The federal government seems to believe that poker is a form of gambling and there needs to be restrictions put on it.  They treat the game as if it is a vice that people can’t control and so they need to be supervised like kids by their parents.  But every person who’s played poker for any significant amount of time knows that poker involves a great deal of skill and that people can come out on top in the long run if they have enough skill.

In fact, there are plenty of people out there who are taking these thoughts to the next level and preparing for poker as if it is a career.  Just recently I saw where a West Virginia community college was offering a course on poker and they had 70 people graduate from it this year.  Poker in college?  It’s something that I never thought I would see.

However, there are also those who are choosing the game of poker over college entirely.  Some of these college eligible players are starting with the game directly and not even choosing to enroll while others are taking college classes before they eventually decide that their futures would better be served in the game of poker. 

This route has worked for many players in the past including pros like Erick Lindgren and Annie Duke who cut out on their college curriculum on hold in order to go for the green in the game of poker.  In the case o Kathy Liebert, she quit her stock market analysis job at the prestigious Dun & Bradstreet company in New York City to move out West where she found poker much more enjoyable.

But in the case of the average player, it’s tough to say whether it is a good decision to skip out on an education to fall back on if poker doesn’t work out.  Unfortunately, I don’t have any statistics to say whether or not it pans out in the end on the average but I’ll definitely be looking for studies on this in the future.