How have you taken advantage of being a poker pro?

[Jurollo]

[ QUOTE ]
travel: month in italy, trips to england, ireland, austria, france, belgium, netherlands, aruba, bahamas, jamaica, grand cayman, mexico, vegas for wsop

moved out from home and into my own apartment with lots of gadgets

looking into buying a house/condo/townhouse within the next year

[/ QUOTE ]
Daryn,
This is a slight aside, but... What do you play? Cash? I rarely see you in MTTs unless you have another sn.
~Justin

[SlowHabit]

I've turned "pro" for about a year after college. My first year was great even though I didn't get to play as many hands as I would like due to carpal, vacations (Hawaii, Vietnam for a month, and Vegas if that counts), and visits to my gf who is currently away for college.

None of these activities would've been possible if it wasn't for poker because I would probably be grinding it out at an investment firm somewhere in New York since I have a bad habit of wanting to move up as fast as I can.

Besides the freedom, poker also gave me a chance to get into the stock market faster than I would have since I have some money to play around with. The swings in poker helped me tremendously while dealing w/ the constant flunctuations of the market. Poker also gave me a chance to look into business ventures and these business ventures (even though none succeed) helped me learn a lot about the business world.

But the greatest thing about poker is that it allowed me to financially support my parents (even though we live a very frugal lifestyle and they don't need much money from me). It makes me happy to see them happy about my success and they don't have to worry about money as much anymore. I'm currently waiting for the real estate market to "bust" so I can make their dream come true. And of course, mine too [img]/images/graemlins/cool.gif[/img]

[daryn]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
travel: month in italy, trips to england, ireland, austria, france, belgium, netherlands, aruba, bahamas, jamaica, grand cayman, mexico, vegas for wsop

moved out from home and into my own apartment with lots of gadgets

looking into buying a house/condo/townhouse within the next year

[/ QUOTE ]
Daryn,
This is a slight aside, but... What do you play? Cash? I rarely see you in MTTs unless you have another sn.
~Justin

[/ QUOTE ]

i play limit holdem, i don't really play MTT's regularly but i enjoy playing them. i often toy with the idea of playing MTT's exclusively for some time period and see how it goes. i play so little hours though, even when i'm playing limit holdem.

[bmxicle]

I'm 20 and taking a year off to make more money playing pokah and travel. I have been to aruba, copenhagen, (the poker tournament was mainly just the excuse to go there, its such an awesome city) bahamas twice, hawaii, chamonix. However this is just the start of my travels.

I will be going heli-skiing next week which costs about 12 grand and is something i dreamed of doing maybe once in my life ever since i was a kid, but now i have the ability to do it many times, if not for the rest of my life depending on how poker goes. I will be going back to europe with 3 friends right after heli-skiing for over a month, and we will be doing Europe on a shoestring, which i think will be a really interesting for me cause i'm not used to traveling cheaply. Then i will be going to japan/australia and possibly New Zealand in april. I also hope to get some snowboarding in, in Chile during our summer. So poker has allowed me to travel which is amazing in and of itself, but i really feel like i am gaining a much better perspective of everything by going to all these places.

Money has also helped me socially. Like i don't think people consciously like me more because of my money, but when i buy drinks for everyone, drive them places in my brand new car, and am always available to do stuff 24/7 it definately makes a difference socially.

Poker has also taught me excellent money management skills, so even if poker isn't there i doubt i will ever have money problems in my lifetime. More importantly, i have no idea what i want to do with my life, but poker has given me a huge number of options. I am not forced to go to school and get a degree right away because i can afford to wait and see what i want to do.

The thing i hate the most about being a poker pro is that i have to actually play poker sometimes, but thats about the only downside though i feel like i take advantage of everything else pretty well. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]