Utterly embarrassing and honest confessions of a 1 year pro

[TStoneMBD]

Well, 7 days ago was my 1 year anniversay in which I turned pro. I have no regrets about my career choice. I am finally performing as well in poker as I thought I should have for a long time. It's a relief. For quite a few months when I first turned pro, I was barely covering my expenses. My networth was a joke.

As most of you know, I was playing full time low limits at Turning Stone up until the beginning of this year. I studied the mid-high stakes forum close to 30 hours a week for a long time, and finally took a jump into the 10/20 game and progressed into 20/40 with a marginally adaquate roll. I finally decided I was good enough to take a stab at online play after having a bad month playing live. I was skeptical that I could do better online as the games were tougher at similiar limits and I wasn't sure if I would be able to multitable small stakes profitably.

I decided not to dive into high stakes as I didn't want to hit any downswings. I just came off a losing month for the first time and I was understandably stressed out. I bought a UXGA monitor and hopped into 4 tabling 3/6 with a $1000 deposit. I hit a 100BB downswing my first night playing and was almost about to throw my monitor out the window. I decided I'd play out the remaining $400 and put internet poker on hold for a while if I had lost my remaining deposit.

To my chagrin, I suddenly went on a tremendous tear. I recovered my losses and started turning large profits. I quickly bought a second monitor and bumped my game to 8 tables.

I soon made a brag post in small stakes with my fantastic winrate after I had reached a fairly significant sample size. My post may have helped some of the players there but it was more for my benefit as I wanted respect and attention childishly. Truthfully, the respect that I wanted was mainly because I wanted people to respond to my posts, especially from the players who's advice I could count on the most. I also wanted people to start listening to what I had to say, because I knew that I had ideas to contribute to the community that many other people didn't have. For a long time I wanted respect. I was dedicated to become the best and worked hard on my game and my ego started to kick in. I have been saying for almost a year now that "there is no room for ego in poker" and I had fallen victim to my own statement. I'm sorry for that.

I moved to 5/10 and things were great. I had finally reached a level that I had always wished of. For years I was in awe of people playing games like 50/100 and couldn't fathom sitting in a game like that myself. It was kind of a dream of mine. I have now played 50/100 before but now I don't even bother as it's hardly worth my time in a short-term financial scope. I also wouldn't sit in a 50/100 game online as I would probably be the favorite to lose the money and it's probably not even worth my time if I was the favorite unless I was multitabling it, which I certainly am not good enough to do.

Since I have reached a level that I always wanted to, it's pretty fulfilling. It feels good, but my passion for the game is deteriorating. Poker loses its excitement when you've spent every waking hour of a year practicing it. It's no longer a game. It's what I do. That's not really a good thing either. I'm content with my level as a poker player for the time being, which is good for my level of happiness but not good for my development. As a result, my ego is starting to fade as I am finding contentment in life and realizing that despite performing well, maybe I am not as good as I think I am or want to be. There are many players on these forums who are better poker players than I am, and maybe better than I could ever dream to be and they receive less notice than I do because they don't stick their noses out seeking attention. I now have great respect for these posters.

I rarely read strategic posts anymore and hardly spend the time on these forums that I used to. Many would say that this is a good thing, but I don't feel that way. I now usually spend my time on twoplustwo by posting one liners. The one liners usually consist of me correcting people, putting people down, making humorous posts that may be insulting to someone else, or if I'm feeling kind I may just post something strategic. It is posters like the very one that I have become that have irritated me in the past, and I apologize for that. I'm clearing my guilty conscience and I'm going to stop trying to be so brutally honest if my post may offend someone. That is not how I should be returning my appreciation to these forums and that is not how a veteran poster examples what this forum is all about. I have always felt that brutal honesty was important for development, but in many cases it's not and it can be a large deterrent when that honesty is spoken in a negative form. Many of my posts are brutally honest in expense of myself because I feel that I am helping somebody despite making my public image here look bad.

I recently moved out of my crummy place and into a really beautiful apartment nearly 7 hours away. I've been here for a month and don't know anyone around this area. I'm having trouble making friends being indoors all the time and not knowing where I can go to meet people. I'm not old enough to go to bars and don't have a job so my options are limited. I'm probably happier than I've ever been but things are starting to get boring. The thought of success used to keep me going but not so much anymore. I end up sleeping 10-12 hours a day just because I'd have nothing better to do if I woke up earlier. I may be happy, but that is depressing. Building new friendships was never a very enjoyable experience to me. I appreciate deep friendships and have had a few of them in the past, but it takes a long time to develop those friendships. I don't even know how long I will be staying in this location so it may be a while until I can build relationships like that again. I guess I should give it a try though because you never know who you will meet and it isn't healthy to be as socially inactive as I have recently become.

I bought a treadmill last week and have been running a mile every day. It really feels great and I've noticed an immediate progress in my stamina during the run. I've become physically pathetic. It takes me 16 minutes to run a mile. I should really be joining a gym for social and physical purposes, but its embarrassing to be exercising around people when running a mile exhausts you. When my stamina builds up I want to join a tennis/racquetball club. I'm determined to not lose interest in using this treadmill. In an effort to progress my physical health, I'm slowly increasing my required amount of distance to run daily. I'd like to get to a point where I run at least 3 miles a session daily, or sprint a mile in under 7 minutes at least once a day. Obviously I have a long way to go for this to happen. I'm hoping that running becomes my new addiction as I am very much oriented to perfection once I set my mind on something.

There is pride when you become successful at something. It's nice to see yourself accomplishing goals and progressing in life. However, it's hard for me to be proud of myself as a poker player for a long time. So what if I can calculate pot equity? It's all pretty arbitrary. The nice thing about poker is that it has increased my level of understanding on so many other subjects in a way that I will never comprehend. Poker has made me grow as a person. Eventually when I decide to move into a different field in my lifetime, I know that poker will have given me skills and abilities that I would have never possessed had I never dedicated myself to this game.

Maybe it's not just poker that has made me this way. Maybe it is the fact that I was so dedicated to something and was mentally alert at all times. My uncle, a person who I would consider to be very wise at times, has said that once you begin to study something in life, anything, with all your ability, that your brain will operate and open up in ways that it never has before. Maybe he is right.

My content in life is dwindling as my devotion to improving with poker is starting to fade. I don't know how I'm going to find happiness in the longevity of life, but I know it won't be through sitting in my house on my computer all day. I'm a very wishywashy person. My interests in things change all the time. I don't think I could ever be satisfied dedicating myself to one thing my entire life. I'm an explorer and love to learn new things. Playing poker for 30 hours a week could be a very good life for me, but there needs to be something else at the core. Some sort of passion that I can love. I just need to find it.