How have you taken advantage of being a poker pro?

[jman220]

I used small stakes grinding to pay my costs of living while in law school. I didn't have to get a part time job for the first time in my life. Unfortunately, I also used my profits from poker to never have to prepare my own food, which caused me to gain about 20 pounds in law school. After i graduated law school I spent a tough 6 months losing that 20 pounds. In short: poker made me fat. I also wasted so much money on eating out its ridiculous, I probably would have a much nicer car right now, or a nicer apartment, if only I hadn't spent all my disposable income on food. Oh well.

[WhoIam]

Travel. So far just to Australia and New Zealand, but I plan on spending most of this year in Eastern Europe, SE Asia, and Istanbul. Having huge amounts of work flexibility is also fantastic. I know very few other people who could take a week off on a whim. Although I'm a college graduate, I don't have a good resume or any real marketable skills. Were it not for poker, I would most likely be working 50 hrs/week in a soul-crushing florescent hell.

[NT!]

NT

[kidcolin]

Though I generally abhor 6 string basses, that's a pretty axe. Nice work man.

[MataWispar]

sweet bass can I hear it?

[lapoker17]

james - you win.

[Claunchy]

I don't really do anything exciting with my money, but poker has allowed both my GF and me to be full-time students without jobs and live pretty nicely.

[Jay.]

Poker has been nice to me.

- At 17 take a gap year from school to travel around Thailand and Australia. Meet thai/aussie girls. Did schoolies in the Gold Coast. Watched the new year fireworks at Sydney harbor w/ a large drunken group of europeans who we met that morning. Scuba Diving in Ko Tao. Surf on Manly Beach. Thai cooking lessons in Samui. It was a great time, at a great age. Just shooting the [censored] w/ people from all over the world at every different hostel was great.

- Being able to drop a maths degree that i had no interest in. Without large poker goals and something that i could set my mind to i would have trapped myself in that course.

- Being able to move to a major city and getting an awesome apartment so i didn't have to have a long distance relationship w/ the girl i met in university. Then the benefits of a big city, tons of music gigs and local bands, places to eat, closeby places to visit.

- Just being flexiable enough to always go on trips/weekends/nights out with whichever group of friends. Amsterdam, Dublin, Newcastle, Scotland, Barconela all happened because a certain friend would want to go and know i'm available to go.

- Getting family and friends presents. The main one here is always arranging a nice meal with my whole family and gf when i visit home.


Tons of smaller things, increased confidence, being able to order TONS of books, eat well all the time, lack of stress, being able to buy music, learning that money brings opportunities not happiness.

This year i need to use my free time to try out some volunteery work. I think i'd enjoy teaching kids or the such.

Planned already: Rage Against the Machine at Coachella. Road trip around eastern europe. WSOP. Hopefully: Scuba at the red sea and learn to kite surf.

[turnipmonster]

nice post, james. I once wrote a song called truth and consequences and never figured out where I had originally heard the title, maybe a sign for that town!

for me, since I've always had poker to fall back on I haven't ever worried about taking long breaks from work. by far the most fun was a 2 month cross country road trip my wife and I took in 2005. we stayed with friends and camped whenever we could. it was a great way to see the country and spend time together. definitely something I'll remember for the rest of my life. since then we've gone on a bunch of camping trips and are looking forward to more (including rockygrass festival in colorado)!

another fun thing I did was take the summer off work and was a street musician in a trio, we played all over europe (sax, guitar and upright bass!). we had a blast, really one of the best times of my life. a little after that I went on a real tour of europe with an established group and it wasn't half the fun, although it was cool play some big shows.

[guids]

The main thing I learned, that I think I did quicker than most people, is that I can not work for someone else, I wont ever be able to get passionate about any job that I am not doing for myself, and that I did it at a "youngish" age. Its bought me a couple nice cars, paid my tuition, took a few trips, and gave me some start up money for a few business ops, but the material things dont match up to the above.