Taking sophomore summer off to play poker full time: big mistake?
Hello everyone, a little background on me first. I am a sophomore majoring in economics at a top 10 national university. Academically, I have a 3.5 GPA but no real work experience or noteworthy extracurricular activities. In the future, I would like to work in trading at a prop shop such as SIG or DRW.
I have been playing poker for years now. In the past three years or so, I have taken the game very seriously and it has become my sole source of income. Even during the school year, I try to put in at least 20 hours a week playing in addition to several hours studying the game through various books, articles, forums, and training sites. Last summer after my freshman year, I took several weeks off to play full time and did very very well.
Since the beginning of my senior year in high school, I estimate I have put in about 2000 hours at the tables. I have used software to track my progress for the last 1000 hours. Currently, I have a very large bankroll and usually play $2/5 no limit hold'em, where I average about $50/hour. I am unquestionably a very solid winning player who is very passionate about the game and is always striving to get better.
My question is this: would it be a mistake for me to take two months off this coming summer in order to play full time again? Of course, I wouldn't just be playing poker 24/7. I would record the results of each session in order to provide evidence of my winning play in addition to taking time and reading some books etc. to brush up on my interview skills. I know prop shops like SIG place great emphasis on poker skills, but would such an experience give me an edge over someone who, for example, did a conventional internship at a boutique bank, private equity firm, or had any other form of finance related work experience?
A friend of mine works for a prop shop in Chicago and he said they recently hired a whole class of ex poker pros, most with zero finance experience. But if your goal is just to end up in a prop shop you should be able to secure a junior year internship with your credentials man.
If I were making 100k/yr as a 20 year old kid, and it was something I loved and could only get better at, I'd drop out of school yesterday.
This guy is a fuking idiot. Don't listen.
At least finish school.
lol, he definitely makes more than your bitch ass
watch your mouth
Short answer, risk / return is shit. Don't be a fool, stay in school.
You are probably better off looking for a relevant internship than trying to spin two months of full-time poker (which is a pretty short period) as actual experience. Note that a friend of mine had the exact same plan as you a few years back and after killing it for a month and a half, he gave up 2/3rds of his winnings in a couple weeks. He was no fly-by-night poker player either, he tracked everything he did and was remarkably disciplined and had consistently made money up to then. He quit while still in the black but the main thing he learned from that is that he wasn't cut out for a life of full-time poker.
Or to make a long story short, only do it if you want to see whether you could play full-time for the long haul. A market-related internship would serve you better otherwise.
Yep this happened to me too. Emotionally toll is heavy during downswings too...especially when you consider that your opportunity cost may have been a "set" life (re: internship -> full time -> stable job).
Get an internship first. Then leverage that for full-time. If you want to play poker afterward when you have some solid resume experience, then that's fine. Also, in between school and FT, there's probably about 1-3 months (depending on schedules, etc) where you have time to play full-time to get a taste of what it's like without real consequences. Or, if you prefer, you can try to delay a start time to artificially create some time for yourself to try it out.
Just don't bet your life on it. But, this advice is more long-term rather than right now - sophomore summer isn't your make it or break it summer (junior is). Right now is when you should be doing something unpaid or boutique or PWN to "show" an interest in finance. You can easily balance 25-30h/week along with playing full-time (since you apparently have been doing 20/h week already with school).
I'm going to take a rather unconventional route and encourage you to go forward with it: I tell people this many times, I think what landed me in my firm is my passions and extracurriculars moreso than my academic credentials. If you must know, I actually spent my last jr/sr year playing poker full time. Now, I had nowhere near the success as you did (which is more impressive considering how stiff the competition is these days), but I think it still caught my firm's eye for my passion and approaching things in a nontraditional way.
You're still young, you have plenty of time to develop and figure out what's comfortable for you. I would encourage you to make more effort during your junior year for a legitimate internship but for now, live it up, enjoy it while you're young. You may have to give me some tips! I used to be a hardcore NLHE player but nowadays dabble in PLO cause I feel like edge gap is still wide there, somewhat.
I would also consider examining whether your passion is actually an addiction. I know a few who went down that path (one who actually has done well, moved to Las Vegas, and is a professional gambler. ) But... even the successful one has no life (as we would consider it - wife, kids, a bunch of friends, things, etc.) He goes to "work" every day for several hours with a goal of making $X per day. Wins more than loses (kind of like a trader) but is addicted to the action. His passion has lead him into some sketchy situations that most women wouldn't tolerate.
Very true.
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