Am i lying to myself

[newOcean]

Can building a bankroll and playing poker/ betting on sports help prepare me for a life on wall street. I'm a freshman in college and im starting to really devote myself to poker and sports capping with the drawback being less time for school.

But the bankroll management, realizing my limits, dealing with downswings/hot streaks, and ect ect.. can it really help me if say, I aspire to be a trader (fixed income/ securities area)? Or should i play sparingly, stay the fish/square i currently am but instead concentrate on getting my pretty low gpa up. (first semester i got between a 3.2 and a 3.4 but i heard that pretty low compared to other kids who are serious and in the ivies or ross equivalent)

[Vagrant]

If you are able to maintain a 3.2 to 3.4 gpa you have alot of choices in college. Get your degree and then try to play poker professionally. It may not be as romantic but its the smart way to do it.

[jaydub]

op,

Of course you are. You are most likely justifying laziness and doing what you like with a deluded notion longer term benefits.

Of course without much greater specifics, no one can provide any advice that does not make massive assumptions but I suspect you just want someone to reinforce your delusions and figure that on 2+2 somehow will make the preferred assumptions.

J

[BDaws]

[ QUOTE ]
If you are able to maintain a 3.2 to 3.4 gpa you have alot of choices in college. Get your degree and then try to play poker professionally. It may not be as romantic but its the smart way to do it.

[/ QUOTE ]
I think he was talking about building his resume through success in poker. The success in poker would make up for the lower GPA I believe. He is asking the forum if GPA or poker success is more important essentially.

[Sniper]

The short answer, is that Poker can give you a firm grounding in risk management... but you shouldn't focus on poker in a way that interferes with success at college.

While you are in school, you should be looking to enhance and broaden your skillset (what you do well) and resume/profile (how you look/value to others)... doing well in school, socializing, and making money, do not have to be mutually exclusive [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

[stinkypete]

you're not helping yourself if you're getting a 3.2. i was a bit of a slacker in school as well (never went to lectures, studied a reasonable amount before tests) and managed to get a 3.5 from a tough program, but i'm pretty sure it's not impressing anyone - if i were to tell people my GPA was weak because i played poker, i'm sure they'd see it as a bad thing, not a good thing (it wasn't by the way, my grades got better after i started playing).

i think poker can help if you can talk about it intelligently. i don't think the basic "bankroll management, realizing my limits, dealing with downswings/hot streaks", meaning what you can read in books or learn just from playing or talking to people is going to be particularly impressive. but if you can demonstrate a really strong quantitative understanding of it all from a statistical perspective you should be in decent shape. if you were to write a program like SNG power tools or something, that would be impressive as well.

playing and simply saying that you understand bankroll management ("dude you need at least 500BBs for shorthanded limit hold'em!") won't do much for you imo. i'm sure there's lots of people out there applying for wall street jobs claiming to be winning poker players - you have to show how you're better than the rest of them. if you were to get an interview, and they asked you to tell them about bankroll management in poker, what would you say?

i don't have any first hand experience with recruiters though - i'm applying for grad programs in the field, and this is my general idea based on what i've read.

[Scorpion Man]

[ QUOTE ]
Can building a bankroll and playing poker/ betting on sports help prepare me for a life on wall street. I'm a freshman in college and im starting to really devote myself to poker and sports capping with the drawback being less time for school.

But the bankroll management, realizing my limits, dealing with downswings/hot streaks, and ect ect.. can it really help me if say, I aspire to be a trader (fixed income/ securities area)? Or should i play sparingly, stay the fish/square i currently am but instead concentrate on getting my pretty low gpa up. (first semester i got between a 3.2 and a 3.4 but i heard that pretty low compared to other kids who are serious and in the ivies or ross equivalent)

[/ QUOTE ]

Here is what it says in your bio about your hobbies:

"All things related to Money, Power, and Respect".

IMO, these things, particularly the second and third, are much more related to success in the real world than in the world of poker.

I get the sense that an entire generation of bright college kids are, in many cases, going to be worse off because of their poker success. Children [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] your age do not have the life perspective to see the long term. Poker is an enabler for an attitude of never having to work for anyone or take crap from anyone; of relatively immediate rewards. These are very poor lessons if your goal is success on Wall Street. It takes a special person to take the positives of poker without the collateral damage at your age.

I thank my stars that poker was not available to me when I was in diapers, like you are.

Good luck.

[Thremp]

[ QUOTE ]
op,

Of course you are. You are most likely justifying laziness and doing what you like with a deluded notion longer term benefits.

Of course without much greater specifics, no one can provide any advice that does not make massive assumptions but I suspect you just want someone to reinforce your delusions and figure that on 2+2 somehow will make the preferred assumptions.

J

[/ QUOTE ]

This is just straight hate. But it doesn't change the fact its spot on.

Your GPA more or less sucks. Sports is tough to beat. If doing poker or sports it should replace a part time job.

[BDaws]

Just out of curiosity, if a 3.4 sucks, what is an "acceptable" GPA that would put an undergraduate in contention for desirable jobs? 3.7+? Does the undergraduate program matter? Because I'm having a tough time getting my GPA above a 3.7. I got a 3.41 first semester and even though it's not THAT bad, it's so hard to increase to 3.7+ from there.

[Thremp]

[ QUOTE ]
Just out of curiosity, if a 3.4 sucks, what is an "acceptable" GPA that would put an undergraduate in contention for desirable jobs? 3.7+? Does the undergraduate program matter? Because I'm having a tough time getting my GPA above a 3.7. I got a 3.41 first semester and even though it's not THAT bad, it's so hard to increase to 3.7+ from there.

[/ QUOTE ]

If you goto Virginia... IIRC its widely considered one of the best public schools in the nation. A 3.4 isn't great but you'll have more doors open for elite careers than a 4.0 where I goto school (on campus recruiting etc.)

He didn't give any mention to let anyone know he's going to a top 5% school such as yourself so I can only assume he's in the vast majority of the 25%-75% where a 3.2-3.4 at the expense of gaming downright sucks.