potential downsides of a poker lifestyle

I ofcourse realise that a lot of this is "LDO" stuff to probably most of you, but that doesn't mean it's not worth discussing, cause it is an important and relevant topic and to even gain a slightly more complete or different perspective from the mostly similar things you've thought of independently could be v valuable

Ask Joe what the downsides are.

"poker brings negative consequences to is social development"

sums it up

there are no jobs like this where u can basicly get by easily without ever talking to another person

imo there is a bigger chance that u might become 1, emotionless robot 2, drug addict 3, mental wreck

I agree, Rikd's comment sent a chill down my spine. The longest stretch of time I have solely derrived my income from poker was about 5 months so I perhaps have only a limited perspective, but I have been playing the game for almost 10 years in some capacity and feel I have valid input. Playing cards all day long really distorts your world in three signifigant ways; social, health/sleep, sense of reality.

The social ramifications are different depending if you play live or online. For the live players I find that since there is little or no need to restrain yourself or your opinions you generally become more vulgar, abrasive and develop a "fuck you" mentality towards anyone that attempts to change or correct your behaviour. For the online players, increasing isolation and solitude lowers your drive to develop your relationships with others. The symptoms resemble those that were cited for mmorpg addicts. I am sure you could locate relevent links if you do not already know about this quirky phenomenon. In both cases a lack of empathy towards others makes you less aproachable, and since the player has found no value in developing these areas it begins to cycle inwards. For me this was a main factor in my decision to make poker a subsidiary source of income.

Health and sleep are efffected in tandum because as you become more and more involved in the refinement of mental, ethreal skills you naturally think less about your physical self. A lack of excercise slows the mental process making you more tired from both physical and mental forms of exertion making you more apathetic towards doing anything more than is necessary. The combination of lack of exercise and the fact that there is no need to follow any form or real world schedule your sleep patterns become distorted and again begin a spiral of being more tired yet unable to attain a deep, restful sleep.

The poker player has a distorted sense of reality for a multitude of reasons; lack of responsibility and accountability to others, a natural devaluation of money, no concept of hard work, an increasingly egocentric mental state, diminishing empathy to others hardships.

Not every person will fall prey to all of these traits. I know some players that are very health conscience for instance, but I try to show as many of the downsides as I could.
Some of these are from personal experience and others from observation of others. I also think that the type of person that generally gravitates towards the game and has success is already a little warped in other aspects of their lives, but I digress.

Most of the people I hang out with are my coworkers and friends of coworkers
When I played online poker, I rarely hung out with anyone.

I've never had more friends but I've never been more poor.

I think I'd rather have the money, people suck.

What you said about the side effects of mastering something such as poker, you improve you as a person is quite true.
Anything that you hyper-focus, get addicted to, and master will without a doubt allow you many happy accidents of improvement to one's self.

Whether it is finding other people talented in that field and increasing your network of knowing cool people
or something more substantial such as if you master basketball a side effect would be you getting in shape

Diversifying your talents will no doubt improve your ways that are both seen and unforeseen so it's a great idea to keep moving on and trying new things that are interesting.

If you guys can be a pro poker player, one of the toughest things in the world, you can do anything.

On September 15 2012 14:55 sniderstyle wrote: If you guys can be a pro poker player, one of the toughest things in the world, you can do anything.

That's not true, having the skillset to be a poker player dsnt really able you to do "anything", and being a poker player certainly isnt one of the toughest things in the world, it just requires a few particular skills that are quite rare in the population. That's just my opinion obv

Andrewsong's blog is pretty informative or at least was. He had his epic "I made xx at 18, xx at 21" post. I enjoyed it a lot. I think people who will have the most insight are people who have left poker. I THINK twisted, sakisaki, nolan, all left for their own specific, personal reasons but I can't help but think it converges at "Am I going to play poker for the rest of my life?" It's difficult to do something that provides no social value. It's not even like competitive sports where at least there are tons of spectators and good projects such as charity. For instance, the NBA does a fantastic job of growing its image and has its players participate in a wide range of charities including local American ones like Katrina but also the Haiti earthquake. Additionally when you become obsessed with sports, you don't really risk a chance of ruin in the same way gambling addiction can ruin a person's life or family or friends.

Poker is one of the most cut throat industries out there. It blows my mind that people still want to play. I can't help but feel as though if you weren't one of the first adopters of poker (so around 26-30 now) you simply can not move through the stakes any more. It reminds me of the importance of timing in the book Outliers, where some of the poker players's success is random chance. IE you were 18 (no job responsibilities), had a credit card (financial possibility), you were in college away from home (freedom). Even people who are currently 20-24, I feel as though they have had much limited success due to timing. Once again they were the next wave and had less of a poker pie to eat from.

ANYWAY definitely ran off a tangent, but I think it takes a person with the insane amount of mental fortitude, confidence in one's own ability, and independence or the lack of need of attention/approval. Oddly enough delusions might prove useful in the latter category, people such as jungleman/wobbly/marshall come to mind.

you think to much thats 1 side effect

On September 15 2012 16:21 MiPwnYa wrote: Show nested quote + On September 15 2012 14:55 sniderstyle wrote: If you guys can be a pro poker player, one of the toughest things in the world, you can do anything. That's not true, having the skillset to be a poker player dsnt really able you to do "anything", and being a poker player certainly isnt one of the toughest things in the world, it just requires a few particular skills that are quite rare in the population. That's just my opinion obv

yeah this. To me the hardest job i've ever had was unloading fish from a boat all day with the crims. That min-wage labor work is just so much more of a grind to me than poker, humans arn't meant to be working physically 12 hours a day dammit. And the job never exercised my brain so it also sucked because of that.

On September 15 2012 16:26 mnj wrote: Andrewsong's blog is pretty informative or at least was. He had his epic "I made xx at 18, xx at 21" post. I enjoyed it a lot. I think people who will have the most insight are people who have left poker. I THINK twisted, sakisaki, nolan, all left for their own specific, personal reasons but I can't help but think it converges at "Am I going to play poker for the rest of my life?" It's difficult to do something that provides no social value. It's not even like competitive sports where at least there are tons of spectators and good projects such as charity. For instance, the NBA does a fantastic job of growing its image and has its players participate in a wide range of charities including local American ones like Katrina but also the Haiti earthquake. Additionally when you become obsessed with sports, you don't really risk a chance of ruin in the same way gambling addiction can ruin a person's life or family or friends. Poker is one of the most cut throat industries out there. It blows my mind that people still want to play. I can't help but feel as though if you weren't one of the first adopters of poker (so around 26-30 now) you simply can not move through the stakes any more. It reminds me of the importance of timing in the book Outliers, where some of the poker players's success is random chance. IE you were 18 (no job responsibilities), had a credit card (financial possibility), you were in college away from home (freedom). Even people who are currently 20-24, I feel as though they have had much limited success due to timing. Once again they were the next wave and had less of a poker pie to eat from. ANYWAY definitely ran off a tangent, but I think it takes a person with the insane amount of mental fortitude, confidence in one's own ability, and independence or the lack of need of attention/approval. Oddly enough delusions might prove useful in the latter category, people such as jungleman/wobbly/marshall come to mind.

This. I've pretty much sacrificed my poker development to be more happy. So i study just enough, and make adjustments just to stay a bit ahead of my games. Get SNE every year, and try my best to force myself to leave my house everyday and do something to keep a balance. People would be surprised how much social interaction they can get if they just leave their computer for a couple hrs a day. Whether to work out, do martial arts, sports, or just walk around.

I agree with the conclusion you come to in your last paragraph about it being each player's individual responsibility to learn how to balance poker with other aspects of life. In my mind, the only reason that a smart and successful poker player wouldn't be able to succeed outside of poker is inaction due to fear of failure and discomfort. The actual transition isn't hard but the psychological obstacles are. As someone who is self-employed and sets your own hours, there's no excuse for not attempting to dedicate time to other projects for example: learning to code, taking some money out of your BR to fund a business idea, requesting informational interviews with firms in an industry you might be interested in learning about (It's a great way to start developing business relationships and practice leveraging your poker skills socially and you can lie about having a university degree if you don't have one). The problem with most young poker players is that they found poker too young and haven't learned to step out of their comfort zones and really explore their options.

just deleted bunch of paragraphs that I wrote on ket's blog post
everything is actualy being said
It's very subjective thing, it's not for everyone. Depends on what do you want from poker and do you see it as an opportunity to develop yourself.. it's your life and your responsibility to use those benefits that poker gives to you.

I think a lot of these downsides need to be put in retrospect to the downsides of having a normal 9-5 job. As was once said, life is the grind, and poker is how you pass the time. Whats worse, sitting on your ass playing poker eating cheetos, or sitting on your ass in a cubicle being forced to?

I defer all commentary to handbanana21,

I think he's smarter than me, at least when it comes to stuff like this.

I also agree with Newb, every career is going to have a downside. I don't mind looking into it or whatever, but it's really the same. I mean I'm sure dudes in med school are like fuck I can't really get along with anyone who isn't in med school bla bla etc. The thing that makes poker different is most of your work-related contacts are 1000's of kilometers away.

But yes, a large part in my own personal decision to back off was that I'm going to be 27 soon and... yeah... 27...

To be fair even if I were working in some other career I'm sure I'd be wanting change after 8 years. It just so happens to be easier to change away from poker than other jobs. So nuts I think I've been posting here since I was 19 and now I'm 27 O.O

Those "downsides" probably come from a lack of fantasy, theres a shitload of other activities besides playing poker you are free to do any time of day, lets say starting from playing computer games up to acting in a porno movies or defending PHD title. Once you reveal something you like most, you wont lose any mental energy on doing those and will even gain more to play poker as your main job.

On September 15 2012 16:26 mnj wrote: I THINK twisted, sakisaki, nolan, all left for their own specific, personal reasons

Just an FYI, I haven't quit poker actually ;o. It is still my sole profession since finishing studies in 2009. I have been thinking of ways to increase my social circle as well but haven't taken action just yet. I think just doing some random activities outside your house could definitely help. I'm thinking of joining a Spanish class or something, or maybe pick up an instrument. Maybe pick up tennis or whatever.

Anyway, I think the whole social thing being made easier by what job you do is kind of a dudd. If you want to find a more social, vibrant life, there's tons of opportunities to do stuff and find friends. It's just that most poker players are introvert (me among them) so meeting new people is kind of scary so you fall back into the comfort of your 'poker lifestyle' which allows you to not care about all that stuff because it's not necessary to do. You can just sit on your arse and make money. I'm lucky to still be in touch with a looot of friends from high school and I've made a lot of poker friends in Holland and they don't live 1000 km's away because Holland is small but still I don't see those guys every day or even every week so I am trying to extend my social circle as well. I'm just not that good at moving out of my comfort zone at all.

Oh and I do take good care of my health, at least when it comes to food.

When it comes to quitting poker or not, I don't see myself quitting in the foreseeable future. I still enjoy the game somewhat. It would help if I ran better. Also I just bought an apartment so I want to have some more money anyway before I decide to do anything else. Because I know already that if I ever do transition to something else, it's gonna take time and a lot of change in character.

pretty good points by twisted, ppl who lack social interaction from poker were already introvert to start with (as many ppl who have jobs that involve sitting on the computer all day), they just dont do any effort and rarely go out of their comfort zone. If anything poker gives you an incredible freedom that enables you to whatever you want whenever you want, life dsnt get much easier than that, if you don't use that freedom to go out there and do stuff, that's your own choice but you can't really blame it on poker. Oh well I just repeated everything twisted said : )

An additional unmentioned point that is relevant to this community in particular:

I think games like HON/SC2/D3 and others are the worst for online poker players. Like if this is your job you are pretty much forced to spend ~5-8 hours a day playing and working on your poker game and then if you spend another few hours (and for many of us a lot more) playing those types of games then you end up spending most of your life in front of a computer using your brain in a very similar way.

I try to keep 0 games installed on my computer and walk away from it when I'm done w/ poker related stuff.