westside195025-year-old student from Croatia and a semi-pro poker player
Admit it. All of you who have spent at least one or two hours a day playing poker have wondered, at least one time, what it would be like if you were able to make a living out of it.
I just thought about playing cards for a living - no one to tell you what to do or responsibilitys towards society. This is surely something that have crossed everyone's mind at some point in life. All you have to do is to make $1000-2000 a month (depending on on where you live), and you're set.
You don't have to be rich like Negreanu or maybe Dan Bilzerian and make millions - but you can still make your own schedule, play when you feel like playing, don't have to wake up at 6 AM and go to work on a freezing winter morning wondering how nice it would be if you could still be in bed.
You can take a 10-day vacation whenever you want and spend a week traveling and partying across few foreign countries...
Yeah, it sounds pretty amazing...
Although I never tasted the sweetness of living this kind of life I sure have witnessed it.
3 years ago, I was living together with my friend.
At that time, all of my friends (including me) were slowly introduced to the online poker world. Every night we met we started playing home games; during the day we discussed that same games we played the night before, opened accounts on Pokerstars... Poker slowly started to take control of our lives.
In my first blog post here I wrote about my first poker adventure and how it all ended; and after I busted my first bankroll I decided to cool down a little bit and instead of poker focus on my education.
My friends had the same choice and chose the other option. Instead of college, they have chosen poker and decided to quit their studies.
So I watched them climbing up the limits from NL2 to NL50; I was their support when they had to face their parents and tell them they decided to quit their college and chase professional poker career.
I must admit that there were times when I was a little jealous, but I've chosen a different path.
A whole week could pass before I could even talk or drink some coffee with my roommate. We were living in the same apartment, but still in like two totally opposite worlds. At that time during the days, I was at university, at home studying or writing essays while he was mostly sleeping. On the other hand, during the night, I was sleeping and he was playing 4 Pokerstars ZOOM tables for 5-6-7 hours, sometimes even more, without any exaggeration.
But still, despite all those advantages of living that life I stated in the opening paragraph, very soon I saw the other side of the medal.
And so, if you spend a half of your day playing poker; you spend the other half thinking and talking about it. Very soon, poker becomes the one and only thing you're occupied with and you slowly lose interest in other things in life - and your everyday life becomes a little dull.
Sitting in front of a computer for 7-8 hours a day watching cards and numbers is something I definitely couldn't do every day for the rest of my life - no matter how big the salary is.
And in the end, although at first glance it may seem super cool - life of a poker pro has its pros and cons like every other.
If you could, would you still choose it instead of this one you have? 
of a poker table turns the dream to wonderland 
