Hi,
I am a junior in college in NYC majoring in finance (20 years old, turning 21 in may). I have a high GPA and good credential for getting a job in Credit Risk Management (issuing loans to companies via analyzing financial statements and running models). It takes my poker skills and translates well in a traditional path. I have been into poker since 2007 (since i was 13).
I crushed my home games all throughout middle and high school. i kept record and in sessions with a typical $15-20 tournament and then a .25/.50 cash game where ppl buy in from $10 to $30 I won money 247/282 times, averaging about $31.75 profit. I played on full tilt and played a bunch of tournaments and made about $2k off a $50 deposit. Black Friday hit, and a lot of my friends wouldn't play with me anymore. i stopped playing till i turned 18 and could play live at an indian casino in upstate NY. but i loved poker so much ever since i was 13. I've seen every youtube video and have wanted to be a pro since i was young. I played live at that casino when i turned 18 in some trips and made a few thousand shortstacking $1/2. i played with friends at college and played .25/.5 and won 44/49 times and averaged $35 profit per game. They quickly stopped playing me after my freshman year. I started playing sealswithclubs and played tournaments and crushed them, averaging 60% roi over 2k tournaments. This was in bit coins but equated to about $14k profit at buyins of about $10-100. I played a lock Sunday $100 tournament going into sophomore year and won it for $10k (have not seen that money tho lol). I pretty much just played short stack tournaments and won a lot just being good at jam ranges and cbetting a ton versus weak players on seals and lock. Summer going into my junior year, (last summer), i realized i need to actually get good at poker. i couldn't crush deeper stacks games like i did in tournemanets. and i had money to invest in being better. So, I joined deuces cracked and got a very good elementary background in game theory. it was sort of outdated (2012 content mostly) but it helped. Then RIO came and i studied that starting in August. Ever since, i have about 5-6 RIO tabs at any given time on my computer of just watching every video here from the beginning of the site. I really have improved a ton and feel so confident. I crush sealswithclubs and nobody will play me really. Theres some pokerstars regs who play me but i have beaten HU and 6max at 22.5bb/100 over 101k hands (hard to get volume). I also play a very soft underground site thats organized with very weak players. its a $1/2 game with $1 per $10 raked but the players are horrible. So so so bad. They dont fold ever. That was a $15k boost to my BR over about 40 sessions. Yea, i averaged about 185bb/100. I played bovada and deposited about $600 and ran it to 10k playing zone poker (its just rush poker). so my BR was fairly large and i studied really really hard and feel good. I was always concerned with staying up with the times and made sure to focus on near optimal ranges with balance, rather than the exploitive style i had on bovada. i played the PCA and played the 3k LAPT and had some tough tables but cashed in 60/800 by playing fairly well. Also played 1k satty to 10k main and veto 27th of 220 when 22 get seat, damn. then played 10k main and busted day 2 in a con flip. that was my shot i took with some staking and since then been questioning going pro.
i have a huge opportunity cost in that I can go into finance but the hours are long and I will definitely fall behind in poker. I enjoy it much more but i'm not sure because I dont want to limit myself in 10-20 years if poker gets too advanced or my mind isn't sharp enough to compete. I definitely won't lose interest as i love it so much but I'm not sure.
ideas if I should go for it?