Sunday, April 28, 2013

Why play poker? - part 3 Goals

The reality is starting to set in, two weeks from today I will be departing for Las Vegas. As I wrote the last two posts about my thinking on playing poker full time I started to get a little nervous.  When I reread them objectively I can see there is some justification involved, and that this is something I want to do more than a great decision.  I will address this in a future post, and since I am going to go forward with the idea I am going to focus on goals today.

Poker Goals:

1. Play 40 hours/week on average.
2. Improve my game.
3. Move up to 2/5.

I initially wrote a lot of other things here but realized they were not goals but things I need to do to accomplish these 3 things.  To further elaborate I am aware of some leaks and shortcomings from my time playing in the past 6 months.  I feel that if I have any chance of accomplishing these goals I am going to have to step up my discipline.

Things I need to do:

1. Keep stats for every session.
2. Keep notes on hands/spots for later review.
3. Make time for study away from the tables.
4. Game select.  Change rooms or tables when the game is not good.
5. 3 buy in stop-loss.  Only quit when winning if I get tired, stop playing well, or if the game gets bad.
6. Take shots at 2/5 when bankroll and conditions are right.

This may seem pretty basic but I am a firm believer in having simple, doable goals. Things get complicated in my head and a simple action like looking at a list like this can keep me grounded.  At the end of my adventure if I look back and see that I haven't done the things above I will have no one but myself to blame.

Just went to YouTube to post the Smith Westerns song I was listening to and got a bonus surprise. They have a new album coming out.

Saturday, April 27, 2013

Why play poker? - part 2

In my last post I talked about why I play poker for a source of income, pretty much a no brainer, especially as a side income.  In this post I will explain why I am planning to take a shot at playing poker full time.  As a disclaimer I will say that I am working on other things concurrently and poker would not be my only source of income, but it will be my main focus.  The plan is to move to Las Vegas in two weeks, grind live at least 40hrs/week, and try to build my bankroll.

Why take a shot at playing poker now?

There are plenty of people who would tell you what a bad idea this is.  From my frequenting forums like Las Vegas Lifestyle on two plus two forums I put together a list:

1. Most people fail.
2. You won't like poker as much once you start to play all the time.
3. You don't get health insurance.
4. It isn't worth it if you aren't playing high stakes and bringing in $200K a year.
5. You have to spend your days rubbing elbows with undesirables and degenerates.
6. In 5 years you won't want to do it anymore and will have nothing put away for retirement.
7. It will hurt you later because potential employers won't like your employment gaps.

These are all valid arguments and each deserves a closer look.  In my first post I mentioned that the point of this blog was not to justify my decision to try this, more of a way to keep me honest in future decisions, so this is really just my thought process for my situation, by no means am I saying this would apply to anyone else's situation.

1. Most people fail - This is absolutely true and cannot be disputed.  Human nature seems to make everyone who plays this game think they are somehow better than they actually are.  In my outlook this a win win kind of situation though, if I can't make it playing decent volume then it was not meant to be and I can move on.  If I can make it it will give me freedom to explore other options while I make enough money to pay bills.  I will also get piece of mind because I have invested a lot of time playing poker and will know for sure whether playing full time is for me.

2. You won't like poker as much once you start to play all the time - This is true of anything that I have ever done, and having known people who play for a living I realize this will probably happen.  Poker is a grind, a long game with ups and downs, but the job I have been doing for the last year and a half is also a grind and there is no conceivable way this will change.

3. You don't get health insurance - I don't have health insurance now and have only ever had it in 2 or 3 jobs I have worked long term at.  I see the importance of having health insurance, but the reality is the jobs I am qualified to walk in and get don't usually offer it.

4. It isn't worth it if you aren't playing high stakes and bringing in $200K a year - This one just doesn't add up for me.  I fear I may have missed the boat as far as getting the kind of job where one makes anywhere near that kind of money.  Can't really say much more about this besides I want to live in the world where people who say this feel certain that making good money is something they are entitled to, and feel confident it will happen for them.

5. You have to spend your days rubbing elbows with undesirables and degenerates - I don't really think about this.  On some level all people are interesting to me and annoying at the same time.

6. In 5 years you won't want to do it anymore and will have nothing put away for retirement - Sounds like my last 5 years.  This makes sense but seems a little short sighted to think that if you are looking for other opportunities that nothing else could come up in that amount of time.

7. It will hurt you later because potential employers won't like your employment gaps - If you read my Invisible Mountain post this is the kind of thing I am dealing with already. This is why I am also giving myself 3 months to see if this is a workable plan.  Also I will be doing other work so I won't have a complete gap.

There are many other reasons why palying poker full time would be a bad choice for many people.  I am going into it with my eyes open.  I have to roll to play and have 3 months rent set aside, so to me it seems like as good a time as any to take a shot.

Friday, April 26, 2013

Why play poker?

I've been playing poker, no limit texas holdem specifically, on and off for years. That being said the question isn't "Why play poker?", I already do that.  The question is two-fold, "Why play poker as a source of income?", and "Why take a shot of playing poker now?".

1. Why play poker as a source of income?

Poker is interesting to me because it is competitive activity.  I guess I first got this idea planted in my head when I watched the movie rounders in the late 90's, and it was this scene in particular that sealed the deal.

 

Bear in mind I had no idea what was going on, or even what game they were playing, but the idea that someone could play the "best" at something and win by out thinking them was ridiculously appealing to me.  The seed was planted at this point but I didn't really get into poker other than the odd 7 card stud with wild cards game that popped up at friend's houses every so often.  A few years later Chris Moneymaker won the world series of poker by winning a couple of satellites online (today is actually the 10th anniversary of the satellite that gave him his main event entry).  At the time this was intriguing and I started to see more poker on TV, but I was involved with my art career that was taking off and never got into playing.

In 2006 a friend of mine from Sweden was staying at my apartment for the holidays and he was taking out a couple hours each day to play sit n go's.  I watched him play a really simple strategy and was amazed that he was able to take money out of his account periodically to help pay for his trip.  This was my first real introduction to playing poker for income as a reality.  Like most people back then I figured I could do what he was doing and it would be the most fun and easy job in the world.

Due to life and the way it goes I didn't really start to play or win until 2009.  I starting reading books and trying to learn as much about poker as I could at that time.  I started frequenting forums like two plus two and realized simultaneously that I was late in my arrival to the scene and that winning at poker wasn't going to be as easy as I thought it would be.  Still by the end of the year my hard work paid off and I started winning consistently. I always had a job at the time but all my free time was spent playing online tournaments and I started to bring in a nice modest income on the side.  I started playing some live tournaments too and also started taking weekend trips to Atlantic City, which were both marginally profitable.

Everyone who played online poker in the US knows how Black Friday changed everything.  That coupled with other things that were going on in my life at the time pretty much put poker on the back burner.  Then last year I looked in my carbon poker account and noticed I had $30.13 in there.  I binked a $5 tournament right away and started playing all the time again leading up to a 3rd place finish in a $33 1r1a in their first ever Poker Maximus series.  At this point I had a bankroll again and a renewed interest in playing and studying but was working 52 hours a week at a dead end kind of job.  Online poker in the US was sketchy at best, and has gotten worse to the point that I don't even play anymore, and I wasn't rolled to move out of the US and take a shot at playing on the big sites again.  With all my long work hours most of my play online was getting worse and with less new people coming in and more regulars getting better all the time I started having losing months for the first time in a long time.  Quitting poker altogether was never an option so I started going to local casinos and playing live cash.

Cash games were new and I'll admit I was the typical online tournament donk at first.  This motivated me and once I got over the obvious frustration with slow games and different dynamics I started to think more about poker again and got excited.  I went down about 3 buyins ($900) at 1/2 during the learning phase but have adjusted enough to have a decent win rate after 6 months of playing.  My sample size is still too small to say too much one way or the other but I feel like I am improving each time I play and that is what is most important to me.

All of this amounts to an answer to the question of "Why play poker as a source of income?"  I realize that there are cons that go along with these pros, so in my next post I will answer question 2.

Thursday, April 25, 2013

"Is this Snoop Dogg?"

I was writing a different post with Letterman on in the background, and got distracted.  He had Snoop Dogg on who is now referred to as Snoop Lion and is in the process of working on becoming a Rastafarian.  It reminded me of a trip I took to Jamaica a long time ago with my girlfriend for like 10 days. We stayed at the Rock Cliffs Hotel in Negril, and I had hooked up with these young guys who had a little carving shop down the street from there.  Each day I would go hang out with them for a while in the morning and we would talk about random stuff.  Mostly they just asked me questions about whatever was on their minds or things they had heard of since I was obviously a traveler and they spent most of their time hanging around their shop hustling tourists.  I noticed that when I would see in the evenings, after I had spent some money on vacation supplies with them, that they would have brand new american style gear on.  I asked them about this and they told me that they spent all their profits on new clothes.  They also told me I should go back to America, fill up a bunch of suit cases, and fly back and we could all be rich.  This lead to many conversations where they would ask me what was cool for rappers like Snoop Dogg to wear and stuff like that.

Somehow, and I really don't remember how, I had found an NWA tape in the bag I had brought with me.  Can't really explain it since I definitely hadn't listened to it for years.  Anyways, I decided I would give the tape to them as a present on the day I left.  I walked down the street for the last time and put the tape in the main guy Squiggly's hand.

S: "Is this Snoop Dogg?"
Me: "No, it's Snoop Dogg's boys, it's better than Snoop Dogg"
(He looks noticeably upset that it isn't Snoop)
S: "Better than Snoop Dogg?  Snoop Dogg's friends?"
Me: "Yeah, his friends. This is the original, these guys are OG's"
S: "OG's?"
Me: "Original gangsters"
S: "Oh."
Me: "Yeah, OG's"
S: "Is Snoop Dogg OG's?"
Me: "Well no, but whatever just take the tape and listen to it, you'll like it, it's dope"
S: "Snoop Dogg's friends, OhhGee's, yaaah"

As I rode out of town I passed their shop and heard "Fuck the police...." blaring in the street and remembered why life is good.




Wednesday, April 24, 2013

invisible mountain part 2

In a previous post I mentioned the feeling that there was an invisible mountain in front of me, on the surface this might seem a little dramatic, but anyone who knows me knows I am not that way.  I'm not a dramatic person, far from it in fact, so the mountain is more of a self actualization than some sort of an attempt for attention.  I think the best way to describe my situation using a saying people are familiar with would be - I don't look good on paper.

The reason I mention it is because this is something I believe many people have in common, many people who find themselves in the position to have to start their lives over.  My invisible mountain exists as a direct result of me making poor choices as a young man and continuing to do this until the present day.  These were my decisions and I take responsibility for them as no person or no particular thing made them for me.  Most of these bad decisions were directly related to my propensity to abuse drugs and alcohol, but this is a hurdle not an excuse.  The bottom line is that the road is distinctly uphill at this point and I spend a great deal of time wondering if things will be any different this time.

As I plan on making a move, I do what I always do, I think.  Recently I have thought about things in a more positive light than I have in the past though.  Partially from experience, but also because I am trying something different.

Today I am thinking that personal strengths and weaknesses are not black and white, and I am searching in the grey.


Saturday, April 20, 2013

#manhunt hangover

Yesterday was my day off and I had a lot of stuff today considering there are only a few weeks left until I leave for Las Vegas.  Like most days I had MSNBC on the t.v. while i was working at my desk, but this day was different.  Boston marathon bomber suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was on the loose and the entire city of Boston was locked down while the police searched for him.

This is one of those kind of news stories that you just can't stop watching, like the worst kind of being stuck because at any moment it might all come to an end.  At some point while looking through the twitter feed I found this link for the police scanner stream and following the news story was taken to a whole new level.  I am not sure who creates a stream that broadcasts a specific police scanner channel in real time, but holy hell this added to a complete inability to tear myself away from the desk.  The only thing I can compare this to in my lifetime is watching the footage of the beginning of Desert Storm on CNN in 1991.

The world changes everyday, even if it is only in little ways.  It almost always gives me a hangover on the day after.



Wednesday, April 17, 2013

invisible mountain

I woke up this morning with a lot on my mind, this is usual.  The thing getting lots of play in the rotation is that I am getting ready to move in a little more than 6 weeks and once again start over. I've got a plan, it is the best one I've thought of, but I imagine it's the kind that when you tell other people about it they immediately wonder what is wrong with you.

I'm in the shower, washing my hair thinking about moving and thinking about words.  I am thinking about where I am both geographically and overall in my life.  I can't help but think I am out of sight so I am thinking about words like unseen, covert, ghostly, unobserved and so on.  I am also thinking about what is ahead and there seems to be an unmistakable mountain to climb.  Not like a mountain with a clear cut path to the top with places for stopping and taking in scenic views from overlooks, but like a big impending obstacle of something much larger than your average hill.

So I think more about words and I come up with this idea for a name for my new blog - "Invisible Mountain". I know this is the right one, but as you can see it is not the name that I settled on. After toweling off I did a quick google search and realized that Carolina De Robertis had already wrote a book with that name.  I didn't read it, or even the whole review for that matter, but it doesn't seem to be about the same thing I was thinking about in the shower. It wasn't too much longer before I settled on Unseen, Uphill which had also crossed my mind more than once. We could have a conversation about how all the good ideas have been used, but I think that would underestimate human ingenuity.  We could also have a conversation on how cool it is that so much information is so readily available to people these days, but why derail a good thing.

Sometimes you see movies and they make you think of something new.  Other times you watch movies and you instantly connect with them because they are talking about things that you have felt and thought before.  Olso August 31st is the latter of the two, and I think even from the trailer you can see how it connects with my invisible mountain.  It is also a pretty good movie to watch if you are the kind of guy or girl who doesn't mind reading subtitles, it may have particular gravity if you have experience with recovery from an addiction like i do.


Sunday, April 14, 2013

how to start a blog


I am not blogger.  Well, I guess I should say that I have never made a blog or a blog post. However, for the past couple of days I have been thinking of starting a project and I've settled on this, my own blog.

When I did a google search on how to start a blog the overall impression I got is that before you start one you need to decide what you are going to blog about.  I have failed in this effort thus far, but I am motivated to figure this out.  It will be about my life and the transition I am about to make but I hardly expect that that in itself would be interesting enough to entice traffic here.   I am in the process of starting over so I have the luxury to change things into whatever I would like them to be, and that is something.

So I guess I will start with what this blog is not.  This blog is not an attempt to justify my decision to move to Las Vegas and try to play poker for a living for a while.  This blog is not a deluded attempt to glorify my existence or to somehow validate my choice of lifestyle.  Although I will try to explain this as it may seem impossible to explain to some people.

The idea I have for this blog is that it can challenge me to think about my life in the world that we all live in and to keep me honest with my direction in it. It may start off slow but I am hoping that I can settle in to routine that includes regular updates.

I want to be hungry again.  Can a person become hungry again?