Dating a poker pro- From the perspective of a non-playing girlfriend

[geormiet]

- they don't play 40 hours a week

Yes, there are 100s of 2p2ers 20 somethings earning 200k+/year

[golfnutt]

[ QUOTE ]
- they don't play 40 hours a week

Yes, there are 100s of 2p2ers 20 somethings earning 200k+/year

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They don't play 40 hours a week because it is not a sustainable win rate. Of course, in short-term variance, anyone can make it. Geez, I won $500 in 30 minutes the other day. Maybe I could say I am a $1000 an hour winner.

Please provide proof that there are hundreds of 2p2ers making $200k a year.

[Henry17]

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You are out of your mind if you think that many people make $200k a year.

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I believe it is quite easy to make $200k when you factor in loyalty programs.

It is hard to judge how many people actually do. Some of the threads I read lead me to believe that while the potential is there for anyone with average intelligence that nevertheless most people don't.

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Have a whole group of people here whose self-interest is in believing poker is a sustainable and viable career decision.

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I started gambling in 91-92 and got progressively more serious about it till somewhere around 98 the numbers were such that I'd have to be insane to pick anything but this as a career. So I don't need to believe it is a sustainable income source. I think after 10 years I can say with a fair amount of confidence that it is a sustainable income source for myself.

That being said I believe the internet has set a lot of people up for failure. Online poker has given a bunch of guys in their early 20s a lot of false confidence. Everyone thinks the game is getting harder in the last 2-3 years and it might be relative to when they started playing. Most online players entered poker when it was at an all time with respect to softness. So I do believe a lot of people in their early 20s are going to screw up their lives because of it.

[geormiet]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
- they don't play 40 hours a week

Yes, there are 100s of 2p2ers 20 somethings earning 200k+/year

[/ QUOTE ]

They don't play 40 hours a week because it is not a sustainable win rate. Of course, in short-term variance, anyone can make it. Geez, I won $500 in 30 minutes the other day. Maybe I could say I am a $1000 an hour winner.

Please provide proof that there are hundreds of 2p2ers making $200k a year.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm not sure how to do this other than naming people who I know who are earning this much money, which I won't do. Of all my poker friends, I know maybe 10 people who are making this much. I know just a tiny fraction of 2p2 and am part of the SH limit world, which is less lucrative than NL. Therefore I assume that there are 100s or 1000s who are also earning that much outside the group that I am friends with.

Also, here are some numbers.

I play between 5/10 and 100/200. I'm a good player, but there are many who are better than me, and on average, I earn $.75/hand including rakeback.

[golfnutt]

A story about one of my best friends who I met in business school. He started day trading. He turned $5k into $500,000 in about 6 months. My first job I made $62k and that was working 50 hour weeks. So, he made in one year what it would take me eight years (at the same salary to earn).

And he got up whenever he wanted and did whatever he wanted. He was obsessed with checking stocks and would be on stock and day-trading message boards and everyone was making hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Markets and his timing soured. He started losing money and his position was down to $250k. Instead of looking at it as a $245k gain, he viewed as a $250k loss and got more depressed. He took even more gambles and his position was worth $70k. He viewed it as the end of the world. He didn't even care about the $70k and thought of the $430k loss.

Shortly thereafter, he had ZERO in his account. He tells me that if he had got to $1mm, he would have quit, but he was never going to stop.

He did nothing for months and just rued about his losses. Meanwhile, the rest of the MBA class was working up the career ladder.

He started working for his old man. But he couldn't stand having to be there at 9am and work a full-day and make only a few hundred a day. They got into a huge fight and parted ways.

He resorted to taking cash off all his credit cards to live. He constantly applies for credit cards and finally one somehow got approved and he immediately took cash advances. He is probably in debt $100k and hasn't worked in nine years.

It wasn't that he took a shot that was bad. It was the corruption of money that killed his soul. For him to view $70,000 as meaningless when that would take someone saving $10,000 a year for 6 years to get to (assuming interest) is unhealthy.

He is borderline suicidal and views himself as damaged goods. This story, imho, is tranferable to the internet poker player generation. There will definitely be some winners, but the majority will be remains on the sideroad of life.

[geormiet]

day trading is far far far riskier than poker.

[golfnutt]

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day trading is far far far riskier than poker.

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I absolutely agree. It had more to do with the value of money and the work ethic than anything else which seems very comparable.

[Mr_Pathetic]

your friend sounds like grimstarr.

[Henry17]

[ QUOTE ]
It wasn't that he took a shot that was bad. It was the corruption of money that killed his soul. For him to view $70,000 as meaningless when that would take someone saving $10,000 a year for 6 years to get to (assuming interest) is unhealthy.

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I'm not sure if it is healthy or not but I agree with your friend. I realize objectively that $70k is a lot of money for most people. Every time I see the stats on avg income I realize just how warped my concept of money is. That being said if I was down to $70k I wouldn't care about it either. I couldn't afford to cover the basics for more then 6 months so I might as well go for it. If I bust out I'm no worse off than if I save the $70k.