Poker? Not the best career choice. TL;DR

I think it's about that time to sum up my poker career. FAIL.

I took my shot. I don't regret it. I'd do it again. I learned more about myself the past 2 years than any other time in life. But the fact of the matter is ... I'm BUSTO. Bankroll < $100. Savings $0. Any other money I had stashed away: $0. It's not as depressing as you'd think. More embarrassing than anything.

So now I'm one of the guys that will tell you not to go pro when you post a thread in the poker forums asking if you should do it. It's a shitty way to make money. The only way I'd recommend it is if you play higher stakes and are a solid winner over at least a million hands. And then, only if you still love poker after those million hands. By the time I reached my millionth hand, I was ready to vomit at the sight of another flop, turn, or river.

I could have made it with a stricter work ethic. The problem was that I got so totally burnt that I couldn't stand to grind. I'd start every day with good intentions and then by the time I played 1000 hands, I was ready to take a day off. Grinding the low stakes games is great for college students wanting to earn extra beer money. It beats the shit out of a real job. But for someone in the real world, it's not a career.... unless you are one of the few that can bust out $100K months without breaking a sweat. The biggest downfall with grinding low stakes and basically being a rakeback whore (even with a solid winrate) is that your bankroll never grows. There's always something in life that takes that small percentage you were just able to add to your bankroll.

So what did poker do for me as a person? Physically, it almost killed me. I gained a ton of weight, lived mostly off fast food, and I became a hermit. Mentally, it freed me. The one thing in life I really hated prior to starting to play poker as a career was my job. I hated my job so much that it was so difficult to even get out of bed in the morning. I was constantly sick...but most of the sickness was in my mind because I'd stress myself out so much about going to work. This was a completely different stress than what I experienced playing poker. It was much, much worse.

So in a sense, I feel like a free man! I feel good. I've shed a lot of weight in the past couple months. I'm way healthier today than I was 3 months ago...when I was literally on the verge of death. In reality though, I'm in bad shape. I'm still obese and have a long way to go in the weight loss department. I'm also broke as a joke. Really really broke. That debt I worked so hard to shed? Pffft...I'm now dodging creditors because I can't pay my credit card bills...the same credit cards I had to live off of for a couple months just so I could make ends meet. My credit report has to be a mess. I'm too scared to look.

The worst part of this entire situation is that I feel no desire to re-enter the workplace. I love the feeling of freedom I have being "my own boss" and don't want to give that up for anything in the world.

Part 2 coming later...