Numb money / emotional rant

I remember pooruser saying something like 9 years ago. And it was something to the affect of "if you don't climb the ladder of the stakes yourself then you don't belong to be on top". It was mostly centered around staking people. But I think in this context it applies. Its not a bad idea to supplement your income if youre feeling demotivated I suppose. But just keep separate your poker bankroll and life bankroll. Climb the poker ladder at your leisure and just earn that money on the side for what you want to do with it. Or even better just save it up. I wouldn't allow it to enable you to play higher though personally. Though that is a choice each person has to make for themselves. One other thing to mention though is if you aren't passionate about playing your way to the high stakes with volume. It might be a sign that the game itself isn't your passion. And its going to make reaching and staying at the highstakes with the big swings a big drain on you emotionally. Honestly if you just aren't feeling poker. I would suggest just doing something else. If someone is good enough to get to the highstakes. They are working really hard for not that much money relative to their earn potential in the real world imo. Consider looking into real estate on the side or some other side venture. It will probably be more rewarding in the long run. Highstakes is all swings and working really hard for not that much. Anyone at the highstakes would be thrilled to make 400k a year. And realistically these people are all intelligent enough to be very rich if they were not busy playing poker. That's just my 2 cents anyway. Be your own man ;]

young person of privilege living in a first world country with above average wealth, cognitive talent and status within his niche feeling depressed upon realising there exist younger people with more wealth, more cognitive talent and higher status than him. motivated by belief that acquisition of additional wealth and status will solve his problems.

i guess its all very standard human nature so far. when it comes to poker specifically (a game where your win is someone else's bigger loss, that requires efficient predation of others' self-destructive human weaknesses), my guess is players who aren't close friends will likely view your plight with something in between indifference and schadenfreude.

doomer -
ya I think many good points. I'm not sure exactly whether I'm feeling poker or not. This past few months I was considering teaching high-school, doing real estate, maybe airbnb then I just l abruptly cancelled my praxis examination. Since then just have been trying to save money, been playing mixed games, and have some desire to play ss8game on pokerstars.

And yeah as far as bankroll, high stakes, etc good news I guess is I've been a pretty big nit so far.

Romm3l
yea your right. At this point in my life I kind of have to accept my character flaws and carry on and just slowly try to improve. To be fair I'm not entirely sure exactly why or what part of the interaction with said dude got me kinda upset..

On March 07 2016 10:03 DooMeR wrote: I remember pooruser saying something like 9 years ago. And it was something to the affect of "if you don't climb the ladder of the stakes yourself then you don't belong to be on top". It was mostly centered around staking people. But I think in this context it applies. Its not a bad idea to supplement your income if youre feeling demotivated I suppose. But just keep separate your poker bankroll and life bankroll. Climb the poker ladder at your leisure and just earn that money on the side for what you want to do with it. Or even better just save it up. I wouldn't allow it to enable you to play higher though personally. Though that is a choice each person has to make for themselves. One other thing to mention though is if you aren't passionate about playing your way to the high stakes with volume. It might be a sign that the game itself isn't your passion. And its going to make reaching and staying at the highstakes with the big swings a big drain on you emotionally. Honestly if you just aren't feeling poker. I would suggest just doing something else. If someone is good enough to get to the highstakes. They are working really hard for not that much money relative to their earn potential in the real world imo. Consider looking into real estate on the side or some other side venture. It will probably be more rewarding in the long run. Highstakes is all swings and working really hard for not that much. Anyone at the highstakes would be thrilled to make 400k a year. And realistically these people are all intelligent enough to be very rich if they were not busy playing poker. That's just my 2 cents anyway. Be your own man ;]

This really applies to everything though. There can always be a more profitable choice whatever you do. Just accept this fact and choose something that makes you happy and keeps you interested. It's not like making 200k/year or 20k/year will drastically change a person's daily life for better. Poker is cool because it's a game and is convenient in lots of ways, of course there can be more profitable career choices but it's still a very high income choice if you do it properly.

How do you feel about the action at those card rooms? Some fish was telling everyone at my 2/5 game in Florida last night about how Vegas is awful because it's full of pros. SoCal too. That Jacksonville FL was great because nobody comes to JV to play poker so everyone is a regfish. While I agree that JV is an interesting place to play due to lack of desirability, I'm not going to take some fish's word on how Vegas is too tough to play in. I feel like any non-pro always assumes vegas/cali are too difficult, and for them that's probably true.

On March 07 2016 21:57 NewbSaibot wrote: How do you feel about the action at those card rooms? Some fish was telling everyone at my 2/5 game in Florida last night about how Vegas is awful because it's full of pros. SoCal too. That Jacksonville FL was great because nobody comes to JV to play poker so everyone is a regfish. While I agree that JV is an interesting place to play due to lack of desirability, I'm not going to take some fish's word on how Vegas is too tough to play in. I feel like any non-pro always assumes vegas/cali are too difficult, and for them that's probably true.

yea that seems to be what everyone says. newb I'm not really sure how pro I am. probably better people to ask as I havent played other locations as well.

my views :
being where your going to be most successful doesn't necessarily mean being where it's absolutely the softest so I suppose disregard what ppl say about softness in that regard and just do what make sense for you.
keep travel expenses/expenses low
vegas/live poker is seasonal just like everywhere else.

Doomer's advice is very good about climbing the ladder, however it doesn't necessarily apply if you are only not playing bigger because you are a bankroll nit. You should, and ideally we all should, write up a plan. Your life goals for the next 3 months, 1 year, 3 years, 5 years, as far as you want. Make it as detailed as you need it to be, and then make it happen. We are goal-oriented beings; without one we turn into the prey, only focused on food, sleep, safety, and reproduction. Turn back into the hunter/builder/CEO/King of your life. The process isn't so difficult, and it's empowering even if your goals are modest.

Some other thoughts:

Uber is a great backup plan. You have that to fall back on. You can be much more aggressive with your bankroll if you are willing to grind Uber if you go bust. It is a great backstop to knowing you will never have to play 1/3. If the money is equal to 2/5 I would play 2/5 as it will make you sharp enough to beat 5/10nl. In the mixed-game space there are really no mid-stakes games as far as I have seen, maybe 40/80? but I don't play mixed so I don't know, so maybe it is a perfectly legitimate plan to make money another way so that you can play high stakes mixed faster. Maybe it's a good idea to buff your roll as much as possible before WSOP bc I know there are loads of mid-high stakes mixed games going at the rio during the summer. And if not mixed at least a variety of O8/stud8 badacey etc going at diff tables. It's something to think about. If you want to PM me with 3-4 plans of attack you have for the next year or two and some overarching goals you have I can try and help you decide. An outside perspective can help, and you were reaching out so let me know if you want to chat about anything.

On March 11 2016 05:08 thewh00sel wrote: Doomer's advice is very good about climbing the ladder, however it doesn't necessarily apply if you are only not playing bigger because you are a bankroll nit. You should, and ideally we all should, write up a plan. Your life goals for the next 3 months, 1 year, 3 years, 5 years, as far as you want. Make it as detailed as you need it to be, and then make it happen. We are goal-oriented beings; without one we turn into the prey, only focused on food, sleep, safety, and reproduction. Turn back into the hunter/builder/CEO/King of your life. The process isn't so difficult, and it's empowering even if your goals are modest. Some other thoughts: Uber is a great backup plan. You have that to fall back on. You can be much more aggressive with your bankroll if you are willing to grind Uber if you go bust. It is a great backstop to knowing you will never have to play 1/3. If the money is equal to 2/5 I would play 2/5 as it will make you sharp enough to beat 5/10nl. In the mixed-game space there are really no mid-stakes games as far as I have seen, maybe 40/80? but I don't play mixed so I don't know, so maybe it is a perfectly legitimate plan to make money another way so that you can play high stakes mixed faster. Maybe it's a good idea to buff your roll as much as possible before WSOP bc I know there are loads of mid-high stakes mixed games going at the rio during the summer. And if not mixed at least a variety of O8/stud8 badacey etc going at diff tables. It's something to think about. If you want to PM me with 3-4 plans of attack you have for the next year or two and some overarching goals you have I can try and help you decide. An outside perspective can help, and you were reaching out so let me know if you want to chat about anything.

Yeah well the plan as of when I started this blog post was to focus on the mix games. My plan was to play whatever reasonable stake ran at the time, play that to make some money and get better. I have heard 20/40 runs during the wsop so my plan was exactly to play those games. I was also anticipating pokerstars launching in nj for several reasons. Nj is where I am from and I always have a base there if I need it. Also, NJ is very stud heavy and the borgata seems to run alot of mix when I checked on bravo. So I figured nj might have the player pool, company that has mixed games online, as well as option to play live so it was something I had an eye out for.

Also plans have kinda changed as after making this blog some girl rear ended me pretty hard while I was yielding for ambulance so kinda weird thing has happened and I've been focusing on poker.

Right around this time I met up with some ppl from lp a couple of days ago which was cool and after speaking with them i thought I'd give nl a shot again but it has been going pretty disasterous so my plan is to focus back on the mix games as was the initial plan. Your point about being the CEO of my own life I think I do have to trust myself here and go from there.

If there are things I think are going to be important/borderline in my plan is probably stuff like 1) getting better 2) playing enough hours, etc...whether I plan out ways on how to improve or not, discipline, etc. I'm mostly a feel player at the moment whether or not that is sexy or whatever in poker/higher limits/tougher games.

Another thing I feel like I might be missing/want to focus on is building infrastructure. I feel that the more funds you have at your disposal / people you know the things I highlighated above become more manageable, as you are able to find ways to creatively spend your money to achieve goals and improve so I do hope I run good, am able to be a solid person and meet with the right individuals. But historically I am very bad at these things.



(Big bet has been disasterous, limit/mix has been good. Sample size, etc...but I think I'd be stupid not to give limit/mixed a shot)

On March 07 2016 12:33 Romm3l wrote: young person of privilege living in a first world country with above average wealth, cognitive talent and status within his niche feeling depressed upon realising there exist younger people with more wealth, more cognitive talent and higher status than him. motivated by belief that acquisition of additional wealth and status will solve his problems. i guess its all very standard human nature so far. when it comes to poker specifically (a game where your win is someone else's bigger loss, that requires efficient predation of others' self-destructive human weaknesses), my guess is players who aren't close friends will likely view your plight with something in between indifference and schadenfreude.

wonderful, wonderful post.

obviously retarded graph, gotta get over mental hurdles. started playing ssnl on wsop.com.

Don't really get it but going to keep riding this.

Continuing to win pretty easily. Going to stop posting graphs tho.

fuck it,

things continuing to go well. also received a very favorable property damage settlement/estimate on the car (total loss).

Can't seem to post graphs but continuing to win. Main game at the moment is fl holdem @ 10/20 and 20/40 combined I'm up 4300 in 68 hours.

While 10/20 is sort of a lol type of game, it's super unusual in Vegas imo. Essentially there is only one that runs in town at the Bellagio and there is this local player that is just amazing for the game. Ive never actually seen anything like it. I have essentially found my gus hansen.

So for me this means eliminating cyclical issues in game selection..so during non peak seasons, hours, weekdays, etc I start my day playing 10/20 while observing the 20/40 pool. Typically the 10/20 stops being good early when the player leaves which is when I look to play 20/40.

Ive been working a bit on improving. I bought kpr16 hands from 2015. This was all that was available unfortunately so there are alot of issues. I think it's around 20-40k hands only, alot of hu and shortedhanded, and hands where he bum hunts this one guy named honeybee. Wish I had access to hands from years and years before and other players like tpirhana but unfortunately I do not.

Overall I thought it was a great tool though and I'm going to end up buying otbredbaron, Katya hands from the past year. This may be the last hurrah for pokerstars conditions/volume and game has developed enough where the data reflects perhaps peak play so I figure gotta lock up that data/volume in what might not last forever.