An actual question for buddists

[poker-penguin]

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It depends.

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Do experienced posters on this board have that as a keyboard macro. "Alt shift I D" [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

This wasn't really a "should I go pro?" post. Poker is my only source of income at the moment (my business is very much in startup stage), but I'm not very profesional at it.

But self-examination is always good (especially for testicular cancer, unless you can persuade a hot woman to do it, but I digress, and so will she hopefully.)

Anyway,

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- How good are you? Specifically, I'd rely on hourly rate to judge this. And how likely is it for you to improve this?

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At 2/4 I win 5bb/100 hands (yadda yadda 20K small sample size true winrate 1million hands) but it feels sustainable - which means that 2 or 3bb/100 is probably more like it.

3/6 I have mostly played at non-tracker sites, but I'd say I'm somewhere in the 2BB range.

5/10 I have effectively no sample size (one winning session, but I felt comfortable at the limit, and could see that other players were the fish)

I'd say I'm very likely to improve (I finally bit the bullet and ordered SS2, SSHE, MLHE, TOP, and have HFAP so will be studying first hand, rather than just through 2+2 and random internet articles). Plus I've been constantly improving since I started playing poker, and see no reason to change that.

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- How much would you enjoy putting in worklike hours at the table? Be honest here, because I think a lot of recreational players don't realize how much of a grind it really is.

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I put worklike hours in at the moment, but don't treat it like work (two tables while I check email and write content for our websites). This is why I will probably never be any more than a profitable recreational player. I can't see myself comitting to not doing what I want for work, and having to play poker.

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- What are your financial goals? And I don't really mean: How much you want to accumulate, but what you want to spend it on?


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I have no great dreams of wealth. What I dream of is freedom, and money is very helpful in achieving that. I'm not going to be a slave to money then die rich.

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- What other interests do you have? What are you sacrificing to do this?


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Snowboarding, reading, writing, playing sport, travel, making people laugh. At the moment, I am sacrificing a shitty job in an abbatoir to try for business and poker success.

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I've read posts of players writing about conflicts between poker and other things in their life:

Poker and family: "My wife hates poker."
Poker and work: "Should I quit my job?"
Poker and school: "I'm thinking of dropping out."


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No wife, no long term girlfriend. It's not quite a policy statement, despite what people might think. I'm a pretty private person, so my family don't know (they know I'm starting a business, and that will do nicely as far as I am concerned for them). They wouldn't approve, but they also wouldn't approve if I officially announced I wasn't a big fan of Jesus (the religious guy, the poker guy I like).

I don't have a real job, at the moment I'm travelling and exploiting my "sexy accent". At some point in the future, I might sell out to the man, we'll see.

I'm done with school, have two bachelors degrees (one with first class honours) and have pretty much guaranteed acceptance into my PhD when I find a topic, supervisor, and scholarship.

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It's not easy, because life often throws curveballs, or as Buddhists say, "Life is Suffering," but they also say that moderation is the key.

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If life was easy, it wouldn't be fun.

But yeah, this wasn't supposed to be a "should I go pro?" thread. But, thanks for prompting me to have a bit of a look inwards - and thanks for anyone who read this self-indulgent twaddle, we now return you to your regularly scheduled discussion of Bhuddism.