Hey all, after years of lurking around 2+2 frequenting the forums making an occasional post here and there, I finally decide to make my own thread. I enjoy writing so it's a good excuse to update regularly. Aiming to keep myself accountable with my poker & life goals ITT while looking to making it an enjoyable read

Background

I'm 23 years old living in the official 2nd best city in the world Edinburgh! http://www.bestmoov.com/edinburgh-2n...ce-world-live/

It is a rather nice city despite locals moaning about the weather and the lacks of activities to do. Although in August we're flooded with tourists jam packing into our city with all the events and shows the annual Fringe festival brings, it does tend to be quieter in other times of the year but I like it.

Poker wise it's pretty great, we have 2 main casinos where you'll find nightly action, one at the edge of the city and one right in the centre. Daily tournaments run and most nights you'll get a couple tables of £1/£1 and the occasional 1/2 1/3 and 2/5. The poker community here is quite close nit, most folk know each other and if you fancy setting up a bigger cash game then you can organise through our city's facebook page.

About myself I've been playing poker for around 9 years now, first starting on Zynga poker when I was 14. Ran that $10,000 starting roll all the way up to $30 million. Oh yeah baby, poker is ez sauce. Then tried my hand at real online cash games on pokerstars using my mother's debit card (with her permission of course). My initial deposit didn't last, with no knowledge of bankroll management, game selection or any kind of proper strategy I went busto pretty quickly. Nae good is what you'd say to that here in Scotland. I imagine nae good is what you'd say elsewhere in the world too.

I may have lost, but something inside of me lit. The thought of playing a game and be able to win real money was an incredible realization and my imagination ran wild. You can make it big. More accurately, you can make it big if you're good enough. Being a long term gamer I was sure this was another game I could beat. And potentially, this could be the only game I needed to beat if I wanted to beat the game of life.

Not everything has went according to plan since then though. There were times in the past I have lacked commitment or wasn't driven enough to see out the goal. Many times I have questioned myself if this was what I truly wanted or if I should ultimately choose a different path to go down. This game is hard man, but it's a game I love. To this day, I feel grateful I have the opportunity to able to making a living from poker. So many people busting their asses off day in day out doing a job they're not passionate for or appreciated in just to make ends meet while we sit about choosing the hours we want to clicks buttons on a screen. Above all else, if you're a pro and you're on a downswing or things ain't going great, you can always appreciate that.

I may write about some challenges and obstacles I have faced along my way on "making it" further on in this thread so please read on

The Game

I've been currently grinding spin & go's for the past year and a half although volume has been very erratic with one of my failings is a lack of consistent routine. When I want to, I can put in big hours with good win rate to show for it but more often than not I get distracted with life stuff. One of the purposes of starting this thread was to keep myself accountable for the volume goals I have.

This is a recent graph I have at the 15s http://imgur.com/a/Xkc8a

Unfortunately real win rate didn't meet Ev (That's poker folks) but I'm determined to keep going. Not gonna lie, sometimes spins is the biggest bs game in the world what with all the prize variance and the short stack swings. As of right now it's still my most profitable game so I will continue to grind it for the foreseeable future. I recently took out a chunk to pay for my family's holiday abroad so have had to move down to the 7s but I don't expect to stay there very long

Would love to learn to play some other variants in particular cash games but gonna focus on building a very solid br before we deviate trying other games.

The Dream

What is the dream? Why, the dream of "making it" of course! Making it in poker is an ever ascending goal, as in it has no real finish line. Once you cross one line then another will appear a little further and when you cross that, another. What your own goal is dependent on your current position and aspirations. One of my first goals was to be able to support myself financially through poker. I've long achieved that although I haven't any big scores to my name (yet) I'm able to pay the bills and get by just fine.

This time though, my goal is to make it big in the poker world. Not just making it there but staying there as we all know all it takes is just a turn of a card to sending you plummeting down back to the salt mines. This will be the end goal for me in poker, call it my Nirvana if you will. All other poker goals will just be stepping stones to reaching this distant promised land of mine. I'm under no illusions that this is some simple feat as many have tried and failed. Though I say to you, shoot for the moon and you'll land among the stars.

It has already been one amazing journey since I first started all those years ago. I've met many brilliant people, been to some terrific places and learnt many lessons along the way all because I decided to play a game of cards. We're gonna keep following this road to the end yo!

Nice to see you shoot so high! Good luck in your poker career.

Could you talk a bit more about your life goals, is poker a mean to and end for you?

Thank you for the love!

Poker is definitely a means to end for me, if things go well I could be playing for years to come. I'm a big believer in making use of what you got and what I got here is a great opportunity for a satisfying career. I do not think I'll be playing full time for life as I have other aspirations but in the mid to long term I'm very happy going down the road I'm on. If you aren't, why bother eh?

Absolutely agree. My question was, what are your life aspirations, what do you wish to accomplish outside of poker, what would typically make you happy?

In a nutshell, leaving the world better than when I found it would be the end of all the end goals in my life. Obviously this is a extremely general answer but it's a very complex goal so I may explore this in depth some other time

I'm very much a goal orientated person so I would say achieving things big and small would make me happy. Self actualization and all that. I love learning and winning in poker but it also allows me to support my family which is a large factor in my drivenness in the game.

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So first poker update since making the thread, I've grinded and smashed my way out of the 7s. Very happy with the volume although I feel I could do more. If I average 500 games a week I would be fine with that.

http://imgur.com/eVWUUCf

Back to the 15s now! Aiming for a minimum of another 500 games this week and at least 30 hours of grinding. I've already started and had to adjust from the spewtards at 7s so will require some actual thinking about ranges and such. Happy grinding folks!

P.s how do you put up attachments in posts? Would be easier for the eyes than having people click links all the time.

The September grind is finished! I've been meaning to update throughout the month but then just decided to update at the end when the dust has settled. Every time I come on 2p2 it's very easy to get derailed and read up on tons of threads whether it's goals or news etc. Better off using that time to grind or study instead

So I'm very pleased I reached my goal of 2k games at the $15s or 500 games on average a week. And during the middle of the month I took 5 days off as well. 73~cEV not bad not bad but I know I could of gotten higher. This month marked a big turning point as now I know where I can improve my game and have an even better win rate. Gonna grind even harder next month with 600 games a week on average and I'm sure within October I'll shot take 30s provided variance is on my side. Motivation is sky high.

Yesterday I turned 24 and I had an interesting thought. If the average human lives to 80 years old, then that's only 29,220 days of life. We tend to compare and measure ourselves in years as the macro measurement of life is defined by years. But if you were to measure yourself through days, then you'd probably act a lot more productive and aware that each one of those days are an important unit that makes up the year. How many times have you had to do something important that day but brush it off to some other time? I'm very guilty of procrastinating on a lot of tasks, it's one of my life leaks I'm working on. So trying to build and work on those daily good habits is super important since those habits and things you do tend to use up a lot of your time which makes up your overall lifestyle. Your life is yours to live in however you choose. You can choose to be a winner but it ain't gonna be easy

A final note, I really am committed to grinding poker for the foreseeable future despite some of my pro friends nagging at me that it's "too late". Maybe a decade ago it really was a lot easier to make money and make the big time but I don't believe that it's by any means impossible in 2017 and beyond. If anything we have a lot more resources and knowledge than we do before though we also got the competition. I am seeking out a long term mentor that can guide me to the higher/highest stakes and believe me I'm willing to sacrifices and work hard for that. If you're someone who believes you have the resources and experience to take me to this stage then maybe we can work something out. Just drop me a pm. If not then it's always nice to meet someone new.

Good luck lady's and gents.

Very nice results, keep going!

Subbed, nice graphs! GL

My exp in spins is very limited if non existant, however im in for the rest part of the thread!!

Looks very composed and i like your attitude!

Gl m8, ill be following!

Thank you for your kind words and the messages from Xanham and urado too!

Again I've been busy with a few things and poker wise has been very interesting so I'll put up a proper update on that soon. Currently on the way to meet friends at my local casino for a game of Big Two which by the way, everyone on 2p2 should learn. Speak to any gambler of Asian descent and its likely they know how to play at least one of its variations

So again been really meaning to update but I've been grinding a lot, every single day in fact and usually too tired to write but today I feel like it's time

At the start of this month I had to dog sit for my good friend who is also a poker player for 4 days while he and his gf went on holiday. The dog is a one year old Samoyed, a real handsome fella. Here's a photo of him with the backdrop of Edinburgh Castle. Babe magnet or what huh?



Learnt during this time with him, strangers are generally a lot more friendly and sociable towards you when you're walking a cute looking dog like this. Who would of thought eh? He still needs to be trained since he's only a year old but a very nice doggo indeed.

Couldn't grind properly since he needed a lot of attention and regular walks but I did hit my first 100x at the 15s! I've played well over 15,000 spins to date and had yet to hit a jackpot until now. Always assumed I'd be destined to be that guy who just grinds and grinds and grinds but doomed to be unlucky in hitting the big spins. The 100x started off well enough, I was versus 2 regs with aggro stats and picked off a nice bluff and got paid in another. The short stack unfortunately double up through me twice though he was ahead both times. I still had fighting chips and knocked out the other reg when he jammed 55 on sb v my JJ on bb. Heads up with the slight chip lead for $1,500. This guy was aggressive in opening wide so I planned to deal with that in the usual way but not make any unnecessary moves. Get dealt A6o 19bbs effective and v this guy it would be an acceptable 3bet jam but I liked flatting it as there were stronger aces I could jam with and an ace would be quite disguised if I hit. Flop comes AK6hh. Very nice, how to get paid? I checked and he checked back. Usually this means he has some sort of showdown, any one of the three pairs though we block two so most likely he has pair of kings in this spot. Turn comes 7h completing the flush. I bet 2/3rds charging him for any flush draw he may have along with his pair. He flats and the river brings an offsuit 8. I bet 2/3rds again leaving myself with 300~ chips or slightly more than 5bbs. As soon as I bet he snap jammed. My heart sank as I thought about his hand. He was repping a flush in this spot since two pairs would not jam and straight would be highly unlikely since those combos would cbet the flop. Flush draw check back flop is uncommon but is part of his range and since he snap jammed in a 100x while I put in more than half of my stack in the pot I thought it would be unlikely he was bluffing. I sigh folded. Later I messaged a friend of mine about the hand and he argued it was probably a call since I was getting super odds and pretty much top of my range. If he did bluff then he made the bluff of his life. The next hand I get it in K3o, he snaps with AQs and it was all over.

Couldn't be too down since statistically you're only ever gonna win these jackpots a little more than a third in the long run but damn it, I really wanted to win that! At least I've shipped a couple of 100x's over at Party Poker (cheers Andy)

After this I was doing a bunch of research into whether I'd join a stable so I could improve my short handed game for my spins career. It was the knowledge and software I needed, not the money so I'd thought about arranging a coaching for profit deal. That however did not materialize and I'm very thankful since I've now set my poker career towards a very different and potentially much greener path.

When I was donking around in different games back in the day before I knew much about poker, one of these games was 7 Card Stud Eight's or Better, or Stud 8 for short. It's a high low game, meaning there is two different pots that you're playing for. The high pot is just your regular poker hand rankings, pair, flush, full house etc. The low is 5 different ranks of cards that are 8 or under. An example of a low hand would be 86532. The lower the low the stronger and your hand is always ranked from your highest low card first. So a 76432 would beat 85432 and 65432 beats 8432A. An ace goes both ways meaning it's high and low making it by far the strongest card. Winning both the high and low pot is called a scoop. If there is no low, then the best high hand would scoop the whole pot. I really enjoyed this game at the time since it was much different from Hold'em and seeing your opponents cards was a cool piece of info that doesn't exist in other poker games outwith stud. I played and played and learnt as I played and started to get somewhat decent. The biggest problem at the time and still now, there isn't much traffic at Stud 8 since it's a pretty niche game. Every casual poker player knows and probably started playing Hold'em and rarely do they deviate from anything else. Still, there is enough action at Stars on a daily basis whether from regs or randoms joining the tables that you can grind the game and make good profit if you know what you're doing. And after spending a lot of time and years playing this game, I certainly know what I am doing.

A massive game changer happened when after talking with a fellow 2p2er I learnt there was regular Stud 8 cash games on another poker site. After joining and confirming there was indeed very good action I decided it was viable game to grind full time now that my action has essentially doubled. My roll has gone from strength to strength since grinding Stud 8 and I recently had my biggest single winning day, winning well over 4 figures which is a huge deal for me. Joey Ingram may endorse PLO as the beautiful game but for me this is the real beautiful game as it's so damn FUN! Few things in poker I like better than to scoop a massive pot in Stud 8. I also downloaded FPDB recently as I've never had a proper tracker for Stud 8 hands other than Pokeit which I briefly used a few years ago. With enough data I will be able to see my bb/100 and estimated hourly which is obviously essential if you're grinding full time at a cash game. I'm extremely happy to be in the position I am right now as until recently, I believed my path on making it big was through tons of spins studying and grinding my way through the stakes. That has all changed now and I couldn't be happier making a proper go at grinding my favourite game. Well that's that and it's time for bed. Thanks for reading, til next time.

Updating now since the games are currently dead and it's been a while

What can I say, feel like I'm crushing life at the moment. Absolutely on top of a lot of things in my life, so I'm just gonna keep going and pushing forward. Been going to the gym again every other day with my mate, doing plenty of muscle building and strength training with some cardio thrown in. Energy levels have increased a lot and mind is more alert which is only gonna help with grinding and general life stuff. I've always enjoyed being active but until recently was staying in the house most of the time which at times is depressing and boring. Getting out and about is definitely life EV and gives you balance, I recommend to anyone who may feel like they're stuck in a rut.

Stud 8 though, been a super swingy ride. It may be a limit game but don't let that fool you, variance gonna kick your ass for long periods and even more if you're not prepared for it. Whereas in NLHE you're able to take advantage of a spewing player donking off hundreds of BBs at once, in Stud 8 you're only ever gonna be able to capitalize on mistakes made on each street 1 big bet at a time. Consistency is the name of the game here, maybe more so than No limit games. Still unsure of hourly and BB/100 since not enough hands yet but it's looking good.



This is only part of the data I've accumulated thus far, a poker player should always keep aces up their sleeves

I could play 8h+ everyday but unfortunately the games simply don't run as frequently as I'd like. And when I do get action, sometimes I would get to play 10 maybe 20 hands before opponent hits and runs me after scooping a single pot. Such is the nature of cash games.

A very interesting situation happened the other day while I was grinding. I was challenged HUs by a high stakes reg who is known to play all the way up to 400/800 mixed games. When I played versus this opponent, although not fishy, I noticed there was a fair number of mistakes this player made which made it a good game for me. However, despite this seemingly EV+ game there was a larger, much cleverer factor in play here. After speaking to my friend who has encountered this sort of situation before, I realised I was being taken advantage of. The high stakes reg who was giving up money and EV, in return was receiving training and deepen his understanding of Stud 8 through playing me. Losing a few hundred dollars is nothing to this guy if it means getting to learn from someone who has a very acute knowledge of a game which is hard to find. So from losing a small amount of money in the short term, he'll be improving as time goes by and in a few months or a year, will be able to get good enough to take significant dents out of my profits in the games we'll play. Very clever, this is a rare long term way of thinking. As a result, the only way to combat this is to challenge the currently weak reg at higher stakes to charge him as much as I can if he wants his tuition of Stud 8 through me. Poker is surely a dog eat dog world.

As well with grinding, I've been learning about crypto currency too what with all the hype around Bitcoin and crypto in general right now. Extremely fascinating stuff, way too many new concepts and ideas for me to completely understand at the moment but the seeds have been sown for future investment. If/when poker does die as a professional, crypto currency would be one of most likely ventures I'd dive into. The same idea as poker lives on in crypto trading as in that there is no real financial ceiling in this profession, in that the more knowledge you have and learn, the more you will be able to make. Knowledge is power but in the words of Walter White "Maybe your best course, is to tread lightly."

Gl from Inverness. I think, if you are smart and motivated, in this day and age there will always be a non traditional way to make money online, if you keep your ear to the ground. I also think poker has more legs left in it than people complain about on here. Lots of guys still crushing it on here, and the potential Asian market is massive.

gl mate

Hey buddy, good to hear your hard commitment. Hope you can keep it up!
I am new to this but I am strong in personal development.
Is your aspiration to make Poker your only source of income?
How'd you describe the mentality? The lifestyle?
Would love to read more of that

Cheers!

Absolutely agree, making money online in any format is still largely seen as unconventional since the internet has really only been around last 3 decades or so. People, especially older people are traditionalist in the way that because they're are used to career and jobs and it's worked for them, they believe it's the only way to grind up money in life, that and investments. Like a successful poker player, you must be able to adapt. In 2018 and beyond there will be increasingly unique ways to make money so best keep your mind open and sharp.

I'm also in the poker still has plenty of money camp. If I wasn't, I wouldn't be replying to you in this thread right now! Difficult yes but I would always want to go down the hard but glorious path rather than the soft and easy route. Still very possible to achieve 100k in a year from the ground up with enough effort and determination which I will prove here.

Thank you mate!

Good questions! By now, you've probably had a sense that I'm also very much into personal development. Day by day, I aim to improve myself or progressing forward towards some goal as this is what makes me happy. I have a very curious mind so I'm always reading and learning.

Poker is already my only source of income and has been for some time. The difference is, I ain't balling like Dan Bilzerian or any of these live cash game pros (yet). The mentality part at least for me, has always been the hardest part. When I was younger, despite having this dream of playing poker professionally I was surrounded by people who either doubted me, or didn't understand the game at all. I was determined to prove to myself and them that it could be done of course but at times when things weren't going my way I would think maybe they were right after all? If you look at some of the most known and successful pros you'll see they're all surrounded by a large supportive network which no doubt helped immensely in their careers. When I first started going to my local casino, it was there I met some good friends that finally understood what it means to play poker for a living. Some of them been grinding live successfully for years, and some already making 6 figures a year online. All of them had a passion for the game, at least they did then. They're all good bros to me to this day although I know secretly, some of them have doubts to my success. This is okay since before I wasn't always a very committed person so I don't blame them for thinking this way. What is undisputable however is that I've always believed in myself. I am the engine that will drive me towards my own fate. If you are reading this and you do not believe in yourself, then who will?

As for the lifestyle part of things, it's honestly amazing we get to dictate our own working hours, our own free time and it's partly why being a full time player is so attractive to many people. It's a double edged sword though, you cannot simply take too much time off socialising and having fun or else you won't be grinding and making money! On the flip side, you cannot/should not grind all day 24/7 since you need time to have a life as well and surely there are some responsibilities you have to make time for. So finding this balance between grinding/playing is a very underrated and important aspect of a professional player. Right now since I've not made it big or anything yet, I'm more willing to put in the time and hours needed to build my roll and play higher stakes before I get to rest on my laurels for a bit. Short term sacrifice, long term gain. Means sometimes I miss out on parties and seeing some friends for gatherings but it's the sacrifice I must be willingly to make in order for me to see out my goal. Dedication is tough man, but you must give something in order to get something. Peace and love.

Great stuff there man. I'd love to ask you a few more questions privately, can we connect on Social Media / Skype?

Cheers!