Charles Hawk: What is the biggest advantage that the poker world brings to your life?
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Stevan 'random_chu' Chew: I guess the easy answer is freedom
Jack "jackstack99/aisixer3jk" Ketendjian: it brings freedom for you to work your own hours and do whatever you want . this freedom can hurt some guys and make them lazy, and can also separate the greats from the good. it really tests you as a human being to see how much discipline you really have, each day you have a choice. you can wake up study piosolver and grind, or you can wake up scratch your ass and watch tv. Or you can do something in between. Being in direct control of how you choose to behave on a daily basis and the impact that it has on your financial success in poker is an incredible thing.
Knut 'smatt' Turk: I think the obv answer is to be able to work/study/take time off at your own shedule. Its also a great benefit not to have any sort of "deadline" pressure nor to have to be somewhere at 8am. I think overall any kind of 9to5 work enviroment is rather inefficent not as productive as a more relaxed shedule and being a poker player is the exact opposite of that :)
Daniel 'Pl@yerABC" Sklar: Online poker (similar to videoblogging, e-book publishing, e-learning and countless others internet related activities) brings huge advantages for our generation. These are all new opportunities, new ways how to work, earn money, create value, communicate with people, list goes on and on. In the previous era you basically have to apply for a job and hope that somebody will pick you. Now you can have much more independence and freedom, you have the opportunity to design your lifestyle around the work you love. I see playing online poker as one way of creating modern - 21. century - lifestyle.
Andrew: Understanding how badly our brain operates with probabilities.
Darius 'AAnythingKK': I like that I was able to get started with no money and virtually no experience through a staking/coaching deal and there's virtually no ceiling for profit potential. Most jobs require formal education or past work experience, poker is just application of knowledge and you can quickly see the results of deliberate practice and working a lot of hours.
Zak 'BOOMF' Wray: I've earned more money already than my friends will in their life time.
Zak 'BOOMF' Wray: And I get to do this when I want:
"there's no ceiling for profit potential..." this can be somewhat misleading, at least it's not what happens to most online poker winning players imo.
VHL
You bring up a good point about realistic expectations, but ceiling is not defined by the majority, it's defined by the top % in any given field.
Professional sports is even more heavily weighted, but if you're very talented in the amatuer world it's relevant to talk about your profit ceiling, while keeping your expectations realistic and focusing on your likely profit range.
A talented amatuer basketball player would probably look at potential ceiling as 15-30 million dollars per year on the court and some millions in endorsements pre taxes, but realistically would look at a few hundred thousand dollars to a few million dollars in earnings as likely earning.
In poker, I think a hard working, somewhat intelligent person with good emotional control can look at high five figures to low six figures for realistic earnings, with high six figures to low seven figures as that sort of "if everything clicks, best case scenario I work hard and I'm really damn good at this game" profit ceiling.