While I’m not a fan of the Bellagio hoodies/backpack crowd, most poker pros I know are solid people. The businessmen feeding the games are not good people. Its not even close which is worse for society.
I posted in the other thread yesterday, but I’ve played poker with Nygard. Every poker pro combined hasn’t been as bad for society as that one billionaire.
Its not the poker player 99/100 that is crushing the guy or gal that now can’t make rent. It is the casino and that person is playing penny slots.
I was an online pro for 3 years. I’d say it’s neutral or slight negative to society. It’s way better than my first real programming job where we supported the auto and tobacco industry in lawsuits.
But seriously - anyone who thinks poker pro adds to society is deluding themselves. Best case scenario you’re a dog hanging around outskirts of town, scrounging for scraps people were going to throw out anyway.
I’m not saying the job adds, but everyone here is bigger than their profession. They do so much in their lives beyond when they clock in or sit at a poker table or whatever. The poker pros I know are much more consumed with being good people than my other friend/social groups.
I dont know why you and others have this stereotyped view of a grungy poker game where the pros are taking peoples rent money. Idk about the game Cuse is playing in, but my home games had mid five figures on the table, 5 course meals, top shelf alcohol and everyone in these games can afford to lose 10k that night. 1/2 is where you get the sad vibes and people. Pros aren’t at those stakes.
You should just try to be a good person with how you interact with people and the world. If you’re a doctor donating to DJT and posting about Qanon online, id take the poker player over them.
Not to delve too deep into the muck but spending all your time at bars and restaurants in a pandemic doesn’t leave a lot of room for criticism of other people’s ethical choices. I don’t think VD is some monster by any stretch but trying to deflect blame by criticizing someone for making money or a living gambling is ridiculous. Are there more noble pursuits, sure, but he isn’t actively killing fractional people every day because he is bored.
I hold being a good person outside of work completely separately from the job you do. I’m only talking about the latter.
I helped the tobacco industry shave a $billion off of lawsuits. I was still a good person outside of my work. But I knew there was no way I wanted to keep doing that.
By your reasoning if I’m a child beauty pageant coach, but I’m a good person outside of my work, it’s all good.
Again - not saying poker pros aren’t good people or do good stuff. I’m saying the job itself is neutral at best imo. I don’t think it’s anywhere near as bad as helping tobacco companies, or car title loan officer or something.
My friend does eye therapy for kids with visual disorders. Every week she brings home stuff to put on the fridge like, “Thank you Miss Adrienne for helping me see better. I love you!” That would be a top 1% job maybe to me in terms of adding back to the world. You can’t buy that kind of job satisfaction.
Value of your job to society isn’t your entire value to society, but it’s part of it.
Maybe we could just say poker players have a bigger hump to overcome than my friend who helps kids with their vision.
Maybe it just all comes down to job satisfaction. I get satisfaction out of building a cool app. I got no satisfaction out of winning at poker. If I helped people directly every day I’d probably get massive satisfaction.
D * S = W
D is your decency as a person
S is your job satisfaction
W is your net worth to society
If you’re a shitty person, even though you get great job satisfaction out of screwing people, your net worth is still low.
If you’re a good person you may only get medium job satisfaction out of poker - so medium net worth to society. But you can make up for it outside of work.
My only criticism would be a young smart guy - who says live poker is the only way he can ever make a living during a pandemic - casting stones at others for doing various things in a pandemic.
It would be kind of like me going to Costa Rica but lecturing someone else for going to a bar.
Ugh. All these restaurants in my shitty Trump town are reopening because of that stupid strip club ruling.
So I walked in to pick up takeout and there’s not one single mask in here. I don’t want to wish ill on people, and I’m objectively glad that a vaccine is here, but a small part of me is pissed that most of these assholes aren’t going to see any consequences for being assholes, and they won’t learn shit.
Obviously you are right he could make a decent living pre-pandemic elsewhere. You could probably even make a case he should. During the pandemic I imagine his ability to change career fields and support his current lifestyle are near zero.
Would I play poker in person or go to Costa Rica right now? Hell no. And I’m not going to get into figuring out which is worse. But i am quite sure hitting the restaurants and bars multiple times a week is worse than a one off trip to try and find true love or 12 hours trying to support onesself indoors a week.
As I’ve said over and over, it’s up to the poker pro how much time or money they want to put into being a net positive on society. The time freedom gives us a lot of options. The time spent at the poker table isn’t adding to society, but it’s not taking nearly as much out as people like to suggest. But the freedom can add a lot to society.
You can be available to be there for friends and family almost any time, you can volunteer your time, you can donate money… Lots of people working typical jobs don’t have as many opportunities in that regard.
Yeah pretty close. I’m the only one who losing $10K would really sting for, and our food/alcohol isn’t quite as good - though it might be if not for a pandemic.
Yeah every stake I’ve moved up the vibe has improved and the money has been less important to the rec players.
I played online only from March through July, and not at all from like August through early October.
For whatever reason - games got tougher, stress (or something) fried my brain, downswing, all of the above - I was a small loser after early July online. I still turned down an invite to a no mask required game. In October I got this invite and took it.
If you know of any WFH jobs where I can clear ~$4K a month after taxes (or $3,600 + healthcare), I’m all ears. Or any ways in person to clear them with less risk than in 12 hours a month of masked poker in a well ventilated setting, also all ears.
But don’t equate that for 12 hours a month to make a living with someone going to a bar in a big crowd for fun. I’m still turning down invites to other live games. I could be playing in home games 3-4 nights a week for 8+ hours a night.
I could have also been playing in the casino for a couple months when they reopened - I heard the games were great. I could have played as much as I wanted there, probably 50-60 hours a week with ease.
Instead I’m doing 12 hours a month, the minimal amount to generate enough EV to cover my living expenses, in the safest setting possible.
This nails it. I once met a guy at the WSOP, and we chatted all day while playing. He quietly leaned over at one point and said, “I can tell you’re a pro, but man, don’t spend your whole life on this, it’d be such a waste just from hearing you talk.”
Like I appreciated it and somewhat agree with him, but in the context of my life experiences to date in the American economic system, the gap between somewhat agreeing with that, finding something better that still keeps me secure, and executing it successfully is massive. Meanwhile pre-pandemic I was like 1-4 years away from being set for life at a reasonable level - own a reasonable home outright, own my car outright, have enough in my retirement account to retire by 60 at the latest off standard annual returns. The plan was to keep living off the same amount, treat myself occasionally, and put the rest away. Once I hit those milestones, no matter what happened I’d only need to find enough income to pay property taxes, food, utilities, healthcare, etc. So I’d be fine, and have most financial pressure eliminated. That seemed like the time to take more chances or deviate more.
Unfortunately I was only about 3-4 months into making that kind of money when COVID hit. On the other hand if the pandemic hit four months earlier, I’d be fucked. So I’m fortunate in that regard and it is what it is, I’m thankful I got far enough along that I can get by off 12 hours a month now.
Getting back to the point, I graduated and spent six years pursuing broadcasting and I was extremely talented but extremely unconnected and not a good networker - thus that went nowhere and I never made over $13,000 in a year at it despite doing some pretty cool stuff and reaching some fairly high levels.
Meanwhile I did numerous things on the side to make ends meet, including trying to start a web design business. That went awry when a really shitty client fucked me over pretty badly. I also did public relations (loathed it), freelance writing (it was drivel for SEO that paid terribly and I hated it), and a few other things. I was pretty routinely working 70+ hours a week to get by for a few years there, between multiple part time/freelance jobs.
Once I realized broadcasting/sports journalism was going nowhere financially anytime soon, I was at a crossroads. I had poked around a little with a couple political/news journalism gigs, but nothing panned out. (One was an Internet startup that didn’t take off, I worked for free for them for a bit. Another was a paid opportunity I did for a little while, but I couldn’t juggle it with my two other jobs - it paid the least, had the worst hours, and I wasn’t making enough to cover my expenses so I had to cut the one that paid the least.)
So I had a broadcast journalism degree from a top school in that field, and the most common fields to get into when one gives up on that are public relations or advertising/marketing. I hated PR, and I didn’t want to start out entry level in advertising - I think I might enjoy coming up with some of the top level campaign ideas in that field or the strategy, but I would hate doing the sales/planning of it at the entry level, and I’d inevitably be working some (mostly?) for clients who I hated working for because of what they were selling/how they functioned as a company.
So my two options seemed to be: go back to school for an MBA or law degree, or pursue poker full-time. If I went for an MBA, I wanted it to be at a good school with a good MBA reputation - I wanted that degree to open a lot of doors for me to come in at a decent level in a new career, since I’d be starting it around the age of 30 with a very negative net worth. In college I was told my GPA wouldn’t matter because it’s not important in broadcasting, so I underperformed in some of my other classes to focus more on extracurriculars and fun. So that was a barrier for me in getting into some MBA programs. I think my final GPA in college was like 3.4 or something. Anyway, I reached out to some contacts and talked to a couple schools about whether I’d be a viable candidate, and UNC said yes I would likely get in because of my unique background.
I was weighing the situation, and the option was basically spend a ton of money on the program (it currently costs $126K + living expenses, I forget what it was back then), or go into poker. Graduating with a shit load of student loan debt into an economy that I had figured out first hand would exploit the fuck out of the non-rich sounded like a bad situation compared to poker, so I went with poker.
So far it’s been the right decision. I’ve tried to start some stuff on the side or consider other options, but so far nothing has panned out or presented itself that would make sense, or what I’ve seen has turned me off. We’ll see how that continues to play out post-pandemic.
But I’m definitely not ashamed of what I do, I don’t think I’m a net negative on society overall, and I love the freedom poker gives me. Frankly it seems like a very reasonable response on my part to the economic realities of America and the series of events that led me to poker.
12 hours per month, not per week. I get nervous that in that small of a sample I could easily run bad for the rest of the pandemic, but so far so good.
Like I was invited to a ton of poker games during the pandemic, but never went. (Most have stopped now that we’re in “code red”) I’ve been fine doing well online, but I also do work.
We’ve all had to make a ton of decisions during this pandemic. We are all in differing economic positions. We live in different parts of the world with different levels of responses to the pandemic. Most of the people here have done very well for almost an entire year, to do best for themselves, their loved ones and their community. We’re in the end game, keep it up and don’t just pick fights.
Getting tested tomorrow, pretty sure it’s just a cold, been working ~FT and playing ~6 hours of poker a day as well, so just run the fuck down.
The only time I’ve gotten really sick in the last 5 years was live poker last year about this time at the AWS conference in Vegas. Nasty nasty dry cough that lasted 3-4 weeks. One week of pure hell coughing myself to death every night.
Not much worse than live poker for spreading germs, except strip clubs and bars.
