Quitting my crap job to grind 2/5+ live??

[OnYourBike]

Translation: Didn't win much. I win a lot and don't play excessively.

[FireStorm]

As to the earlier question, I'm 25, and I don't see lying around like a bum banging down "burgers and fries" as being an essential part of living out my years in the mid 20's. Interestingly enough, I wasn't even trying to discuss the merits of what to do during college years. Many are making it out to seem as if quitting regular work and playing poker allows for a glamourous lifestyle. Allow me to be the first to tell you, it doesn't. If you are looking forward to the aforementioned, which is basically being a lazy bum, you are going to look back in years and wish you had gotten more out of life. Thus, eating burgers and sitting around with pothead college buddies all day is not something to aspire to when considering taking up poker for a living.

It'd be fair at this point to say that we can probably kill the references to $5 or $10 chips, they're not part of this discussion at all and yet we have about 15 posts regarding them.

[schwerd2]

how about being a poker dealer and playing part-time?

[FireStorm]

This is somewhat akin to what I did, and can be very profitable.

[jeffnc]

[ QUOTE ]
Second hand smoke and greasy food arent particularly healthy. Pretty much every cardroom in America features these two things.

[/ QUOTE ]

I've never been in a casino that allows smoking in the card room, thank <deity>. Local underground rooms are another matter entirely. I've heard tell that smoking goes on in some of those.

[nineinchal]

[ QUOTE ]
Anytime I see someone about to quit their job to play cards, I don't think, I know it's a bad idea. If you only have 1000 hours experience you don't really understand a whole lot about gambling, especially gambling for a living. Play cards on the side, get a different job, but strongly reconsider not working just to play poker. It's a LOT harder than you think. The swings are a lot bigger than you think. The risk is a lot more than you think. Rethink.

[/ QUOTE ]

I rethought at the ripe old age of 48. I am a CPA who had retirement accounts(actually still have them)and hated my business, which was auditing the government. The contracts that I had to audit were terminated due to lack of funding (no wonder the government is a big financial drain, but that's another story for another forum). So now I was free to play poker for a living. I thought I could wake up, turn on party poker, and the world was my oyster. Things don't happen as planned.

Now that I had to win, I had the losing streaks that inevitably happens to the best players. The wins didn't come easily like they did when I had my career. I would still be winning when I checked my stats, however, $20/hr isn't really professional fee money of $200/hr. I either had to reduce my standard of living, and go back to work. I was still spending, I bought a new convertable, ate out in restaurants, took vacations to anywhere I wanted, spent however I wanted, living as I was accustomed to when I was working. Well, that created a deficit in my budget for sure.

I had to face the fact, that the income I could earn at poker just wasn't going to support the lifestyle I wanted.

The good news is I caught myself before I degenerated into the state many poker pros are, i.e. busto, and unable to generate an income outside of poker.

The good news is, I rejoined the workforce, became a productive member of society, and bought a condo in Atlantic City, where I can enjoy my poker as an income producing sideline. I finally discovered the right mix between poker and a career. This would not have been possible if I just stuck to poker. My work skills would have atrophied, and I would be forced to play all the time, foresaking the really important parts of my life, like my wife, family, friends and my health.

[jeffnc]

[ QUOTE ]
“Wait, 15k is barely enough.”

This is probably true. I will probably try to accumulate about 25k in living expenses+roll before attempting this. I’ve never had the pressure of playing to eat, and I agree that minimizing this pressure through conservative bankroll management is the best way to optimize your winrate.

[/ QUOTE ]

That's about the only advice I'd give. You really have to have some buffer there where you know you're freerolling completely with the bankroll. If you can scoop together $25K that would be great. You can live for a year on $25K if you have to. That gives you complete freedom with your bankroll to make the right plays and lose buyins as needed.

Don't pay much attention to the $200K/year ballas. Just play your own hand.

[jeffnc]

[ QUOTE ]
So what if I fail (although I am determined to not let that happen)...I'd rather have taken that shot and failed than not have taken that shot at all. Regret is the ugliest thing in the world, imo. Much worse than failure.

[/ QUOTE ]

I would have to agree with that. Within reason. Certain types of failure are too risky. But certainly not the type the OP is taking. Losing some money or a couple of years that didn't work out for the best is not even close to catastrophic.

[jkamowitz]

Wow Al, that's the most honest I think I've ever seen you.

Hat's off sir.

[Nick-Zack]

[ QUOTE ]
Anytime I see someone about to quit their job to play cards, I don't think, I know it's a bad idea. If you only have 1000 hours experience you don't really understand a whole lot about gambling, especially gambling for a living. Play cards on the side, get a different job, but strongly reconsider not working just to play poker. It's a LOT harder than you think. The swings are a lot bigger than you think. The risk is a lot more than you think. Rethink.

[/ QUOTE ]

Add my name to the ones that quit a good job to play poker. I was making good money in sales but was making fantastic money (for me) playing poker. I was propping at Absolute making $1200 a week and winning a few hundred on top of that. I had played 500K hands of 5/10 and had a win rate of just over 1 BB/100 so thought the best idea was to quit work so that I would be home all the time with my kids and could easily make $100K playing poker.

The first year I made $70K in prop pay and about $20K playing. After that first year everything went sour. There are other posts on here about other props at AP being unable to beat the game and I was right in the middle of that mess. The next year I made about $50K in prop pay but lost $15K playing. Trying to support a family on $35K when you were used to making $80-90K is not fun. I hung on for another 6 months or so and went back to work.

Looking back the smart thing to do would have been to keep working and be happy making $30K a year playing poker. Now I don't have as good a job as I did but its a steady source of income and poker adds to the bank account. I have gone to only playing SNG's and it is a very steady income source.