Playing poker for a living (my experience so far) HELP!

Thought I give you all my experiences of playing poker every day at pp for that last 4 months.

Financially, the results have been great. Would have been greater if I did not give myself a dumb raise and jumped into the 100/200 game earlier in Oct. I had a great month in Sept with 30/60 and 50/100, so I decided to give the 100/200 a shot.

In a 48 hours, I got my face kicked in and lost $30k in that game. Stupid me. However I did manage to pick myself up, went back to the 30/60 game, and now only down -$10k for oct. I still have a few days left, so hopefully I'll be even or + a few thousand.

What have I learned these past four months? That it is incredibly hard playing poker every day. I don't know how anyone could do this for years. Its boring. The emotional highs and lows can be overwhelming at times. Not only when I lose, but when I win.

Now it's commons for me to have dreams about poker hands 4 to 5 nights a week. Its a blessing when I can sleep and not dream about poker.

I only like the money, not the game itself. The freedom to play whenver I want is nice. However, I think about playing all the time. And when I'm not playing, i'm reading about poker to better my game. But I hate playing the game, I just like winning!

How do you deal with all the negative aspects of playing full time? HELP!

[MoDOH]

chill...

[ggbman]

I dont play full time, but i log enough hands to be able to relate to about everything in your OP. Theres a few things here i would like to point out.

1.) You can make a good living with less emotional stress at the 30-60 games. It can be worth it to sacrifice a little EV to make poker stress you out less. The time you are not playing should be your time, poker should not monopolize your thoughts.
2.) You don't sound like you want to do this forever. This is fine! But make sure you know what you are going to do when you dont make poker your primary occupation. You don't mention your age/education, but be sure you have options outside of poker.
3.) Lastly, dont let results influence you so much. Sometimes you take chances and they dont work. If you end up in the negative for October, it doesn't matter. If you play winning poker, you will have a losing month here and there and make eons the rest of the time. Don't get to stressed out over it.

Good luck!

Gabe

Hey ggbman,

Thanks for the tip. I've never played full time poker like this before. I use to go to commerce when I lived in LA 2 or 3 times a month to play the 40/80 games a few years ago.

After my company closed a few months ago, I decided to give playing poker a shot. As I won a $7k playing at Pokerstars back in March for the first time.

I just didn't realize how playing everyday would be so "tough" emotionaly and mentaly.

I tried 100/200 in september. Lost 20k, won it back plus more in 30/60 and 50/100. Tried 100/200 again in oct, lost $30k. Stupid me was chasing my loss, and everything I did came up empty. I've stayed away from the 50/100 and higher for the past two weeks and everything seems to be on the upswing again. I think i've learned my lesson and just stick to 30/60.

I just need to find something else to occupy my time. I don't have really high daily goals. Winning avg $1k is enough for me to stop playing for the day. Regardless if its 1 session or 3 or 4 sessions in a day. But I always want play. And I guess that is where the real problem is.

[mmcd]

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Winning avg $1k is enough for me to stop playing for the day. Regardless if its 1 session or 3 or 4 sessions in a day.

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This is stupid. Why would you want to minimize your wins like this. If you play your 3 or 4 sessions and only make 1000, ok, no big deal, but if you always quit after you get get up 1000, you're leaving lots of money on the table. If you're playing several tables, you could get up 1000 in 5 minutes. Why wouldn't you want to continue playing and make more?

[Subfallen]

Dude. You've been playing poker for 4 months and are taking shots at 100/200. What the hell?

[baronzeus]

[ QUOTE ]
Dude. You've been playing poker for 4 months and are taking shots at 100/200. What the hell?

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he's been playing poker for a long time before that Live. so that shouldn't be a problem.

Hey subfallen,

Well, I played live poker casually at 40/80 at the commerce a few years ago. Going 2 or 3 times a month. Not very good, won some, lost some. Just never took it very seriously. If I went to vegas, I would play the table games, never the poker games.

But I tasted online poker the first time with pokerstars back in march. in a week I won $7k at 30/60. Then my company closed in April, and I decided to give full time poker a shot. Never did I imagine how tough it would be playing everyday.

Stupid me for taking shots at 100/200. I lost in sept playing that level, but the other levels still put me on the plus side. So i decided to give it another shot at the beginning of this month. Lost again. and it really turned my game upside down. I was still chasing that huge lost when I went back to 50/100, and that didn't work at all.

So the past two weeks, I've stayed only at the 30/60 and slowing digging myself out of the lost I created by playing at a level I was not financial or mentally prepared for.

Very stupid of me.

[obi---one]

If you want to play poker professionally you have to love poker. If you haven't been playing for a long time and already find the game boring, you must stop. You will be unhappy. You don't want to fall into the money pit, where you feel like you have to play because you need the money. Isn't that a reason a lot of people decide to play poker, to avoid doing something they dislike for the money?

Hi Obi,

thanks for the tip. It's weird writing to you, since there's been many times I wanted to slap you when I played the 50/100 and 100/200 earlier this month.

You play all the time. Do you really love playing the game? Doesn't the winnings and losing sessions ever mess with your head? Or do you feel the same whether you had a losing or winning day.

I need to find filler time between my sessions, so I don't always want to play. At least when I played live, I would have to drive there. Think about traffic, go home etc. With online, its just a click of a button. I don't even have to get dressed. just wake up, brush my teeth, and i'm playing in all of 15 minutes.