potential downsides of a poker lifestyle - Page 3

Why are people in the poker world constantly proud of fucking hookers?

The culture in poker from which this derives is another huge downside for me. I just find so many people in poker utterly repugnant.

On September 18 2012 04:19 Oly wrote: Why are people in the poker world constantly proud of fucking hookers? The culture in poker from which this derives is another huge downside for me. I just find so many people in poker utterly repugnant.

i could be wrong but i think a decent amount of those comments are in jest

On September 18 2012 04:19 Oly wrote: Why are people in the poker world constantly proud of fucking hookers? The culture in poker from which this derives is another huge downside for me. I just find so many people in poker utterly repugnant.

I don't know what people you've met but the poker players in my circle of friends are nothing like what you describe. Off the top of my head I have maybe 7-9 good friends who play poker and things most have in common include decent amt of life motivation, strong interest and effort invested in personal development + health, and diverse hobbies/interests outside of poker. So from my perspective what you said seems like a gross and unfair generalisation, and also unfair to blame the "poker culture" on producing low quality people. You can find the sort of people you're referring to anywhere outside of pro poker players as well. Also you have the freedom to choose your own circles and make your own "culture of a poker player", nobody is making you be associated with those people or their lifestyles

On September 16 2012 07:53 Smuft wrote: 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.

couldn't agree more and hope some people here can take heed. makes me a bit sad to see highly active threads about computer gaming on here, there are much more rewarding and engaging things we could be doing!

On September 16 2012 09:27 RiKD wrote: This topic fascinates me as I always seem to be posting about it on here. A lot of good insight from everyone. Some quick thoughts that come to mind: Show nested quote + One thing to consider is poker can be pretty damaging to other facets of life and development. I wrote this in the context of that thread. To take it further: One thing to consider is poker can be pretty beneficial to other facets of life and development. One thing to consider is that any endeavor can be pretty damaging to other facets of life and development. One thing to consider is that any endeavor WILL be damaging to other facets of life and development. The damage will always be there it's just a matter if it's a positive or negative. Smuft's post originally comes to mind and I completely agree with him (ESPECIALLY for poker players) so I will use it as an example: Phillip spends 15-20 hours of focused energy on x video game. It completely comes down to what Phillip values in life but for besides a handful of Koreans and maybe some Europeans (no idea of the current egame market) any excessive focused time and energy spent towards video games is a complete waste. Basically, Phillip has a lot of options with that 15-20 hours of focused energy that could lead to a better and more vigorous life. If Phillip instead starts making money, exercising, reading, w/e with that time he will be damaging his video game skills but unless those video game skills are a valuable asset who cares? As far as poker and being sociable: Again a lot of good insights. I am of the opinion that poker has a lot of potential to improve a social life if desired. There is a lot of potential in poker for money, autonomy, and freedom. There is a lot of potential in free time and status with money, autonomy, and freedom. Nolan pointed out med school. Really any advanced degree. Really any employment. Everything is the same but different. Everyone is the same but different. On a different note: Habit, consistency, homeostasis, moderation can either be a human's greatest friend or a human's greatest foe. The Practice of Practice is Important. The Discipline of Discipline is Important. Knowledge is Power.

have to QFT this. pls post more!

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

+2.. for me it's been really easy to be a pro poker player but id be drawing dead at being a pro artist or musician

On September 15 2012 19:40 Spicy wrote: 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.

On September 15 2012 20:57 morph1 wrote: 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.

On September 16 2012 06:14 Twisted wrote: Show nested quote + 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.

On September 16 2012 06:36 MiPwnYa wrote: 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 : )

On September 16 2012 14:16 EvilSky wrote: I totally agree Ket. I dont think its completely fair to blame the downfalls in my personal life on poker as I always could have tried harder and made more of an effort but I cant ignore the change Ive experienced in these last few years. I would be lying if I said I didnt consider many times had it not been better if I never picked up poker in the first place.

Really happy to read posts like this and I hope this message is what we can all take away from this discussion as it's a very positive one: Playing poker (successfully) for a living itself isn't to blame for the potential downsides of the lifestyle that you might experience in the process, rather it's up to you to use your own imagination and action to fully use the resources afforded to you through playing (TIME and money) and create your own fully fulfilled and happy vigorous lifestyle

On September 16 2012 16:17 thewh00sel wrote: Don't have much to add to the social aspects of poker. There have been tons of threads like this, and the fact is if you want to be the best in your field, you don't have time for making friends in other fields. I have some friends outside of poker, but 90% of the time, I am thinking about poker, so most of my friends are poker players. I don't see anything wrong with that. Ok, time for a tangent, semi-non-related but I've been wanting to talk about the concept for a while: Show nested quote + Breadth of experience will be sacrificed for great depth in one limited area, which can have all sorts of suboptimal consequences on personal development and therefore ultimately, happiness and quality of life I think specialization, which is sacrificing depth in multiple skillsets to become great at one skill (such as poker or any other job) is evolution at work. One of the BIGGEST reasons that humans have accelerated as quickly as they have is through specialization. I've seen arguments in some books that people should broaden their skillset and become proficient in a lot of different skills, and others which preach the importance of intense specialization. I agree with the latter. I happen to think that specializing is important, and allows for the exponential growth of technology and dramatic increases in quality of life for everyone. I also think that when a lot of humans are specializing in different tasks, it makes people MORE dependent on on each other, allowing for less isolation, and forced interaction with people (a good thing imo). According to an excellent book that I suggest people read called The Rational Optimist, specialization was the reason that society began to evolve, and it was the cause of the first "trades." The concept is that it "clicked" for the first humans when they realized that they could either: A: Learn to fish in his home town AND learn to hunt X miles away B: Fish for 3 months and collect more than he needs and trade for deer meat. The result is that they spent much more time fishing and thus developed specialized fishing techniques that couldn't be learned if they had to waste time hunting. This allowed him to collect MUCH more fish and trade for advanced tools to collect even more fish and trade for even more things. They also allowed for another person to become an expert hunter, learning hunting techniques he could never learn if he had to waste time fishing. This increased both of their productivity to where they were working together by offering each other a useful skill without spending the time to learn it. Multiply X millions of trades and skills in the world, and the world is one big unit that functions as a giant conglomerate of people saving millions of hours not having to learn each others' skills, but still enjoying the benefits of all of the skills by learning a skill themselves to earn something to trade (money). Just some interesting specialization thoughts I've been thinking about lately. Also, a tangent to the tangent, humans have this sick desire to "keep their options open." I read an interesting study recently in which people were subjected to a simple test. There was a computer program with 3 doors. When you click on a door you get 10 points, but when you press any door, the other 2 doors shrink in size. If you fail to press a door after 5 clicks, the door disappears. The catch is, with each press of a larger sized door, you get slightly more points. You get a set amount of clicks (say 25). Instead of just clicking one door and just clicking it 25 times and letting the other doors disappear, a majority of of participants would press a door 3 times, and then click the other two doors to bring them back to starting size. This phenomenon is so prevalent in society in regard to choosing a career, I thought I'd mention it. Will Smith said it best: "There's no reason to have a Plan B because it distracts from Plan A." Alright done blog hijacking, but sort of the things I think about from a financial standpoint when people ask me if they should focus on poker or "keep their options open" with a college education. If you have a backup plan, you have no reason to succeed.

Have to disagree strongly with this. To each their own but you make an assumption that happiness == maximum economic prosperity. I think I'd be much happier not being a specialist that's trying to get to the top in 1 thing and investing 100% of mental energy in that thing, but someone with a few interests and a thirst to always learn new stuff and try doing new stuff. For me, as long as I can make enough off poker and manage my expectations and wants, and have time and energy left over to invest in different things that are fulfilling, I'm crushing

playing poker full time is a job like any other. Only that this is a self employed job with no real transferable skills. Which keeps a lot of people in the poker because they have no where else to go

hang on, didnt u just make a blogpost saying u found playing poker taught u valuable lessons you can use in life?

only jostling, i know what u mean. One thing im curious about though, do you not feel similar is true for trading too? or many (arguably most) other career paths?