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PanoRaMa   United States. Jul 24 2014 04:24. Posts 1655
It's been 2 and a half years since my last blog post. I come to LP every now and then and check out some non-poker related threads, and it's awesome to see familiar names keeping the community going. I dropped a hint/some wishful thinking in one of my last blogs that I was quitting poker to pursue a career in software development (as in, mostly building web applications), hoping to end up as a junior in some startup in San Francisco somewhere.

Unlike some of the great players here, I never truly loved poker. I was too emotional and unstable to accept the swings, and that's not okay as a mid stakes 6max/hu player. I liked being good at poker, but I always knew I had to do something else, before I ended up like those old Armenian chain-smoking Commerce regulars who berate young internet pros, try to hit on cocktail waitresses, and live simply for the thrill of the bad beat jackpot.

A couple years later, I'm happy to say that I work as a software engineer for an amazing, fun, fast-growing (I joined around ~15 employees, we have 42 now) startup. My days start at 11 am, I get paid very well (zero variance!), I'm mentally engaged most of the time, I lift weights 3x a week, I have a fantastic girlfriend, and am only getting better at what I do each day. Two years ago I was just a college dropout who only knew how to play poker and not much of anything else.

I can't think of a time during my poker career where I could just post a brag like that and not have to post any beats. Back then, I never could say that life was great, but it is now. I hope everyone here finds something similar, whether it be in poker or not.

I still miss some of the poker thrill though - my buddy Aaron just placed 36th in this year's WSOP ME and it was really exciting sweating him all week. Right now, I live out my thrills through a 50nl home game with coworkers, a far cry from the thousand dollar pots I played for not too long ago. But I found that the boringness of a salary makes me much better with money - with poker money I just spent it partying and on dumb shit. With a salary I actually save and spend mindfully (feel free to ask me about this sort of stuff) - my hopeful goal is to be able to retire by 35 (I'm nearing 26).

I'd love to try and help anyone who is or was in a similar situation - trying to figure out what to do post-poker, etc. For starters, I wrote a Quora answer on part of how I went from being a loser dropout to getting a job in a field I had no prior experience in: http://qr.ae/FjeM5 - the gist is, good poker players have a work ethic unlike most people, even if you're lazy as hell and only put in 20k hands a month.

Cheers

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mnj   United States. Jul 24 2014 05:12. Posts 3848

Super happy for you!

Although I haven't peaked or hit the same epic rungood in life like you, I hope someday soon I can also describe my life as fucking great! But for now I thoroughly enjoy the pursuit of happiness.

Def going to give ur Quora a reading later and u wrote something that i've felt for a while but never actually posted in words before..."I hope everyone here finds something similar, whether it be in poker or not."

Beautiful stuff man.


whamm!   Albania. Jul 24 2014 06:53. Posts 11625

best life decision


Misjka   Netherlands. Jul 24 2014 07:29. Posts 266

Why aiming for retirement at 35 if you are so happy with the life you're living right now? Unless you have some specific interests you want to pursue in retirement, I'd say just continue your career. Maybe on the next level on the ladder, maybe in a lower gear, but don't quit just for the sake of it.

Retirement can also mean falling back in a lazy life without too much purpose and that doesn't seem to make you particularly happy.


PoorUser    United States. Jul 24 2014 08:14. Posts 7471

always awesome to read about people successfully transitioning out of poker

Gambler Emeritus 

LemOn[5thF]   Czech Republic. Jul 24 2014 09:07. Posts 15163

Nice one
Agreed with the planning for retirement being kinda meh. I dread the day when I don't have a job or a major project Im workin on. In your field having your own startup one day seems like a good long term plan?

93% Sure!  

dnagardi   Hungary. Jul 24 2014 10:15. Posts 1776

this is it

well done


iop   Sweden. Jul 24 2014 10:20. Posts 4951


  On July 24 2014 07:14 PoorUser wrote:
always awesome to read about people successfully transitioning out of poker

Milkman lol i didnt spend half a thousand on a phone so i could play it cool and be all stealth 

milkman   United States. Jul 24 2014 12:18. Posts 5719

isnt software SOOO much easier than poker?! my path was very similar and I couldnt be happier. Its easy to play poker when you still feel like it, not so easy to "work a real job" when youre in the mood.

Its hard to make a easy buck legally, its impossible to make a easy buck morally. 

milkman   United States. Jul 24 2014 12:20. Posts 5719

What type of job did you land at the startup? I started by doing graphics design and moved into front end development full time, got the ol senior title about 2 years later, leading a UI team now.

Its hard to make a easy buck legally, its impossible to make a easy buck morally. 

traxamillion   United States. Jul 24 2014 12:42. Posts 10468

did you finish your college degree or just learn programming and get a job with those skills.


napoleono   Romania. Jul 24 2014 13:00. Posts 771

How much do you earn if you think you will earn in 10 years enough for the rest of your life (40-50 years)?

GJ nonetheless


PanoRaMa   United States. Jul 24 2014 13:09. Posts 1655


  On July 24 2014 06:29 Misjka wrote:
Why aiming for retirement at 35 if you are so happy with the life you're living right now? Unless you have some specific interests you want to pursue in retirement, I'd say just continue your career. Maybe on the next level on the ladder, maybe in a lower gear, but don't quit just for the sake of it.

Retirement can also mean falling back in a lazy life without too much purpose and that doesn't seem to make you particularly happy.



I definitely get what you mean. My idea of retirement is when the principle on my savings outweighs my annual expenses. I'll still likely be doing stuff like coding, building products, but not really care about the money when doing it. I also think if I'm lucky enough to get to this point, I'd want to do something involving teaching (in the limited capacity that I can), either in my hometown or for those less fortunate. In other words, I'd still work and put my abilities to their best use, but in an area where it'd still be okay if I didn't get paid.


  On July 24 2014 11:20 milkman wrote:
What type of job did you land at the startup? I started by doing graphics design and moved into front end development full time, got the ol senior title about 2 years later, leading a UI team now.



I'm a full-stack rails engineer, so I build backend systems in ruby on rails, and do equal amounts of front-end with sass, javascript/jquery, react.js. My boss considers me mid-level at this point, I've been at the company for 9 months now lol. It's definitely easier than coding - 10x easier to make 100k in programming than in poker, but programming has a fairly low ceiling compared to everything else. Even if you're in the top 1% of programmers in your field, your salary tends to max out around 250k iirc, so I assume that's why so many go on to build their own things.


  On July 24 2014 11:42 traxamillion wrote:
did you finish your college degree or just learn programming and get a job with those skills.



Never went back to school, thankfully tech is a progressive industry, and unless you are going to a company with an insanely strong computer science focus like Google, Palantir, etc. no one cares about where you graduated or what your GPA was. It does help if you come from Stanford with a CS degree of course, but being from the middle of nowhere with a liberal arts major doesn't hurt. You just have to prove what you're worth, e.g. what you can build, what you have built, etc.


  On July 24 2014 12:00 napoleono wrote:
How much do you earn if you think you will earn in 10 years enough for the rest of your life (40-50 years)?

GJ nonetheless



My idea of retirement is when the principle on my savings outweighs my annual expenses, and I don't need or ever think I'll need a lavish lifestyle of nice cars, big booty hoes, and making it rain at the clubs. Thus, if my annual interest earnings outweigh the amount that I spend, I consider myself retired. For example, if I only really need 50k a year (arbitrary amount, likely a lot lower) to live, then that's only 5% interest off $1m in savings. $1m in savings in 10 years isn't a cakewalk, but I'm saving aggressively now and it'll only compound. Also, the implied sentiment was that I hope to at least hit a modest homerun in a self-built tech product within the next 10 years that would really speed that up .

http://panorama.liquidpoker.netLast edit: 24/07/2014 13:24

collegesucks   United States. Jul 24 2014 15:48. Posts 5780

I missed this blog a lot. Thanks for the update. GL and keep trucking on!


dogmeat   Czech Republic. Jul 24 2014 15:55. Posts 6374

5% interest? more like 3%, gl beating inflation

ban baal 

napoleono   Romania. Jul 24 2014 16:00. Posts 771

You will have to save like 85k/year to near 1M in 9 year with a 5% interest rate and monthly compounding. Also taking into account inflation, will be hard ^^


NewbSaibot   United States. Jul 24 2014 16:09. Posts 4943

Not to mention as an 85k/year earner to suddenly cut your income almost in half to retire is going to be quite a beat. I mean honestly it's not really realistic at all to try and retire in 10 years at your age unless you were pulling in 250k/year, and if you were pullingin 250k/year you would choose to keep working because you would enjoy the lifestyle that money affords you despite the work, and comfortably retire in 30 years maintaining that lifestyle.

bye now 

PanoRaMa   United States. Jul 24 2014 16:24. Posts 1655

Given my level of competitiveness, I would consider it a huge beat if my full-time job salary (which will also only increase) made up more than 50% of my actual yearly income in the next 10 years. There are a lot of ways to make money in software, which don't even include the "startup" route (been there, done that ).

Consider it like the poker goals we made on Jan 1st, where we plan to make $X in the year ahead. It likely will only occur if I luckbox or work insane amounts, but still doable.

http://panorama.liquidpoker.netLast edit: 24/07/2014 16:28

traxamillion   United States. Jul 24 2014 18:18. Posts 10468

interesting. I'm playing poker right now for money but am also teaching myself object oriented programming starting with java. I'm pretty noob wish i had learned this as a kid instead of playing games but oh well. I'm like 2/3rds done with a degree but been out of school for 7 years and it is so hard to get back. Figured if i got good enough at programming someone will pay me to build stuff.


traxamillion   United States. Jul 24 2014 18:21. Posts 10468

Think I should step back and learn BASIC or C 1st?


 
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