Poker Pro? Me? No!
November 11, 2007
Interesting question came in via a comment from one of my longest-term contributors MrTynKyn - here is his blog http://pokermarplatense.blogspot.com/ (en Espanol (which means I can not read it unfortunately!).
The question is whether I am a ‘pro poker player’ - with a side question of whether it would be possible to be a ‘low limit grinder’ kind of Pro here in Europe…
Firstly my personal answer… then some thoughts that this triggered about the desire to be a poker pro in others.
Well the fast answer is ‘no’ for me.
The slightly longer answer is that poker is a liesure pursuit, something that for me is a challenging and fun part of a balanced life… have considered the idea in the past, but whenever I play purely ‘for the money’ the game becomes a total bore. Poker turns from something to enjoy into something sinister - a grind in the bad sense of the word.
From a personal perspective grinding a living on the online poker tables would be socially isolated, dull and… well horrible. Playing the occasional game (and making $$$) on the other hand - love it!!
In fact I currently have 2 ‘jobs’ the first one is as a freelance writer, doing (mostly) poker content for other webmasters. You’d be suprised just how many of my pieces are ‘out there’… unlike this blog I write them in ‘US English’ so no clues from the UK spelling!! I also run www.sitandgoplanet.com and have 2 more poker sites on the way (Plan3t Gong readers will be the first to know when they are launched!). The idea is that these generate a ‘passive income’ which will enable me to spend more time writing on the subjects I really love - going well so far with this one. (some killer non-poker writing projects in plan for next year - at the moment the poker writing pays for my beers and holidays!!)
Enough about me: What about whether 1500 USD a month (as in the original comment) would be enough to live on in Europe? erm, no. Might work for a college kid sharing rent, or someone young enough to live with parents but this is not really a viable living wage (especially in the UK / Germany / France etc)… life is just too damn expensive over here!!
OK - will save my thoughts on the ‘aspiring pro’s’ you find all over internet forums for another day… want to do this subject justice.
GL at the tables - and thanks for the interesting questions MtTynKyn!!
Mark
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