Quote:
Originally Posted by holmfries
What is the biggest difference between being a recreational player and a pro? Liking the game more or less at this point?
Greatest all time heater? Most crushing single hand?
Recreational players can quit (or not even play) when they don't feel their best or want to lock up a win or avoid a big loss. Full time pros can't afford that luxury without risking putting up a 1200 hour 2010 (which is basically what I did).
I definitely enjoy the game less now than I did in the months leading up to my "shot", but that is almost by definition. I had to be super duper excited about poker back then, right?
At Ocean's in 2009 or so I was in town for just two nights and won 9.5 racks in the 40/80 game in 11 hours of play. At the time I wasn't very comfortable at all playing so high, but when all the fish at my table moved over to the new game I felt I had no choice. This was also the day I met Frond. Despite those 9.5 racks I am a large lifetime loser at 40/80. In my first 700+ hours of live 20/40 I ran at about $55/hour. That was also awesome; when you're winning that much you really just never ever lose. Like every single day you come up and it's like "hi honey how many racks did you win today oh just one what went wrong?"
During one of my previous failed 40/80 shots when I chased the then legendary Tom B when he moved up from 20 to 40 for the day the following hand roughly occurred. Remember I'm taking a shot and kind of scared:
Dealer pitches me my first card. It is a 7, and everyone finds out because it hits my knuckle and flips over. No big deal, I get two new cards, which happen to be a pair of queens. I don't remember the intermediary steps by which we arrived at showdown, other than to say that I did count the pot and there were more than 2000 American dollars in it when Tom B check/raised the river with the wheel to crack my top set.