So I had been talking about doing something like this for a while. Finally got someone to put it together, shout out to newb saibot for helping me out with the editing.
Let me know what you guys think. And if you'd like to see others, post links of the hands you'd like to request.
So it appears my original goal for this year of earning 400k is going to fall out of reach. Not because I'm unable to accomplish the task, but rather because it just doesn't make sense for me to do it. With US tax law being the way it is, up to a certain point of income (250k), a lot of my work reaches a point of diminishing returns. The percentage is just too high and I don't get to keep enough of the money I earn in order to justify how much extra work I'd have to do to reach that number of 400k.
I realize I have the option of leaving the country, and I've definitely been considering it a lot the last few weeks. I actually feel like I'm at a point right now where every decision I make could have large and sweeping consequences for the direction my life goes. It produces this feeling of ... uncertainty in me, a feeling that really hasn't come into play in many decisions I've made in my life in the past which makes these current ones much more stress inducing.
Whether or not to leave the country is such a tough one. I was having a discussion with a non poker friend about competing against the top players in the world and while explaining the situation to him, I just came to the realization that I won't really ever be able to compete at that level.
My initial excuse was I'm not nearly smart enough. I think I'm definitely above average in intellect and definitely smarter than the average pro poker player, but the guys at the very top I feel are so incredibly brilliant that for me to even get to the point of being able to sit in the same games as them I would have to pour everything into poker. The reason I feel this way is because I've spent a good amount of time talking to some of the guys who compete with the best, and some of these guys ... as smart as I think I am ... I can't even hold a candle to them (getting a bit of deja vu, I feel like this is maybe something I've said before in blogs past, but it's just true). The difference in their ability to pick up and retain information, their ability to recall tiny details and put them into action, and the foresight that they have to see the pitfalls of certain decisions way down the line is something that just astonishes me. Can I understand it when they explain it to me? Yes, but that doesn't mean I can actually perform at that level in game when it comes time for those decisions to be made.
In order to reach that level it would mean I'd need to spend probably 50 hours a week, 30 of which would be strictly time spent just studying. I'd have to give up drinking, exercise regularly, eat as balanced a diet as possible.
Even if I had my heart set on it, could I really be disciplined enough to do every one of those things? I just don't think I'd stand a chance. I wouldn't even want to. I don't believe that the marginal utility of my time spent would increase my quality of life, it might actually make it worse.
So I haven't been playing any poker for about three weeks, which is fine since I really didn't play any poker at all the first 5 months of the year last year and still had a very successful year. NFL season is over anyways and the games seem to die down around this time so it's not a huge deal for me to be playing too much anyways. They'll pick back up slightly when the NBA playoffs start though and I'll be sure to be ready to put in some hours then.
Right now I'm putting poker a bit on the back burner. I've been looking into purchasing a property to help shelter some of my funds from the massive amount the government takes out of my yearly earnings. If I didn't have to pay taxes I feel like I could really be a "baller", but because of that huge check I have to write, I'm just not. I guess I now understand why so many mid stakes poker players have moved to Thailand. It's so cheap to live there that poker earnings are enough to live like a king. It's not for me though, I'll never go there. As much as I can't stand American politics and even with how badly I see this country falling apart, there's really no where else I'd rather live.
I guess I'm going to drop my original goal of earning 400k this year and move it down to 249,000 since I want to avoid the jump into the higher tax bracket at the 250k point. I've been on a bit of a skid lately, think I'm down about 30k since January 21st which puts me right around +35k for the year so I'm definitely sitting in good shape. Need to earn about 21k a month starting in March in order to reach that goal and I feel pretty confident I can reach it as long as the games don't get significantly worse.
I've been wanting to start a website for a while now as an adjunct to my career in poker. A site that would have it's own forums, a blog area for me to write about poker stuff like this, a video section where I would make the occasional training video, and another section where I wanted to set out to analyze live poker hands that have been played on major poker shows.
I already went through and gave analysis on a hand from HSP where Durrrr 3 barrel bluffs Ivey on a board of KdQdTx while holding 89. It seemed like a cool idea for me to break down these situations from each player's perspective and to give the general public a bit better of an idea as to what's really going on in those player's heads in those situations --I even found some mistakes Ivey made. The only issue is I can't figure out how to edit the video and splice my additions into the main video. If anybody knows how to do this and would be willing to help me, please let me know.
At some point I'm going to have to start putting the time into learning other games than just 6max NL sooner rather than later. It's pretty clear at this point I'm going to be playing poker professionally at the very least until I'm 35 (29 now) and most likely up past 40. But by the time I hit 45 though if I'm reliant on poker as my sole source of income I will be extremely disappointed in myself. Glad I'm considering this type of thing now though since if I don't start thinking about it at this point, I'll wake up tomorrow and I'll be 45 and still be doing the same thing.
Okay that's enough for now.
So I just found out I'm gonna be headin out to Houston for all star weekend. Pretty excited about that (as most of u know not much excites me so it's kind of a big deal). Apparently a buddy is getting into a massive plo game w/ a bunch of NBA stars so that's super cool.
Anyways I am scouring the internet to try to find a good deal on tickets. So just throwing this out there hoping somebody might know the best place to find a good deal on a package for all the events.
I'm not trying to spend like 5k on tickets for the weekend, but if I could get some good seats for under 2500 would be legit.
Sigh. So I finished January +34,040. I know this would normally be a celebratory post but to know that I won 56k in one day and lost 22k spread out over all the other days, it's hard to feel like a winner. Feels sorta like I'm gambling and randomly got lucky one day. Never really felt like this before.
Lost like 19k on the last day of the month, realized I got back to taking too many norcos again and that it again was affecting my play. Obviously have been trying to detox myself from those since that day and have been taking a few days off. Good thing I've had other stuff to take my mind off of it lately. Hopefully that continues.
I've probably been playing more than a few guys HU who have an edge over me lately. Easy to tell since I lost a grip to a few specific people while playing HU and had a general overall win from the rest of my games. I'm just not as good as some people and the higher I try to play HU vs guys who will play anybody, the more money I feel I'm likely to lose. Am I improving? Yes, but I don't think I'm improving enough to justify shot taking @ 10/20 and 15/30 vs players better than me. I need to keep those shots vs those guys at 5/10 from now on. That's the adjustment I'm making for next month and the rest of the year. Just barely on pace for my goal of earning 400k for the year so that's a good thing. Guess we'll see what happens next month and those to follow.
Dusty Schmidt is one of the biggest drains on the online poker community. His exploits have been very well documented online. If you don't know the kind of shade ball this guy is, it doesn't take much to look it up on the internet and find out how much of a piece of scum he is.
I let him know this in one of his video releases on BFP. He then went ahead to say "I'd have no problem playing you but you probably couldn't afford the stakes I play," obvious words from a true asshole.
So I see him at the tables a few weeks later and say "hey Dusty, let's 4 table 10/20nl HU. He obviously doesn't respond and as soon as the fish leaves the table he leaves as well.
Dusty likes to pick on Phil Hellmuth. He thinks because he has some notoriety that he deserves to pick on other weaker players, so why shouldn't the same thing be done to him? Some of his strategy concepts are idiotic, so much so that I'd be willing to lay 12k to his 10k that I beat him over a 20k hand 4 tabling match at 5/10nl.
Well .. I'm calling it one day because I haven't gotten to sleep yet but the last 36 or so hours I definitely haven't had a run like I just had. +56k. I knew I was having a good day but it didn't seem like anything out of the ordinary until I started 3 tabling some reg HU @ 15/30NL. Ended up getting 22k from him. In the meantime I was 4 tabling 6max on another site and managed to win another 15 or so over just those few hours.
It's weird too because I actually have been complaining lately about how bad I felt I've been running. I was only up about 5k for the month up until yesterday, but also I had really only played about 20-25 hours on the month up until that point. Lucky for me I did win all 3 three coin flips @ the 15/30 tables. If I had lost all those I guess I would've broken even.
Everytime I think that elusive 100k month is within reach I immediately enter a downswing. This is the 4th time now I think I might be able to make it by the end of the month. ~39k more to go, that is, if I can find the motivation to keep playing.
I feel like I should celebrate in some way, not sure how, though suggestions are welcome.
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