The Life Cycle of a Poker Player (and my thoughts on live vs online)

[Micturition Man]

I want to add a little more.

One problem with 'tracking' poker players is that to the extent that poker is a moneymaking activity and not an end in itself, the best players often move on to completely different things, which judging from the OP might be misinterpreted as failure or burnout.

Take Howard for example. However good he may have been, now that he's making $100 gajillion a year why would he spend any more time on poker than pure enjoyment leads him to?

Also look at Doyle and Chip. Contrary to popular image they have not been playing high limit poker 24-7 for the last 30 years.

They went through spans of multiple years where their primary interests were sports betting or business ventures or who knows what.

The problem is that due to the impossibility of real, objective, widely shared ratings of player skill, there is no real glory in poker the way there is in chess or tennis or many other competitive activies. There is no heavyweight title to devote your career to winning. It's just the endless ebb and flow of money won and lost.

So the only real drives are fun/compulsion and making money. And different people are motivated to very different degrees depending on their personality and situation in life.