How have you taken advantage of being a poker pro?

[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.

[daryn]

travel: month in italy, trips to england, ireland, austria, france, belgium, netherlands, aruba, bahamas, jamaica, grand cayman, mexico, vegas for wsop

moved out from home and into my own apartment with lots of gadgets

looking into buying a house/condo/townhouse within the next year

[Jurollo]

[ QUOTE ]
travel: month in italy, trips to england, ireland, austria, france, belgium, netherlands, aruba, bahamas, jamaica, grand cayman, mexico, vegas for wsop

moved out from home and into my own apartment with lots of gadgets

looking into buying a house/condo/townhouse within the next year

[/ QUOTE ]
Daryn,
This is a slight aside, but... What do you play? Cash? I rarely see you in MTTs unless you have another sn.
~Justin

[SlowHabit]

I've turned "pro" for about a year after college. My first year was great even though I didn't get to play as many hands as I would like due to carpal, vacations (Hawaii, Vietnam for a month, and Vegas if that counts), and visits to my gf who is currently away for college.

None of these activities would've been possible if it wasn't for poker because I would probably be grinding it out at an investment firm somewhere in New York since I have a bad habit of wanting to move up as fast as I can.

Besides the freedom, poker also gave me a chance to get into the stock market faster than I would have since I have some money to play around with. The swings in poker helped me tremendously while dealing w/ the constant flunctuations of the market. Poker also gave me a chance to look into business ventures and these business ventures (even though none succeed) helped me learn a lot about the business world.

But the greatest thing about poker is that it allowed me to financially support my parents (even though we live a very frugal lifestyle and they don't need much money from me). It makes me happy to see them happy about my success and they don't have to worry about money as much anymore. I'm currently waiting for the real estate market to "bust" so I can make their dream come true. And of course, mine too [img]/images/graemlins/cool.gif[/img]

[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.

[daryn]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
travel: month in italy, trips to england, ireland, austria, france, belgium, netherlands, aruba, bahamas, jamaica, grand cayman, mexico, vegas for wsop

moved out from home and into my own apartment with lots of gadgets

looking into buying a house/condo/townhouse within the next year

[/ QUOTE ]
Daryn,
This is a slight aside, but... What do you play? Cash? I rarely see you in MTTs unless you have another sn.
~Justin

[/ QUOTE ]

i play limit holdem, i don't really play MTT's regularly but i enjoy playing them. i often toy with the idea of playing MTT's exclusively for some time period and see how it goes. i play so little hours though, even when i'm playing limit holdem.

[bmxicle]

I'm 20 and taking a year off to make more money playing pokah and travel. I have been to aruba, copenhagen, (the poker tournament was mainly just the excuse to go there, its such an awesome city) bahamas twice, hawaii, chamonix. However this is just the start of my travels.

I will be going heli-skiing next week which costs about 12 grand and is something i dreamed of doing maybe once in my life ever since i was a kid, but now i have the ability to do it many times, if not for the rest of my life depending on how poker goes. I will be going back to europe with 3 friends right after heli-skiing for over a month, and we will be doing Europe on a shoestring, which i think will be a really interesting for me cause i'm not used to traveling cheaply. Then i will be going to japan/australia and possibly New Zealand in april. I also hope to get some snowboarding in, in Chile during our summer. So poker has allowed me to travel which is amazing in and of itself, but i really feel like i am gaining a much better perspective of everything by going to all these places.

Money has also helped me socially. Like i don't think people consciously like me more because of my money, but when i buy drinks for everyone, drive them places in my brand new car, and am always available to do stuff 24/7 it definately makes a difference socially.

Poker has also taught me excellent money management skills, so even if poker isn't there i doubt i will ever have money problems in my lifetime. More importantly, i have no idea what i want to do with my life, but poker has given me a huge number of options. I am not forced to go to school and get a degree right away because i can afford to wait and see what i want to do.

The thing i hate the most about being a poker pro is that i have to actually play poker sometimes, but thats about the only downside though i feel like i take advantage of everything else pretty well. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]