1 Year Anniversary of Online Poker Career

[iceman5]

I appreciate your candor as well. Normally nobody posts things like this unless they are ripping up the tables. Most people lose at poker and , of course you dont hear from them on forums like this.

Having said that, I feel like I have to say this:

Its very possible that you are just not that good at poker. Your ROI%'s are not good at all. Your hourly rate is not good at all. Its hard for me to believe that someone would leave a 6 figure salaried job without being much much better at poker than this and without having long term success at a very high win rate.

I understand that you werent happy with your job, but the percentage of people in this country making 6 figure incomes isnt that high and people making 1/3 of this are just as unhappy at work on avg.

Again, thanks for your honesty. Your post will help alot of people.

[shant]

I think you should've had a monitor that could hold more than 2 tables before you quit a 6-figure salary career to play poker professionally.

[bball904]

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Its very possible that you are just not that good at poker. Your ROI%'s are not good at all.

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I beg to differ with you there. Discounting the last few months, a 17% ROI in the 55's represents a good to very good player. That is how I would rate myself.

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Its hard for me to believe that someone would leave a 6 figure salaried job without being much much better at poker than this and without having long term success at a very high win rate.

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I was in a position where the company was downsizing and my relationship with my boss was good enough that I had the option of taking the 6 month severance package or keeping the job. Also, I was about to get married and the wife was behind me all the way and very importantly there to cover my health benefits.

Also, I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that I could go and find a job for at least 70-80k without any difficulty at all.

That said, am I happy with 27k. Absolutely not, but I'll take another 27k this year so long as that means I don't have to scream at the top of my lungs at a bunch of retards in a conference room ever again.

[kitaristi0]

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To cope with the boredom, you should learn other types of poker games and formats.

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I think this might help. I'm not saying you should start playing razz full time, but it sounds to me like you're burned out, and a change of pace may help.

[VayaConDios]

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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.

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You're not even making enough to pay for your imminent divorce.

[Bonafone]

Nice post, but when calculating your Roi you can't just ignore your bad streaks. You do not have a 17% roi at the 50's.

[iceman5]

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Its very possible that you are just not that good at poker. Your ROI%'s are not good at all.

[/ QUOTE ]

I beg to differ with you there. Discounting the last few months, a 17% ROI in the 55's represents a good to very good player. That is how I would rate myself.

[ QUOTE ]
Its hard for me to believe that someone would leave a 6 figure salaried job without being much much better at poker than this and without having long term success at a very high win rate.

[/ QUOTE ]

I was in a position where the company was downsizing and my relationship with my boss was good enough that I had the option of taking the 6 month severance package or keeping the job. Also, I was about to get married and the wife was behind me all the way and very importantly there to cover my health benefits.

Also, I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that I could go and find a job for at least 70-80k without any difficulty at all.

That said, am I happy with 27k. Absolutely not, but I'll take another 27k this year so long as that means I don't have to scream at the top of my lungs at a bunch of retards in a conference room ever again.

[/ QUOTE ]

You cant just not count your bad months. I guess you could eliminate the best and worst month and calculate from there if you wanted to.....but even if you only count your good months and call it 17%, that still not good at all in my opinion.

I used to play nothing but SNGs a long time ago.

Admittedly, I never played the $55s, but when I was playing the $20s and $30s my ROI was around 40-45%. Maybe my ROI wouldve dropped that low if I had played the $55s, but if it did, I wouldnt play them. Thats a horrible risk/reward ratio.

Besides, there is so much more money in NL cash games that I havent played SNGs in 2 years.

[xxx]

Some of the posters are negative, but your results actually seem pretty good to me.

You switched careers, and managed to make (close) to the average salary in the US in your first year. You naturally expect to do even better next year. You survived the entire year, and showed a decent profit to boot.

Just my opinion.

[GrannyMae]

fantastic post

GL in year 2 !

[icetonez]

I happen to know Bball is an excellent sng player. Why should he count the months in which his heart wasn't in it?

Iceman - 45% roi? Give me a break.