Grinding it out
Playing Poker vs. A Part Time Job

If you are a normal college student then you are probably short on money. And if you're a normal poker player then the thought of whether or not you can win it is always on your mind. But the real question is, say you are strapped for cash and busy with school, what is a better use of your time, earning the money through a part time job or trying to grind it out through poker.

There should be several factors which affect your decision. The first is how much can you win at poker, and what kind of bankroll do you have to do it with. What is your expected value for an hour of poker play? The easiest way to figure that out is to get a stat tracker such as Poker Tracker and import several thousand hands into it. If you don't already have Poker Tracker then I recommend that you get it, as it will pay for itself with just a few pots. After you import your hands you can see what your BB/hour is. Multiply that by the limit you are playing and how much are you making? $2/hour, $5, $10, $25? You also need to consider whether or not you usually multi-table. Playing three tables could triple your hourly rate, or it might stay the same. How well can you focus on multiple tables? Do you start making bad bluffs and bad calls? Or can you walk away a winner from all the games.

After you have some hard data about how much you can expect to make the decision should become easier. If you are pulling in $2/hour at poker, stick with the job. If you are making $30/hour, then you have probably made your decision before you opened this article. But lets assume that you have been averaging a respectable $10/hour at poker, or you can take a job for $10/hour to help pay the bills, which should you do? In this case what you need to consider is whether or not you can play for an extended period of time without losing your edge. It is one thing to sit down for an hour, beat the game and leave. It is another to sit down for 6 hours and consistently leave $60 richer. You also need to consider whether or not needing to win in order to pay the bills will affect your game. It is always a bad thing to play with scared money, and if you have a losing streak for a couple of weeks will you be ok? Can your bankroll handle the volatility? If the answer is no then you might want to consider keeping the job and using your winnings to build up your bankroll to the point where you would feel comfortable depending on it. After that you can try your hand at it.

I will be the first to admit there are some intangible benefits to using poker as an income source. For instance pants. In the real world they require you to show up with them. If you go to work with out them you generally get a talking to or perhaps a firing. If you are playing at an online poker table you would be just one of the five or six pants less people there.