hey folks my name is Hank, 30+ years old Asian who had the passion of poker.

i had been playing poker especially low limit holdem for over 10 years, never put any real effort to improve my game, i had over 30+ poker book either on my bookshelf or Iphone but never finish reading any of them. half of the books i only finished reading like 1/3 and the rest may be 1/2.
my biggest problem is gambling on the pit games. especially roulette. i thought i found a system that can beat the electronic roulette, but reality is i lost a lot of money playing those game.

last year i was totally broke, i always had a negative bank balance and i couldn't lie to my wife any more for my gambling problem, i open every thing to her, and she help me a lot, she introduce Zen and meditation to me and told me just keep doing it, stop going to casino, stop playing poker, get any work that can at least pay the bill and bring the bank balance to positive. i did exactly what she said and my gambling problem slowly go away.

i couldn't go back to my previous profession because i moved to a town that very close to AC but far from any city, i was in fashion industry and i don't think i could find any work nearby except i move back to NY, i don't want to move back so i became a uber driver, i love driving and love meet different people so this job work for me. its a tough job though, its like a grind, most trip are 3-4 dollar so you have to work over 10 hours a day to make over 100 dollar consistently. its tough for me at the beginning but now i get used to it.

i never doubt my talent on poker especially live poker that i can read people, i just sick of the live 1/2 grind especially at AC, that you basically sit with bunch of old nit that fold whole day for the pure nut. may be some time u can find some drink fish at the weekend night, besides that, i really don't see any action at the 1/2 table. that tilt me a lot and i just feel so bored and play pit game instead. i think this is my biggest leak at the game. 2/5 game has much more action but i never had enough roll for that. so...

2017 was a good year for me. i am gambling free, i continue grinding uber, i bring my bank account to positive and have money saved up at my wife's bank account for living expense. and for my passion, i start playing some poker here and there again. i live in south jersey but i drive uber at Philly, there's more demand over there so i will stay in philly, sleep in my car, and grind uber 10+ hours per day, and i will put aside like 100-200 just enough 1 buy in to play some 1/2 or small buy in tournament, and i start winning again the past couple month, the poker winning was enough to convince my wife that i can be a winning player if i put effort on it, i sign up Upswing poker as my training site and started putting hours to read through all of their material, i started deposit small in to wsop and 888 and play tons of small tournament to had those HH for finding some of my own leak. i start reading all those poker book that i brought while i waiting for passenger at the airport and really think through all the basic that i overlook. and i got a feeling that my game been improved a lot the past couple month.

my plan and goal for 2017 is continuously practice Zen and yoga, continuously grinding uber for a bank roll that i am able to play 1/2 comfortably. continuously putting effort to study the game of poker and improve my game. and the most important of all, quit gambling for good.
i will updated this thread regularly.

again my name is Hank.
wsop screen name: plocp
888 screen name: plocp2000

hope i could grind enough roll from uber by the end of the year. my goal is 4000 for 1/2 bank roll.

This Memorial Day weekend must be very busy for uber down the jersey shore, I am gonna grind as hard as I can

My situation is getting better but still not good, I have high CC debt plus the back tax I own IRS due to gambling, I hit many jackpot on roulette 2015 but lost them all, the statement only show winning but not the lost, so I own like 10k back taxes which is huge for my current situation, anyway, I think I can overcome this if I don't make the most expensive mistake again" gambling"


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Sorry to burst the bubble but gambling problems don't go away it's like drugs, you do it again and can easily get hooked. And essentially poker is gambling to a degree.

Maybe you should pay off all your debt before even considering gambling, probably a very wise move

And not sure if trolling.

gl

Bro thx for your advice, that's excactly what I need to do for now, stop gambling which included poker as well because I just don't have the bank roll for that for now

I grinded uber very hard last night down the shore, was very busy, passengers going crazy after drinking as well, I had daughter fighting father in my car and the father just slam my door and walk off. I have a girl got hurt by her boyfriend and keep crying during the trips, I had bunch of crazy college go crazy in my car that I almost can not concentrate on driving.

Anyway I made so good money for 15 hours of grind



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Another good day for uber grind due to the long weekend holiday, its summer time so I expect the business will be good at the beach, hopefully I can pay off my debt and grind enough bankroll again this summer


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Any other good day for uber, net 500 again Sunday which bring my total for the holiday weekend little over 1.5k, can't complain.
Heading NY today meeting my cousin, he is visiting east coast. Gonna show him around for couple days and come back and grind hard again


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Wife gave me 100, plus I saved up 100, decided to buy in 1/2 with 200 borgata, let's grind it up!!


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Why do you need poker? You have a decent job that you enjoy and, it seems, a VERY chill/understanding wife. You say you have a "passion for poker", but it seems you just have a passion for gambling. If you really had an intellectual interest in poker (which is what you need to succeed) I feel confident you would have taken more steps in the past ten years to improve your game instead of fumbling around at live 1/2. But even so, if you were to put in the time to improve, what's the end goal? I doubt you can even make as much money playing ****ty 2/5 at AC (we struggled to get a 1k table going when I was there in December for a tourney series) than you can driving for Uber. Aside from that, do you enjoy being in a casino 40 hours/week? What is your plan to avoid the inevitable tilt and boredom you will experience? How is realistic to tell yourself you're going to just avoid the pit games and everything will be fine? Do you play online at all or enjoy playing online? I don't really get what the "dream" is, especially since your current job has relative freedom and flexibility, which are two of the intangible work characteristics that cause people to try to make a living playing poker.

My best advice would be to just continue what you're doing as far as the Uber grind, treat poker as a hobby you enjoy when you have the time/money, and don't take your wife for granted. In the near term, don't borrow money from other people to play with, man. Just don't do that.

Driving uber and grinding poker is different thing, yes uber can give you freedom and food on the table, but if you drive full time and try to make consistent money to pay bill every month, you need to drive average 12+ every day, also too much driving will damage your health in the long run, plus driving uber is not a skill job, for a career I would rather do something with skill like plumber or similar job, but uber just so easy got replaced and they event developing self driving car to replace all of our uber driver.
I totally agree with you that I wasted so much time on gambling but not used those time to improve my game to move up, of course if I only grinding 1/2 for living that will be very tough and bored, but even that, after 10 year playing poker I do have the experience and enough hands. All I need is strengthen my fundermantal and save up a reasonable bankroll and I am ready to go, of course first of all the most important thing is I need to quit gambling.

Yesterday I was so lucky that I just join the table and my first hand in the BB look down AA, CO raise 15, BTN call and I repop to 50, OR fold, BTN call, flop Ad2c3c, I bet 50, he raise to 100, I call, turn 2, I check and he put me all in, I call and double up, lol, so after 3 hour of play I was up 300



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Play another session of borgata 1/2 today, brought in 200, been playing very good and solid poker, I think I play my A game today, up 200 playing 3 hours, not bad of run again


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Just saw this article, very inspiring
‪ https://www.pokernews.com/news/2017/...094.htm‬


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Friday midnight sessions went well again, in for 200, out 500 for 300 profit, much better action than day time, played from 12:00am -4:50am, most of my opp are drunk and spew chips away.
I am going to borgata now for another 1/2 session, haven't drive any uber for a week now, I let my wife keep most of my profit and I just keep 2 buy in on me in case I went on tilt that will spew my stack away like before


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Playing at borgata 1/2 sometime could be watching the paint dry, it test my patient limit, lol, hours and hours of no action but I still folding and waiting for my spot, happy grinding


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Finally come to end of my hot steak and I bust my 2 buy in, part due to bad luck, part due to bad play plus little tilted, anyway I did gave 700 of my winning to my wife so it still a win, if I keep those winning on me like before, I will bust those pretty quickly as well.

So my plan is if I bust the 2 buy in, I will go back to grind uber and go back to spend time studying the game, that's what I am gonna do next week. Actually past couple month I been doing the same thing and it's works out great for me. My overall poker result still positive for past couple month and I play zero house game, I am confident if I continue what I am doing now, my finance situation will get better and the most important my poker game will get better as well.

I am planning to play some of the borgata mid June deep stack tournament series, since a lot pro already went to vegas for the WSOP, so I expect the field will be softer. I gonna save up for that and since the buy in for those toury are range 120-320, so I have no pressure save couple buy in on that

I am actually a more of a tournament player than cash game player, past couple year I been grinding more tournament than cash game, and I had some good result on local tournament in AC, been chopping a lot of small daily tournament, I also been playing the bigger tournament like borgata winter open, spring open and deep stack as well. I chased couple of the big field toury like 3k plus entry, the best result was I got to 60 for 2.8k twice from those open, never ran very deep like FT, just don't have those luck yet. I don't play much online tournament but my result was not bad, got couple 1st on the very small tournament and got 2rd and 3rd on the bigger one. So overall my tournament result was not that bad, but the variance of tournament just too high and I have gambling problem so I didn't last long. I later focus more on some 1/2 cash game because the variance are much smaller, but my plan is I will continue playing some of the small buyin tournament and try to get better on it


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6/5/17 Monday

Stay home to take care of something before heading to Philadelphia for grinding uber, my plan is playing first 3 event of next week borgata deep stake, total will cost 450, I have 6 day left to grind that much money for the buy in, I am confident I can meet my goal here, especially the weekend I can easily grind enough near jersey shore.
Since most reg and pro already head to vegas and I expecting the field will be softer, I am very confident that I can at least cash one of those event, if I did, I will continue playing the later bigger buy in of the event and let see what happen, if I dont cash anything, I will go back to grinding uber, so this will be my plan for June


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6/16 Tuesday

Yesterday I got flat tire, went to shop and found out my rear break was down to 10%, so total cost me 300 plus oil change, and that was that

Also sign up for pokergo yesterday and love it, watched most of the day2 one drop and watch all live final table last night rooting for Doug Polk, of course he breast everything and took down the title and 3.6M, will definatly sign up his upswing tournament later which will cost 700 dollar(already had his LAB cost 50 a month which I love it, best investment ever)

Today I will go Philadelphia grinding hard for my next weeks buy in, feel excited


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Just got the new order form my long time customer, they place order once a while so even I can't really relay on this for stable income but it's really sweet when you know that the cost of this order it's only around 1k and the rest will be your profit, it really helps you some time when you need these extra money, actually for a quite long time when I had the gambling problem, I been using the money that I got from these order to support paying bill and out food on the table, nowadays not only I am gambling free and I am actually make enough to pay bill and food from uber and a little poker income




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6/17 Wednesday

Got up early in philly and start grinding uber, online about 8 hours and did couple air port run, took a nap the noon time and finished the day at 6pm, now sitting at Starbucks reading some poker book and watching some pokergo on demand vid.
Did total around 120ish and minus gas and food, pocket around 100, not bad, very relax, so I am about 400 away from my goal this week, I think it's pretty easy to achieve



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6/8 Thursday



Continue grinding uber in Philly, sleep in my car, woke up every day 6am and take people to work, taking a break in Starbucks and use their free wifi watch some of the latest pokergo vid, gonna prepare well for next weeks deep stack tournament


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6/9 Friday

So yesterday was very slow for uber grind in the city, I was online 8 hour for little over a hundred, minus gas and food I got around 80 in pocket, well I do know you won't get much on the weekdays but you can double your income over the weekend especially I will go back to the shore, it's pretty much like grinding poker, slow on weekdays and action on weekends, so I am still around 350 away from my goal for this week, I am pretty confident I can make it by driving Friday and Saturday at the shore. On very good thing happen yesterday though, I pass by Suger house casino and figure I need to use restroom, so I park and use their restroom, many times before I will lost all my earning there and come out empty, not this time, I had a goal in mind and I need to keep the promise, not gonna lose my bullet for next week tournament, very proud of myself



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6/10 Friday

So I back home, back to the jersey shore baby, much more uber action at the shore Friday night, I meet my money goal for today which is a little over 200. So I almost meet my money goal for this week which is 500, now I am sitting with 400, one more Sat night I will be set, gonna take Sunday off, take a rest, play tons of small tournaments online, get myself ready for next weeks deep stack series








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6/12 Monday

So I met my money goal last week, took Sunday off just enjoy the sunshine at the beach. Played couple small tournaments online yesterday and felt a little rusty but again I got my poker instincts back to normal. I am meditating right now and feel I am ready for the deep stack series grind, felt really excited, I have no expectations on money goal, just try to enjoy my game, if I am able to cash anything that will nice

Last week uber total


Sunday at the beach


This week borgata deep stack series schedule




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Confession

So I am sitting inside my car at borgata parking garage, typing this confession. I lost 500 today, the hard earn money I grind last week, I totally hate myself right now, well, if I lost all to poker, I will not feel bad or guilty at all, but again I lost most of it to the devils game, the machine that I thought I figure it out.

I should be shameful to open all this here, it I have to do it, I was so afraid to open or face my own problem, I always try to just hide or forget about it, not this time, what ever mistake that I made, I write it down and face it like a man





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You should really just stop going to the casino until you can stay away from Roulette.. You
will likely end up ruining your life..

Thx mate, my gambling problem will itch me every time I go to casino, especially borgata because in my subconscious mind I have those electric roulette figure out, I had some big win before but never keep track of the big lost

I pull out 200 more from bank and played one tournament today, ran deep but bust before money, love the way I played, obviously no fear of bust out, but some spot I figure I took some higher variance line which every time I put my chips in I was behind, so that was that.

Guess I will back to my uber grind, my next plan is stick to my original plan for this thread, stay out of casino game and grind enough BR(4K) for 1/2


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