Minneapolis paper story on young poker players

bicyclekick · #1 01-21-2007, 07:39 PM

http://www.startribune.com/462/story/948649.html

Jay melancon is jayrockets
mike pickett is gassit
Brian devonshire is MaverickUSC

MrGrob · #2 01-22-2007, 02:55 AM

The sad part is that most kids...(man, I can't believe that I can say that now...damn I am getting old ~ oh well)...most kids don't realize just how hollow playing poker really is. Sure, you can earn cash etc etc, but if you are not going to school, and/or doing something to better yourself, you are going to be a clueless hollow person who knows all about 52 pieces of paper with some spots and drawings on them, but nothing about life. I think the worst beat would be a life of only poker and nothing but.

Again, the answer, as it usually is, is moderation.

I would suggest to ANYONE who was going to go pro to set limits...not only for the amount of hours you need to play...but also the maximum amount of hours you CAN play. It shocks me how many people hate working and would never think of working 60+ hours a week cause they have better things to do, yet they are willing sit in front of a computer for that long playing poker and doing nothing else. It is like the old AMWAY person...I am working for myself...I am free to set my own hours...i have no boss...all good, but 100% of their time is AMWAY.

It would not surprise me in the least if a lot of the “winning players” on 2+2 now are only winning cause they devote unhealthy amounts of hours to playing. A true poker professional, in my opinion, is good enough not only to support himself playing poker, but to do so within a reasonable amount of hours so that he can still have a good quality of life.

I do not mean this sarcastically. Really, from someone that has been there and done that ~ GET A LIFE and KEEP IT ~ it is worth more then all the money you could ever win playing poker.

Oh, and don't forget. There is a big difference between playing poker and working poker. Until you absolutely have to play or you don't eat, I would not believe that anyone can say for sure that they want to be a poker pro, as the only poker they know is being played under completely different circumstances.

fearless2k · #3 01-22-2007, 03:12 AM

Well to get ANYWHERE in life you must work. to suceed in school you must work to get good grades so u can get a good job, so u can get a good wage etc.. that is why around exam times students do "all niters" to cram as much as they can 2 pass their exams..
If you dont, then u wont get a job and ud waste all that time u spent in school.

same applies for a business, u start up need to get it going so u put in 80 hours a week to get it sucessfull, and why do they spend so much time? because its theirs. its what they want to do, its what they enjoy, and its whats gnna make them money.
but once its sucessfull u can relax can you not? u employ others to do your job and u can beome the "over seer" and relax in a nice mansion somehwere..

and yet again the same principle applies to poker, at least in my eyes, you have to work to learn the game, get experiance, move up in limits, eventually u wont need to do 60 hrs a week, a couple a day will be enough. and i dont understand your concept of "hollow". would you call a football player "hollow"? any tom dick or harry cannot become a good poker player, it requires a modest amount of brain power.

a good professional is not born a professional, he has had to learn the same way we all have to.. and a good poker player would mange his bankroll so he had enough to eat all times... its one of the basic traits required to be sucessfull!

siegfriedandroy · #4 01-22-2007, 05:03 AM

hey bike. cool article. the girl i once loved told me im 'addicted to gambling'. wish she knew how perfectly i can count via revere's system or wong's halves. bike we should be the next mit team. lol jk

siegfriedandroy · #5 01-22-2007, 05:08 AM

i agree mainly with your post. i have made 75 bucks an hour since march, playing pretty low. i have only played more than 15 hrs a week (in that span) maybe two or 3 times (this week being one [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img]), and i hate the idea of working more than 20. i dont enjoy poker at all anymore, and my wtsd is way too low. bike's is like 40, and mine is 30. i think i play well, but i dont. i am not smart enough to know how to get better, w/o literature equivalent to nims and alekhine and chess. hopefully stox is the next alekhine. i dont know, though, that dude was kinda smart. prolly even smarter than victor and sklansky