An Unprecedented Time: Teenagers and Poker

[Indiana]

jurollo,

i agree 100%, BUT how is real estate that good nowadays? I mean, I'm in the bay area and the property taxes in owning property could make a grown man weep. I cannot see how buying stuff in California is that great as a short term investment or even to rent to others. Buying a home for yourself to live in, however, is still a reasonably decent investment but still not absurdly great.

In my opinion, the best thing a teenager can do is save as much $$ as possible before they are 40 and sock it away in a vanguard portfolio. I mean, try to keep expenses very low and save save save, invest invest invest.


Indy

[SNOWBALL]

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When, if ever, has their ever been an outlet even remotely as lucrative for 18+ year old kids (and sometimes younger) as online poker is right now?

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NBA?

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Jurollo,
you're only young once, you never get those precious years back...that enjoyment that comes with being a teenager does not include sitting behind 2 flat screen monitors grinding while the years you'll miss the most pass you by...

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what about all those kids wasting those "precious years" working a grill or some other meaningless, crappy job? I know a lot of young kids busting their asses multitabling, and it seems like a pretty good way to get started making money.

[Taylor Caby]

I don't think this is anything out of the ordinary in this day and age. I think the internet has leveled the playing field in pretty much every field. You can get really good and get publicity at a lot of things at a younge age -- web/graphics design, music, art, finance, poker, etc.

Also, I think we are biased towards the whole "poker is such a great opportunity" because we all are very much aware of what it takes to succeed in this game. There are many, many other ways to make a lot of money, even for young kids.

The example I am thinking of is click arbitrage/google adwords. There are a lot of kids that are making a ton of money, more than the best poker players, through these systems. We just don't hear/talk about it a lot because that isn't something that most of us have experience with.

As a high school or college kid, you should focus on doing what you enjoy doing while keeping an eye open for new opportunities. It's easy to say "if i found poker earlier, or if i only played more...," but this gets you nowhere and is flawed for other reasons i won't address.

As an aside, I suspect one of the "next big things" will have to do with mobile communications. In a couple years everyone is going to have devices that can easily access the net on the go, and we aren't going to rely on laptops and certainly desktops for all of our computing needs. I have no idea how to capitalize on this and I'm sure many smart people already are, but you should be thinking along these lines, not "omg i wish i played party poker in '05."

BTW, it's mind boggling how much money some people must be making off the "text 050505" to XYZ number for ring tones/jokes/etc. I see those ads 24/7 and the overhead must be practically zero. I'm sure there are some young kids running those businesses, it seems unlikely some old guy came up with that idea.

tc

[Floyd13]

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I think a lot of people will have amazing stories to tell ten years from now, and not much else - many professional poker players included.

A lot of players will have debts and drug addictions that will take years to recover from.

Very few will be able to sustain the comfortable living that they are enjoying now.

It is possible that the success will be prolonged with legislation, or legalization in Asian countries, but even then, the games will dry up again.

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Zee, I seriously disagree that poker will be "dried up" in 10 years. I believe that we are barely scratching the surface of the scratch. Many people thought that Amway would be dead 10 yrs ago and its still a pretty viable company.

Please do explain. Lots of guys were making HUGE bank long before the moneymaker boom, and sure, it may slow down a little, but I cannot see this poker phenomenon drying up anytime soon.

Indy

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I totally agree. I don't think we've even seen the poker boom yet. When the real boom hits (yahoo, google, etc.), it's gonna make party poker look like stars or FT right now. Just keep getting better and soon we will all be very rich.

[4thstreetpete]

Speaking of the poker boom, has Annette's win at the WSOP european tour hit europe yet? There's talk that this could be huge for poker and will eclipse what Moneymaker did for poker in the US. It's a fascinating story but I haven't heard a lot about it. I don't think the poker boom is anywhere close to peaking yet.

[ImsaKidd]

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BTW, it's mind boggling how much money some people must be making off the "text 050505" to XYZ number for ring tones/jokes/etc. I see those ads 24/7 and the overhead must be practically zero. I'm sure there are some young kids running those businesses, it seems unlikely some old guy came up with that idea.

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I always think the same when I see those on TV.

Arent almost all of them subscription services?

[Indiana]

i [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] Taylor Caby. Such a smart, legit, poker player.

Thanks for stopping in here.

Indy

[jfish]

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you're only young once, you never get those precious years back...that enjoyment that comes with being a teenager does not include sitting behind 2 flat screen monitors grinding

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speak for yourself sir!

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i enjoy playing online poker too.

[Ship Ship McGipp]

It's a [censored] up thing, that's for sure.

Zee is a pessimist, but let's be realistic. If you are good enough to beat 5-10 and 10-20 online, you are going to be able to make a quarter of a million dollars a year for the rest of your life if you put the effort into it (in some form of poker). If that takes 30 hours a weak as opposed to 15, well, sh!t happens.

They'll be another boom. I'm sure that I'll make a million dollars one year, even if it's ten or twenty years from now, at only online cash games, and not tournaments. I'm sure a boom from Asia, or some other area of the world, or a rebirth from legalization in the U.S. is in the works. Patience and hard work on your poker game will keep you at the top of your profession.

Marginal edges will matter more than ever before, and the cream will rise the the top- it will be the same as any other profession.

Back to how it is now, I'm sure I'll do something else with my life, even if it's just coach basketball or open a business, but I can't imagine truly working for someone else.

As it is, just having 6 figures put away is such an enormous edge on our peers. If nothing else, even if I get a real job, I'm already 100% sure I can retire when I'm 40. That's some cool [censored], very few people will have that opporunity (possibly more now than 20 years ago, but still a small % of the population).

It's amazing the swings that happen, the amount of money that we win, the material things that we can buy- those things should be put in perspective.