Why I don't tell people I play poker.

[sdunsmb]

OMG, this thread is pure gold, I agree with so much of this BS.

Seriously, the fact that I have so many firends who know a little a bit about poker, but think they know tons makes it so much worse.

Here are some of the classic that I get VERY regularly(yes, some willl be repeated from earlier in thread)

- Are you up today?
- If I give you 300, can you double it
- What happens if you lose it all(typically from my sister or other females)
- You dont play for money do you? you dont want to get into gambling everyone will lose eventually and it becomes an illness(from my parents who dont know I have lived of poker since leaving school).
- Whats the ROLL on(from my mates who think they know about poker)
- Are you going to build up a stake and take a shot at Vegas(idiotic firends who have seen rounders
- How much are you up overall


meh, probably others I have forgotten

[AlwaysAir]

[ QUOTE ]
OMG, this thread is pure gold, I agree with so much of this BS.

Seriously, the fact that I have so many firends who know a little a bit about poker, but think they know tons makes it so much worse.

Here are some of the classic that I get VERY regularly(yes, some willl be repeated from earlier in thread)

- Are you up today?
- If I give you 300, can you double it
- What happens if you lose it all(typically from my sister or other females)
- You dont play for money do you? you dont want to get into gambling everyone will lose eventually and it becomes an illness(from my parents who dont know I have lived of poker since leaving school).
- Whats the ROLL on(from my mates who think they know about poker)
- Are you going to build up a stake and take a shot at Vegas(idiotic firends who have seen rounders
- How much are you up overall


meh, probably others I have forgotten

[/ QUOTE ]

pure gold

[boomshakalaka]

I remember trying to explain it to a freind of mine. I tried to explain odds and everything. Tried to give the example of if you have a coin that lands on heads 60% of the time and yo ucan always pick heads ect ect.. He kept going back to "yah but you could win or lose, its all luck right?" He didnt understand that just because there are 2 possible outcomes it does not neccessarily make the odds 50/50.

[repulse]

My two most hilarious experiences that haven't been duplicated in this thread so far:

- Out of nowhere, a friend of mine looked at me and with a hesitant look of extreme curiosity asked "...Do you play other casino games too?", as if he was expecting me to know the magical secret to beating roulette and that I'd share it with him.

- This has happened on several occasions... my family and close friends are aware of the excellent salary I make playing poker. But it always BLOWS THEIR MIND when they find out that I got my iPod for free with a year's worth of PartyPoints... I still can't figure this out.

[Fallen Hero]

Try living in a country where 95% of the population never heard of holdem. Whenever I tell someone I play poker for a living they think I'm playing 5 card draw with Clint Eastwood or something.

[Chump Change]

ZOMG Y IZ EVERYBODYS FRINEDS SO DUMB I HOPE THEY R GUD 4 OTHER THINGZ I STILL HAVE EMPATHY THO!!!!

[el_dusto]

roflcopter @ this thread.

i'm a white male in my early/mid 20s from a middle-class family, and so of course the expectation is that i'm in college. i'm not, because i make more money playing poker, and my life is such that many occupational doors are closed to me (long story). of course, since i am not in college, i must have AIDS or terminal cancer or something, and so I always have to answer the "well, wtf do you do all day?" question. "I wait tables, and I play poker." that is apparently not the correct answer.

"ZOMG how do you get money into/out of poker?" (this is the most common one I hear; I'm considering drawing a little picture of how Neteller works and keeping it in my wallet for visual aid purposes)

"ZOMG poker is awesome this one time at a free bar tournament I...."

"ZOMG how do you make any money, everyone i know says they're a professional poker player, and if you're all playing perfectly, you all can't win!"

"ZOMG you are a gambling addict and will die in a gutter when you go BUSTO!"

"ZOMG you're breaking the law and the IRS will get you!"

"ZOMG you can't just play poker for the rest of your life!"

LOL.

My roommates are all pretty cool about it, though. One of them was surprised to learn that I do things like study and discuss; "I thought you were just fooling around!" The only thing that gets me is their surface-level interest: "How's poker going / How did poker go last night?" I want to tell them all about how I pwnt a villian in the face with a tiny, tiny bet, or how I got pozzed by villian's better garbage, or about any number of other good stories that would make their eyes glaze over...

so hours and hours of effort, and all the commensurate joy and pain, are distilled into either, "Good; I won." or "Crappy; I lost."

[Sponger.]

So a neighbor of mine, who also happens to be a hot girl, asks me yesterday if she gives me money will I win for her, I say that I already have money to do that, but that I will teach her how to play poker with her own money so she can win.

I thought that was a pretty good comeback.

[Chump Change]

[ QUOTE ]
Try living in a country where 95% of the population never heard of holdem. Whenever I tell someone I play poker for a living they think I'm playing 5 card draw with Clint Eastwood or something.

[/ QUOTE ]



ZOMG CANADA STILL ROOLZ!!!


EDIT: Why did I think you are from Canada? Of course they've heard of NLHE. I'm leaving this post though because the picture is funny.

[smittymatt]

Whenever people ask me what I do for a living, I just tell them "Equity analyst."