Putting the Dream on Hold
When I first started this blog a little over a year ago, visions of TP/MM danced constantly in my head. I thought it would be relatively easy for me to take over the poker world. I figured that moving up in stakes would just be a matter of logging a few thousand hands at each level, then jumping up. I set aggressive goals for myself and I came pretty far in a relatively short period of time. However, I've come to realize that if I ever am a pro poker player it will likely be a long time from now. Even if somebody handed me the bankroll to play professionally tomorrow, I'm not sure I'd be ready to handle it mentally. I've been in a pretty bad downswing this month and I haven't had things really go my way in a couple of months. Those things have caused me to start re-evaluating my goals and questioning my game. I've come to the conclusion that I don't think I would even enjoy a career as an online grinder even if I could get there. Maybe I could play live for a living, but I kind of doubt that too.
My current six months at 2/4 6-max goal has been de-railed due to the bankroll hit that my current downswing has put on me. I no longer have enough in my bankroll to where I really feel comfortable in those games, so I'm dropping all the way down. I'm going to reduce my overall bankroll to about $1200 and put the rest in my savings account. If I did go broke on that $1200, I'd probably re-load some from the savings account, but I'm no longer planning to consider that money part of my poker roll. I shouldn't go broke either because my regular cash games are now going to become .5/1 limit hold'em (I'm going to start trying to play a mix of 6-max and full-ring I think), .25/.50 NL (occasionally), and $10-$25 tournaments and SnGs. I may also play a little 1/2 HORSE on Stars and some low-limit Stud variations on FullTilt.
I'm reading Todd Brunson's Stud Hi/Lo section of Super/System right now and I'm really liking it. My next Super/System section will be O8 and hopefully I can get some good info out of that. I also just got done re-reading SSHE; though I don't feel like it's done me much good the way I've been taking it up the ass in LHE lately. I think next on the poker book agenda may be a re-read of HOH1 (if I can ever get it back from my friend), of course all of that reading will be just bits and pieces in my spare time.
For now, I'm putting the TP/MM dream on hold. I'm going to start approachign poker more as a recreational thing and a hobby. It's a hobby that I've made several thousands dollars at in the last year or so and that's a plus. My hourly rate may not be good, but that's not that big of a deal, it's a hobby, not a job and my hourly rate playing video games, watching movies or reading novels is exactly $0/hr. If I make $1/hr playing poker I'm going to come out ahead on my main hobby. Ultimately I'd still like to giving playing professionally a shot someday (maybe after I retire or something); I'd like to get in some high buy-in tournaments or higher stakes live games. In fact, I plan to start playing the $10/$20 game at the Argosy pretty soon. My live roll is pretty short, but I'll probably take a shot the next time I go to the casino and try to get it up to 50BB. That's all I plan to keep in my live roll for a while, because I'm not playing professionally and it won't be the end of the world if I lose that money. I can always get my hand $150 and go play 3/6 or something. I've got a little better than 50BB for 6/12 right now and the plan is to keep at least half of my wins in the bankroll to pad it for the inevitable downswings, but I'm willing to take shots on shorter money than that to try to get in the 10/20 game. I'm pretty sure the 10/20 game was a better game than 6/12 the last time I was there, so there's no reason not to give it a shot.
Anyway, that's the plan for now. I'm officially a recreational player. Sure, I'm a winning one and I'll probably still take money out of my BR from time to time, but I'm no longer going to approach the game as a means to make money (as I had been the past couple of months). Let's see where that takes me.
My current six months at 2/4 6-max goal has been de-railed due to the bankroll hit that my current downswing has put on me. I no longer have enough in my bankroll to where I really feel comfortable in those games, so I'm dropping all the way down. I'm going to reduce my overall bankroll to about $1200 and put the rest in my savings account. If I did go broke on that $1200, I'd probably re-load some from the savings account, but I'm no longer planning to consider that money part of my poker roll. I shouldn't go broke either because my regular cash games are now going to become .5/1 limit hold'em (I'm going to start trying to play a mix of 6-max and full-ring I think), .25/.50 NL (occasionally), and $10-$25 tournaments and SnGs. I may also play a little 1/2 HORSE on Stars and some low-limit Stud variations on FullTilt.
I'm reading Todd Brunson's Stud Hi/Lo section of Super/System right now and I'm really liking it. My next Super/System section will be O8 and hopefully I can get some good info out of that. I also just got done re-reading SSHE; though I don't feel like it's done me much good the way I've been taking it up the ass in LHE lately. I think next on the poker book agenda may be a re-read of HOH1 (if I can ever get it back from my friend), of course all of that reading will be just bits and pieces in my spare time.
For now, I'm putting the TP/MM dream on hold. I'm going to start approachign poker more as a recreational thing and a hobby. It's a hobby that I've made several thousands dollars at in the last year or so and that's a plus. My hourly rate may not be good, but that's not that big of a deal, it's a hobby, not a job and my hourly rate playing video games, watching movies or reading novels is exactly $0/hr. If I make $1/hr playing poker I'm going to come out ahead on my main hobby. Ultimately I'd still like to giving playing professionally a shot someday (maybe after I retire or something); I'd like to get in some high buy-in tournaments or higher stakes live games. In fact, I plan to start playing the $10/$20 game at the Argosy pretty soon. My live roll is pretty short, but I'll probably take a shot the next time I go to the casino and try to get it up to 50BB. That's all I plan to keep in my live roll for a while, because I'm not playing professionally and it won't be the end of the world if I lose that money. I can always get my hand $150 and go play 3/6 or something. I've got a little better than 50BB for 6/12 right now and the plan is to keep at least half of my wins in the bankroll to pad it for the inevitable downswings, but I'm willing to take shots on shorter money than that to try to get in the 10/20 game. I'm pretty sure the 10/20 game was a better game than 6/12 the last time I was there, so there's no reason not to give it a shot.
Anyway, that's the plan for now. I'm officially a recreational player. Sure, I'm a winning one and I'll probably still take money out of my BR from time to time, but I'm no longer going to approach the game as a means to make money (as I had been the past couple of months). Let's see where that takes me.
posted by TheCinciKid @ 5:41 AM
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