College Life Is a Mess -- Take the Poker Route Out? (warning: LONG)

[AlfilRey]

I’m currently a 1st year Law student. Twice. The first year that I went into University I wanted to take a year out. However, at the time I had only just begun playing poker and would play 0.25/0.50 or lower. So, for financial independence, I would have had to work a minimum wage job to allow me to postpone college after finishing secondary school. This in itself would have been ok, if all I had to do was work a few hours a week for “pocket money”. However, I was told in no uncertain terms that I would have to move out if I refused to go instantly into college. Having turned just 18, and never having been all that independent, I felt cornered into going straight into college.

So, when I arrived, I started off well by missing my first week of lectures. I still had plenty of time to get back on track, but I chose not to, and poker at this time served as a convenient distraction, replacing study and attending lectures. I ended the year quite poorly, and all I had to show for it was an improvement in poker. I only made about $20k that year, a lot of which I spent, but I definitely felt a progression that would eventually yield significant results.

The summer exams came around, and I was so unprepared and uninterested that I didn’t even sit them. Where once I had been a good student, priding myself in hard work and good grades, I now found my interest had dwindled to the point where I didn’t even worry about not sitting exams and the effect this would have on my future, both personally and professionally.

I kept waiting for the day when I would wake up and say to myself “[censored] – I need to get my act together” and from that moment I would study regularly. That moment never came. However, because poker certainly wasn’t going to make me a millionaire, and was stressing me out around that time (summer 2006), I decided to take a stab at the Autumn exams.

I studied inconsistently, superficially and realised that my memory is pretty poor. Also, my concentration skills had gone way down, although I had no problem maintaining a high level of concentration when playing poker, or even when playing chess (which I have played most of my life, representing Ireland in the World Youth Chess Championships until I was no longer under 18).

The Autumn repeats came and went, and I found myself passing 2 and failing 3 (the two that I passed were far and away the easiest). At this moment I still wanted to take a year out, but with only about $6-7k of poker winnings left over, I wasn’t confident that I could earn enough to live comfortably for a year after rent, food, and other day-to-day expenses. Also, with this pressure, I felt I probably wouldn’t play as good or even enjoy poker.

So, I took the easy route, and repeated 1st year. However, in the month before I started college again I started writing down my results, and playing higher stakes as well as starting to win at PLO and I found myself making $20k within a month, and about another $55k over the next month and a half. Of course, in that month and a half I failed to go to practically any lectures, and the mood was set for what was to prove another disastrous academic year.

As far as friends went, I didn’t have that many but I had a few in poker circles, chess circles and from my old school, so that, for me, not going to college did not mean being a complete social outcast. Also, I am not that social in the first place, and absolutely need to spend some time alone pretty much every day, if only an hour or two.

Then came a 6-month breakeven stretch. It was probably around 50,000 hands as I play quite sporadically, and put in even less hours when losing or not winning. However, this period showed me that poker is a frustrating bitch of a game, but that if you are patient you will eventually get back on track, and that’s just what I did around March or April of this year, when I played some big live cash games and made about $24,000 in 4-5 days of mostly deepstacked 5-10.

I then took a break from poker in order to concentrate on my summer exams. During this period I pretty much didn’t play at all. However, I still was unable to concentrate on Law, and ended up browsing 2+2, playing chess again, going to the gym more just to try to fill in the gap that poker had occupied, rather than filling it with study.

My work for the summer exams was, in a word, weak. The result was deserved. I failed every exam. Here in Ireland, you need 40% to pass, and of the three exams that I had, I didn’t even bother sitting one of them as I knew off the bat that I would fail (still a mistake though, I wouldn’t mind knowing my grade). In the other ones I got 34% and 26% respectively.

The day that I finished my last exam, I decided to play non-stop poker. Still pumped from my win a month or two back in live cash games, I decided to make chunkier deposits on a couple of sites.

The results were bittersweet, and in a 2 week period I finished up around $55k. The bitterness, of course, came from the fact that I had been up just over $100k at my peak, and proceeded to run terribly playing heads-up 25/50 PLO (for which I’m clearly underrolled, but my edge was very big against the fish that just happened to hit every card in the deck during a couple of 3-hour sessions).

On the second day of that horrible losing streak I vowed not to play for 100 days, partly because I was irritated with poker and pained by such a monstrous downswing, but mainly because I knew that the Autumn repeats were my last real shot at a Law degree, and perhaps a college degree at that.

As I write this, I can say that in the past 50 days I haven’t played a single hand of poker. It’s an idiotic promise to myself, not playing 100 days, but it’s one that I have kept in the interest of improving my chances at passing the exams.

However, in these 50 days, I have done nothing in terms of college work. Whenever I sit down and try to study, I quickly get bored and my mind wanders. I get depressed at the sheer volume of work that I should have covered, and start getting all philosophical as I mentally debate why I was so stupid as to not approach college in a healthy way to begin with, and get irritated at the fact that such an ugly situation could have so easily been avoided.

All my life, I’ve been brought up to believe that you need a college degree, and in today’s society you are nothing without one.

As it stands, though, my options are very limited:

1. Passing the repeat exams this time around, and going into 2nd year either straight away or taking a year out during which I could try improve my poker level and bankroll. If that went amazingly well, I could take another year out. If not, I might be more motivated to go back to college. This of course would be a great option, but with the exams starting in under two weeks, and having three year-long modules totally unprepared even though I’ve been in college for two years at this stage, it seems pretty unrealistic.

2. Failing, in which case I have the option of giving 1st year Law one last shot. However, psychologically it would be so tough for me to give it a proper shot given the joke approach I’ve had the two previous years.

3. Failing, and just living the life of a pro online player for the next couple of years. I am pretty responsible, don’t have bad game selection, and have a good will to succeed, so I’m pretty sure I could bank at least $70-80k in a year, enough to “justify” playing poker from a strictly financial viewpoint.

Overall, I’m up approx. $170k from poker in the last 12 months, of which I have taken “complete breaks” off poker totalling around 3.5-4 months. So, it’s about 8 months of actual play. Maybe 100k hands.


I guess the one that I want a 2+2 opinion for is the third. I mean, would life really be so bad, would I be at such a disadvantage compared to your typical college graduate if I carried out a plan along the lines of:

--- Play poker for a few years, aim to save up $500k or so over the course of 3-4 years.

--- Then, aged 23 or 24 (I turned 20 in June), look into some sort of business / investment options. It seems like there’s some connection between skills required to be a winning poker player and investment skills, so I might look into that.

--- After that, who knows. I guess I’m just worried that missing out on the whole college part of life will leave me empty or something. That playing poker professionally will only encourage my antisocial tendencies, or may even lead to depression, or way too high levels of stress, etc.

Worst case scenario, I’ll just go back to college at that age. A friend of mine is going back to finish out his degree and he’s 23. Another friend is 21 and he’s just going back to college, starting a different degree as a 1st year having dropped out of his previous course. Again, he’s almost two years older than me yet won’t have any problems fitting in, so I feel I have at least a couple of years to work with outside of college, to see what things are like, without leaving myself without the option of studying at some point in the future.

Cliff notes:

Messed up 1st year college once, and looks like I’m on track to mess it again unless by some miracle I pass my repeat exams that start in under 2 weeks. Asking wise 2+2’ers whether they think I should continue to battle against the tide and try to work through my boring degree (especially if I fail again, by actually REPEATING A SECOND TIME), or should I just quit it all for a while, and play poker instead. I can definitely make more money than most other jobs, but even if I equal my winnings of this year ($170k – tax free in Europe) will this be worth sacrificing a college education, the respect of some family members, and all the other difficulties associated with going against the mould?

[btmagnetw]

i can forsee you getting as lazy in poker as you have been in school. do everything you can to get the degree.

[themagnum]

AlfilRey, the number one thing I hate about most kids in college is that they think that it is one of those "things" they HAVE to do out of high school. I see random girls from my high school going to college for no real benefit, just to party and not worry about the next 4 years of their life.

College should be a place for learning and trying new things, the parties and bitches are just a bonus. You said before that you don't really care about it for the education reasons. I would have told you to stick to it, but since you say you can net 100+K$ a year, theres no reason to do it. I'm going to college because I want to learn (Ph.d candidate in CS), even if I could net money like you, I still would want to learn all the great things out there.

If you can show your family that college isn't for you, and you can easily bank that much money, I'm sure they would be a bit disappointed but they'll support you. Also if you start playing more and more live and actively participate in the forums, you know doubt will someday have some crazy adventures in Vegas that will trump any college experiences.

Whatever you do in the end though man, the most important thing is to enjoy life and do what you love. Good luck

[AlfilRey]

themagnum, thanks for the reply. When you said though that I don't really care about it for education reasons, I may have come across that way but it isn't true. I actually enjoy learning, and that's one of the things that irritates me the most, the way that part of me is no longer as responsive to new things and information.

I just think that if I did get a college degree, the actual matter studied would add a very important dimension to my knowledge base.

If I knew I was only in college to get the degree to hang on the wall, then I would quit right now without hesitation. When I actually made the "hang on the wall" remark, it was more the reason why I am being pressured into doing it, as my family, most friends (except the close ones or the ones who do the same course) and general society would not see past the piece of paper hung on the wall and the superficial view of what having a degree signifies.

I don't know, but I'm guessing my clarifying this might have an effect on your advice!

[Coda]

I see it all perfectly; there are two possible situations - one can either do this or that. My honest opinion and my friendly advice is this: do it or do not do it - you will regret both. - Søren Kierkegaard

[xSCWx]

[ QUOTE ]
I see it all perfectly; there are two possible situations - one can either do this or that. My honest opinion and my friendly advice is this: do it or do not do it - you will regret both. - Søren Kierkegaard

[/ QUOTE ]

I like that quote. I chose the school route, I'm not "happy" with it, but I think it was the right choice.