I’ve played over a hundred thousand hands of poker in my life. I’ve spent hours and hours playing online poker, grinding out the tables at local casinos, and reading/studying the game. Despite the time I put into the game, there are literally hundreds of thousands – if not millions – who have put in far more time and effort into poker. This brings up a valid question: what’s the appeal of poker?
To me the appeal is obvious. If you are a teenager working at a low wage job and see some of your peers making millions of dollars from their computer playing a card game, I think you’d be crazy not to at least be intrigued. I’m in a bit of a different situation because I know of at least two people from my high school who have cashed over $1 million dollars in winnings. One of them cashed approximately $300k in one tournament. Even if you don’t know someone personally, there are countless examples in the media of young people making huge sums of money in poker.
Here is a list of things that are appealing about poker to young adults:
- No Boss – When you are a professional poker player, you answer to no one. You set your own schedule, you play where you want, when you want, and in the events and games of your choosing. No answering to a boss, getting up early when you are a night owl, and no sitting around waiting for the clock to hit 5:00.
- Potential for High Income – Most careers can’t offer the same potential that poker can for high income in a short period of time. While poker can take hours of grinding and strict bankroll management to move up stakes, once you get to higher stakes the income can be very high. Granted it comes with swings, but if you take a shot at a $1,000 buy-in tournament and end up winning, you just might have a $50k+ score from one day’s effort.
- High Stakes Lifestyle – If you do make it to the higher stakes and start buying into high buy-in poker tournaments, you could potentially get lucrative sponsorships from various brands, travel all over the world playing for millions of dollars, and in general “live the dream.” Even just the potential of this sort of lifestyle makes it appealing to young adults to take a shot at poker.
- The Work is Fun – If you are competitive and enjoy card games, the work can be a lot of fun. Yes, playing every single day can be a grind but overall you are playing a game for a living instead of being a cog in the machine.
There are many professionals who have made a consistent living playing poker. I think it has definitely become much more difficult because the skill level is higher than ever before. Even at low stakes, almost every player knows basic strategy and there are typically 6+ decent players at any given table. You can always get better at poker, though, because you can always learn to read players better and analyze hands more in-depth.
Despite the fact that I only play every once in a while – and never online since the US government decided to take action against sites that were catering to US players, I still would love to play in a WSOP poker event, in particular the $10,000 buy-in main event where the winner gets in excess of $1 million dollars. One year first place got in excess of $10 million.
The big draw of these tournaments is that any given tournament any given player can go deep in the tournament or even win it all. What’s not to love about that? I know I’m not the only one who has the goal of playing in the WSOP.
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Do you play poker? What appeals you about the game?
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Photo by Matt Waldron
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I stink at poker. I’ve tried and I’m just no good!
It takes a while to learn, and so many people know the basics its hard to compete if you are a new to the game.
I’ve been playing poker just about as long as I’ve been online. Even after the demise of the big three poker sites, I still play on Lock Poker. I’ve got shelves of poker books and, like you David, I’ve studied the game.
Am I good? Well, I’m good enough I suppose. I’ve never gotten into a hole I couldn’t climb out of even though I’ve never won more than a few hundred at a time. I tend to play low stakes.
For me, the appeal of poker has never been the money. That’s just a happy bonus. I like slow-paced, strategy games. I never had any interest in poker until my younger brother convinced me it was a “thinking man’s game.” He was right and I’ve been hooked ever since.
Jeremy Sarber Would love to get a “blogger poker game” going on one of the websites still up (Lock/Carbon, etc.). I wish they would bring back pokerstars…and I believe it will return when legislation makes it’s way through Congress. They had an awesome “home game” option that I really would like to have for private games.
DC @ Young Adult Money That’s a great idea. But I suggest we wait until a reputable site like PokerStars is back. I play on Lock, but I’m not entirely sure I trust them. Plus, PS did have that great home game option you mentioned.
I enjoyed playing poker back in the day. I never put my own money in and started with a free 5 dollars I got from them once and built it up to $130 before they got shut down. It was fun for sure.
Money Life and More That’s pretty good! Hopefully you got your money out of the site and didn’t lose it when it shut down.
The combination of me not being very good at it and really not enjoying gambling keeps me pretty far from any competitive version of poker. For those that get into it, I can see the draw, especially from a money standpoint.
thriftgenuity “Not good” usually means just not enough time spent learning the game and putting in the hours. At least for me, it seemed to be similar to other things in life: you get out of it what you put into it. If you don’t enjoy it, no reason to pursue it, though.
I am terrible at poker!
I think you can see my hand on my face. Once I hosted a guy from Couchsurfing
who left one night to play poker, he came back with $2,000! All his travels
were paid by playing poker at destination, it seemed pretty awesome, and very
little work.