I'm some years older than you and made a few million in the 'real world'- whatever that is - very few don't have to suppress their natural tendencies for a career. If you can find something like that consider yourself lucky. That's not the best way to guage whether you should do something or not.

Not familiar with this poster and looked around for some of his posts, his well was from 2008, something in particular I should check out?

As far as whether the guys doing better being that much better, I agree. Someone making 3x what I make is probably not 3x better than me. I don't think its because they just run better than other people, though that does happen in the short term, which in live poker can last years, so I get your point.

Agree. Problem is live poker is slow and guys can look like geniuses for years before realizing they just ran hot for a while.

I expect to have to do it to some extent wherever I go and whatever I do. I'd just prefer that it doesn't bleed over to my entire life. Its possible I just need to work on my compartmentalization to ensure that it doesn't but this type of problem seems to be a common thread with poker and one which some seem to have had success with solving this problem by pursuing a different career.

It's one of his last few posts. To sum it up he basically says live poker is crazy slow, and there is way too much variance.. and being incredibly good at the game doesn't actually ****ing matter at all if you don't win flips/ get coolered all the time-- meaning every single ****ing TAG crusher is crushing because they're running hot-- and these days most tag grinders games aren't all that different-- meaning its just another variance fest of who is going to cooler who, who is going to get the god seat, who is going to stack the fish first etc etc.


What IT66 and HMR don't seem to understand is that poker isn't like any other career. FFS poker isn't even a career. It's just a way to make some money if you play well and run well. You need to realize a few things IT- You go in playing your absolute best poker and you're still going to get your nuts kicked in roughly 35-45% of the time seemingly at random. You have no idea when, or for how long, or for how much the pain is going to last for. Theoretically it could go on forever-- and knowing this makes the pain even worse. If you're lucky, it happens as it should-- roughly 1/3 but if you're not, it could happen repeatedly in row over and over again--- but hey yeah lets just all keep talking about the "long game" in a slow as **** 9 handed live format as if we will ever get to see the long run

Not only do you not make any money on those 35-45% of the time, you LOSE MONEY which you then have to recoup the other 55-65% of the time. There are no guarantees you will make money, or win that money back--- and you have REAL LIFE bearing down on you ("whatever that means" lol). If you don't perform, you don't put food on the table. If you crack mentally-- that means you don't ever win that money back-- at least not as quickly. Which is a **** ton of pressure and pain and stress to have hanging over your head every single day, every single session (and expecting to have a happy, normal filled life on the side).

In order to cope you basically try and shut down the emotional/empathetic part of your brain. You just stop caring about everything-- in order to effectively stop caring about the swings you make in poker. What is so ****ty is that a normal human being cannot possibly flip that on and off like a light switch (i mean you can try but it's super ****ing hard), so what happens is pros just leave it permanently off. The only ones that don't have a problem with it are sociopaths imo and you dont want to be one of those lol.

That's why every single pro HS or not, in every single interview or interaction have a kind of lifeless, dead pan tone/ personality etc. It's because they're so ****ing numb/dumbed down to life in order to cope with the swings in poker. Of course- there are the pros that have golden parachutes that never have worry about money again-- and there are other pros that have never ever had an insanely sick downswing yet-- and of course they are bubbly and happy because they win seemingly every session. and lol you know you are interacting with one of those guys when they go off about a "slow night" where they only got 4 small pocket pairs, pocket kings, and AQ in 3 hours (90 ****ing hands), and complain about it. lol....


^^

at least that was my very brief time in the poker world. It was ages ago so it could be very different. but the fact remains- turning off parts of your natural tendencies in a REAL CAREER is vastly different than doing it in poker as cush has explained.

It's very possible to never reach the long run in tournament poker live, that's for sure. Reaching the long run in live cash game poker is not only possible, but will happen to most who put in reasonable volume.

Well I'll agree that many people under estimate how long it takes to have a meaningful sample size of results, Cushlash and Upswinging are definitely going to far over on it.

Anyone who has done full time hours for a few years has reached the long term sufficiently. If they have a solid winrate over that entire time there is next to no chance they are not a long term winner in the games they play. Could their true winrate be 1 or 2 bb's less than it currently is? Yes. Could it be 5-10bb's less than it really is? Highly improbable - no, it couldn't.

Potentially never reaching the long term ever?? Come on man that's just a joke for anyone puting in decent volume.

this is just fish, results oriented thinking no offense. I don't even think playing 10 years as pro you would be able to realize your true ev/ know your true WR. Youre claiming a few years LOL maybe 80,000 hands of FULL RING NLHE you'll be able to realize your EV/ know your WR and extrapolate that? Youre ****ing nuts man. Yeah you could most definately assume you are a winning or losing player after that--- but ANYTHING can happen in such a small amount of hands-- even against the softest of competition-- and again youre missing the biggest point i'm trying to make..

if there were two exact cushlashes that played over 80,000 hands, or ****it, over 10 years or 350,000 hands... their results are going to be WILDY different. and that simply comes down to the variance invovled (big pots, 3b pot, stacking fish first, game selction etc etc). The guy who is plugging along working hard making 35$ an hour isnt doing that much, or really anything different that the dude who is crushing it for 90$. It's just variance plain and simple. << strictly in the context of FR NLHE

edit: and i will also say- i think its pretty much impossibly/unrealistic/fantasy land for anyone to believe they can win 30-35bb/100 in any live game over a very long period of time 15-20 years of live play- regardless of how soft the game is or not. and especially in the game conditions of NLHE FR in 2017. It's pure garbage/fantasy.

SABR is a stone cold killer. Mpethy bridge is the man when it comes to d-base analysis did a review of SABR's HEM and said it was effectively a wet dream (meaning he has as few leaks as anyone who he has analyzed)

a few weeks back SABR poasted up pretty much what upswinging is talking about with regards to live full ring poker

I was thinking in the 3,000-5,000 hour range so more like 100,000-150,000 hands.

But, whatever it's kind of a stupid argument anyway as in fact it's impossible to ever know true win rate as game conditions are constantly changing.

I'll say this and stick to it. Someone with a win rate of 8-10bbs/hour over 3000-5000 hours is almost certainly a long term winning player in the games they play. I think the chance that player would not be a winner over 1 million hours is less than 1%. As I said their win rate over 1 million hours may be less than 8-10 BB, but I think the chance of it being 0 BBs or - BBs is less than 1%.

Obviously short term variance is a legit thing, most of us know that. Of course many people ignore that when they want to claim they are a crusher based off a short term heater. But a lot of others over hype the variance factor when they want to find a convient excuse for why they were a losing player. Seems like you might be doing a bit of that yourself man.

When you said $35 and $90 I'm not sure if you had $2/$5 or $5/$10 in mind, since 18 BB/hour is pretty absurd I'll assume $5/$10.

You said the only difference between a guy making 3.5 BB/hour and a guy making 9 BB/have is variance. Over the short term of course that is possible, although it isn't the only possible explanation.

But if both guys have a 3,000 hour sample most likely the guy making 9 BB an hour is not only better than the guy making 3.5 BB hour but he is significantly better. Most likely.

Sorry that you busted out of poker, or at least that you didn't last in it. Perhaps you're right and you really did go broke by having a very unlucky downswing early on. Maybe should have had a deeper bankroll??

But the more hours you did put in before you busted out of it, and the more buy ins you had in your bankroll the more likely it is that you went bust because you are either a poor player or because you are a decent player, but you didn't have all the extras needed to be a successful professional. Like the detached emotions stuff we've been discussing for example.

This post?:

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/17...=#post52284242

Do you agree squid face?

80,000 don't seem like much for online players, but I'll take data over nothing. I think having data as much as possible is good. But some people are saying things like you need two million hands or else it doesn't mean xyz. I think that may be too extreme.

If I randomly select any poker room in America and at the end of the year, I look at the top 5 winners and top 5 losers. How many hands do each of these players played during the year? Prob less than 50k hands. But I'm willing to bet the top 5 winners will outperform the top 5 losers the following year. When you can make such inference, the so called limited data is very valid.

DGAF talks about the abyss.

SABR as far as I am concerned is the man. He stomped the sht out of on line poker back in the day, mpethy bridge has confirmed this - and has pounded live poker for a very high w/r over the years.

Upon reflection I am quite sure that I have run exceptionally well over the years. I don't spray chips and when I feel I am not playing well I am not afraid to get up and leave a loser which is obviously important

I have only gotten a glimpse into how bad it is possible to run...and it is quite mind numbing and bleak.

Thanks for the input squid. I remember reading in an Owen Gaines book about the longest losing streak he went through online, and I believe when he translated it to live play, it came out to 85 weeks of breakeven to slightly losing play before he started winning again. I couldn't imagine the mental fortitude required for a live player to face that.

I'll be the first to say i've probably ran way worse than most people that continue to play. Albeit very infrequently and mainly only in the hopes that some day i'm going to get all that ev (and you cant obviously realize it if you stop playing). And in that my perspective is probably a lot darker/more realistic than the happy go luckies who have no clue about variance and continue to make some of the most boneheaded opinions regardless of the cold, hard, obvious truths staring at them in the face (if only they used some common sense / deduction).

You guys are lacking in reading comprehension as well... it's sort of pointless and frustrating to continue replying to you if you can't even understand what you're reading. I never said someone who's played 80k or more hands or whatever isn't a winner-- i'm saying their WR is not even close to what they think it is. Again, i'll say in 2017, it is absolutely bat**** stupid to believe anyone can sustain a 35bb/100 WR in live FRHE at 2-5+, when the majority of every single lineup is yourself+5 other very serious/pros and 3 random fish. It is ignorance and a lack of common sense and experience to believe such crazy bull****.

Realistically a top top sustainable winrate in current game conditions and beyond is probably half that (which is right around the 5-6bb/hr range). But the problem is the poker world, especially the live poker world is shrouded in confirmation/winner bias. What I mean by that is that the only pros who stick around for long periods of time are the ones that play well AND run hot. Or at the very least never run particularly bad. There's no denying it.

Time and time again, lol live pros say **** like "well myself and none of my buddies who have also been around forever have ever run this bad" so they assume its just not possible. But it's really ****ing obvious that the guys who get crushed never stick around to tell their stories because why the hell would they? And even the guys who do ok but not amazing don't stick around because it's stupid to do so. Who the hell would stick around for poker making sub 40k/yr (5-6bb/hr) with all the baggage and bull**** and stress and expenses that comes with being a self employed gambler. SO- again the only pros that stick around are the guys that hot and play well.

^

which again ties back into what i said about cushlash and the guys making 2-3x more than him not being a lick better than him on a technical level and goes back to my first post explaining just how mind numbing and stressful poker can be if you're relying on income made from poker.

Come on. A top winrate is 5-6bb/hr? That's not true. You may not believe me when I give you my win rate live for 1/3 @ 2570hrs. And I there are players with higher win rate than mines. Sure, I may of "ran good" during these 2570 hrs but I'll take my chances next 2570 hrs.

Point is that if you need 2 million hands to determine if a player is a winning player, you are not connecting the dots. If I play with a group of players for 6 months, I know who I would and wouldn't bet my money on.

i don't need to live in San Diego 10 years to know that the weather is great. I don't need to watch Michael Jordan to play 5000 games to know that he was a damn great basketball player. I don't need to see a woman cheating 500 times to know that she's a whore. It's called pattern recognition. And it's a function of intelligence.

Well put, and hitting the bullseye for sure.

Winrate or variance on a given short term samplesize is only one piece of the puzzle to determine who is a winning player or who is good.

I observe different kind of skillsets amongst other things to determine who i would bet my money on and to understand who is a good winning player and who is not. Its much more useful to me to see with my own eyes that a guy doesent stackoff 100 BB pre with JJ against OMC nit, or that he knows how to fold RIO hands as QJ or A10 off from out of pos to a raise-than what kind of money he have been winning the last 2 months.

Sure possible variance is so much worse than the majority of pokerplayers know deep down, but no doubt its taken too far by some these days- wich is a convinient excuse to why they arent winning anymore, to why they is busto or that they may just be a small winner.

If i am gonna take this somewhere near seriously the arguments basically is that all serious poker players are just as good or bad as anyone else. We have the same level of skill and knowledge about the game. We adjust to gameflow and dynamics on the same level. We all have the same control of tilt. We are equally mentally strong or just as weak. We are all on the same level,and variance is the only factor that decides our destiny.

Thats the reality that anyone can tell themself, and argue it is so because variance is so sick so nobody ever knows if they are a true winner longterm, or their true winrate.

I mean, anyone with an above average intelligence can see this for what it is:excuses and nonsense.

I'm glad I don't play wherever it is that there are 6 pros/serious players at every 2/5 table. I didn't even know such a place existed.

Just got back from my annual trip back to Wisconsin for a week at our cabin in the North Woods and some 4th of July festivities. It was a great trip and much needed. That said, I'm also glad to be back in Vegas. Right before I left I got a phone interview for a job at a major strip casino thanks to a friend knowing someone who works there (it really is all about who you know). And wouldn'tcha know it I landed the job. I signed the offer letter yesterday and I'll start on August 28th.

Its been a long time coming and I'm looking forward to something new. Poker will always be there if I need/want it but my time to move on from full time poker is long overdue. I am nervous about trying out a traditional, full-time job, something I have always expressed an aversion to. However, I by no means plan to become a lifer in the corporate world. I simply view it as just the next step of my path. This letter written by Hunter S. Thomson to his friend who asked him for advice on what to do with his life is a great explanation for how I'm thinking about things. I'm going to use it as a way to learn, build some skills, and leverage them to create the life I want. I got a **** ton of value from being a professional poker player and those skills will continue to serve me the rest of my life. Its time to gain some new skills in a different domain.

I suspect it will be a difficult, though rewarding transition. Obviously going back to having a more regimented schedule and working 40+ hours a week is going to be tough. My guess is this will force me to be more efficient with how I use my time. I have a feeling that the result just might mean that although I have less free time, I will use it much better than I currently do. Compartmentalizing will also be naturally easier and I imagine it will be easier to enjoy time off now that the nagging guilt of feeling like I "should be grinding" will be gone.

I'm not delusional though, its going to be a tough transition and there will be plenty of aspects I will not like. Even taking that into the account I am confident that its the right decision. It's not the perfect situation but its a great next step.

One thing I'm looking forward to is playing some poker maybe once or twice a week just for fun and a few extra bucks. I imagine it'll be more fun to play when not playing for a living. I'll be able to play whatever games I want without feeling like I need to maximize profitability. I can leave whenever I want without feeling like I need to keep playing to get in hours.

Overall I'm nervously excited. As with poker, there are advantages and disadvantages to taking a full-time job. I've always said that there would come a time when the disadvantages of poker outweighed the advantages (namely the freedom). I feel like that time has come. This thread will likely become even less active than it has already been lately. I am still happy to continue updating with my musings on life and such if people are interested.

Thanks for reading!

Can't wait to see you in that cocktail outfit bro

congrats my friend. You are way to smart and dynamic to get caught in the gamboolin trap. Very happy for you that you are on to bigger and better things!!

Could you tell us about the nature of the new job?

Personally, I'm interested to know how it pans out and your impressions about it.

lol the things nightmares are made of.

Thanks Squid. You told me the first day I met you to get out and not do this for the rest of my life. That conversation was always in the back of my head. You helped me out a ton when I first got to town, from strategy stuff to overall poker life stuff and keeping my head on straight when things weren't going well. Besides that you were always a fun dude to have at the table despite being a big winner in the game. So thanks man. Hope all is well with you!

My job title is Marketing Analyst. Based on the interviews and conversations with the people I'll be working with I have a vague idea of what that will entail but I'll have a much better idea once I get there and start doing it. I'm sure I'll be able to give more details but I also want to find out what I can and can't share before I give specifics, just in case.

Congratulations. Your above quote pretty much nails it. I think that you will enjoy the regular, predictable money and you will find poker fun and challenging again.

I hope that you will check back in from time to time.

Best of luck !!

good luck cushlash. it probably doesnt feel like it, but the path you're on now is going to turn out to be better than 99.99% of "poker pros" in less than 5 years time. They're going to be right where you left them or worse off.

On another note I played some poker the last couple weeks. Sample size but games have gotten much, much tougher. I have no idea why people continue to play poker for a living. I mean if you're not coolering people Andrew Neeme style every session, then you have to work really hard, think really hard and try to win as many non showdown pots as possible, which frankly is pretty damn exhausting and not very lucrative considering how much variance is involved in those spots.

All the best with your new career.

Do I need to give you a new undertitle.

Say Marketer Extraordinaire.

Thank you, I agree on both counts.

I'm sure I'll post now and again if something post-worthy is on my mind.

Thank you. I actually do feel like its the right move despite seeming like a step backwards on a few levels.

The games are for sure tougher than they used to be. You can still make a living but you have to be willing/able to do way more than just wait for a good hand and try to get paid off.

Thanks! I don't think that's necessary, I'll always be King of the Nits

Bump for any general updates, job, etc. I am sure there's a lot of specifics you can't share, but generally can you say how it's been to make the transition and how you are feeling on this new track?

If not, I totally get it. You don't owe anyone an explanation!