Maybe it's different in Canada, but my nephew did not spend 4 years being baby-sat when he went to University. He got his degree, partied his fair share (including a call for bail $$ to his uncle from the final four tourney 4 years ago), and is now on a work/financial pace to be a millionaire by the time he turns 30 in five years. Education PAYS, it's as simple as that.
Which is not to say I begrudge the kid his shot at "the life". I just think that some of you are romanticizing it a bit. Doing things like this is what you're supposed to do when you're young. He ahs the advantage of being able to afford it, for now. High school kids used to go to Europe for the summer between high school and work/college. I look at this in the same way, just that his scheduling is a bit off school-wise. Not my kid, nor my kin, so I could not care less. Enjoying the chat, though
I think most players on this forum COULD be good enough to make millions;
But most players aren't willing to do what it takes. Go look at 2+2 and follow some of the guys who have moved from low stakes to BIG stakes. It isn't easy, I dont think any one of them would tell you that it has been easy.
Well besides Moneymaker and we have seen his further results.
How many of us are going through our hand histories daily? What about reading from Pro's? What about study groups? What about playing groups?
What about coaches? ETC...
Having a degree isn't a sole determinate of future success. In fact, for the most part I think it is a poor one (btw I have a Bsc but dropped out of my Masters). Much more important is the ability to adapt and work ethic, I have not met a single successful person who got there without hard work.
You need to rely on yourself, University or College may help make you more disciplined and hence make you more reliable, but that is it.
As for Mike going back to school? This is ludicris! Unless he wants to continue his mathmatics progression. Going back to school for a fall back plan when he already is very successful doing something else is just small mindedness.
Having something to 'fallback' is the same as having a plan to fail. If you commit yourself to what you want, you want to put all your energy there.
If things don't work out you can always go back and restart but focusing on completing something so you can fall back on it is just a waste of energy.
Winning tonight's $6 million Lotto 6/49 jackpot is complete luck, but Mike having $3 million in poker winnings over three years takes a high degree of skill.
If I was in the same situation as him when I was still in school, I would have gladly dropped out of university & postponed my career in the computer industry. He will probably get sponsored by a poker site to play tournaments for free, so he will continue to have positive expectation. Getting sponsored to travel around Europe & the world playing a game you love and are skilled at is every poker player's dream come true. IMHO, it would be very stupid of him to follow pokerJAH's well-intentioned advice of refusing that once-in-a-lifetime opportunity & staying full-time in school instead.
As Mike himself has said in interviews, pokerJAH's advice of not quitting school or work for poker is correct for ~99% of players. But there will be lots of exceptions, including Mike, SirWatts, Negreanu and maybe pokerJAH himself one day, with his multiple UofW degrees and if he follows Mike's advice:
"If you approach it like a game of skill and you're constantly analyzing your decisions and stuff like that you most likely will end up being successful, but 99 per cent of people who play this game just play.''
Sorry to disagree, this is complete luck. You can put in all the hard work you want and be the most skilled player around, to achieve this feat is really all about luck.
Disagree with you on a couple points Red. First, having a degree may not be a SOLE determinant of future success, but study after study shows that people with degrees, ANY degree, generally earn more than those without the paper. As for a fall-back plan being a plan to fail, WRONG. It's called leaving yourself "outs", and as any good player knows, having outs is good. Restarting after failure is easy (relatively speaking) in your teens/twenties. Not so much at 30+ years of age, when you've been out of school, not to mention the workforce for 10 years chasing the dream. As I said somewhere else, this kid seems like he's pretty grounded about all this, so he'll PROBABLY be fine. The VAST majority of the population, I would not be so sure about.
And Kristy, that $1mil is a one-off, and has to be amortized over the years when he does not win that much, so his yearly earnings are probably going to be less than $1mil/year from poker. Not that I wouldn't cash the cheque, or anything. Just saying . . .
"study after study shows that people with degrees.... earn more than those without"
Is that because of the degree, or the type of person that gets the degree? I would argue that - at best - it may be an even split.... not everyone that ignores degrees is unintelligent or doesn't earn a lot, and heaven help the person who thinks that everyone with a degree is fairly intelligent - not to mention those of us with degrees that don't make much!
Do not disagree Mark. Think it tends to skew more towards the people who do the hiring, promoting, etc. see paperwork and ASSUME smarts then anything else. Still, horses for courses, or some such nonsense. I aren't up on all that book learning, eh.
Winning tonight's $6 million Lotto 6/49 jackpot is complete luck, but Mike having $3 million in poker winnings over three years takes a high degree of skill.
I was basically going to post this but since someone already did, I just want to throw my support behind what Fish said. Working your way from micro limits to the point where you have 3 million in your account is quite a feat, and, IMO, has very little to do with luck. I'm sure he took his share of bad beats, and was up and down earnings wise but come on, that's quite a feat. I'm hoping he'll read this and take me along as a luggage carrier/drink fetcher and pay me handsomely to do it and speaking of 649, I should check my numbers
Disagree with you on a couple points Red. First, having a degree may not be a SOLE determinant of future success, but study after study shows that people with degrees, ANY degree, generally earn more than those without the paper.
This is a correlative relationship rather then a causation.
Similar to; Stock options decrease on full moons or Murder rates increase with ice cream sales. Socio-economic factors are really the true determinant of future earning success, which is also the major determiner of obtaining post secondary education.
As for a fall-back plan being a plan to fail, WRONG. It's called leaving yourself "outs", and as any good player knows, having outs is good. Restarting after failure is easy (relatively speaking) in your teens/twenties. Not so much at 30+ years of age, when you've been out of school, not to mention the workforce for 10 years chasing the dream. As I said somewhere else, this kid seems like he's pretty grounded about all this, so he'll PROBABLY be fine. The VAST majority of the population, I would not be so sure about.
Milo, I think understand what your saying. I believe we are from different generations. Not many young people understand how good things are now, they haven`t seen 22% interest rates or double digit unemployment. There is alot of safety that a professional degree can offer in those times. However, that is safety, not success.
Things today happen at a lightning fast pace. Mike has an opportunity to do VERY well here he is only 18 and could be the next Daniel Negraneu. The top poker pros will have endorcements that are going to rival that of top sports stars. Advertising is moving to the web, given the primary demographic of young men who play poker online it is a market that could be bigger then the NHL.
Would you suggest a top pro prospect like Sidney Crosby, stay out of the NHL at 18 and instead attend university? Then try out?
Yes, there are many kids who never leave junior A into the NHL, but they realize this by 19-20 and then end up taking a second shot a college team in the US for their education. However, if your good enough for the AHL then you have a real shot at the NHL, it is then a matter of work that gets you there.
I think poker is the same thing. There are kids who play for recreation and there are kids who want to make a career out of it. Why discourage them, they have time.
Now this is funny... am I missing something? You really think this is truely based more on skill than luck? To be playing micro limits he must have started with a couple hundred bucks and he works this up to a $1MM placing in tournaments with thousands of players. Maybe U of W should start offering a undergraduate degree in poker if it only takes hard work to make a decent living at poker?
Guess you must not have heard of Chris Ferguson literally turning nothing into 10K. Or even our own beanie42 who turned $100 (correct me if I am mistaken) won from a freeroll into a family vacation to Disney (he has 5 beanie babies!) and more...and those "feats" were done within a year.
Does it take luck for timex to run his BR to 7 figures? Absolutely! But it still takes alot of dedication, hardwork, and skills.
Working your way from micro limits to the point where you have 3 million in your account is quite a feat, and, IMO, has very little to do with luck. /
Now this is funny... am I missing something? You really think this is truely based more on skill than luck? To be playing micro limits he must have started with a couple hundred bucks and he works this up to a $1MM placing in tournaments with thousands of players. Maybe U of W should start offering a undergraduate degree in poker if it only takes hard work to make a decent living at poker?
Your pretty much saying everybody except Eli Elezra, Sammy Farha are just lucky didn't get to where they're at by hard work, training, and skill.
Now this is funny... am I missing something? You really think this is truely based more on skill than luck? To be playing micro limits he must have started with a couple hundred bucks and he works this up to a $1MM placing in tournaments with thousands of players. Maybe U of W should start offering a undergraduate degree in poker if it only takes hard work to make a decent living at poker?
Can it be possible? You've gone from totally results oriented to now thinking that results mean so little that anybody with excellent results must just be really lucky!?
fwiw I don't think Kristy was suggesting you give up poker, just that you give up any attempts to back up your insight in this thread before the entire forum has given it to you prison style
Can it be possible? You've gone from totally results oriented to now thinking that results mean so little that anybody with excellent results must just be really lucky!?
Seriously...if it was a guy like me, or anyone else that got lucky and won that tournament, what you are saying is probably justified. But you picked the wrong guy to pick on....
fwiw I don't think Kristy was suggesting you give up poker, just that you give up any attempts to back up your insight in this thread before the entire forum has given it to you prison style
What Brad said...glad to have you onboard for the other bet Jim..it's going to be fun!
as far as making it as a poker pro.. i really don't have much to say.. other than.. hopefully he can find a good way to market himself and get a sponsorship deal.
speaking as a student currently in school.. i have very little respect for my degree. i agree that people who finish school are more likely to be successful.. and yes.. if you want to work for 'the man' for the rest of your life.. an education is a good idea.. but i can assure you that people who graduate from university are not necessarily smart. in fact some of them are just absolutely clueless.
Maybe U of W should start offering a undergraduate degree in poker if it only takes hard work to make a decent living at poker?
This has actually crossed my mind before. Well just one course not a degree. I'm pretty confident I could design a course to turn a virtual novice into at least a winning small stakes player, for a UW math student of average intelligence willing to put in a typical amount of work for a university course. The basics of poker are really just not very complicated compared to the calculus, algebra, etc... courses they take. Most people just never learn properly, they absorb so much misinformation or are unable to process some things on their own. However when you give them a knowledgeable teacher and a properly designed curriculum it would not be difficult. If you wanted to make an entire degree out of it who knows how much you could acomplish.
I'm pretty confident I could design a course to turn a virtual novice into at least a winning small stakes player, for a UW math student of average intelligence willing to put in a typical amount of work for a university course.
This has actually crossed my mind before. Well just one course not a degree. I'm pretty confident I could design a course to turn a virtual novice into at least a winning small stakes player, for a UW math student of average intelligence willing to put in a typical amount of work for a university course. The basics of poker are really just not very complicated compared to the calculus, algebra, etc... courses they take. Most people just never learn properly, they absorb so much misinformation or are unable to process some things on their own. However when you give them a knowledgeable teacher and a properly designed curriculum it would not be difficult. If you wanted to make an entire degree out of it who knows how much you could acomplish.
In all seriousness I bet you could get any college to run this as a continuing eduction course.
I will stick my foot in my mouth one more time; if you are able to turn $100 into $1MM, there are 9999 other people that have lost there $100 along the way. Granted, Mike likely has some poker skills that give him an edge, but to accomplish this luck plays a huge factor. If luck wasn't a huge factor, as Phil would say, he would win the main event every year. Skill only will take you so far, and to win a big event, luck is a huge factor.
Lets take Sir Watts as an example. I would say that Sir Watts is as skilled a player as Mike McDonald. Sir Watts total earnings from major live tournaments is approx. $35k in winnings (based on Hendon Mob stats). I would say he has likely spent more than that on entry fees for all the live major tournaments he has played in so he is likely a losing player (this ignores online tournaments where we know he is ahead) at this point in time. Does this make Mike M. a better player? I would say no, he has just been lucky and got the cards when he needed them and happened to place in a couple more events that Sir Watts. Granted they have played in different tournaments against different competitors but I think you understand my point. Even if Sir Watts is ahead at this point, skill has only taken him so far in live tournaments.
I look forward to the Sir Watts poker seminar, assuming I can take it online.
Yes luck is a huge factor to win 1 big event. But we are talking long term here, and he has displayed the ability to increase his bankroll year over year. Watts has played what 30-50 live events? vs 1000000 online events?
I had KK once and a guy had 99, I got him to put all him to put all his money in pre-flop, but then a 9 hit on the flop.
I have no poker skill.
Mark
(Basically saying, yes, there is luck in poker, but if you run that hand 100 x, I win 80ish % of it. Yes, there's luck in poker, but skill > luck long term)
He's obviously run really hot during his poker career, no one is denying that. It would have taken him a few extra years to make his millions if he'd been less lucky, but he'd still get there eventually.
Comments
Sneaky double poster!...this was in reference to the first.
I think most players on this forum COULD be good enough to make millions;
But most players aren't willing to do what it takes. Go look at 2+2 and follow some of the guys who have moved from low stakes to BIG stakes. It isn't easy, I dont think any one of them would tell you that it has been easy.
Well besides Moneymaker and we have seen his further results.
How many of us are going through our hand histories daily? What about reading from Pro's? What about study groups? What about playing groups?
What about coaches? ETC...
Having a degree isn't a sole determinate of future success. In fact, for the most part I think it is a poor one (btw I have a Bsc but dropped out of my Masters). Much more important is the ability to adapt and work ethic, I have not met a single successful person who got there without hard work.
You need to rely on yourself, University or College may help make you more disciplined and hence make you more reliable, but that is it.
As for Mike going back to school? This is ludicris! Unless he wants to continue his mathmatics progression. Going back to school for a fall back plan when he already is very successful doing something else is just small mindedness.
Having something to 'fallback' is the same as having a plan to fail. If you commit yourself to what you want, you want to put all your energy there.
If things don't work out you can always go back and restart but focusing on completing something so you can fall back on it is just a waste of energy.
If I was in the same situation as him when I was still in school, I would have gladly dropped out of university & postponed my career in the computer industry. He will probably get sponsored by a poker site to play tournaments for free, so he will continue to have positive expectation. Getting sponsored to travel around Europe & the world playing a game you love and are skilled at is every poker player's dream come true. IMHO, it would be very stupid of him to follow pokerJAH's well-intentioned advice of refusing that once-in-a-lifetime opportunity & staying full-time in school instead.
As Mike himself has said in interviews, pokerJAH's advice of not quitting school or work for poker is correct for ~99% of players. But there will be lots of exceptions, including Mike, SirWatts, Negreanu and maybe pokerJAH himself one day, with his multiple UofW degrees
"If you approach it like a game of skill and you're constantly analyzing your decisions and stuff like that you most likely will end up being successful, but 99 per cent of people who play this game just play.''
And Kristy, that $1mil is a one-off, and has to be amortized over the years when he does not win that much, so his yearly earnings are probably going to be less than $1mil/year from poker. Not that I wouldn't cash the cheque, or anything. Just saying . . .
One point... chicken/egg kinda thing...
"study after study shows that people with degrees.... earn more than those without"
Is that because of the degree, or the type of person that gets the degree? I would argue that - at best - it may be an even split.... not everyone that ignores degrees is unintelligent or doesn't earn a lot, and heaven help the person who thinks that everyone with a degree is fairly intelligent - not to mention those of us with degrees that don't make much!
Mark
This is a correlative relationship rather then a causation.
Similar to; Stock options decrease on full moons or Murder rates increase with ice cream sales. Socio-economic factors are really the true determinant of future earning success, which is also the major determiner of obtaining post secondary education.
Milo, I think understand what your saying. I believe we are from different generations. Not many young people understand how good things are now, they haven`t seen 22% interest rates or double digit unemployment. There is alot of safety that a professional degree can offer in those times. However, that is safety, not success.
Things today happen at a lightning fast pace. Mike has an opportunity to do VERY well here he is only 18 and could be the next Daniel Negraneu. The top poker pros will have endorcements that are going to rival that of top sports stars. Advertising is moving to the web, given the primary demographic of young men who play poker online it is a market that could be bigger then the NHL.
Would you suggest a top pro prospect like Sidney Crosby, stay out of the NHL at 18 and instead attend university? Then try out?
Yes, there are many kids who never leave junior A into the NHL, but they realize this by 19-20 and then end up taking a second shot a college team in the US for their education. However, if your good enough for the AHL then you have a real shot at the NHL, it is then a matter of work that gets you there.
I think poker is the same thing. There are kids who play for recreation and there are kids who want to make a career out of it. Why discourage them, they have time.
Guess you must not have heard of Chris Ferguson literally turning nothing into 10K. Or even our own beanie42 who turned $100 (correct me if I am mistaken) won from a freeroll into a family vacation to Disney (he has 5 beanie babies!) and more...and those "feats" were done within a year.
Does it take luck for timex to run his BR to 7 figures? Absolutely! But it still takes alot of dedication, hardwork, and skills.
Can it be possible? You've gone from totally results oriented to now thinking that results mean so little that anybody with excellent results must just be really lucky!?
fwiw I don't think Kristy was suggesting you give up poker, just that you give up any attempts to back up your insight in this thread before the entire forum has given it to you prison style
Seriously...if it was a guy like me, or anyone else that got lucky and won that tournament, what you are saying is probably justified. But you picked the wrong guy to pick on....
What Brad said...glad to have you onboard for the other bet Jim..it's going to be fun!
speaking as a student currently in school.. i have very little respect for my degree. i agree that people who finish school are more likely to be successful.. and yes.. if you want to work for 'the man' for the rest of your life.. an education is a good idea.. but i can assure you that people who graduate from university are not necessarily smart. in fact some of them are just absolutely clueless.
This has actually crossed my mind before. Well just one course not a degree. I'm pretty confident I could design a course to turn a virtual novice into at least a winning small stakes player, for a UW math student of average intelligence willing to put in a typical amount of work for a university course. The basics of poker are really just not very complicated compared to the calculus, algebra, etc... courses they take. Most people just never learn properly, they absorb so much misinformation or are unable to process some things on their own. However when you give them a knowledgeable teacher and a properly designed curriculum it would not be difficult. If you wanted to make an entire degree out of it who knows how much you could acomplish.
Poker 101 - How to stop taking it prison style & BE LIKE MIKE!
Am I allowed to issue POTDs?
/g2
In all seriousness I bet you could get any college to run this as a continuing eduction course.
Yes luck is a huge factor to win 1 big event. But we are talking long term here, and he has displayed the ability to increase his bankroll year over year. Watts has played what 30-50 live events? vs 1000000 online events?
I had KK once and a guy had 99, I got him to put all him to put all his money in pre-flop, but then a 9 hit on the flop.
I have no poker skill.
Mark
(Basically saying, yes, there is luck in poker, but if you run that hand 100 x, I win 80ish % of it. Yes, there's luck in poker, but skill > luck long term)