Re: How have you taken advantage of being a poker pro?
 

I've only played for about a year and a half, and I haven't considered myself "pro", well, ever... even though I've never had another form of income ever, so I guess that's what I am. Anyways I haven't done much, got my own place a couple weeks ago which rocks, and basically just haven't had to worry about cash at all whenever I want to buy something or whatever. I might take up traveling soon though but I'm still young (21) and studying at university so I'll probably wait until summer and maybe travel with someone as I'm not very experienced in traveling alone.

Re: How have you taken advantage of being a poker pro?
 

bmx, dude, and others,

Great stories. Thanks for being so candid, Dude, I think you may have just lit another little fire under me to actually get back to playing a little more.

James

Re: How have you taken advantage of being a poker pro?
 

James what do you think the future holds for you?

Re: How have you taken advantage of being a poker pro?
 

James thanks for making this post. Other than money I haven't been able to really take of being a pro since I just finished school in december. This has motivated me to finally put a trip into the works that I have been wanting to do for a long time.

My current lease is up in August and for about a year now I have been thinking of going to Australia. Now I think I have offically decided to actually do it. Hopefully this time next year I can make a follow up as I enjoy the waves from manly beach. We will see

Re: How have you taken advantage of being a poker pro?
 

Great stories everyone. I'm not a pro, but poker is awesome [img]/images/graemlins/cool.gif[/img] and I have an ok story imo.

After making a very modest amount of money my senior year of high school, I cashed out everything I had online except for like 50 bucks. My parents are paying a lot of money for my college, so I figured I would work really hard and study all the time, leaving no room for poker. Unfortunately, I hated school for the first few weeks so I played a bunch. I eventually began to like school, but by then I was having too much fun playing poker to quit. Fast forward to January and I'm playing in a WPT event after essentially deciding to quit playing poker four months earlier.

I had never been out of the country until the PCA, and it was awesome for my first trip out of the country to be a weeklong stay at the Atlantis resort, all paid for by a series of mouseclicks. Up until the PCA, I had played sngos and tournaments with buyins no more than $20 for basically my entire poker career. Then all of a sudden I'm top 15 in chips in a WPT event and 3-betting Barry Greenstein with air. I ended up cashing which was nice but at the same time somewhat unfortunate considering my chip count relative to my day 1 tablemate and the eventual champion stevepa (53k to 7k).
After getting back from the Bahamas, I dabbled a bit in higher stakes but set aside most of the money to pay for school. Now I'm back to playing low-limit sngos (beat), but at least I'm doing so while wearing a nice watch and with a bottle of Cristal on my desk (beat too for pointless purchases I suppose). I'm also planning a trip to Thailand this summer because there's no need for me to work a summer job and I can't seem to land an internship no matter how many resumes I ship out.

Re: How have you taken advantage of being a poker pro?
 

I'm not a pro as I'm a student, but the simple ability to not really worry about money is very helpful, I have so many friends who have like $5 in their bank account just the flexibility for money to be somewhat irrelevant for me is so helpful.

Also going to the PCA and Vegas last summer were awesome experiences and I met lots of awesome people.

Re: How have you taken advantage of being a poker pro?
 

James,

Nice post. I think it is great that you have found a great hobby like skiing. Everytime I go to the gym I feel bored out of my mind. I went sky diving once and didnt really care for it. I am going to try and go skiing in Korea in April if its still snowing. I am also going to try scuba diving.

Re: How have you taken advantage of being a poker pro?
 

I've basically gone from a reasonable job with not a great chance of changing my furture, to doing most of what Jays done and having a subline moment and sleeping lots, helping friends out when they need it and now have a job lined up working for a trading company.

Re: How have you taken advantage of being a poker pro?
 

[ QUOTE ]
James,

Nice post. I think it is great that you have found a great hobby like skiing. Everytime I go to the gym I feel bored out of my mind. I went sky diving once and didnt really care for it. I am going to try and go skiing in Korea in April if its still snowing. I am also going to try scuba diving.

[/ QUOTE ]

KKF - Thanks, I absolutely hate the gym also. When i got into skiing 2 years ago basically on a whim it was because it seemed impossible for me to stay active in the winter time. I'd play open gym basketball once a week or something, but being a blob was getting pretty easy. If you like skiing in Korea, everything I've heard has said that skiing in Japan really, really kicks ass.

James

Re: How have you taken advantage of being a poker pro?
 

[ QUOTE ]
I'm actually quite disappointed with how I came out of playing poker - which is not to say that I didn't come out okay. (Cliff notes at bottom of post.)

Cliff notes: I've done okay playing poker, but due to laziness, occasional poor bankroll management, and untimely streaks of running bad, I didn't come out the other end with much to show

[/ QUOTE ]

I feel the same way. Maybe these stories should go in another thread, but...

I started playing in December 2003 after reading HEPFAP, and was immediately beating the low limit games. I had a decent paying but boring as [censored] tech job with a small start-up at the time. I played part time and moved up steadily throughout 2004. I made about 14K at poker that year, and it helped me because I paid off a lot of debt.

The job went sour in January 2005, and management wanted us all to take across the board pay cuts of about one third. I was the first to leave, figuring I could easily make the same at poker. For 2005, that was true, I made almost exactly the same as I did in 2004, but of course I only worked 20 hours a week instead of 40. Perhaps you could call it laziness, but grinding poker was just to mind numbing for me to put in many more hours than that.

2006 sucked though. I made less than half of what I did in 2005. I paid about 20K in 2005 and 2006 estimated taxes, and that basically wiped my savings, and forced me to drain my bankroll for living expenses. I moved down through the limits, from a peak of 20/40 in March, to 2/4 in the fall, and I don't even feel like a winner there sometimes. I really just don't have the bankroll to support myself with poker any more.

I've concluded that limit hold'em sucks, and I've switched to SNGs for now, since I had dabbled in them in the past and did well at the lower limits. But I'm starting over and have a lot to learn, and still need to rebuild a bankroll if I'm to make decent money. I've started looking for jobs again, but my tech skills are stale and I have a two year gap to explain. I'm not even sure I want to go back into it, the idea of working at another job like the one I had makes me sick. I'm a bit older than most 2+2ers (turned 40 in September), so the idea of starting over in an entry level job situation is not very appealing either.

Oh well, I hate to make such a negative post in a thread that was meant for positive stuff, but that's my situation.