I feel like I know what you're going through. 5 years ago I was stumbling through university whilst my poker infactuation grew, not enjoying it at all and not inspired by anything in my course. Whilst poker was the polar opposite - a completely compelling game that I just HAD to succeed at. And I was absolutely inspired by the lifestyle that it could bring.

I know that whatever the right thing to do is, you won't listen to any advice here. I had everyone telling me one thing and I knew they were probably right, I should get my degree, but in the end, you're always gonna do what your heart says. My heart was in poker, not my degree. And I dropped out after just over a year.

I'm not the best person to speak to because I got extremely lucky and it's actully looked like being the right decision (or at least the wrong decision that worked out well). 99% of people who took my line would probably be seriously screwed now. And even the 1% who do get lucky might be fucked in 5 years. I think my years in poker are seriously numbered, almost certainly <5, and what am I gonna do then? The idea is I'll have enough capital, enough passion, enough contacts, and enough intelligence / life experience to be able to make something else work, but that's all very hazy isn't it?

I would never recommend anyone to try and become a professional poker player. I would recommend being a professional player though!

Basically I think you'll end up doing what you want to do. And I can already see like that's settling for a 2.2 whilst pouring your heart into poker. So advice from all these veteran gamblers, and clever older folk like Tikay will sadly fall on deaf ears.

I wrote to Neil Channing back then and asked him for advice, and the first thing he said to me was "Get the degree!". I thought at the time, yes neil that's good advice, I'll do that, thanks Neil, appreciate that. The heart always rules the brain.

Good luck.

ps. forget all that nonsense about playing GTO in live low stakes cash games. You should basically never be balanced lol.

Can I ask, having just finished uni myself and with the poker interest rising all the time, what's your piece of advice for making the next step up in the game? I currently play smaller buy-in live tournaments but have profited fairly consistently over the past year or so.

Got hostile fire e/w @ 6/1 and No Poppy e/w @ 15/2

It seems so, yes. I'm not sure why he couldn't make the next step up to performing regularly, perhaps a lack of effort in training or something behind the scenes which meant his head wasn't in the right place, or that he just wasn't given the opportunities by the manager to fulfill his potential. I also wish him well, there are some players that leave and you almost don't care about, but he seemed to be a nice enough fella!

[Gonna try and play 120 hours this month and study for 40.]

Bear in mind that in the above three posts from Dubai, Arb and Sonour (and earlier too) you are getting advice from people that gamble for a living.  They are very good at it and they know the personal and financial costs of the decision to make it a career so their opinion is worth listening to when they tell you that concentrating on your degree is the best thing for your long term future. I am too and would give you the same advice.  We are all 30+ now and have done this for long enough to now not have a choice and, frankly, if I had my time again I am not sure that gambling for a living was the right decision.  I could certainly have made more money devoting the time I have spent to something else and the opportunity cost of devoting huge amounts of time to gambling at this stage of your life is something you shouldn't underestimate.   You say that if you keep growing with the game you can survive but at 21 is that really your ambition for life?  To survive?  Of course there are some people that make very good livings but they are a very small minority and most professional gamblers I know probably make less than 50k a year which, when you consider the skillsets, education and time devoted is an insanely poor return for people that are close to the top of their profession and even the very best, the Tony Blooms, Chris Moormans, Phil Iveys of this world might have made more if they devoted their time to financial markets or something like that instead of gambling.

^ Read this. Great post. Degrees are so ubiquitous now that it really is the minimum requirement for almost any job.

That said there is this myth in the poker/gambling world that if people had turned their mind to some other career they would be on £100k+ by their early 30s. In my experience the real world just doesn't work like that. Getting a job in any industry is hard work, really hard work for new graduates. And getting ahead, and being a success, is just as much about running good as poker is.

NB: I'm not and never have been a professional gambler, but I've met a LOT of pro gamblers and pro poker players over the years. Many of whom are no longer pro!

yeh have to agree my head does shake a little whenever anyone says to me "Oh you're a poker player, you should have been a stockbroker you'd have made £4.75m by now"

Do what makes you happy mate

Yeah agree a lot. Think the argument of you could have earned x doing this is fairly flawed.

Gonna try and play 120 hours this month and study for 40.

Hope you don't mind me suggesting, but a very obvious thought occurred to me.

You seem resigned to "only" getting a 2:2 - why not reverse those planned hours, & maybe you could get a 2:1 or better? It's only for a few months, & your Degree lasts a lifetime.

As to poker, I'm a big fan of PLO, & the more that play it the merrier, but it is VERY swingy, so tread carefully.

Good luck. 

THIS

You have no idea how many doors in the future will be automatically slammed shut by having a 2:2 compared to a 2:1

It's ridiculous, but it is what it is. I guess employers have to draw a line somewhere and often that's where they draw it.

What the 2 before me said!

This is why he should have played more:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWFa-NMPY4U

I served Howard Webb a drink before the Carling cup final. I asked him to give stoke a few dodgy penalty decisions for the rest of the season. He didn't even crack a smile or say a word. Awkward

Will you be updating here fairly regularly? Sounds like an awesome trip!

I'm not certain all stoke fans will echo my opinion on Jerome but I really liked him as a player. His pace and ability to run beyond the last man was exciting, despite some erratic finishing (sometimes a screamer of a goal, sometimes the worst effort on goal ever seen). He was more a player that would come on for the last 30 minutes to terrorise a tired defence. His best years were definitely at the blues though, bagging a great amount for the season if i remember right?

Is there absolutely no chance of getting a 2:1 in your degree? I thought it would be pretty impossible but managed to scrape the goods this summer. Even so, a 2:2 would be a great effort. Even if there is a small chance of achieving the higher grade you should dedicate your time to it. Your time to study will only be there for a few months, whereas poker will always be there

Putter with 6-7 iron

Did you go during the Victoria Ground days Arb boy?  How do you find the new stadium compared to that in terms of comfort/atmosphere etc?

I only went there once during the mid 1990's with a uni mate.  It was a pretty brutal atmosphere in those days compared to the brit which as tighty says is too corporate and bland.

When did you start following them?

Did you have another team you followed before becoming a Stokie?

I'm pretty sure Stoke's Finest are Port Vale anyway

I followed Leicester as a kid as i grew up 20 miles from there and Lineker was my hero as a kid.  Went to loads of their games in the dark ages of the mid/late 1980's and loads of Forest games with a mate from school who's dad was a season ticket holder so every other week i either went to a leics game or a forest game for 3/4 years (i know that sounds crazy as they are rivals but when you are 11 you just want to go to a game every saturday).  Stopped watching football live all together around 1989/90 season with school exams/sports etc taking up weekends.  Moved to Staffs in 2001 to work for bet365 and virtually all my mates are stoke season ticket holders and/or fans and have pretty much followed them since then tbh.

Will you also desert Stoke and go and follow another club when they become rubbish?  

I followed Leics through possibly the worst 5 years of their history in my lifetime (1985-1990) with crowds of sub 8000 on a regular basis at the old Filbert st so it's pretty hard to throw that one at me!  As soon as they started winning under O'Neill in the 90's i never went to any games.

Filbert Street was awesome.

All the 'old' grounds were awesome.  Ayresome park, victoria ground, filbert st, baseball ground etc etc

Sadly I'm too young to have ever been to the Vic or any of the other older grounds. My first experiences were at the britannia around 1998, getting crowds of around 12000 with a souless atmosphere was as good as it got. It fired up our first few seasons in the premier league but i've heard it's nothing compared to what it used to be.

Peter Coates is a saint. A guy who genuinely cares about the club, unlike many foreign owners who may see it as a way of boosting their money/ profile etc. He's always backed his manager with a bit of cash when he believes it will help the club.

The whole shawcross for england thing has frustrated me for years, and like many others I believe if he played for a bigger club (even if he performed at the same level) he would walk straight into the squad/ team, which seems a tad unfair. It's the same with matthew etherington a few years ago when he was in unbelievable form and england didn't much competition on the left wing, and arguably crouch for euro 2012 and perhaps the world cup. It doesn't help that shawcross got completely done by ibrahimovic on his only england cap though...

Might seem a stupid question but how do they limit for "No Pro's"?

Why does Aaron Ramsey get booed every time Arsenal visit Stoke?

Mindless animosity is my best guess.

Think it's mainly Stoke fans total dislike for Wenger's comments about rugby tbh and nothing personal towards Ramsey.

It's definitely personal against Ramsey ever since he got his leg shawcrossed and pubis' subsequent "not that kind of player" protestations.

I just can't believe that a player would get booed for having his leg broken in two places and a year or so taken out of his career.

I personally do not boo Ramsey but from my understanding fellow stoke fans do boo in order to rub arsenal fans up the wrong way. It's impossible for me as a stoke supporter to meet an arsenal fan without the ramsey vs shawcross incident being brought up within 12 seconds, which is pretty tilting. There's no love lost between the set of fans that's for sure.

This is the greatest thread started on blonde. No doubt it will attract pure class