Playing Poker, Then What?

Monday, September 20, 2010

(the following is an excerpt from response to Vestvik at www.badbeatspoker.net)
http://www.badbeatspoker.net/forum/lounge/9611-playing-poker-then-what.html

Personally, I feel that most of the characteristics that make someone a successful, long term poker player are the same characteristics that make someone successful in just about any other career.

Any successful poker is going to have to play his best game at least 95% of the time in order to really succeed long term. It is not like the upper echelon of players are just logging on to Full Tilt and playing with a 50% effort. So I would argue that poker is still 'work' because you are definitely going to get out of it what you put in to it. You have to be focused every time you log on to play, you have to more or less detach yourself from the joys of winning and frustration of not winning, and to really succeed long term (more than just a year or two), you have to put a constant effort into researching your own playing style as compared to the constantly evolving style of the game. For most people, this means putting together some sort of organized day to day schedule.

I would compare a successful professional poker player to a professional athlete in a few regards:

1. Only a small segment of the population possesses the raw ability to be successful, regardless of how much effort they contribute.

2. Of the gifted segment of the population, an even smaller amount will have the inclination to put in the required effort to succeed.

3. The variability of income within those who are successful varies WIDELY between those who are simply successful, and those in the top 50 or 100 of their profession. (Only the top 50 or 100 poker players (at most) can consistently hit over 250k per year, the same thing goes for most professional sports.

4. The risk of income being substantially reduced or completely lost is far greater than most of other career paths. (A football player can become injured, a poker player can be adversely effected by legislative changes, poker training sites, an evolving player pool, changes in rake structures, etc)

As far as myself personally... It is hard to be objective, but I would say that I played poker long enough to realize that my upside potential was most likely limited to being mildly successful to moderately successful, at best. To me, poker was not enjoyable enough, and there were too many other risks to invest my time into being, at best, moderately successful.

(I am considering moderately successful as a gross profit of anywhere from 50-100k per year once playing full time, mildly successful is anything less)

There was no point in my life in which I contributed more than 10 hours per week to online poker, and I did spend about 15 hours per week hosting games in college, but this was as much for the social aspect as the small income it produced.

Regardless, though, winning in poker was fun, and I had amassed a small amount of money from live and online poker from 2005 to 2009, since I never spent any money from poker. I figured it would make the most "life-sense" to do something I would truly enjoy by using the money for poker (the same place it came from) as well as have a fun time in Vegas.

The 270k win did not change the fact, though, that I still felt poker was not for me, for the reasons listed above. I appreciate the security of a constant income (that I can reasonably expect to perpetually increase over time) and I really never obtained much enjoyment from online poker. The win did give me a huge head start in my life finances, though.

With that being said, I do still play as a small part-time hobby, because it is hard to get away from the near-100% rakeback that I get from Full Tilt for 36+ month iron.

-otbdave