What are you graduating seniors doing?
 

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travel the world and see various countries while playing poker

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For the forseeable future at least.

Re: (Way OT) What are you graduating seniors doing?
 

I graduated last year, I'm riding out online poker as long as I can. The way I look at it, real jobs will always be there, sure it may be a little more difficult to find a job a few years down the road, but online poker is an oppurtunity that probaby won't always be there. Personally, I love the lifestyle, and we make more money than 95% of the population. Many of us will make enough that we'll never have to get a "real job" once we're finished w/ online poker. I feel it's just to good of a situation to give it up at this point.

Re: (Way OT) What are you graduating seniors doing?
 

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I graduated last year, I'm riding out online poker as long as I can. The way I look at it, real jobs will always be there, sure it may be a little more difficult to find a job a few years down the road, but online poker is an oppurtunity that probaby won't always be there. Personally, I love the lifestyle, and we make more money than 95% of the population. Many of us will make enough that we'll never have to get a "real job" once we're finished w/ online poker. I feel it's just to good of a situation to give it up at this point.

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Thats kinda the boat i'm in. I really dislike the prospect of having a "real job" in an office working for somebody else and not making that much money (unless I work my ass off doing something financial, or work my life off to move up the corporate ladder. and neither of those is at all appealing.)

I dont even really need that much money, since i dont spend much on stupid luxuries (mostly just food and traveling around) so if I could keep winning a good amount now, it'll do well for me later and I can keep living a life I enjoy all the time.

Re: (Way OT) What are you graduating seniors doing?
 

hedge fund for now...

i didnt think i'd like playing online poker for a living if i couldn't beat 5/10 and 10/20 anymore but grinding out midstakes hasnt really been all that terrible and i've learned the most important thing is just being able to work for youself...

so yea, i dunno if i'm gonna make it in the real world but i'm giving it a shot first. seems easier than trying to do it the other way around

Re: (Way OT) What are you graduating seniors doing?
 

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I graduated last year, I'm riding out online poker as long as I can. The way I look at it, real jobs will always be there, sure it may be a little more difficult to find a job a few years down the road, but online poker is an oppurtunity that probaby won't always be there. Personally, I love the lifestyle, and we make more money than 95% of the population. Many of us will make enough that we'll never have to get a "real job" once we're finished w/ online poker. I feel it's just to good of a situation to give it up at this point.

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Thats kinda the boat i'm in. I really dislike the prospect of having a "real job" in an office working for somebody else and not making that much money (unless I work my ass off doing something financial, or work my life off to move up the corporate ladder. and neither of those is at all appealing.)

I dont even really need that much money, since i dont spend much on stupid luxuries (mostly just food and traveling around) so if I could keep winning a good amount now, it'll do well for me later and I can keep living a life I enjoy all the time.

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i am surprised at how many people are thinking the exact same thing that i am

Re: (Way OT) What are you graduating seniors doing?
 

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I graduated last year. Taking a year off (now it is turning into two) to travel the world and see various countries while playing poker. I really recommend it. I have learned more bout the world through traveling after graduation then during my whole University life.

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This sounds really appealing, but I only make about 5-10k a month with poker and am aiming to save up a sizeable amount before reevaluating. How expensive is this traveling lifestyle?

Re: (Way OT) What are you graduating seniors doing?
 

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lawl school

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fyp

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nice fyp

Re: (Way OT) What are you graduating seniors doing?
 

to those who are going for online poker for the near future. let's say 3 years down the line you've made $200K/year, so you've got $600K.

your bored of playing and the games are getting tough, the money isn't that good anymore.

what do you do now?

trying to get a finance job with good prospects will be very hard. there will be buzzing graduates to pick instead.

other than that, you'll have to accept a lower paid job without a decent rising pay scale. there will be some exceptions and for those of you with contacts in the business you may be fine.

just this is my fear. if i go pro, what do i do in 3 years time? i wont of made a fortune, $200K/year may sound good but i should be earning that year after year in my 30s if I worked at my job in my remaining 7 years in my 20s.

I wish I could search for a previous poster when this was discussed a little 6 months ago. it was a guy who had graduated, made some nice money at poker, but then 3 years since he said he became very bored and that his life had no real purpose. but trying to find a job was hard given his lack of experience and his spell of 3 years as a poker player.

I am in no way saying the poker route is wrong, it could well be right I am making a mistake by accepting a very dull, tiring, hard working job earning $50K rising to $60K after 3 years. [censored] [censored] [censored]. But the hope after that things will pick up.

Being a student for the past 2 years with a lot of disposible money (given i've never told my parents how much i have, i've always felt it doesnt matter how much i spend, also its hard not to spend $300 on a day+night out when you can make it back in less than 2 hours). This has risen my expectations I guess. I've always wanted to be minted. Be the rich guy with his pimping house going with the fit wife. Now rather than hoping to do that in my 20s, im hoping to do that in my 30s, and enjoy the challenge of the ride up there in my 20s.

I feel i'll definitely make it if I try hard in my 20s with a job, plus some poker and business ideas on the side. But if I go down the poker route, I may think to myself in 3 years time, good god I blew that opportunity to become a guarenteed high income earner in my 30s.

sidenote: I always get like this whenever I have academic work, make this post 1 week after my last exam (in 7 weeks time they end) and I'll be thinking how I must go pro, having earnt $8K in a week [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] )

sidenote 2: for some people the job route will be right, for others the poker route will be right, im just trying to work out which is better, and fearing poker will drive my insane after a few years, im taking the supposedly safer option

Re: (Way OT) What are you graduating seniors doing?
 

you will invest that 600k (hopefully) and even at a MODEST return, you'd live comfortably.

Re: (Way OT) What are you graduating seniors doing?
 

you guys have it made, it's so much harder being in the middle of school doing this

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you will invest that 300k (hopefully) and even at a MODEST return, you'd live comfortably.

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god damn taxes

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you will invest that 600k (hopefully) and even at a MODEST return, you'd live comfortably.

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Re: (Way OT) What are you graduating seniors doing?
 

You get a job. You may or may not be as competitive as the recent grads and might have to settle for a lessor job but you have 300K in investments and are debt free. You will be way ahead of the curve financially. Also if you have used your time wisely you have traveled alot and done somethings that most people will never have the opportunity to do especially at such a young age.

So yeah I graduated in December and here I am playing for a living.

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you will invest that 500k (hopefully) and even at a MODEST return, you'd live comfortably.

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love that gambling winnings arent taxed

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fyp for us britsh citizens.

i also assumed u'd wanna spend some of your monies

Re: (Way OT) What are you graduating seniors doing?
 

John,

In answer to your post, you may be right, it may be more difficult to find a job in the future, and we may be giving up future income as a result of playing online. Personally, that's a risk I'm willing to take. I'm not the type of person who can sit and work a 9-5, get up, go through the daily grind, I'm just not built like that. For me it's either this or coaching basketball. In 3 years (hoping we have that long) if the games aren't beatable anymore, hopefully I'll have saved up enough where I can start a few businesses, invest in some real estate, etc, etc. If not, so be it, I enjoyed my life while I was young and I'll then have to settle for a job where I'm making a little less than I would be had I gone straight out of school, but either way I'm not personally gonna be sitting behind a desk. I don't think there's a right way or a wrong way to approach this situation to be honest, I just feel that it's a risk that some of us are willilng to take, where as other aren't, it's up to each person to make that choice for themselves.

Re: (Way OT) What are you graduating seniors doing?
 

just this is my fear. if i go pro, what do i do in 3 years time? i wont of made a fortune, $200K/year may sound good but i should be earning that year after year in my 30s if I worked at my job in my remaining 7 years in my 20s.

u are 23 i think few after university will get works at 30 yo that pay u 200k year...like 17k month.
Here in italy after university u begin to work and get like 1200euros (researcher inside university) if not u have to go to do the "slave" for many years near a very good professionist and when u are 35-40 try to work alone.i m interested to know how it works where u live

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Being able to travel the world playing poker in your 20s is worth alot more money than alot of you realize. You realize how many people out there get stuck in the 9-5 grind for life and never get to really enjoy anything? If you have spent your 20s traveling around enjoying your freedom, you're far ahead of the curve... even financially.

Re: (Way OT) What are you graduating seniors doing?
 

I still work part time teaching teaching doctor`s assistants. I can`t find any good reasons why I still have a real job. Money for sure isn`t one at the moment.

Re: (Way OT) What are you graduating seniors doing?
 

I graduated last year, poker is too good to leave for a 9-5, online poker will never die.

Re: (Way OT) What are you graduating seniors doing?
 

I'm starting at Google in August. The idea of working with hundreds of the smartest people on the planet to solve some insanely difficult problems appeals many times more than playing in the same poker games all day.

As much as I love poker, I need to see faces everyday, need to see a wide variety of intellectual puzzles, and love having a solid fixed salary with benefits out the ass. It'll be a much better lifestyle for me, even if I'm technically working for somebody else.

If I weren't so sure of what I wanted to do, or didn't have any good job offers, I think taking a year or two at poker to make some money and live it up would be a good call. It would suck to spend my entire 20s grinding 9-5 in some job that made me want to vomit. I'd at least put some scratch together with a year or two of poker so that I could live decently and get my investments jump-started. I'm too young to be poor.




Everett

Re: (Way OT) What are you graduating seniors doing?
 

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I graduated last year. Taking a year off (now it is turning into two) to travel the world and see various countries while playing poker. I really recommend it. I have learned more bout the world through traveling after graduation then during my whole University life.

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This is my plan. Hopefully for the next 5 or 6 years I'll travel. By then I'll have 1 million saved up and life off interest and business ventures and maybe some poker on the side.

Re: (Way OT) What are you graduating seniors doing?
 

If you guys can't hack a 9-5 (very understandable, I have trouble myself) - then just play poker if you're successful, travel the world, do whatever. As long as you have contacts and are somewhat of a decent interviewer (not that hard to get good at this), you shouldn't have too much trouble finding a good job in the future. They will be there (much more likely than online poker still being there some years down the road).

Better yet, the best idea is to play poker, and if done traveling the world, then start up businesses on the side or find interesting investments. Read up on stuff that interests you. Find something you love. If you truly love poker, then do that. If you think you'll get bored in 3 years or burnt out, start educating yourself in various fields and consider starting up businesses, websites, etc. Create assets for yourself and fall back on poker. Making money with poker gives you a ridiculous situation where you have great freedom to do whatever you want. Don't waste the opportunitiy, especially if you don't think you want to do it forever.

If getting a job will teach you a lot, make you good contacts, and lead to future great success (more than 200k / year - think of starting up something) - then take the job and play poker on the side until you feel you've learned enough of how that industry works. By then you'll probably have some good acquaintances in the industry and you can quit and plan on being the boss [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] (and with poker as a crutch, you have more risk tolerance than your peers)...

Hope that advice helps someone -

Gomberg

Re: (Way OT) What are you graduating seniors doing?
 

some interesting replies for sure.

im coming round to the belief that it doesnt matter that much which you choose. you can either go very far in business if you devote a lot of time to your work and ultimately this will bring both satisfaction, big money and hopefully enjoyment. Obviously the 9-5 (or 9-7 in some cases) will be far more boring, but it may give you the stability and lack of self-doubt which makes up for the higher degree of boredom.

Equally if you go down the poker route, you can make a lot of money, have a very enjoyable time. The benefit of constant short term enjoyment has to be weighed up against the fear of future success, however, this can be replaced by setting up successful websites and businesses (however, i believe this to be far harder than is made out, a lot of people say how they will set up a business or two, but it is not easy to make big bucks, also you know you are sacraficing $200/hr or so at the tables by not playing).

to put my thought comments:

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Being able to travel the world playing poker in your 20s is worth alot more money than alot of you realize. You realize how many people out there get stuck in the 9-5 grind for life and never get to really enjoy anything? If you have spent your 20s traveling around enjoying your freedom, you're far ahead of the curve... even financially.


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I'm starting to think it's more down to the person himself whether they enjoy the above quote or the rat race business ladder. I'd like to think I, as well as a large number of guys our age who have done well at poker, could enjoy both. Winning a lot (even though i've only got 100k which compared to some of you isnt a great deal) has allowed us the huge luxury of not worrying about money for food, rent etc. This is something everyone else has to - how will i pay off student loans etc etc. So I think in general we have an enjoyable outlook on life, and could both enjoy travelling whilst playing cards but also suceed in the business world.

There are some people I know who are pretty dead-beat people who can't get interested or excited about much, and those people will never find enjoyment in either travelling/entreneurship or business world.

I guess you've just got to have the best time you can whatever you do, whilst simultaneously building for a better, more financially secure future.

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management consulting in Chi town

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This is a serious question, but what company would hire a new graduate to do management consulting with no experience in management? Maybe more importantly, what company would hire the consulting company? Obviously I'm missing something, please fill me in.

Again, this isn't a dig, or personal, but a legitimate question.

Re: (Way OT) What are you graduating seniors doing?
 

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There are some people I know who are pretty dead-beat people who can't get interested or excited about much, and those people will never find enjoyment in either travelling/entreneurship or business world.

I guess you've just got to have the best time you can whatever you do, whilst simultaneously building for a better, more financially secure future.

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Very true, good luck with whatever you decide - I'm sure you'll do well.

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management consulting in Chi town

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This is a serious question, but what company would hire a new graduate to do management consulting with no experience in management? Maybe more importantly, what company would hire the consulting company? Obviously I'm missing something, please fill me in.

Again, this isn't a dig, or personal, but a legitimate question.

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uhhh... alot. my dad is a management consultant, and he just finishing hiring a ton of Berkeley grads.

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lawl school

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fyp

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nice fyp

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Bobbo, the title of the thread is GRADUATING SENIORS.