1 Year Anniversary of Online Poker Career

[bball904]

I am writing this mainly for therapeutic reasons, but hopefully it will give many readers another perspective of trying to play this game for a living. Many people claim that one major drawback to being a professional gambler is that you don't serve any positive purpose. I somewhat agree with that, and hope this post will provide some contribution to others.

Yes, it has been a full year of not going to work and playing poker for a living. It has been several months since I've posted on 2+2, but most all of my posts have been in the STT forum and playing party sng's has been the primary source of my play.

First of all, some background information: I am not the typical college kid that decided to play poker and live cheaply instead of going to school or finding a job. I'm 36 years old and left a 6 figure salary because I couldn't take any more of the corporate bull sh!t anymore. Did I think I was going to replace that income level playing poker? No, I honestly didn't, but I felt I could average $1,000 a week at the time which to me would be sufficient income to accomodate the lifestyle change that being my own boss would provide.

Now, for the results:

Month Hours Profit $ / hr
Aug 192 $4,855.85 $25.29
Sep 175 $2,281.67 $13.04
Oct 115 $1,263.83 $10.99
Nov 223.5 $3,718.23 $16.64
Dec 163 $60.03 $0.37
Jan 148.5 $6,088.37 $41.00
Feb 123.5 $4,444.63 $35.99
Mar 114 $2,772.44 $24.32
Apr 87.5 $976.62 $11.16
May 84 $737.79 $8.78
June 116 $658.05 $5.67
July 101 $(949.68) $(9.40)

Total 1,643 $26,907.83 $16.38

For the first three months, probably 90% of my play was limit ring games at various sites inlcuding Stars, UB, Absolute, and Party. I played mostly 3/6 and some 5/10. My results were fairly good but not quite in line with my $1000 a week goal. I did get married in mid October which kept me off the tables for a couple of weeks.

It was on Nov 1 that I committed myself to the 1 table sng's at Party. Frankly, the ring games had gotten too boring to be playing long sessions as I had been doing. When I started playing the sng's, I loved the fact each tourney was over in less than an hour and it was a new challenge. I had a good month in November, but ran very very cold in December. I really attribute the bad numbers in December to variance.

In early January, I finally got a 20" LCD and moved from 2 tabling to 4 tabling. I ran extremely well for close to 3 months. However, sometime in late March, there was a turning point that likely will turn out to be the reason my poker career will not last. I simply lost my passion for the game that I had had for the prior several years. I no longer got up in the morning anxious to open up some tables. The bad beats and lost coin flips started to become annoying instead of inspiring. It had gotten to where I felt that I need to force myself to play instead of constantly wanting to play. I no longer had my web browser constantly surfing the 2+2 boards.

The results speak for themselves. Not only are my hours way down, but I know that my play has suffered as well. I had one stretch in April where I completely lost my aggressiveness for several weeks and was playing very weak tight. At other times I knowingly am playing overly aggressively at the wrong times.

In terms of ROI: I've played almost exclusively $55 sng's. From Nov 1 to Mar 31, I played 1619 55's with a 17.4% ROI for $15,440. From April 1 to June 30 I played 760 55's with a 3.5% ROI for $1,450 and in July I played 247 55's with a -6.9% ROI for -$935.

So, what is the bottom line? On one hand, making $27k and $16+ per hour at home, on my own time, going to the gym or the golf course whenever I want, is a much improved lifestyle to selling yourself as a whore in the corporate world. However, the real story is that playing poker for a living truly does fit the adage... it's a tough way to make an easy living!

Hopefully my 2 year report will be much better.