2 years gambling on digital representaions of playing cards(v. long)

[idrinkcoors]

Great read James.

For variety, do you play any big live games in Lake Tahoe?

[chisness]

James,

First, congrats on everything. A few questions:

How old are you? Do you have any plans to retire or get a more standard job and treat poker as a hobby any time soon?

How many hours a week do you play? Do you find it harder to make yourself play now due to boredom?

You mention that poker is basically good right now. While I definitely wouldn't quit college, how much $$/yr would you think I should be making to take a year or two off after college to play? Will this hurt when I look for a job and my resume has a two year blank?

[poker_n00b]

[ QUOTE ]
I pay very close attention to game selection in the bigger limit games, as I've learned my lesson about how sickening the variance can be at those games when my ego makes me play in games where my edge is smaller than I'm used to.
-James

[/ QUOTE ]

How do you select tables at bigger limits? What do you look at?

[MicroBob]

[ QUOTE ]
how much $$/yr would you think I should be making to take a year or two off after college to play?

[/ QUOTE ] '


It is my opinion that James (nor anybody else) can give you concrete answers to these Q's.m
mean
What is your degree in? What job prospects do you have? What are the effects of having a 2-year gap in your particular field?

please note, I don't care what YOUR situation is. These are rhetoricals just used to point out that people are different in your situation will not be the same as anyone else's.


Will it hurt when you look for a job and have a 2-year gap?
Yes. How much it hurts is not known though. It might make hardly any difference at all.
But the fact that just ONE employer COULD be turned off by this means that it is hurting your chances.

[chisness]

Yeah, it's definitely mostly a personal decision. It would probably be pretty easy to do some traveling/volunteering during those years off and tell employers the time was for that?

[James282]

[ QUOTE ]
Great read James.

For variety, do you play any big live games in Lake Tahoe?

[/ QUOTE ]

Such games don't really exist here except on very special occasion, and on those occasions, I probably wouldn't even know about them. I haven't played live here, yet.
-James

[James282]

[ QUOTE ]
James,

First, congrats on everything. A few questions:

How old are you? Do you have any plans to retire or get a more standard job and treat poker as a hobby any time soon?

How many hours a week do you play? Do you find it harder to make yourself play now due to boredom?


[/ QUOTE ]

Hi, I am 24. I have plans to play poker as long as I can make something like 50-60% of what I can currently make, until I go into business for myself in one way or another and can then make more than that and enjoy what I am doing. I probably play 25-40 hours a week during my 'peak weeks,' but my yearly average is likely much lower than that, since I vacation a lot, go away for 2 months every summer, etc. That said, these vacations and going away for the summer allow me to average more time when I actually am playing because I believe I am able to approach the game with a much fresher mindset than some of my peers.

As far as making the decision to leap into pro play yourself, that's something only you can decide. I have no idea what your earning potential is in other fields, nor the fields that you may want to explore. For some, a 2-3 year blank on the resume won't make a difference - for others, it will make you unhirable. I would say that if one could make 100k a year and it wouldnt have a long term effect on their career path, then it would be great for them to do so but only if they also took that time to enjoy the freedom and really live it up while they had the opportunity to.

Good luck, and thanks for the kind words.
-James

[James282]

[ QUOTE ]


How do you select tables at bigger limits? What do you look at?

[/ QUOTE ]

I have a pretty huge database these days just from playing many hands at the limits I currently play. In the bigger games, I generally won't sit unless the pot average is 5 bb or higher - or I see a few specific terrible players that I know I can destroy. I will play in games where the pot sizes are smaller if I see mostly opponents whom I can run over postflop, and don't see many tricky players who will try to stop me from doing so. I do think that the typical games on Party are beatable even without game selection, but the variance of being a .5/1 bb/100 winner at these limits can be a bit much for me, especially in my current living situation where I am far less likely to overload on hands to work my way through them than I used to be when I was living alone.
-James

[TheArtist]

Thanks for for the inspiring post James. This is exactly what i need to read during this 1.5 month downswing of mine. I sometime wish I can play like you and other great posters on here. If I can do that, I would never think about getting another job. You guys are the cream of the crops.

Keep up the good work.

Richard

[K-Slay]

Good analogy at the end there, I've been thinking about it for a day or so since I read this. It's definetly made an impact on how I'm going to try and approach putting in hours.