[misja111]

I played for a living during 5 years in the early 90's. So before the Internet took off. Of course there were some differences with OP's situation, e.g. because games were scarce I didn't play only poker but also backgammon, and basically any other game that had any skill and could be played for money.

Like OP, I decided to become professional because of the freedom, but also because I just liked games. But after a couple of years these advantages start to fade away. First of all, you are not really free, especially when games are scarce: you have to be always available because if you miss a good game, it can take days before another one comes along. Also, the fun in playing games erodes if you play them day in day out. Also, like OP points out, variance is brutal. The downswings can wear you out, sometimes I had to take a few days to recover.

But the main reason I eventually switched to a career in IT was something that OP also mentions: the main skill in making a lot of money, especially in live games, is not how well you play, but how good you are in finding wealthy suckers that want to play against you. This part really put me off in the end, it just wasn't me.