You go to a home game. You've been there many times before. Same familiar faces all playing a game we enjoy. Cards are dealt, bets are placed, pots are won, fortunes are made or lost, bankrolls shoot through the roof or crumble to pieces. It's a fun game. An emotional game. A game where you feel like a God one moment and then questioning everything about yourself the next. The atmosphere is great. Everyone gets along. Jabbing jokes at one another. Splashing chips and inducing action. The games are big and juicy. You got lucky finding this one. It's bigger than what you're used too. This isn't the internet. This is an older crowd. They're gamblers that love the game but not truly poker players. They don't study the game. You do. You're somewhat the younger one. In your mid 30s. You have a great job and saved up a bit. You can afford to sit at this 2-5 no limit game. The rake is high and this isn't legal but you don't care. You're out of the house, have no responsibilities other than your bills and you're not staring at a monitor trying to get the best of all the twenty somethings that are hardcore players. They have all the software tools they need to give them that winning edge and study the game relentlessly. It's a much harder game to beat. Much more aggressive. 3 and 4 bets and constant bluffing.
Not this live game. Everyone limps and wants to see a flop. Your bets and raises aren't respected as much because they want to out flop you and of course win with an inferior hand. Because when you raise they know you have something big and just love cracking your aces. They know you're tight aggressive and sometimes just can't seem to find the fold button.
Your first $500 grows to $1000 then $2500. After two months of playing 5 nights/30 hours a week your roll is now a solid $6k. Wow what an easy game. I feel so good. I'm invincible. I'm happy. I have balance in my life. I work a 8 to 5 Mon thru Fri job doing what I love, caring for people. Then I go to the gym 4 days a week for 30 min to stay fit! I eat healthy. No woman in my life to stress me. Time to take a break after 10 years of marriage. I see my daughter every Thursday and she's with me every other weekend. We have a great time together. I'm the cool dad! You've dated and had your fun with her and her and her but that gets old. Tired of the headaches. Now after finishing my last rep of bench pressing I hurry up to get changed. The game starts a 630 or 7. It's best to get there at least 30 min prior to guarantee a seat. This is your life now. Work, gym, poker! Perfect!
It all started with a small game of Holdem at a buddies house when you were in your early twenties. You won the $20 buy-in tournament and had fun but that was that. Eventually you married, joined the army, and had a child. You had a career, family and responsibilities. While stationed in Germany, the stress of family life takes its toll and your marriage starts to crumble. It's 2008 when you see poker broadcasted on tv for the first time. Sponsored heavily by PokerStars. That looks like fun. You deposit your first $50. Lose. Deposit another. Lose. Then another. Hit a hot session. Can't sleep. Get up and jump back on the virtual tables because you had $400 sitting there. A couple hours in the middle of the night it's all gone! Haha. This is crazy.
That fall you're ordered to deploy to Iraq to fight to "War on Terrorism." You just rehabilitated your knee for 6 months post surgery and are good to go. You're in a medical unit assigned to a clinic. No gun fighting. No traumas. Just chilling and passing the time for 10 months. Life down range couldn't be any easier. On. You're bored and looking for a game. You just know someone somewhere is gambling. It's not legal but sure enough you find a game. Dealers choice $0.25/$0.50. You take $20 out of the atm and turn it into $100. The games started playing bigger and bigger. A game you could comfortably play for $20 soon turned into $100 buy-in. That's all we soldier did. Gamble with endless amount of disposable cash. By the end of the deployment you've amassed $5k. You spent a good portion of it on gifts for the family back home and for yourself. Where I was, there was everything available. You even were able to play online. You vowed to your comrades that you would amass thousands online too. That didn't happen. Still too hard.
You get back to Germany and realize your marriage can't be repaired. She refuses to not be friends with the man she had an "emotional" affair with before my deployment. It's amazing I didn't kill him or myself down range. We all had our weapon with a loaded magazine. I was close to doing both. But I had a daughter and figured much more to live for. So, since I only had 6 months left in the country and didn't want be around my wife, I needed to find something to do. I found a wild game at a pub just outside post. Good times. Some of us guys tried to reestablish the game from Iraq but that was hard to do now that everyone is back home with their families. Then I found a gold mine 30 min down the road. A juicy $0.50/$1 no limit Holdem game. In 6 months I turned $100 into $3k playing 3 nights a week. By January 2010 it was time to leave to the state's to attend school for a year. I was certain my marriage was over and this was the last time I would see my daughter.
I arrive in Portsmouth, Virginia and I have two things on my mind. School and poker. School keeps me busy. I study hard and more or less keep to myself. I find a "charity" poker room to play but it's January, cold, snowing, and I have no car. It's an hour ride on the bicycle I bought to get around. I didn't play as often as I liked and wasn't winning. I focused on my studies for 5 months.
After my first phase of school was over I went back to Germany to see my family. We were still not really able to fix things. I knew then that it's was over. I returned to finish my second phase of training in Tacoma, Washington. This program was a big deal. Nuclear Medicine. Finish 8 more months of on the job training, then 3 more years of service and I'll be golden. A possible 6 figure salary in the making, all paid for thanks to the army! But I didn't give a ****. My marriage was over and all I cared about was poker. Nothing else mattered. There were some Indian casinos down the highway that had limit Holdem but I still had no car and the bike ride was too long. It was much more convenient to play on PokerStars. Most of the money I made playing live had been spent. So here I am grinding the micros and losing and losing. I wasn't studying the game. Not the way you should at least. I had a dozen of poker books already but I just skimmed through them. I wanted win of course but this was more of an escape route. I fell behind on my studies and was making careless upon careless mistakes on the job. I fell into a depression. Poker was all that mattered and it was gonna be my life. After returning back to school following our two week Christmas break I seemed to had brain dumped a years worth of training. Set to graduate in February, the administration deemed I wasn't competent enough to graduate the program and decide to dismiss me. I was suicidal. What was suppose to be a new life in North Carolina ended up being sent to a dump in central. Texas. I just failed school, no family, had 3 more years in the service committed to a unit that sucked and had not a care. All that mattered was poker
Up at 5 a.m. then rush to post to do our daily physical training. Do 8 hours of menial task or sometimes just sit around and do nothing at all. Once dismissed I'd get dressed and head to the game. That was my routine. I arrived in town a day before my birthday and same week of Black Friday. My poker bankroll was gone but had money saved to get started again. Objective one was to get a car. That took two weeks. I already had a game lined up that I found online. Its been established for years. I got an invite. I played Friday's and Sundays at first. A juicy 2-5 game. Biggest stake I've played up to that point in my life. Lost $400 one day. $400 another day. A month gone by and $2400 I'm the hole I figured my dream of being a poker pro was over. I depleted through my savings and didn't want to put myself in the black. I was and still am very responsible. Excellent credit. Bills always paid on time. I'm no degenerate. I don't gamble on anything else. I play poker and play to win. That's it! I took my last $400 to the Sunday game and BOOM, it hit. My hot streak. That summer I made $15k cash profit. Oh what a feeling. Clubbing, drinking, women, wining and dining, just having a blast.
And as soon as it came, it went. Lost $500 this month then a $1000 the next month. By the end of the year a lost half of my roll back to the tables and spent the majority of the rest. February 2012 I convinced my wife to move here. That we could work things out. But what I really wanted was a divorce and my daughter here in the state's. I couldn't do anything while she was still in Germany. I used my last $2k of my roll as a down payment for their house to rent that I chose not to live in. Its been over two years and I wasn't ready to jump back into her world. Now I have no bankroll and my family is back. I'm still living alone and "single" but it's time to be dad again. I had money saved and tried to balance family with poker and vise versa but it was just too hard. Only playing a few nights a week, maybe 12 hours, I just wasn't putting in the volume. I had a choice and made a decision. Family or poker? I chose family and put poker behind me. Just like that.
And as soon as it came, it went. Lost $500 this month then a $1000 the next month. By the end of the year a lost half of my roll back to the tables and spent the majority of the rest. February 2012 I convinced my wife to move here. That we could work things out. But what I really wanted was a divorce and my daughter here in the state's. I couldn't do anything while she was still in Germany. I used my last $2k of my roll as a down payment for their house to rent that I chose not to live in. Its been over two years and I wasn't ready to jump back into her world. Now I have no bankroll and my family is back. I'm still living alone and "single" but it's time to be dad again. I had money saved and tried to balance family with poker and vise versa but it was just too hard. Only playing a few nights a week, maybe 12 hours, I just wasn't putting in the volume. I had a choice and made a decision. Family or poker? I chose family and put poker behind me. Just like that.
It's the summer of 2014. I just finished my active duty enlistment but decided to do a 3 year stint in the reserves as a backup plan. I got a nice exit bonus. My divorce was finally set to be final that June. I went to Vegas alone a whole week to celebrate my independence. The WSOP was going on and I had the cash to compete in a $1k buy-in 3 day event. I decided to bad tourist instead and not play but go to shows, museums, night crawls, and just have a good time! I did play some cash games and bumped into some guys from back home. I dumped a total of $600 in two sessions. I was too busy enjoying all the free drinks and massages. I had a good time but not as fun if I had a buddy. Still it was Vegas. I came and lived it but to me it's all overrated. Maybe my opinion will change next time around. Once I returned from my trip I got a hired on into my current job I love and also found out my wife didn't sign the divorce papers. She found "discrepancies." This hiccup gave me time to reflect. And thanks to therapy I was getting I convinced myself this marriage could work. I also really dint want to leave my daughter or pay the hefty child support. After a few talks with wife we decided to give it another try. That lasted another year and cost me tens of thousands I had saved. She decided she wanted someone else and that was it for me. By September 2015 our divorce was officially final.
2016 ends as quick as it started. I'm enjoying my single life and met someone I really cared about, though it's a long distance relationship and it was difficult to make things work. I had saved a good chunk of change despite a good portion going to my ex for child's support. I've able to maintain a very close relationship with my daughter and very grateful she's nearby. With all this free time and money in the bank, poker crept back into my life. I started back in October with freeroll tournaments in the area. Once a week soon morphed into every day. Free to play but you can win cash. They had rebuys and add-ons. I needed to get my hands dirty again. Soon I was comfortable enough to play for some real cash. I had about $400 I had won from these tournaments and went right back to the cash home games that made me $15k 5 years prior. They all remembered me. Same group of guys. Same jokes. Same good food and atmosphere. Same great times. This time I won from the start. Which brings me to now.
I dusted off all my poker books, been reading hundreds of articles, joined a training site and completely immersed myself into the game. Work, gym, poker is now my life but I instantly put the game on the back burner for my daughter. She's first. I feel more self aware and my play feels good. I think I'm pretty close to a competent player but I still have many leaks. I'd have to say that my biggest attributes are my money management and tilt control. I'm a very laid back guy and understand variance. I don't let bad beats tear me down. But these games also offer insurance. When all the money is in and your opponent has outs to beat you, you have the option to pay 4% per out up to $1000. One out is $40 for $1000 pot. If his out hits he wins the full pot and I would get $1000. If he misses then I would get $960. It's a great way to lower variance and the house makes money more often than not. Bottom line, the games are good.
Thursday night is my time with my daughter. We go out to eat then take her somewhere to play for a bit with her friend. My girl is 10 and awesome! I drop them off at 9 pm and text a game host to see if there's a seat open. There is. Yes I know it's late and I'm a bit tired but I'll extend my play till at least midnight. Usually I'm playing 7 to 11 then go home for a decent nights rest and up at 7. Besides, I won $100 earlier grinding online on Ignition Casino. There I managed to grind my $25 up to $1500 after numerous deposits. Now I'm sitting at around $700 after a few failed attempts at $1-$2 Zone no limit. $0.25-$0.50 seems to be my bread and butter there. I arrive at the home game and I sit with my standard $500 buy-in. First hand I got A7c in the cutoff. It limps around and I complete. Big blind raises another $25. 4 call including myself. Pot $150. Flop Ad7d6s. Big blind bets $60, the tight UTG+1 makes it $200 and I instantly shove my stack. Big blind folds and Mr tight thinks for a moment and calls. He obviously has pocket 6s. No help for me on the turn and river and first hand I bust. That's ok. I take out another $500 sure that I'll make it back. Another hour of poor play passes and I bust again. I didn't even have time to drink my coffee I had to keep me up all night to win my money back. So it's not even 11 and I'm already back home to bed. Of course I'm thinking about my foolish play, lack of discipline and poor bankroll management skills. I have enough to play 10 more nights of poker if I bust every session. Will that be the end of it? I surely hope not. My blood is pumping for the game.
And as I'm writing this, I should be at the gym finishing up my workout because the game starts in 15 minutes. But I'm not gonna play. My daughter called and wants to go bowling! That's sounds like the safer bet. The game isn't going anywhere and my bankroll will line my pockets for another day. That'll give me time to think and analyze my decisions. So come next time at the felt I'll be able to play a much better game.
Sure. I'll let a mod ITF know that you'd like it moved, if you like. Or, you could just copy and paste your two entries so far in to a new thread in that forum.
Sure. I'll let a mod ITF know that you'd like it moved, if you like. Or, you could just copy and paste your two entries so far in to a new thread in that forum.
