Date: 01/06/1999
From: Jim Geary
Newsgroups: rec.gambling.poker
Subject: Re: Burning Bridges (when turning pro)
Date: 01/06/1999
From: Mark Parisi
Newsgroups: rec.gambling.poker
Subject: Burning Bridges (when turning pro)
Okay, I have to admit that I was listening to Howard Stern this morning when he was interviewing his new crop of interns. One guy was working on his master's degree in elementary education, and said that he wanted to become a broadcaster, but would have his degree as a safety net. Howard responded something to the effect of, "you'll never be successful if you have a safety net, because as soon as things get tough you'll go for the safety net." This got me thinking about poker playing (well, almost everything does in one way or another, but that's beyond the scope of this post). Whenever a "I want to turn pro" thread starts here, many pro players give advice like: try it for a few months first, don't quit your day job, make sure your bankroll is super large, etc. That sounds like the prudent, conservative way to embark on a career as a pro poker player, or for that matter, making any abrupt change in one's life. In fact, I've occasionally posted advice like this myself, and agreed with other people when they've given it. But, maybe the burning bridges approach isn't totally bad. Let's assume a potential pro has a bankroll and the skill necessary to win consistently at "middle limits" (like 15-30 or 20-40) where he or she can earn a large enough hourly rate to make a living. What more do you need for success? My guesses would be focus and commitment. I base this guess on thinking from my own perspective. If the situation were *imposed* on me ("Mark, under pain of torture you must support yourself 100% from playing poker for the rest of your life."), I'd sure as hell get a lot better in a hurry - I have no choice. If the going got tough, I couldn't take long breaks from playing, or build up my bankroll from other sources, or make myself feel better about losses by saying "yeah well, I lost but at least I can afford it thanks to my job." I'd have to focus completely on poker, with no excuses or safety nets to make up for (or hide) my lack of skill. I'd need to be the real thing. By having some failsafe mechanisms in place, the consequences of failure are greatly reduced (I don't go broke and starve to death), but then, so is my powerful incentive to get good enough to be successful. I wonder if pro players often give advice based on what they would do if they could start over again. The safe, conservative approach sounds good (and that's honestly the way most people, myself included, would "go for it" if they turned pro), but I wonder how many successful pros really did it this way. Many pros I've talked to have scary stories about being broke or pretty close to it. Those experiences may be the reason they all got good. What happened to you pro players out there? Did you survive the "achieve or die" Darwinian experience, or did the conservative step-by-step approach work for you? Mark P. I disagree. I've been in positions where I had to play for a living and where I could play for a living. Could is much easier. Could is the ultimate game selection. Could means you can laugh off a -2k night or a -10k quarter. Could means if you want to buy a house you can do so with just 10k not the whole 100k. Could means you can probably itemize some of those tourney wins off. Could means no self-employment tax. Could means no gaming on shopping for medical care. Could means a bankroll free from comingling with the rent money. If the money is only "gamblin' money," it is pretty easy to stay tilt-free. Anyway, I recommend could.
Last Modified 2/9/00