Turning pro poker vs trading/other jobs
Posted by James Vogl
Posted by
James Vogl
posted in
Gen. Poker
Turning pro poker vs trading/other jobs
1999/2002 - I studied economics at LSE but spent the vast majority of my time playing backgammon and poker, live then online and travelling to major tournis across the world. I wanted to turn pro but my parents pleaded with me to complete my degree so I did.
2002/2004 - Pro backgammon and poker, won a bracelet in my first WSOP event. Poker was just taking off and it was lucrative and the lifestyle was a lot of fun.
2004 - Job offer from Goldman Sachs to trade equities. This was the toughest decision I ever had to make. I was under a lot of pressure from my parents and a serious girlfriend at the time to get a "legitimate job". Poker was going well though and i had a decent sponsorship offer from a big site. In the end I thought trading may be fun too and a lot more lucrative and respectable if it went well and so I took the job thinking poker would always be there if it didn't work out but if I didn't give trading a try I may never have another chance like it.
I have been trading ever since and am now a portfolio manager at a large hedge fund. I have played basically no tournaments since 2004 but still play some relatively high stakes live cash games probably once a month or so.
I am not one for regrets but I often think how things would have turned out if I carried on with the poker instead of the route I chose.
In some respects, I was wrong as poker as I knew it would not always be there to return to in the future: If I approximate my expectancy was $500k/year in 2004 and perhaps even higher for the next 5 glory years of poker, i doubt it would be more than 100k these days. I went back to Vegas only once for WSOP in 2009 I think and at 29 I was one of the oldest at the table and all these kids were talking of "floating flops" to "jam the turn" at the table!... educating everyone else. These were not ideas that the vast majority of players knew about even when I was winning yet alone having their own terminology. Backgammon used to be lucrative and there were huge skill differentials. Then a program called Jellyfish came along that morphed into Snowie then XGgammon and now the game has basically been solved. Everyone can now learn from playing the bot and improve their game to near enough a world class level. One has to use the machine to be competitive and as everyone does there is basically no skill differential between anyone anymore. Backgammon for money is now dead as the weaker players have been crushed by the know all pros and one can't play online as someone could use a machine to cheat. Poker is heading the same way. Eventually there will be a bot and it will kill the game. Intellectually this site is fantastic but with everyone learning so much so easily without paying for their mistakes the playing field will become narrower day by day. When I used to play live at a casino an average game would be 5 amateurs 2 solid players and 2 pros. Now, for any decent stake it is 7 pros, 1 solid player and 1 amateur. As poker is a zero sum game, it will become even more of a dog eat dog world and i can not see how your yearly win rate can ever expect to increase (perhaps for a year or two if the US online is opened up). Going forward it will reduce and reduce until it wont be worthwhile. Sure there may be one or two Phil's out there but the rest of you who think you are clever earning say 200k a year now will probably be on minimum wage equiv within 5 years. Backgammon died around 2000, sadly poker is heading that way.
Life is not just about money. Poker is great when you are in your twenties but after that it is not much of a life. How many poker pros do you know that have a happy family life and are not divorced after more than ten years of marriage? A handful. Sitting 60 hours a week around a table with 8 or 9 other men, or playing alone on a laptop, eventually however much you love the game, you will get bored and it may become a job like any other. One of the biggest arguments for being a poker pro is that you can work when you want and be a free spirit. PLEASE. I have not met one top player that doesn't dedicate their entire life to playing and thinking about the game and put in a lot more hours than they would if they had any conventional job. The difference is that few think of poker as work, they think of it as a game. Therefore perhaps the key is to find a job or career that you enjoy and don't think of as work. They are out there. (not sure I felt this way when I joined GS and had to be on the trading floor at 6am and go get coffee for my boss).
Don't get me wrong, poker has it's attractions and I often am jealous of my friends who continued and are at the top of the game now and are semi-celebrities even. If you are great and love it that much and don't have a lot of other opportunities go for it. Just think long term about what kind of life it really is to be a poker pro forever and cut your options down for later before you make the move.
ps. if you are interested in trading I highly recommend you read "market wizards" and "new market wizards" by Jack Schwager. It is a collection of interviews with the worlds top traders. There are numerous analogies between poker players and the traders and there is even one chapter where a top trader hired a bunch of games players he called "the turtles" to see if he could train them.
pps. the level of thinking on this site is superb and if you can take poker so seriously in such a professional and analytical manner, I am sure you will have a mind and work ethic to crush almost any endeavor.
ppps. you can still be a winning poker player and will probably enjoy the game more when you do play, without being a full time professional.
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