Thursday, July 20th: The Golden Age of Online Poker?
"How much money is enough?"
That's the question that I think lies at the epicenter of the Poker Opportunity Cost theory I've written about before...and although the question begs an answer in the form of a simple dollar figure, I'm just not so sure that it's all that clear-cut. I don't like what I see happening to a good portion of the new generation of youth (god, I sound like my dad) who think that poker is the answer to their life's finances -- a couple weeks ago, I hung out with an acquaintance in his late teens who plays a lot at the medium-stakes, and had no shame in crowing loudly in front of his friends about how he anticipated earning $180,000 to $220,000 that year, and his friends were only all too familiar with the new Lexus he had just bought for $30,000 in straight cash. It's not that it's ostentatious or pompous (god knows we've all had our moments) -- it's just downright disrespectful to talk that way in front of friends who have to work a side job to make ends meet, or who are 6-figures in debt because of their educations. I know I must come off as pretty self-ritcheous with that statement, but there's nothing that bothers me more than this new breed of successful poker youth whose poker success has left them utterly oblivious to the rest of the modern world's conception of money. I've written about it before, but as I gradually moved up in stakes, I began to talk about poker less and less with my friends until it got to the point where many of them ask me if I still even play all that much (to which I answer 'no' because it's just easier that way.) I'd rather have them think of me as just a guy who got lucky and then lost most of his winnings back than as someone who regularly wagers pretty significant sums of money -- the truth of the matter is that there are probably under 20 days this year where I didn't win or lose more than $1,000 -- that's simply NOT NORMAL! You might say I'm a bit hypocritical for making that announcement after just expressing my distaste for youth who throw big numbers in their friends' faces, but understand that that's one of the greatest benefits of this blog (for me)...a more or less anonymous audience to discuss the ups and downs of higher-stakes poker without worrying about how it makes me come off in front 'normals'.
So just how much money IS enough? At what point do you say to yourself 'ok, I've made enough this day/week/month, I'm going to spend the rest of the day/month/week on more social or educational pursuits.' I won't deny that I actually have a difficult time with the eminently reasonable point that nobody knows how long this online poker 'boom' will last (because of better bots, legislation, waning interest, etc.) and that there is a pretty strong appeal to the argument that I should 'make hay while the sun shines': e.g. maybe play a lot more than I actually want to over the next couple years to build myself a nest egg for when this poker thing starts to fade. Is this the "Golden Age" of online poker, or have we not even scratched the surface of the kinds of profits that will be made?
I find the easest way to approach these questions is by starting at the extremes, and gradually narrowing the range. Let's say I won the PowerBall jackpot for $100 Million. Would I even play any more? Without the financial incentive, I think I'd find it pretty hard to justify spending more than an hour or two each week clicking away playing poker; in fact, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't play at all. It's the classic question that schoolteachers pose to their grade school students: what would you do for a living if you never had to worry about money again? (I can promise you this: the halls of our nation's law schools would be substantially emptier than they are today.) Now on to the other extreme end of the continuum: given that I'm NOT rich, would I be happy never playing poker again, knowing that I'm passing up on a pretty penny? Heck no. There's no denying that online poker is a boring F'in way to spend one's life. Socially alienating, not all that worthwhile to society as a whole (not that I think it's any worse in that regard than other careeers whose contribution to society is equally negligible, although I don't care to enter that quagmire here), and employing such a limited percentage of our intuitive and creative faculties. But damnit if it also isn't the golden-egg-du-jour, creating a whole new generation of wealthy yet one-dimensional humans walking around. I wish I had an answer, but for now I think I'm limited to framing the boundaries of the dilemma: just what is the optimal amount of time to devote to this lucrative and sometimes-enjoyable pursuit? 100% is clearly incorrect, as is 0%.
In other words, as we gradually move in from those extremes, just when do I reach the point where I say "hold on, the money I'm going to make playing this next hand just isn't worth the opportunity cost of enjoying the time I'm missing out on pursuing other life pleasures." I suppose that a rigid economist would simply call it the point of diminishing returns, but "life enjoyment" isn't exactly the easiest label to slap on the axis of a coordinate chart. I'll try to map out my own philosophy, although in no way do I claim it's the 'correct' one...I also acknowledge that it can't necessarily be extrapolated to everyone, since it's necessarily tailored to my own financial situation. I guess you could call the following a life/poker-mission statement, although I've never tried to do anything like this, so I'll probably stumble through it.
I try to play as much poker as I can, until I reach the point where I feel like it's being destructive to more social domains of my life. The rub of course is that it's hard to know when that point has been reached. I'm not proud to say that there have been perhaps 10 to 20 nights over the past year where I've gone to bed, and as I lay there trying to fall asleep could not get out of my head that I'd completely wasted that entire day/night, when I should have been out having fun. It's not even a function of whether I win or lose that particular day; it's just a persistent feeling that when I'm old and wrinkled, I'm going to look back on my youth and will no doubt wish that I could give back every penny to my name for just one more day in my youth, to enjoy myself while I was young and energetic and care-free. And there I was lying in bed after essentially wasting 8 hours of that precious time clicking buttons on a computer screen (I'll leave the question of whether more traditional non-poker employment...oh, let's say as a lawyer...would leave me feeling the same way for another day.) So it's that state of downright self-loathing that I consider to be the ultimate symptom that I pushed myself beyond the point of diminishing returns. But if I can re-spin the above as a 'positive', sure I'm not proud of those 10 or 15 days, but you know what: I'm pretty pleased that I kept it to only 10 to 15...in the grand scheme of things (and given my somewhat compulsive feelings toward poker), if I can look back on an entire year of my life and think to myself "you know what? I know that I've got a personality that lends itself very easily to over-indulging on gambling, and I think I kept it 'in check' except for a measly one or two weeks, and had an absolute ball the rest of the time, I think I've done a pretty damn good job. I remember after I got off the week-long Party Poker cruise in the Carribean, I was sitting in the airport waiting for my flight home and there were a half dozen other young guys from the cruise waiting there too and they all had their laptops open playing 4 tables as they waited for their flights. I remember thinking: god, is your addiction to this thing really so great that the very first thing you can think of after getting off this amazing cruiseship that docked in Grand Cayman and Jamaica, is "man, I can't wait to open up a bunch of online poker tables!" (Not to mention that it was a poker cruise, and they'd spent nearly all of their free time either eating or in the ship's poker room.) It was a bit of a wakeup call for me...or maybe more accurately -- arrogance alert -- a reminder that I thought I'd found a pretty good balance for myself between enjoying life, appreciating the academic challenges of law school (some of the time), and enjoying the time I spend playing poker and the financial benefts that come along with it. For me, that equation came to a little less than 5,000 hands / week...or in the neighborhood of 20 to 24 hours. Of course that's an ever-changing equation, one that was certainly turned upside down this past week when I either packed up all my worldly possessions that would fit into 2 duffel bags, sold or threw out the rest, and hopped a flight to Australia for the rest of the year. Should be interesting...
That's the question that I think lies at the epicenter of the Poker Opportunity Cost theory I've written about before...and although the question begs an answer in the form of a simple dollar figure, I'm just not so sure that it's all that clear-cut. I don't like what I see happening to a good portion of the new generation of youth (god, I sound like my dad) who think that poker is the answer to their life's finances -- a couple weeks ago, I hung out with an acquaintance in his late teens who plays a lot at the medium-stakes, and had no shame in crowing loudly in front of his friends about how he anticipated earning $180,000 to $220,000 that year, and his friends were only all too familiar with the new Lexus he had just bought for $30,000 in straight cash. It's not that it's ostentatious or pompous (god knows we've all had our moments) -- it's just downright disrespectful to talk that way in front of friends who have to work a side job to make ends meet, or who are 6-figures in debt because of their educations. I know I must come off as pretty self-ritcheous with that statement, but there's nothing that bothers me more than this new breed of successful poker youth whose poker success has left them utterly oblivious to the rest of the modern world's conception of money. I've written about it before, but as I gradually moved up in stakes, I began to talk about poker less and less with my friends until it got to the point where many of them ask me if I still even play all that much (to which I answer 'no' because it's just easier that way.) I'd rather have them think of me as just a guy who got lucky and then lost most of his winnings back than as someone who regularly wagers pretty significant sums of money -- the truth of the matter is that there are probably under 20 days this year where I didn't win or lose more than $1,000 -- that's simply NOT NORMAL! You might say I'm a bit hypocritical for making that announcement after just expressing my distaste for youth who throw big numbers in their friends' faces, but understand that that's one of the greatest benefits of this blog (for me)...a more or less anonymous audience to discuss the ups and downs of higher-stakes poker without worrying about how it makes me come off in front 'normals'.
So just how much money IS enough? At what point do you say to yourself 'ok, I've made enough this day/week/month, I'm going to spend the rest of the day/month/week on more social or educational pursuits.' I won't deny that I actually have a difficult time with the eminently reasonable point that nobody knows how long this online poker 'boom' will last (because of better bots, legislation, waning interest, etc.) and that there is a pretty strong appeal to the argument that I should 'make hay while the sun shines': e.g. maybe play a lot more than I actually want to over the next couple years to build myself a nest egg for when this poker thing starts to fade. Is this the "Golden Age" of online poker, or have we not even scratched the surface of the kinds of profits that will be made?
I find the easest way to approach these questions is by starting at the extremes, and gradually narrowing the range. Let's say I won the PowerBall jackpot for $100 Million. Would I even play any more? Without the financial incentive, I think I'd find it pretty hard to justify spending more than an hour or two each week clicking away playing poker; in fact, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't play at all. It's the classic question that schoolteachers pose to their grade school students: what would you do for a living if you never had to worry about money again? (I can promise you this: the halls of our nation's law schools would be substantially emptier than they are today.) Now on to the other extreme end of the continuum: given that I'm NOT rich, would I be happy never playing poker again, knowing that I'm passing up on a pretty penny? Heck no. There's no denying that online poker is a boring F'in way to spend one's life. Socially alienating, not all that worthwhile to society as a whole (not that I think it's any worse in that regard than other careeers whose contribution to society is equally negligible, although I don't care to enter that quagmire here), and employing such a limited percentage of our intuitive and creative faculties. But damnit if it also isn't the golden-egg-du-jour, creating a whole new generation of wealthy yet one-dimensional humans walking around. I wish I had an answer, but for now I think I'm limited to framing the boundaries of the dilemma: just what is the optimal amount of time to devote to this lucrative and sometimes-enjoyable pursuit? 100% is clearly incorrect, as is 0%.
In other words, as we gradually move in from those extremes, just when do I reach the point where I say "hold on, the money I'm going to make playing this next hand just isn't worth the opportunity cost of enjoying the time I'm missing out on pursuing other life pleasures." I suppose that a rigid economist would simply call it the point of diminishing returns, but "life enjoyment" isn't exactly the easiest label to slap on the axis of a coordinate chart. I'll try to map out my own philosophy, although in no way do I claim it's the 'correct' one...I also acknowledge that it can't necessarily be extrapolated to everyone, since it's necessarily tailored to my own financial situation. I guess you could call the following a life/poker-mission statement, although I've never tried to do anything like this, so I'll probably stumble through it.
I try to play as much poker as I can, until I reach the point where I feel like it's being destructive to more social domains of my life. The rub of course is that it's hard to know when that point has been reached. I'm not proud to say that there have been perhaps 10 to 20 nights over the past year where I've gone to bed, and as I lay there trying to fall asleep could not get out of my head that I'd completely wasted that entire day/night, when I should have been out having fun. It's not even a function of whether I win or lose that particular day; it's just a persistent feeling that when I'm old and wrinkled, I'm going to look back on my youth and will no doubt wish that I could give back every penny to my name for just one more day in my youth, to enjoy myself while I was young and energetic and care-free. And there I was lying in bed after essentially wasting 8 hours of that precious time clicking buttons on a computer screen (I'll leave the question of whether more traditional non-poker employment...oh, let's say as a lawyer...would leave me feeling the same way for another day.) So it's that state of downright self-loathing that I consider to be the ultimate symptom that I pushed myself beyond the point of diminishing returns. But if I can re-spin the above as a 'positive', sure I'm not proud of those 10 or 15 days, but you know what: I'm pretty pleased that I kept it to only 10 to 15...in the grand scheme of things (and given my somewhat compulsive feelings toward poker), if I can look back on an entire year of my life and think to myself "you know what? I know that I've got a personality that lends itself very easily to over-indulging on gambling, and I think I kept it 'in check' except for a measly one or two weeks, and had an absolute ball the rest of the time, I think I've done a pretty damn good job. I remember after I got off the week-long Party Poker cruise in the Carribean, I was sitting in the airport waiting for my flight home and there were a half dozen other young guys from the cruise waiting there too and they all had their laptops open playing 4 tables as they waited for their flights. I remember thinking: god, is your addiction to this thing really so great that the very first thing you can think of after getting off this amazing cruiseship that docked in Grand Cayman and Jamaica, is "man, I can't wait to open up a bunch of online poker tables!" (Not to mention that it was a poker cruise, and they'd spent nearly all of their free time either eating or in the ship's poker room.) It was a bit of a wakeup call for me...or maybe more accurately -- arrogance alert -- a reminder that I thought I'd found a pretty good balance for myself between enjoying life, appreciating the academic challenges of law school (some of the time), and enjoying the time I spend playing poker and the financial benefts that come along with it. For me, that equation came to a little less than 5,000 hands / week...or in the neighborhood of 20 to 24 hours. Of course that's an ever-changing equation, one that was certainly turned upside down this past week when I either packed up all my worldly possessions that would fit into 2 duffel bags, sold or threw out the rest, and hopped a flight to Australia for the rest of the year. Should be interesting...
posted by Blog Administrator at 6:22 PM
16 Comments:
I found your blog a couple of days ago and have read it in toto. In a word, fascinating.
Like you, I am a law student (albeit a middle aged one) who is attempting to earn a living from poker. While I can't boast a level of success equivalent to yours at poker, I am working hard on my game and am confident of ultimate success. The current boom in poker, I agree, will not last forever, but poker as a mainstream recreational pursuit is here to stay and will continue to grow even if the growth slows down from its current levels.
I respectfully suggest that you should spend as much energy on making money from your poker as you do questioning your direction in life. I believe that you would be correct to infer from your own comments that Gen X and, more particularly, Gen Y are not markedly inclined to ask meaningful questions about the social utility of their occupations in the way that young people of the late 1960's did. Your excoriating self examination in respect of these issues is admirable but ultimately self defeating. Bill Gates has made billions selling a bug ridden piece of software and donates hundreds of millions of dollars per year to charity. What is the measure of his moral worth?? If, for example, you were to take on a low paid job as an advocate in a public interest area of the law would you still be so self critical if you were to supplement your income through poker? With respect, your focus on "big law" is somewhat myopic. Professor Alan Dershowitz is a fine example of someone who uses his talent in a way that both pleases himself and advances a greater good.
Happiness, I believe, is closely related to our propensity to set our goals and strive for them. The inclination after we have reached our goals, to reflect on whether our achievements have made us happy, is to ignore the personal growth that we experienced during the PROCESS of striving for success. Remember that we are all cogs in the same machine; its just a question of what function the cog is going to perform. It may please you to discover that in Australia there is a shortage of lawyers with 3+ years experience owing to the number of young lawyers who exit the profession after finding out that they can't accept the grinding nature of the work.
May I say that you write beautifully and I see great potential in your material for a wonderful novel.
Sydney is an attractive city and I am sure that you will enjoy your stay. Be well advised that my home town, Melbourne, is the cultural heart of Australia and is definitely worth a visit. Equally, the Poker room at Crown Casino is by far the largest in Australia and is heavily populated with fish!
Good luck.
"How much money is enough?".
For me: $5,000,000.
Why $5M?. Because if I place that in a short term government bond, I will earn, currently, 3 times what I expect to spend. Enough to cover inflation, etc, etc.
You need to put a figure. Poker is a job, just like any other. It just happens to be paying off well right now.
"I read this article a while back, that said that Microsoft employs more millionaire secretary's that any other company in the world. They took stock options over Christmas bonuses. It was a good move. I remember there was this picture, of one of the groundskeepers next to his Ferrari. Blew my mind. you see shit like that, and it just plants seeds, makes you think its possible, even easy. And then you turn on the TV, and there's just more of it. The $87 Million lottery winner, that kid actor that just made 20 million off his last movie, that internet stock that shot through the roof, you could have made millions if you had just gotten in early, and that's exactly what I wanted to do: get in. I didn't want to be an innovator any more, i just wanted to make the quick and easy buck, i just wanted in. The Notorious BIG said it best: "Either you're slingin' crack-rock, or you've got a wicked jump-shot." Nobody wants to work for it anymore. There's no honor in taking that after school job at Mickey Dee's, honor's in the dollar, kid. So I went the white boy way of slinging crack-rock: I became a stock broker."
Seth Davis, "Boiler Room"
how you enjoy your life is completely relate I'm in medical school just playing cards for a living this summer and though i agree online poker is boring i do pretty well and play maybe 2-3 hours a day. I can honestly say there is no need to play poker ALL DAY long if your semi competent at it. Most top professional cash game players would agree they would only need to work half the year to make the same amount of money they do now. So as to spending your day well there is no reason you cant.
Secondly will online poker fade away of course not, will the amount of fish decrease making it harder for pro's to have easy money, yes but that doesnt meant that new kids that are 6-7 now wont grow up to play poker. They will and provide us with even more fish in the ocean years from now continuing the cycle.
just wanted to say i love your blog, and your writing is a pleasure to read.
one note though, the word is 'righteous', not 'ritcheous'. i figured someone of your writing caliber would appreciate my telling you. by no means meant to be condescending.
damn, i hate making stupid mistakes like that -- i've used the word in previous posts and i'm sure spelled it right. oh well, happens to all of us.
I'll also to the chorus of appreciation for your blog.
I'm also a law student (Australian, like the first comment-er) and I must admit that what you've done is a very tempting proposition. I think I'll just stick to living vicariously through your pursuits.
I hope you enjoy your sojourn down under.
You know what, the fact that you're even thinking about these things (social utility and whatnot, happiness != money) means that you'll eventually figure it out. Which is of course better than never even thinking about it at all.
I too am I lawyer, in England. When I drag myself home at 11pm, I think about how I am wasting my youth and could be doing something far more interesting with my life than spending 14 hours a day in an office. I suspect it is the same for everyone. We all have the same aims make as much money as you can, retire and play golf - its better at 30 than 60. Don't waste your opportunity.
I do understand you dilema..to a point. I think that you could gain that sense of self worth that you long for on your own terms...Not stuck in a law office surfing the net or going over case files.. This is ludacris. Get a Grip! I don't mean to berate you, for you are obviously a very talented individual. But damn man, you wanna trade for my engineering firm job and let me play some more poker...
Absolutely fantastic read. Wonderful to read the other end of the spectrum. As someone who plays small stakes a couple of hours a night as a hobby and is overjoyed at winning a couple of hundred after battling through an mtt for a couple of hours.
Best of luck to you
Paul
That was a very interesting and well written post.
I am unable to place a specific dollar amount on my own personal satisfaction. I play poker as a part-time job to supplement my tendency to go on buying sprees. Poker pays off my credit cards and leaves money in my pocket to go out with my friends.
My schedule is to play 4 short-handed NL tables from 5 am to 6:30 before work each day, and then to play another 90 minutes at night Monday through Thursday, leaving Friday and Saturday open.
I usually play a ton of hands on Sunday morning and then spend the afternoon having a social life.
It's been working well for me and allows for 10,000+ hands per month at 1-2 NL or 3-6 limit. Small stakes, that's for certain, but I do well at it and am content to keep playing these levels for some time.
Best blog/Best Post ever. that is all.
I'm in Sydney, I play regularly online, and at starcity casino(even tho the rakes and waiting lists are unbearable).
I also have a home game that runs on demand; drop us a line on my blog if you want to play some poker.
Nice post man. What are your plans for Australia? It sounds like it will be a fun adventure!
It was def. the gold rush all over again in online poker
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