Playing poker for a living (my experience so far) HELP!

Thought I give you all my experiences of playing poker every day at pp for that last 4 months.

Financially, the results have been great. Would have been greater if I did not give myself a dumb raise and jumped into the 100/200 game earlier in Oct. I had a great month in Sept with 30/60 and 50/100, so I decided to give the 100/200 a shot.

In a 48 hours, I got my face kicked in and lost $30k in that game. Stupid me. However I did manage to pick myself up, went back to the 30/60 game, and now only down -$10k for oct. I still have a few days left, so hopefully I'll be even or + a few thousand.

What have I learned these past four months? That it is incredibly hard playing poker every day. I don't know how anyone could do this for years. Its boring. The emotional highs and lows can be overwhelming at times. Not only when I lose, but when I win.

Now it's commons for me to have dreams about poker hands 4 to 5 nights a week. Its a blessing when I can sleep and not dream about poker.

I only like the money, not the game itself. The freedom to play whenver I want is nice. However, I think about playing all the time. And when I'm not playing, i'm reading about poker to better my game. But I hate playing the game, I just like winning!

How do you deal with all the negative aspects of playing full time? HELP!

[MoDOH]

chill...

[Subfallen]

Dude. You've been playing poker for 4 months and are taking shots at 100/200. What the hell?

[ggbman]

I dont play full time, but i log enough hands to be able to relate to about everything in your OP. Theres a few things here i would like to point out.

1.) You can make a good living with less emotional stress at the 30-60 games. It can be worth it to sacrifice a little EV to make poker stress you out less. The time you are not playing should be your time, poker should not monopolize your thoughts.
2.) You don't sound like you want to do this forever. This is fine! But make sure you know what you are going to do when you dont make poker your primary occupation. You don't mention your age/education, but be sure you have options outside of poker.
3.) Lastly, dont let results influence you so much. Sometimes you take chances and they dont work. If you end up in the negative for October, it doesn't matter. If you play winning poker, you will have a losing month here and there and make eons the rest of the time. Don't get to stressed out over it.

Good luck!

Gabe

[obi---one]

If you want to play poker professionally you have to love poker. If you haven't been playing for a long time and already find the game boring, you must stop. You will be unhappy. You don't want to fall into the money pit, where you feel like you have to play because you need the money. Isn't that a reason a lot of people decide to play poker, to avoid doing something they dislike for the money?

[JohnnyHumongous]

Your experiences and opinions regarding poker match my own more or less exactly. (Except for the 100/200 part). That's why I'm so happy I took a terrific job that pays a lot less than I could make grinding on Party all day long as a full-time pro.

[baronzeus]

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Dude. You've been playing poker for 4 months and are taking shots at 100/200. What the hell?

[/ QUOTE ]


he's been playing poker for a long time before that Live. so that shouldn't be a problem.

[bobbyi]

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That it is incredibly hard playing poker every day. I don't know how anyone could do this for years. Its boring.

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This is not unique to poker. The large majority of jobs in this world are things that are pretty boring to do everyday for years.

[brick]

It sounds to me like you will not be happy doing this in the long term. My advice would be to do it a while to make some $$$ which would give you the flexibility to pursue something that you're more passionate about.