How big a prize would you have to win to quit your job and become a pro?
H
hlance
Rising Star
Bronze Level
Okay, serious comment
It's more about how much you love poker than anything else. A few serious things to consider -
1) A crude but valuable estimate is that you can draw about 4% of a retirement account down per year without cutting in to the principle. If you have a million you can probably generate about 40K of income from that million without doing anything or risking the principle much.
2) Poker is work. It's fun work but may get a little less fun the more you have to do it. We talk about ROI but it's not ROI on an investment you can buy and then leave alone. A big bankroll is a qualification for a job more than an investment.
3) A finance principle which applies is that if two things generate the same return, the less risky one is better. From a financial perspective.
4) If you're able to play high level poker you're probably also smart enough to get a skill that can lead to a high paying
5) A young person with lots of time ahead and no specific skills can spend a couple of years trying out pro poker, and it may even look cool on a resume. A person with specific skills, say a programmer, making solid money, might harm that career if they took some years off, then had to return with a gap on the resume where they tried to play pro poker.
6) Probably if you're in college the amount you need to give it a shot for a while is just enough to hang in there. Whereas in other circumstances, even if you're doing great at poker, going pro doesn't make a lot of sense.
It's more about how much you love poker than anything else. A few serious things to consider -
1) A crude but valuable estimate is that you can draw about 4% of a retirement account down per year without cutting in to the principle. If you have a million you can probably generate about 40K of income from that million without doing anything or risking the principle much.
2) Poker is work. It's fun work but may get a little less fun the more you have to do it. We talk about ROI but it's not ROI on an investment you can buy and then leave alone. A big bankroll is a qualification for a job more than an investment.
3) A finance principle which applies is that if two things generate the same return, the less risky one is better. From a financial perspective.
4) If you're able to play high level poker you're probably also smart enough to get a skill that can lead to a high paying
5) A young person with lots of time ahead and no specific skills can spend a couple of years trying out pro poker, and it may even look cool on a resume. A person with specific skills, say a programmer, making solid money, might harm that career if they took some years off, then had to return with a gap on the resume where they tried to play pro poker.
6) Probably if you're in college the amount you need to give it a shot for a while is just enough to hang in there. Whereas in other circumstances, even if you're doing great at poker, going pro doesn't make a lot of sense.
