Honestly, I think most real jobs are more work than grinding it out at poker for years. Sure if you cash in a major tournament you probably made enough to say that you made a ton of money without a lot of (comparative) work. But for anyone grinding it out in cash games or lower stakes tournaments, it's real work. It may not be as much physical labor as other jobs but it's definitely more more taxing on the mind.
My friend that goes to another college and plays poker has made about $20,000 in the last 2 years in college from poker. This is along with school along with college life. He's not grinding it out day in and day out. It's basically a hobby for him and the money's just a bonus. Now we were talking about the possibility of going pro. He said he thought (and I think he could) he could make 50k a year on poker if he did it primarily. But first off 50k a year is not a lot of money, with a good college education he'll probably get a starting salary above that, and it'll go up as he works. Secondly, as mentioned, poker is not easy. To play for that long that many days out of the year is taxing on your brain. The down swings would be hell, and I don't know if I could do it.
Sure the big name pros have it easy now, but you don't think they had to work hard to get to where they are now? You think Phil Ivey just woke up one day being able to play like he does?
And then of course there are the lotto winners, the ones who got lucky and won a huge prize in a tournaments. THOSE people are the ones who got lucky. For Jamie Gold I don't know how much work poker really was. But you think the Ngreaneus, the Iveys, the Cunninghams got to where they are now just by sitting back on their asses and watching poker on TV? And the online pros? Those guys are just amazing. I don't think I could do it. I think a job I get out of college will be easier money than poker is, but I still like poker and am going to work as much as I can to be as good as I can, and hopefully I'll get good enough so that it can be a good supplementary income. Right now it's good, gives me some spending money for college, but I'm only making around $200 a month, which although not horrible, is nothing compared with a real full-time job. And I've had to work to get to where I am now, and I still basically have to quit after a few horrible beats in a row to avoid tilt (which is progress, at least now I can get myself to leave and avoid it). I can only imagine how much work the pros had to put in to get that far.
