My story

[bunky9590]

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Great post. The addendum on your parent's attitude is required reading as well, as I had a very tough time with mine. Your story is inspirational and I'm determined to get better, win more and lose my virginity.


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fyp

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Nice! Chris Hasn't been the same since his man crush Joe Tall got his girl. [img]/images/graemlins/smirk.gif[/img]

Now I gotta organize a "Get Boom Boom Laid" event so he can stop playing onilne poker and using cases of hand lotion. [img]/images/graemlins/shocked.gif[/img]

[BottlesOf]

Ooooh....burn......*yawn*.....

[Chykynlyps]

props - that story is being printed and pinned to my wall

[psyduck]

I've always thought about getting a job vs. playing poker full-time. Like yourself, I'll be graduating with a degree in CS this quarter. And being in the Northwest, it is easy to get a job that pays 65K+ a year (firsthand experience). In fact, with some of the bigger companies like Microsoft, a really good engineer could get 80K STARTING OUT. Now, from a purely monetary perspective, it seems as if getting a job / playing poker full-time have the same expected monetary value. You said you've spent a year and a half building up to 100K? That's how much you'd earn in a year and a half as a software engineer.

What do you think about this perspective? Obviously as your bankroll increases and you take shots at higher games, you might increase your income. At the same time, variance could kick in and you might lose a chunk of it. So if you say that you are going into poker thinking about all the money you could make, isn't it true that you would be making the same amount just going out and becoming a software engineer, with lower risk?

(Note: this is PURELY from a money view. I love poker, as does everyone on this site, so being able to play as a source of constant income is like getting a 2 for 1 deal. Your hobby IS your job, and this is something that not everyone is lucky enough to do)

[Justin A]

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You said you've spent a year and a half building up to 100K? That's how much you'd earn in a year and a half as a software engineer.



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BK has made much more than that in just the first four months of this year.

[psyduck]

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You said you've spent a year and a half building up to 100K? That's how much you'd earn in a year and a half as a software engineer.



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Yeah ok. Obviously I didn't read that very carefully. That's an OBSCENE amount, jesus christ on a pogo stick...

[bicyclekick]

The going rate where I live for somebody with my credentials is about 45k. Maybe 50 if I'm lucky.

I figure my EV per month is approaching that. Maybe 30-40k realistically. So far my months this year have been 14k, 60k, 87k, 66k.

The 14k month I only played half the month too.

And I enjoy poker way more and get to pick when i work and when I dont and I can take as much vacation as I want. I also enjoy it more than computer science stuff right now.

/edit cause i had a number wrong.

[psyduck]

Yeah there's no comparison at all [img]/images/graemlins/blush.gif[/img]

[psyduck]

Ok you've piqued my curiousity. Questions:

1) how many hours / week playing? per month?
2) how many hours / week studying the game and posting on 2+2?
3) do you look only for good tables and donators, especially at the higher limits?
4) have you tried taking shots at games higher than this, 1K/2K? Do you plan on doing so if (when) your bankroll reaches 1 million?
5) do you have plans to ever try NL or NL tournies?

nh sir...

edit: more questions

Why do you think many players who try to build up like this are unsuccessful? What makes you different from another person who studies the game as hard as you, plays a lot, yet has not had this much success? Is it arrogance, or staying at a level too long (for example, 8-tabling 3/6 instead of taking shots at higher games).

[bicyclekick]

According to my excel spreadsheet I've averaged 3.45 hours per day since march of 04. 24 hours per week...about 100 per month.

I don't ever really sit down and study poker. I'm thinking about it a lot though and do a lot of reading while I'm playing or when I'm procrastinating.

The player pools are pretty small at the higher limits so you learn quickly who you wnat to play versus and who you dont.

No. 300/600 is freaking way high to me. It's 3 times higher than 100/200 and 100/200 is the higher part of what I play. 50/100 is probably my main game although I wont hesitate to play 100/200 if there is a game. It doesn't make me uncomfortable in any way.

3/6 i still get that nervous feeling a little when I play it.

Yeah, I like NL when it comes to live poker. I'm not all that good at it, although I figure my hourly int he $2/$5 blind bellagio game is pretty substantial. I don't like it online at all. I need to see the people and be playing 1 table to be comfortable playing it really. I can beat up bad players really well though... No, I've used a few tourneys just as relaxation and dinking around...but they really aren't my thing. I make too many 'big mistakes' to be a big nl player. I did take 4th in a 130 person limit tourney last year at Canterbury, that was a highlight I should have included.

I think I play more and work harder than most. I've taught a handful of friends and know quite a few other poker players and they just don't stick to it day in and day out. The poker forum is the first thing I look at in the morning and likley the last thing I read before I go to bed.

I think another thing is they get so complacent and just happy to be where they are..like "omfg I'm making $80 per hour playing 3/6, this rules". Sure, it's freaking amazing, don't get me wrong, but they should also be thinking about trying to make it more per hour. Also, many people have real life stuff they need to attend to. Families, other jobs, debts that need to be paid off and they can't really take as many chances. I didn't have any of these things.