So it has been year since I moved to Florida to pursue live poker as a career, and here are the results -
While I'm proud of the results, I am ashamed of the volume. A paltry 711 hours for an entire year, which translates to roughly 25k hands, or about what some of you probably put in a month. What happened? Well a few things. For starters there is definitely a basic work ethic problem here. Quite simply I am a lazy person and was essentially doing the bare minimum at all times. 2 hours sessions, 4 hours if I'm lucky, going in 3-4 times per week, that sorta thing. Some of it was onset by MUBS (Monsters Under the Bed Syndrome), a result of one too many bad beats putting me in a psychological funk whereby I am scared of the next suckout, so I just leave early and dont even play some days. Despite my winrate I was under constant fear that it might all come crashing down, so I kept "quitting while I'm ahead".
I was also paranoid that if I failed to meet my monthly nut that I would spiral downward into bustoland as I became paranoid about my ability to self-sustain from poker, so whenever I would hit 4-5k/month I'd just "quit on a high note" sort of thing. I knew from the beginning this would be a recipe for disaster because I was basically making only what I needed to pay the bills without saving anything behind. I set myself up for failure by having to consistently show profit every single month without having any downswings. But when you're on a paperthin bankroll any losing month is going to crush your confidence so you always feel the need to look like you had a winning month.
Finally the third biggest culprit was simply living way outside of my means. I recognized that earning 4k/month tax free was the equivalent of having a 75k salaried job without taxes, so I lived as such. I bought a sportscar, semi-luxury apartment, bunch of furniture and stuff to decorate, and of course dropped a lot on pussy. I met this girl while I was down here and in an attempt to impress her I just overspent on dates and stuff. I was paying $125 every 3 weeks to get her hair done, going out to dinner like 5x a week, bought her some clothes and boots and stuff, and even owned 2 cars for awhile to let her drive my spare.
How did I do all of this on 32k? Easy, credit cards. I've always had good credit so I had about 35k or so available to "spend", and spend it I did. Basically every single bill went on credit to preserve my bankroll. I always kept 10k in the bank just in case. Well that "just in case" moment has come knockin. Now that my credit cards are maxed and I finally went on a nice breakeven stretch I've had to tap the roll for finances. As a result I now only have 5k left to my name and have had to cease playing live poker.
What does one do with 35k debt, 5k in cash and no job? Well he goes bankrupt obviously. My next step from here is one of 3 things. I'll either stay unemployed in FL long enough to declare bankruptcy and get a normal job, spend the last of my roll on a shitty used car and get a roommate to slash expenses. Hopefully instead of needing 4k/month I will get down to about 2k/month which I think almost any job can cover. However I'm not quite sure if I can rebuild a roll on such limited income. If not, then I will probably move back home and live with the parents for a few months to avoid paying any rent at all, get a job there and try to save up another 10-15k within half a year or so and take a shot again, except this time I'll do things right. I guess I needed a good kick in the ass to recognize what it takes to actually live as a poker player. While my volume is low I think it's safe to say I'm beating these games and should continue to pursue the endeavor. Maybe I wont be at $40/hr after the next few years but surely $25 or so would be a good estimate for a very modest average minded player such as myself.
In the meantime I have one last trick, and thats to try playing online a little. You see I play 2/5 live, and I'm not sure 2/2 is beatable with rake/tips/gas/food etc. However with Ignition poker accepting bitcoin transfers I might be able to take a shot at NL50-NL100 and earn enough to survive the bankruptcy process while paying for rent and food until I lose my car and get all my debts cleaned. I've really enjoyed my time as a poker "pro" and would only continue if I was a proven winner. I just need to be a responsible winner. The good thing about bankruptcy is that it's actually probably a pretty good time in my life for it at the moment. I'm 35 now and the red flag this will put on my credit will last 10 years. I'm in a position right now where I shouldnt really need loans of any sort. I dont plan on buying a home and will learn to live with a modest car instead of something flashy. As a poker player all other bills should be paid in cash anyway so this will more or less keep me on track. I literally wont even be able to get approved for a credit card for the first 2-3 years probably anyway, at which point I'd have to go through the tedious process of rebuilding my credit score through secured micro transactions and such, but that's all fine. I kinda dont even want credit cards again since they are the devil Most people in this world would be better off without them in the first place.
Dunno how many nerds we have here, but I'm sure most of you have probably heard of the new virtual reality headsets. I lit my allowance money on fire in the early 90's to play those shitty VR machines they had in the arcade, bought an Oculus development kit when it came out just to see what all the hype was about, bought a Galaxy S6 smartphone just so I could use GearVR with it, and had been waiting to see who the victor would be in the new Oculus vs Valve wars. Finally some local shops had both on display for customers to demo with so I was able to experience both and decide which one was best for me.
Hands down the HTC vive is the most incredible gaming experience I have ever received. Oculus is under the belief that gamers wont really want to walk around in a VR environment, that we'll all eventually prefer to just sit down and hold a controller and play cockpit simulators or something. They dont really support this whole "roomscale" thing that involves being able to freeroam around in empty space. Valve on the other hand see's it the exact opposite, that being able to just look around is a gimmick, and that the real power in VR is being able to move around. Personally I think Valve couldnt be more right. I dont have a very big play space, however even just being able to walk 2 steps forward or backwards is game changing. The tiny head movements and bobbing you experience as a bipedal species are perfectly tracked by the Vive. When you tilt your head to lean down and look at something it's all there. These experiences are sorely lacking in the Oculus Rift which usually just has you sitting there looking straight ahead. Sure you can look and lean anywhere you want in the Rift too, however there is no incentive to do so. Most of their games are designed to just look 3D without the need to actually look anywhere. Vive games go out of their way to encourage you to move around and explore the area. When you reach the confines of your playspace you can "teleport" further down the road and just start walking the opposite direction. It sounds silly but it makes all the difference.
I havent even purchased any games yet, the little demo suite valve provides so far is astounding. So much in fact that Vive demo's have more playability than full blown Rift games. It is truly an amazing experience. Both systems cost the same, $800 USD (if you want wireless VR touch controllers at least) and Oculus may eventually get with the program and start encouraging roomscale development. Any dev could produce roomscale games if they wanted, they just dont seem to be doing it yet. But if you have some disposable income I highly recommend you try it. If you get bored of the system, sell it on ebay and consider the loss as just rent for VR for the few months you keep it.
Alright so, Q2 sucked for a variety of reasons, most of which I'll try not to deflect from anything more than poor decision making. For starters I completely messed up my sleep schedule thanks to that damn blizzard game Overwatch. There is a direct correlation from May 26th (official release date of game) and my sudden downswing/breakeven stretch lol. I am so completely addicted to this game I can easily play 10 hours straight and found myself going to sleep and waking up at all sorts of crazy hours. This was disastrous for poker as I ended up missing out on lots of good action by playing at odd hours of the day/night. There were times were I was just exhausted at 7pm on a Saturday and could not stay up, completely forfeiting one of the most profitable days.
The next huge mistake I made was taking a shot at 5/10. My bankroll was 17k, a mere 3 buyins away from 5/10 anyway so I figure might as well take a 5 buyin shot now. I mean, if I had 20k and moved up to 5/10 it's not like I'd drop back down if I hit 17k so whats the difference? Well, psychologically speaking there's tons. Playing with 20 buyins vs feeling like you only have 5 buyins while shot taking really throws you off your game. On top of that, both times I sat everyone was straddling which basically meant I was playing 10/25. To further compound the issue, usually within an hour someone would say "hey why dont we just bump it to 10/25 so we can play time rake?" to which everyone agreed. So my dumb ass really ended up taking a 2 buyin shot at 10/25 which is just disgraceful. Part of it was pride, I didnt want to sheepishly walk away from the table and look poor. The other was greed. I mean there's plenty of times you sit down and just run it up from your initial buyin, so maybe I can run good here too which would be quite a boost to the bankroll. 2 buyins at 10/25 vs 5 buyins at 5/10, whats the difference right? Fuck it....... big mistake. I wont ever be doing that again.
I'm not sure I quite got over that hit. Ever since then it feels like I'm playing kinda frustrated. I cant quite tell if it's just from running bad or a combination of things. I experimented with different bet sizings but still feel most comfortable betting half pot under most circumstances. Because stack sizes vary so heavily in multiway pots at low stakes games I find it hard to know exactly who and what range of hands im targeting. I'll iso something like 9Ts OTB and get 5 callers. Flop will be 67Q and someone will donkbet from UTG for like 1/4 pot and MP will call. I feel inclined to raise here because fuck that donkbet and fuck that sizing. I just dont know what my success rate is here.
Anyway I'm going to adjust my range and limping frequency. Right now my range was basically
EP : 22+/JTs+/QJo+/A9s+
MP: 22+/78s+/JTo+/A9o+/A6s+
LP: 22+/56s+/JTo+/A6o+/A2s+
BTN: 22+/54s+/JTo+/Ax+
SB: Play button range
and I'd almost always come in for a raise if I was opening here, plus the occasional 3bet vs the reg's if I was squeezing LP and it was obvious they were targeting a deep fish on their right.
I've adjusted this range to be more precise in regards to when I'll limp vs when I'll raise to include the following:
The R/L tags indicate raising/limping.
What I've done here is included a much wider limping range and much tighter EP range just to be more exploitable since so many pots go unraised preflop anyway. If you notice from my previous range hands like Q8s weren't even a part of it. I would just auto-fold that from any position no matter what. I think adding in these new hands combined with small bet sizing may enable these hands to be played easier since I cant valuetown myself too terribly on any runout.
TLDR: Fucked up taking a shot, fucked up not taking schedule seriously playing video games instead, probably got on a little life tilt from poor results and played sub-optimally overall. RESULTS!!
April fools ya'll, lol. Today's blog will mark the real deal.
Results are in - 2016 thus far
February was my first losing month, at about $-800. I met this girl and things became pretty intense, moved in together, and then she left me to go back to her abusive ex boyfriend (gave her black eyes and everything, the worst), but sadly this is actually common among abuse victims. Man did this fuck with my head hard, I found myself completely crushed emotionally, deliberately losing hands and becoming self-destructive as a way to take my mind off of things. I snapped out of it after losing about 6 buyins and just quit playing completely for 2 weeks and by March I was back on my A-game. As for me and that girl, dont worry about that shit, we're as done as done can be.
Anyway I'm still trying to plug that stupid leak I have of "paying to see" when someone makes a retarded bet against me that makes no sense. I'm not calling shoves or anything like that and it's a lot better than before, but I still catch myself calling here and there like once every few sessions when I know I'm beat, but I just want to figure out wtf my opponent was doing.
The good news I am finally getting more confident playing deep. I think a big part of it has just been playing scared money. Not scared because I cant afford to play, but just that butterflies in the stomach kind of thing knowing that this is my lifeline here so dont risk too much since I'm so new to this lifestyle. But goddamn when you get deep vs these players it's just fuckin' game on every time. Here's a couple of chip porn shots where I maintained my composure and just stuck it out until the table broke.
This will be my primary focus going forward. Just sitting down with the intention to eat the table.
Funny hand tonight, sitting 220BB effective, I river quads but ended up tabling my hand before he called. I actually thought he had folded because I was busy bullshitting with the guy on my right who was paying me off all night drunk as fuck and he had already gone allin on the turn. Other guy shows the nut straight and of course folds, then goes on an epic rant against the dealer even though I just saved him about $900 on a river bet that he was obviously going to call. Doh, pay more attention!
Oh yeah, and I did buy a new car lol. Nothing fancy, just a used 370z Nismo, but man this thing is so fun to drive.
I even mounted a tablet. It's just velcro with the cables routed behind the dash but I think it looks pretty legit! Certainly works well for streaming music and navigation.
Decided to do quarterly updates as I figured it'd give me more to talk about. Cool news I hit the BB jackpot for about 250k, which after my share netted me about 125k. I didnt elect to file taxes because I decided to treat myself to something first, a used Ferrari 488GTB! Here it is parked outside the front of my apartment.
It's pretty hard to get these so this one was actually used with 12 miles on it. Apparently the owner drove it home and decided he didnt want it anymore (probably bought it without the wife's permission) so back to the dealer it went. I got it for a steal at $313,087 after all taxes and fee's were paid. I had it registered out of state to avoid Florida sales tax so hopefully I dont get pulled over for a ticket! The payment on it is only about 7k/month so I figure I'll drive it until the end of the year and then dump it before it loses too much value / my roll has taken too big of a hit.
Speaking of which, to help mitigate the sting on my liferoll this car is going to incur I decided to head down south where they have some bigger games. The waitlist for 2/5 NL was taking fucking forever but they had an open seat at 5/10 PLO which the floor kept asking if I wanted to sit at. I finally broke and said ok. I dont think there was any cap to the buyin, but they informed me the minimum was $300 which I decided to start with just to get a feel for it. I know the rules to PLO just not much of the strategy. Luckily I ran hot and managed the snap a few pictures for the chip porn gallery
I got a little scared playing this deep so I decided to quit and head to another casino about a half hour away and do the same thing again
The last picture isnt all that bragworthy since I minbought 15 times for $300 a pop but hey, gotta limit my risk of ruin now that I have some unexpected new finances! It's been a wild ride this year but I'll post more tomorrow.
Best month yet, went pro mid October. I dont think I "paid to see" a single fishy bet, just let it go. Still having difficulty putting in time due to MUBS (Monsters Under the Bed Syndrome). I get 300BB's deep and just get nervous of some eventual suckout so I bail, resulting in a lot of 2 hour sessions. I did take someone's advice to just sitout and play a smaller stakes game until I can come back in at 2/5 for 100BB's which worked out nicely on a couple of occasions. The only thing I dislike about that is by the time I'm building any history at 2/2 I gotta run back to 2/5. Most of the time I just say fuck it and go home. I think once or twice I kept playing deep and lost a few big pots and kicked myself for not quitting, even though thats stupid and should just recognize the value by staying.
I intend to stay at 2/5 for all of 2016 unless I just smash the games and build my roll out of control. 5/10 doesnt run very often in Florida but the PLO 5/10 game does. I actually took a peek at it tonight since I saw lots of black stacks just to witness some guy ship 4k into the middle with JT63sss on a T58ss flop and win against a lesser flush draw. I mean goddamn, even with my limited knowledge of PLO this seems like a game I should take a shot at. 3k max buyin.
Once my lease is up in Florida depending upon how big my roll is I will be looking to relocate to vegas to line myself up for taking shots at 5/10. The only thing that would ever hold me back is if my hourly is actually better at 2/5 Florida vs 5/10 Vegas. The games really are that insanely soft here, and I like living on the coast.
Once again I completely fail in the hourly department, as in not putting in enough hours. 46? lol. Just spent a lot of time fucking around with friends and took the entire week of Thanksgiving off. On the upside I am doing well with my efforts to stop paying off when fish bet/raise me. Still donated at least $1000 but that beats last month. These were also like really obvious spots to fold, I.E. fish fixated on board like there was a gun pointed to his head, heavy breathing, aggressive betting pattern completely out of character from previous hands, etc. Man live is such a goldmine when it comes to tells, but I just had to see to make sure I wasnt misreading them. There's a super aggressive black dude I play with sometimes and he is always sitting deep, and often plays 5/10. He said something to another player one night, "ay mang, when the fish bets you fold!" as he snap folded a river raise. I'm pretty sure he's spewy (I've won multiple 50BB shoves vs him with Ace high) but he at least knows that much.
So my primary goal for next month is going to be putting in those damn hours. I keep doubling or trippling up, getting nervous with a 300BB stack and just bailing from the table with as little as 3 hours on a few occasions. For December I am going to just hump it out no matter how deep me and my opponents get, using a basic stoploss in BB's to know when to quit. For instance if I hit 500BB stack or something and lose 200BB's, well I'll consider that losing 2 buyins regardless of my overall profit and quit. There are just too many players making too many mistakes to pass up on this edge.
In the meantime I really want to buy a new toy. I'm looking at a used 370z to replace my current econo crapbox for roughly the same payment. You can pick up one of these for around 22-23k
If you recall, I finally did it. I ran the numbers, went over the data, tallied the figures, and concluded that my near 6 years of experience plus everything I've learned from LP.net was enough to justify going pro. In the words of the great O'Reilly, WE'LL DO IT LIVE!!!
Your little resident newb spread his wings and actually made a profit, how bout that? The biggest thing you might notice here is my total playtime. I've been struggling to put in more hours, not as a result of discipline but just staying deep. As any live player knows you often end up pretty deep pretty quick sometimes. I'm just not comfortable sitting on 400BB's yet. It's really just a case of MUBS - Monsters Under the Bed Syndrome. I see so many bad beats that I become paranoid I could become the victim of one in a huge pot. Fish can be truly fearless at times since anything earned over their initial buyin is just a freeroll in their eyes. They could run $300 up to $2500 and as long as they finish $400 for the night they consider it a good session. So I end up having these little mini 4 hour sessions before I cash out and come back the next day.
What's really bad here though is just how much money I've given back. Consider the following
Each one of those downward spikes is me going on tilt, calling big bets on the river just to prove to myself how bad I run. Like I know I'm beat, but I want to see their cards so I can feel good about how I played it and how bad they did. It's stupid and I'm working on it. Had I not donated like that I'd easily be up another 3k on my winnings this month. Just talking about how I gave fish $3000 for the pleasure of making them show their dogshit hand makes me want to vomit. Hopefully next month produces a cleaner graph.
All in all though playing poker professionally has turned out to be everything I wanted it to be. My friends/work acquaintances are all jealous, and I just sit back and literally do whatever the fuck I want each day. It's so incredibly relaxing to no longer have to walk on eggshells answering to a bossman. Having someone micromanage you, check on your schedule, chastise you for taking an extra long lunch break, feeling guilty when I come in late or go home early. Fuck all that noise. I feel healthier, I am eating better, I get all the sleep I need, and just really feel like I'm at peace and in a good place in life right now. This is definitely the life for me.
Thanks for all the support people have given me here. LP definitely turns out a unique breed of player in my opinion. Aiming for 5k minimum next month.
Put in my 2 weeks today. Of course boss freaked out because I am the only person in IT so it kinda fucks them. I'm very well regarded and liked though, even take flying lessons with the owner of the company, so there's no bad blood in me leaving the company hanging like that. Asked me what it would take to get me to stay. I threw an absurd number out there and even told him I knew it was absurd, but hey money is money. I currently make 64k and told him 90k and I'll stay. Reason being is that I need a strong incentive to stay if I'm going to sacrifice poker dream and work a job I no longer enjoy (obviously didnt tell him about poker). Plus my company is currently struggling so I need the added income insurance in case I lose my job in 6 months anyway. They've laid off so many people there is easily 2 million in salary they have saved. My boss himself makes 230k as a "director of IT" which just means he signs the checks to order new phone systems and tells me to do the work. Fuck em, they can easily pitch 25k my way after firing everyone in IT but me. He said he'll talk to the president and get back to me Monday with a counter.
Someone just bought my house, and I just sold my Orange mustang. Already went apartment hunting in Jacksonville so I know all the good places. Hopefully they can squeeze me in within 2 weeks since I dont want to waste any time after unemployment. I dont know what my real bankroll will be after home sale and all, but I'm hoping to have about 8k in the checking account when I touchdown in Florida (plus $0 balances on my credit cards netting me 20-30k as a parachute). I will immediately begin scouting new jobs as a backup just to get the ball rolling in case I go on instant poker downswing. Granted I'm only giving myself a 2 week headstart but it's better than nothing.
The guy I stayed with through Airbnb is an "IT project manager" of some sort, and he told me to give him my resume so hopefully that can jumpstart things. If I hit it off playing poker I'll postpone any interviews. Or maybe I'll go on them anyway, get a job locked up, and then depending upon my risk tolerance just bail at the last second.
I figure worst case scenario is that since I stand a good chance of losing my current job anyway, I might as well be unemployed and fully relocated to a new city so that poker is within arm's reach so I can keep that opportunity available to me in the future.
Longterm objective is to crush 2/5, gross 80k as poker salary, then look at moving to vegas or SoCal so I can take it to the next level and play 5/10. Going to florida is just easier logistically right now since I live in SC.
So yesterday was my last day in the hidden poker mecca known as Jacksonville FL. The only new thing I got to do tonight was spend 8 hours waiting for a fish to donate $400 to me that never came. I eventually retired from hunger and called it quits. Still had a few lolworthy moments where I bet $200 into a $75 pot and got tank called, so on and so forth. It feels so unnatural not to balance yet the more I get used to it the easier poker seems. "Like really? I just tell you how much money I want you to give me, and you do it?" Fascinating how live fish have not even considered what the implications of pot odds are. The only time I hear the term is when someone raises $40 pre, gets 1 call, and the BB says he has to come along too, heh.
So where does this leave me? A dead end job that I'm seriously thinking about putting in my 2 weeks notice with. I have 40k in available credit card debt should I have to let my expenses/rent ride and a healthy skillset to land a new job if things get really bad. Should I do it? Should I make the move?
Lifetime earnings since I began tracking in November: $8000 @ 256 hours. What could possibly go wrong? :D :D :D
Contact Users: 809 Active, 0 Logged in - Time: 10:34
Most people in this world would be better off without them in the first place. 
,
,
,
,