Prose from a Poshboy

[cambridgealex]

Two stories from that series:

I was dealing the £10k Heads Up Shootout, and was given Durrr vs Talal's match. Pretty excited. They held the comp right on the casino floor and some random drunk guy came up to the table with £50 in reds in his hand and said how much is the buyin?

"Ten thousand pounds" I said. He went a bit silent as you'd expect. "Cash games are upstairs on the right mate".

Mike Matusow was in town and he and a friend (unknown to me) wanted to play Chinese. This was the original form of Chinese poker before people played Open Face. The guy in charge of all the dealers said to us "does anybody know how to deal chinese poker?" I knew the rules, roughly, and figured I had nothing to lose and everything to gain by volunteering. I figured they'd do most of the work and I'd pick it up soon enough.

So I was in, and Mike was hilarious, he even paid for me to get a massage while I was dealing it - that was a pretty good moment as a poker dealer.

[tonytats]

As a dealer did it annoy you when players throw chips in ? Rather than a tidy stack

[cambridgealex]

As a dealer did it annoy you when players throw chips in ? Rather than a tidy stack

A little, but not too much. Doesn't make the top 10 let's put it that way...

[stato_1]

emotional video... well... wotR was certainly reaching for the tissues anyway

[MANTIS01]

Hey Alex,

Everything has it's boom time and a deft skill in life is realising when things have run their course. My mum made a fortune out of double glazing in the late 80s and early 90s, but those times have gone. I made a good living out of health clubs in the 90s and early noughties, but those times have gone. Lots of us made real easy money out of poker post-Moneymaker but dare I say, those times have gone. I guess my mum could work real hard, harder than anyone else, and eek out a living in double glazing. Same with health clubs and poker. But why bother when you can get on board the next boom industry and make easy money instead.

People generally post the negative aspects of getting a job on poker forums. Such as you have to be somewhere at a certain time so have no freedom. But if you work for yourself the discipline of having a structure is essential, so actually you would force yourself to be somewhere at a certain time anyway. Even in poker you are forcing yourself to grind when perhaps you would prefer not to so there really is no difference.

Look at the positives of having a job. I work alongside a great team everyday and we achieve the satisfaction of success together. We provide a service for people who reward us with their praise and thanks. We have loads of fun. Stable income. Building a valuable career that stands you in good stead for the future. Paid if you're sick. Respect from those around you. Paid holiday. Promotions and bonuses. Learning new skills. Structure and organisation in your life. Developing young people to be better at their jobs. The best part compared to poker is the effort you put in almost always rewards you with a positive result on a daily basis. Man, I could go on and on. What's more I also get the freedom to play and enjoy poker on my terms without the pressure of needing to stay the right side of variance.

The downsides are what? Less freedom? That is a fallacy really. World travel? I've travelled all over the world with my job. And whatever people say playing poker really is terrible work experience for a future career because there is still a lot of stigma from employers who don't readily appreciate the skills it can develop in people.

You've reaped the harvest of the boom time in poker. Time to evolve and get on board the next growth industry imo, cos that's what shrewdies do.

Good luck.

[StuartHopkin]

Surprised at people suggesting bars/restaurants. Seems like the nut worst thing to do in my opinion.
There is a reason the main people who open restaurants are chefs, already rich people and idiots open restaurants.

Please expand on this. Seems a fairly narrow minded thing to say

Bar's and restaurants take more work and commitment than most other forms of business. To make them work you normally see owners working in them 18 hours per day to make enough to live on.

There are obviously exceptions but I would guess that for every successful bar/restaurant there are 10 failures these days. There is just too much competition.
If you were looking to be your own boss, retain some freedom and make some serious money then bar's and restaurants would be a terrible idea!

Personally I don't think its a good idea to jump into your own business, you need that experience of working in a business for someone else, seeing how things are done and working out what is right and wrong.

I love BITB but I have to disagree that any staking venture is going to give you an insight in to running a business and making business decisions.
I am sure he will make his stable work but if you have enough money to stake people at this level you should really be looking at doing something else with your money imo.

[rfgqqabc]

Mantis your job  would probably be considered top 20% in the UK, probably higher over your career. Not one of my friends who got a job post uni has done any travelling at all. I know many people who all work and fulfill exactly nil of what you posted. I know your trying to post the brightside but it just isn't reality for so many people and Alex could/could not be in that camp. Painting the world of employment in such rosy colours is wrong, as always in life it is all just a murky grey

[Woodsey]

Mantis your job  would probably be considered top 20% in the UK, probably higher over your career. Not one of my friends who got a job post uni has done any travelling at all. I know many people who all work and fulfill exactly nil of what you posted. I know your trying to post the brightside but it just isn't reality for so many people and Alex could/could not be in that camp. Painting the world of employment in such rosy colours is wrong, as always in life it is all just a murky grey

Depends what level you work at, people shouldn't expect too much too soon. My experience and most of my friends is similar to Mantis, but the better opportunities only start to appear further down the line once you have experience and have moved up the greasy pole a little bit. The first 10 years were a bit of a grind, but I can't complain about the last 10 at all really.

[MANTIS01]

Mantis your job  would probably be considered top 20% in the UK, probably higher over your career. Not one of my friends who got a job post uni has done any travelling at all. I know many people who all work and fulfill exactly nil of what you posted. I know your trying to post the brightside but it just isn't reality for so many people and Alex could/could not be in that camp. Painting the world of employment in such rosy colours is wrong, as always in life it is all just a murky grey

Shit I almost forgot. A luxury that employment offers me and all your friends is no risk. You work hard you get paid you pay the bills.

And yep Woodsey is right. The older you get the more you get paaiidd.

[RED-DOG]

Mantis your job  would probably be considered top 20% in the UK, probably higher over your career. Not one of my friends who got a job post uni has done any travelling at all. I know many people who all work and fulfill exactly nil of what you posted. I know your trying to post the brightside but it just isn't reality for so many people and Alex could/could not be in that camp. Painting the world of employment in such rosy colours is wrong, as always in life it is all just a murky grey

Shit I almost forgot. A luxury that employment offers me and all your friends is no risk. You work hard you get paid you pay the bills.

And yep Woodsey is right. The older you get the more you get paaiidd.

Fuck me. Tony must earn more than Bill Gates.

[StuartHopkin]

Mantis your job  would probably be considered top 20% in the UK, probably higher over your career. Not one of my friends who got a job post uni has done any travelling at all. I know many people who all work and fulfill exactly nil of what you posted. I know your trying to post the brightside but it just isn't reality for so many people and Alex could/could not be in that camp. Painting the world of employment in such rosy colours is wrong, as always in life it is all just a murky grey

Shit I almost forgot. A luxury that employment offers me and all your friends is no risk. You work hard you get paid you pay the bills.

And yep Woodsey is right. The older you get the more you get paaiidd.

I don't think it is correct to say that employment is risk free!

[rfgqqabc]

Mantis your job  would probably be considered top 20% in the UK, probably higher over your career. Not one of my friends who got a job post uni has done any travelling at all. I know many people who all work and fulfill exactly nil of what you posted. I know your trying to post the brightside but it just isn't reality for so many people and Alex could/could not be in that camp. Painting the world of employment in such rosy colours is wrong, as always in life it is all just a murky grey

Shit I almost forgot. A luxury that employment offers me and all your friends is no risk. You work hard you get paid you pay the bills.

And yep Woodsey is right. The older you get the more you get paaiidd.

My friend just got fired. He is looking for further employment, and has a 2nd class degree from a university ranked in the top 20 in country. He has sent 100s of job applications out. His dad just got fired from his position as a midlevel business executive because the office he worked in has been moved abroad. Seems like his life is risky as fuck to me.

I don't really miss out on not having a risk free income. I'm hungover having been out last night at a Michelin star restaurant. The other place I ate yesterday was Nobu. That doesn't mean I go around posting, being a professional poker player is great, I do x and do y. Of course saying the freedom associated with poker professionals is a fallacy is correct, because lumping everyone in the same profession together is silly. Just like saying every politician is corrupt is a fallacy.

Everything has positives and negatives. Everything in life has risk, being irrationally scared of it doesn't really help. I'm hardly shaking in my boots because my income is variable I embrace it. I absolutely love what I do. I enjoy the competition so much. I thrive on the battle. I don't think your representation of employment is very accurate. Yes you can get a job which is extremely fulfilling, allows you to travel and experience a great many things, but for every person like this there is someone grinding out a deadend job they don't really enjoy to make ends meet. I don't really think age has anything to do with it. My mum recently entered employment again and I know she doesn't particularly enjoy her job. Of course your post has a lot of valid points, they are all possible things that happen once you are employed, but its only a possibility.

I also have some issues surrounding your stigma comment, I think poker is still a reasonably good experience for work experience, although the stigma attached to it diminishes that. There just aren't many experiences out there quite like this, certainly in regards to managing bankroll/capital/liquidity.

[cambridgealex]

I think you're contradicting yourself a bit Adam, by saying that "everything in life has positives and negatives" and "I don't think your representation of employment is very accurate" because so far you've just been pointing out the negatives of employment and the positives of being a poker pro. Mantis was just doing the opposite. He doesn't think your representation of being a poker pro is very accurate. And he's probably right. There's an awful lot of poker pros leading wholly unglamorous and unappealing lives. Just as there's an awful of people in employment doing the same.

[rfgqqabc]

I think you're contradicting yourself a bit Adam, by saying that "everything in life has positives and negatives" and "I don't think your representation of employment is very accurate" because so far you've just been pointing out the negatives of employment and the positives of being a poker pro. Mantis was just doing the opposite. He doesn't think your representation of being a poker pro is very accurate. And he's probably right. There's an awful lot of poker pros leading wholly unglamorous and unappealing lives. Just as there's an awful of people in employment doing the same.

I didn't mention poker at all in my first post, Mantis brought it up. I brought up the positives of being a professional poker player because for me the positives far outweight not getting a pay cheque every month. I was talking personally as I wanted to counter Mantis's point, but you are correct when you say it weakens my argument as a whole. I did say don't group everyone in the same job because its wrong, so I don't think you should take my points about my life as the main argument in the post. It probably shouldn't have been in there at all  but the no risk phrase was really tilting.

[Pinchop73]

The risk with employment - 99% of the time your never going to fulfill your true potential