How have you taken advantage of being a poker pro?

[Sigurd]

I'v just gone skiing in Canada, and plan on staying for 4 months. I live with 3 other poker players. We have a much better house that what the regular ski bum would be able to afford. The flexibility that poker gives you, is just perfect for skiing. I won't have to pass on one single good powder day because I have to work.

A lot of my friends are travelling too, but I'm propably the only one who will (hopefully) come home with more money than I left with, and I didn't have to work like a madman a couple of months prior to going, since I would still have my income over here.

Before going to Canada I spent a couple of months sitting in a dark room, but nothing really interesting happened in this periode. It did, however, give me some of my sanity back after being incredibly stressed in the last year of high school, due to a variety of reasons.

[FatalError]

Just moved to las vegas, got a loaded bmw 550i, a brand new condo just south of the strip, and bought all sorts of cool stuff thats gonna last 10+ years

I have no idea why people with 500k rolls can't spend 50k and just enjoy life sometimes. some of those dudes live like they're busto

[EMc]

Why I am no means a pro 'pro', I dont have to work during school, and I can splerge on things that many other students cant. It also has allowed myself and my father to become much closer, which to me is above any thing I can actually win.

[sublime]

i have slept unbelievable amounts of time over the past two years. like an average of 11 hours a day. thanks poker!

[goofball]

-I'm going to school full time and just paying tuition without having to bother being a graduate assistant (no teaching component, you just have to be some profesor's bitch)

-I went to australia for a month
-I went to hawaii for 3ish weeks
-I've made several semispontaneous trips to visit friends in SF/Portland/Seattle

[goofball]

Oh yeah, I paid off like $3k of debt I had at the end of college. $3k isn't that much but working for $15/hr it seemed like a mountain and weighed on me constantly. Once I took a shot at the old party 15 and ran good all of a sudden the debt had vanished. It's still very clear in my mind how good that felt.

[The Dude]

I'm actually quite disappointed with how I came out of playing poker - which is not to say that I didn't come out okay. (Cliff notes at bottom of post.)

I played winning poker in Commerce's 3-6 and 4-8 games for almost a year before I started taking it seriously. GoT started coaching me, I immediately jumped into 20-40 games and started playing 5-10 online. However, due to school and other time "obligations," I never played more than 20 hrs/wk until the fall after graduating from college. In retrospect, it seems criminal that I wasn't working full time during this time building a bankroll.

Instead, I took a shot at higher limits just as I moved down to CA, incurring more moving expenses than anticipated (I had stayed in WA during the summer), and proceeded to run very poorly in Commerce's 20-40 game and Party's 10-20 game (my first attempt at 6max - I kind of wish I could watch videos of my play now that I'm better at those games, but I don't even have HHs any more). I didn't manage my bankroll well, and didn't step down in stakes until my bankroll was quite thin, so I had to start over in Party's 2-4 games. I worked my way back, but it was totally unnecessary for me to be playing that low.

By winter time, I had built my bankroll up again enough to play 10-20 again, but was quite hesitant to step up again. I took over a month off starting the week before Christmas (again, in retrospect, more time off than necessary). At the end of February, my bankroll was over $8k, and yet I'd convinced myself that my winrate 8-tabling 3-6 was better than it'd be playing 5-10. GoT and others told me I was crazy, but I had convinced myself not to step up. I took a lot of time off in March and May, then moved back to WA, again with a smaller bankroll than I should have had, although by this time I was playing in the 5-10 short games on Party, and doing well. But with moving expenses and upgrading to a 4-monitor system, my roll was down to $4k.

During that year+ period, 120 was the most hours I'd played in a month, and I averaged under 100. I also spent less time improving my game than I should have. I moved to WA planning to buckle down and work more hours. That plan was actually going well through August, until I started dating the woman I'm now married to. She worked mornings, so I ended up spending a lot of evenings with her instead of working. I certainly don't regret the time I took off to spend with her, but it did make me regret even more that I hadn't buckled down and worked hard sooner.

In February I got engaged and started spending a lot of money and time working on wedding plans, and wasn't able to build a bankroll above $4k at all. I got married in September, and due to legislation started keeping my eyes open for a job. The opportunity presented itself to buy an existing, successful restaurant, and here I am, retired from playing poker professionally.

I'm in a good spot for being 25, but had I done better at poker, I would not have had to finance so much of the restaurant and/or been able to buy a house also.


Cliff notes: I've done okay playing poker, but due to laziness, occasional poor bankroll management, and untimely streaks of running bad, I didn't come out the other end with much to show - except life lessons and personal growth. My wife and I just bought a restaurant, and we're in good shape for our age, but not really because of poker.

[guids]

I think thats why Im happy that I have an addictive personality. I started playing poker when I was in HS, I played some large games before I even know what I was doing, when I was about 18, I found 2p2, and just got addicted for 3 years to playing/learning about the game, I spend A LOT of time reading and learning, and before I quit my job, when I was 21, I built up a mid 5 figure roll, before even playing 5/10 6 max, just because my job was paying well (I didnt make any cashouts for like the first 2 years), and I would force myself to play 30 hours a week, even though I was also working 30 to 40 hours a week. I think thats also why I dont like online poker too much anymore now.

[TimM]

[ QUOTE ]
I'm actually quite disappointed with how I came out of playing poker - which is not to say that I didn't come out okay. (Cliff notes at bottom of post.)

Cliff notes: I've done okay playing poker, but due to laziness, occasional poor bankroll management, and untimely streaks of running bad, I didn't come out the other end with much to show

[/ QUOTE ]

I feel the same way. Maybe these stories should go in another thread, but...

I started playing in December 2003 after reading HEPFAP, and was immediately beating the low limit games. I had a decent paying but boring as [censored] tech job with a small start-up at the time. I played part time and moved up steadily throughout 2004. I made about 14K at poker that year, and it helped me because I paid off a lot of debt.

The job went sour in January 2005, and management wanted us all to take across the board pay cuts of about one third. I was the first to leave, figuring I could easily make the same at poker. For 2005, that was true, I made almost exactly the same as I did in 2004, but of course I only worked 20 hours a week instead of 40. Perhaps you could call it laziness, but grinding poker was just to mind numbing for me to put in many more hours than that.

2006 sucked though. I made less than half of what I did in 2005. I paid about 20K in 2005 and 2006 estimated taxes, and that basically wiped my savings, and forced me to drain my bankroll for living expenses. I moved down through the limits, from a peak of 20/40 in March, to 2/4 in the fall, and I don't even feel like a winner there sometimes. I really just don't have the bankroll to support myself with poker any more.

I've concluded that limit hold'em sucks, and I've switched to SNGs for now, since I had dabbled in them in the past and did well at the lower limits. But I'm starting over and have a lot to learn, and still need to rebuild a bankroll if I'm to make decent money. I've started looking for jobs again, but my tech skills are stale and I have a two year gap to explain. I'm not even sure I want to go back into it, the idea of working at another job like the one I had makes me sick. I'm a bit older than most 2+2ers (turned 40 in September), so the idea of starting over in an entry level job situation is not very appealing either.

Oh well, I hate to make such a negative post in a thread that was meant for positive stuff, but that's my situation.

[Morrek]

I've only played for about a year and a half, and I haven't considered myself "pro", well, ever... even though I've never had another form of income ever, so I guess that's what I am. Anyways I haven't done much, got my own place a couple weeks ago which rocks, and basically just haven't had to worry about cash at all whenever I want to buy something or whatever. I might take up traveling soon though but I'm still young (21) and studying at university so I'll probably wait until summer and maybe travel with someone as I'm not very experienced in traveling alone.