As a parent, how amenable would you be to your kid pursuing poker...?

[MicroBob]

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Bob,

When your daughter is 18, I'm going to date her just for laughs. Deal?

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You'll probably be 44 or so by the time she's 18 (since we're not having a kid for a few years).
So you have some Sklansky-like aspirations do you?

[AZK]

tuba - i agree with the parents thing. I also became obsessed with money so it started turning into, go to the bar and have a few drinks or sit on the computer and make $5k... you can obviously see how sick this becomes.

Here is my pro/con list a la chaos's:

Pros:

-I am financially secure (assuming no real estate/wall st crash with zero recovery). I have no debt. Money allows me to do anything I want and buy anything I need. This is really nice to have as a grad. student since most grad. students are either poor or in debt. Nearly all of my peers are racking up 6 figures of debt and will not be able to pay it off well into their 30s. That sucks. I'm lucky.
- Poker improved my critical reasoning/logic.
- Poker helped me separate my emotions from difficult decisions (somewhat)
- I'm sure a few more that I can't think of

Cons:
- I think about poker several times a day, even now. (This is a lot worse than it sounds)
- Money means nothing to me. $ comes in currency smaller than $100 bills? I am not out spending myself to busto (obv being jewish I have the jewish saving gene), but I do buy lots of really nice, lavish, unnecessary things. I also can't understand how money affects people's decisions anymore since it never affects mine. Dinner is $50, who cares, the text book is $100, yawn, $300 jeans, $400 shoes, the list goes on. Never in my wildest dreams could I imagine spending $400 on a pair of shoes and not even batting an eyelash. Pretty [censored] sick. This sucks because everyone around me, parents included, values the price of a $1. I don't. This is probably never going to change as I see no way to reset my head even if I do somehow go broke. Perfect example of this is comcast coming to set up my cable, they were late, I said [censored] it, left and rescheduled. My parents would have been on the phone with support for an hour eeking out an extra $20 off their bill, you couldn't pay me $100 to stay on the phone with comcast support for an hour. It's not worth my time even if I'm not earning the money I once was. In discussing this with my parents they tell me its because I didnt have to work hard for my money so I have no respect for it...this upsets me but they are probably right (side note: [censored] comcast).
-I have become pretty snobby in terms of what I eat, drink, where I stay, What I wear, etc... I'd really like to kick this spending habit, maybe not so much on food/drink, but especially on clothes, toys, gadgets.
- poker has made me numb to life in a lot of ways. I can't really come up with any good examples, but for a while, nothing really mattered. I was never very emotional, but poker took it to a whole new level.... I think I had become so desensitized because of the swings that the only way someone could get a reaction out of me was if they either handed me my own tropical island or cut off my arm... everything else would just get a shrug or nod. This has faded somewhat, and hopefully will continue to fade the less I play. I think I take way too much stuff for granted and as much as I like to think I am thankful for life and appreciative of all it has to offer, poker has definitely pulled the mask over my eyes a little bit.

Victor -

I mean you may be right that a lot of people end up sitting in front of a computer the whole day anyway not making a difference, so why not make your own hours, but I don't know if I buy that for ME... I've been lucky enough to see and experience a lot the world has to offer, knowing what I know now I could never let myself sit in front of a computer all day printing money. There are too many wonderful things to do, read, experience, etc... Most of these things can only be done through education, as much as I sound like a PBS commercial right now, education really does empower. It is worth the debt anyone may rack up and even the theoretical ev you give up of hours not spent playing poker. It is, in my humble opinion, literally priceless. Giving it up for poker in my mind is insane... I realize everyone doesn't feel this way, and that's fine, good for them I wish them the best...they are wrong though [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img].

[Victor]

azk, i suppose i didnt specify completely. i totally agree that college and education should come before poker.

my support of a poker career comes after graduation.

[mntbikr15]

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Also to the people who say that playing online poker is just, "staring at a monitor for 20 years of your life." Really? A) Office workers do the same thing. B) Most poker players average 4 hours a day of play or less. Plenty of time for socializing and other fun activities.

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Maybe we hang out with different poker players. My lifestyle for the year or so that I was "pro":

4-6am - 1-2pm sleep

2-3 wake up/eat/brew pot of coffee

3pm bring said pot of coffee to the computer

3pm -2am play poker

2am - 4am, watch tv bc you are so sick of poker or continue playing tables because you are either up a [censored] or down a [censored]. Eitherway, forget about falling asleep anytime soon, too wired/strung out for at least an hour. Most nights I would hear my parents getting up/ready for work as I was drifting off into slumber.

rinse repeat.

Maybe I'm special, but during this phase, my desire to work out ceased, meet girls gone, sleep with said girls gone, go out with friends and drink and socialize gone....this is obviously an extreme case and only lasted for a few months... but the other months were just paler shades. From the few people that I talk to online, that I knew where also doing the same thing, their life wasn't too far off. I had done enough partying in college so that I didn't really need to do it that year, other online pros partied more, makes no real difference really. This lifestyle got really old really quick for me.

I'll touch on victor and chaos's posts tomorrow.

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This was my life as a "pro" for a year or so. And that pattern had gone on for a year or so before that when I wasnt playing for a living.

My last two years of HS when I transfered to boarding school. I had been in great shape, either riding, xc skiing or running year round.

Cue poker, by by fitness.

Lately however I have a house, a fiance, a dog, and am quite content. Im riding tons again, am in great shape, I never play much past 11 anymore, get up by 9-10 or so and finally have some balance in my life.

So it can be done, just very very hard.

[CrushinFelt]

No more than 2 hours a day to play poker. 3 tops if they become really good at it and can make a good earn. It's no less of an investment than buying them a bond. How can I look at them and say, "See, put $1000 into this company by buying a bond and in one year you can have an extra $80 without doing anything," when I could say, "Don't become anti-social, play no more than 2-3 hours a day, and you can beat any returns you would receive in the stock market."

Up to a point of course. Once you're playing higherits time to invest and chill the [censored] out, though by that time I'd bet I have no influence over them.

[Clayton]

If it's what my kid is interested in, then I'm not going to stop him or her from pursuing that.

However, I'd set a timeframe that says if, after a certain point, my kid isn't successful enough that it's worth staying out of school for a while, then I would tell him or her it would be in his best interests to go after that degree in something they are interested in.

I would never accept an answer from my kid that involves no college whatsoever.

[optimus prime]

If my kid showed me long term results and exhibited that he was dedicated to improving and making it a career, I would obviously support him or her. I would not support a pipe dream made possible by a tournament score.

[Bond18]

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Just wait 20 years where you look back and realize, wow, i've done nothing but stare at a computer monitor with my life.

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Very wrong sir. My time spent in front of the computer has given my friends from all over the place and all walks of life. At the age of 22 i've gotten to travel all over the US, to Australia, many parts of Asia, and soon Europe. It's also given me the financial resources to experience things in life people my age mostly only dream of.

I really think this whole "life spent in front of computer" thing is totally exaggerated. Do we really spend any more/less time in front of our computers than most white collar workers?

[Chaostracize]

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Just wait 20 years where you look back and realize, wow, i've done nothing but stare at a computer monitor with my life.

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Very wrong sir. My time spent in front of the computer has given my friends from all over the place and all walks of life. At the age of 22 i've gotten to travel all over the US, to Australia, many parts of Asia, and soon Europe. It's also given me the financial resources to experience things in life people my age mostly only dream of.

I really think this whole "life spent in front of computer" thing is totally exaggerated. Do we really spend any more/less time in front of our computers than most white collar workers?

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WTF. How can you say it's wrong when you haven't spent 20 years in front of the computer.

[Jeff W]

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"You can make $150,000 - $200,000 if you drop out now and play poker?"
"Yes."
"Can you prove it to me?"
"Sure, here are my stats and winrate and my extrapolations for the future with considerations built in."
"THEN WHY THE [censored] ARE YOU IN SCHOOL"

That is how that conversation would go down.

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Now would he be welcomed to move back in with mom and dad if internet poker went away like it could? It just seems to me that if any "different" career choice needed a backup plan, it would be poker, considering how fast it could fall off of the face of the earth, not to mention the long term damage one could do to one's professional and academic marketability by dropping out/not going to school.

edit: holy run on sentence batman

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He can always go back to school later.