To be a poker player or not?

Good day GambleTalk,

To be a poker player or not?

This question is rarely asked by players at the beginning of their career. I think the main reason is because very few of players consider it as a career. I know a lot of low and mid stakes players, that are so excited about the game, they drop from school or give up work or small business to become poker players. Grinding everyday with out proper understanding what you are doing, can be very harmful for a poker player.

Many players are unaware what it is like to be a poker player, because very little stories are told about the dark side of being a poker player. I know a few players, who I can call professional at poker and I was lucky to know the stories, that are never disclosed to public. I also wanted to note, that major poker sites and casinos will never tell you that, because they want you to play and see only the brightest side of poker.

I will start with most obvious one - time. Poker can be played at almost any age, so why spend the best of your life time to something you can do when you get old. You can jump into poker game at 18 or 70, but you can’t do same with other things in life, such as education or business, for example. Even if you do go to get a degree at age of 50+ - it will be a different experience for you and others. As a poker player you are an owner of your own time and this is the best for me. You can play or rest whenever, unless you are in a backing team, who force you to play certain amount of hours or hands. This fact also has an issue, you become lost for other people, who go to work and have a scheduled year. For poker players time is different and it doesn’t matter if it’s day or night, you have only one thought in your mind - to play, unless you do a very good time management, even if so, you are committed to play long sessions on a daily basis and this leaves you no choice, but to miss social life outside the poker world.

Now days most of the players play online and this gives you less opportunity to communicate with other people. Playing live you can find a lot of interesting poker players to talk to. Poker players now days have very little people as friends or mates they feel comfortable around, because people, who don’t play have different lives, with interests, that to poker players will be rarely that interesting. It’s just a matter of time, when you get bored or boring to each other, unless you have a good bottle of wine around every time.

Hard work and dedication. Poker needs it even more, than a small business would need from you, but you might not see any results at all or see very little of it. Building your poker empire, you will be almost always left on your own with hard decisions and even if you are a successful player, there will be only your name in hall of fame, which you can’t sell, like you can sell your own brand. Yes, you can become a coach or write your own book, but this is what I call a bottom line.

I am not saying being poker player is bad or waste of time, I just want players to know where they going.

To be continued or not..

Best of luck, SanSan