I have just now cashed out the last of my poker balances on the remaining sites I played at and after 10 years playing full-time it is a really momentous day for me and I felt the need to say something about it. The reason I am withdrawing is that over the last couple years I have been re-inventing myself as a software developer and have just made my breakthrough in landing a full-time job. A really massive moment for me as for years I have seen the profitability of poker going from 1000’s of % more than I need to survive, going down to about 50% of my monthly expenses.

The writing for the end of poker was on the wall for me and having been out of the job market for so long, finding a job I wasn’t going to hate was a very daunting task. About 3 years ago I started self-teaching myself c# programming, started doing some part-time work on a friends sports management site and have now got myself to a pretty competent level.

My story:

In 2005 I started playing this new fad of online poker, I quickly became engrossed @cough@ ‘addicted’ @cough@ and basically started living and breathing poker in my spare time. I got started in Limit holdem and I could just about recite ‘Small Stakes Limit holdem, winning big with expert play’ by Ed Miller. At that time, just having a decent pre-flop strategy could win you good money even in the high rake, no rakeback environment of the time. I dreamed of making my living through poker and the freedom it would give me. Then between jobs in 2006 I had my chance to start playing full-time, and … I failed. I had by this time started going big into tournaments after striking a lucky 3rd and thought this was the way to easy big money. Well either, I was unlucky, or I sucked but I didn’t do well in tournaments at all. I was also playing NL cash games by then and not doing very well in those either. This went on for a year or so and my frustration levels were going through the roof. I had now given up NL cash, and was playing HUSNG’s which were profitable for me, although the variance created some horrible tilt episodes. Unfortunately, I was still doing a lot of tournaments and was just giving back my HUSNG profits into tourneys. This was not going well but I also couldn’t face going back to work in my previous profession Desktop support, which I really did not enjoy. I had been semi-looking for a job but my heart wasn’t in it and only had 1 interview in almost a year of looking which I didn’t pass.

I had also joined a coaching site and that’s when I saw the video that changed everything, Bryce Paradis playing $1k/$2k HU limit holdem against David Benyamin. The amount of money casually sliding its way back and forth literally blew my mind. I started studying this ‘new’ form of poker and with the help of Bryce’s videos quickly became reasonably profitable.

Around the same time I scored a sick propping opportunity of 115% rakeback at betfair which unbelievably was probably the fishiest site on the net at the time. Each night had four to five 5/10 tables and another two or three 10/20, with at least two 70/10 type players at each. It was literal gold mine and with the unreal rakeback, I was quickly making about $5k pm at the 5/10’s. T this point I met probably the greatest Limit holdem player I have ever encountered who was also propping at Betfair. His name on these forums is ‘Kvacke’ and honestly he was/is so superior in his analysis to the ‘video pros’ that he would make many of them look like noobs.

We struck up a friendship through skype chat and started scheduling hand review sessions each morning as well as video critique of the pros on the coaching sites. We started going very in-depth with maths and using hand solving tools to figure out difficult hands and my poker level really shot up over those 6 or so months. Matts if you’re reading this, thanks for all the help during that time, apart from getting to know a great guy, your perspective on the game helped me immensely and I really do see that period as my most enjoyable time with poker. (and Vegas was awesome eh!)

I soon moved on 10/20 and 25/50 and my biggest poker year arrived in 2009 when I made about $220k. I was absolutely stunned and amazed at all this money that was suddenly coming in.

Then the games started to worsen and the next year was around $150k and the year after that half of that. I was getting worried about where this was all heading and didn’t want the party to stop so started looking into PLO which seemed like it was the next big game as many were making crazy amounts from it. After months of studying the game, watching videos, solving hands etc I was becoming a pretty decent player, but the problem is that mentally I just couldn’t handle it. I’d always struggled with the variance of poker, but this was just a whole new level of mental anguish. After running bad a few days in a row, my tolerance would just get so low, that I could literally be in a bright red rage after 1 incident a few minutes into playing, where I had the overwhelming desire to smash my monitor (somehow managed to resist) into a wall. I was running about 10 000bb below ev over a year of playing which of course added to the stress immensely as essentially it felt like I ran bad for a whole year and maybe 200k hands.

These red rage moments became an almost daily occurrence and I think I started becoming a very miserable person to be around. By this time I was married with 2 kids and my relationship with my wife started becoming very strained because of my tilt issues. Recently I have only experienced tilt like this maybe once or twice a year and I am shocked to realise that it was a daily thing for me as it is just such an unhealthy destructive emotion. I guess some people are just naturally good at handling variance but for me it’s always been the weakest aspect of my game and PLO just pushed me over the edge with it.

Something had to change and I decided to go back to the game that affected me the least emotionally HULHE. At this point about 5 years ago I was making around $5k per month which was enough to survive (London aint cheap) but gone were the days of making more than I needed to just pay bills. Over the following years this income started dwindling as the number of players decreased and sites started closing hu down, Full tilt, stars etc until I was just left with just Winning network and Ipoker. The dread of what I was going to do once I could no longer support myself with poker reared its head in full force and I was becoming very stressed. However the programming opportunity came up, and I grabbed it with both hands and buried myself in books and study and then onto working on my friends sport management site, to this day where I have secured a full time coding job that I start next week.

So what to say in summary? Poker for me is all contradiction, it has been: Amazing, boring, mind-blowingly exhilarating, mind-blowingly awful, freedom creating, feeling of being trapped.

The pros:

• Freedom to be my own boss and manage my own time. This has allowed me the opportunity to do a lot of all the things I enjoy doing, surfing, tennis

• Freedom to live wherever I want, in the last 10 years I’ve lived on my parents farm in South africa, Cape Town, Mauritius!!! (2 years), Jersey (UK channel islands) and now London (yeh should have stayed in Mauritius ;-) )

• Making so much more money than I could have by working

• Spending much more time with my kids than other working dads get

• Doing something I really loved (for a time)

The cons:

• Set me back 10 years in my career. If I’d stuck to a job, my income would likely be much much higher than what I’m going in at now

• Very variable income, from week to week, year to year and indeed decade to decade. One of the hardest things to deal with is seeing my income reducing year by year, when normally in a career you expect it to work the other way around.

• Very difficult to get back into work once in poker for a few years - no employer wants you

• Emotionally very taxing for me as already mentioned which has led to strains in my personal relationships.

• A typical poker day will often mean ending at strange hours as the action is best late at night. This can lead to completely different sleep cycle to others which also adds to relationship strain.

• When you first start playing, you don’t think poker could ever become dull. Well sadly for me about 3-4 years the shine started to wear off, until at this point, when I play, I’m doing almost everything on autopilot feeling rather bored. Generally, I watch a movie or youtube whilst playing. Hard to believe this given how exciting I found the game at first.

• Satisfaction in a good day/ month of poker is somewhat muted by the fact that essentially someone else has lost that money, and at the back of my mind was always that niggling feeling of guilt. In comparison with software development the creation process is very absorbing and satisfying when it’s all done and working.

I guess my advice to someone who wants poker to be there full-time thing is really think about it because if you all you expect to be able to earn is a bit above your current job then you’re much better off sticking to a job where you can progress and increase your earnings and keep poker as a side income thing. Once you’re in poker full-time, you’re really IN and it’s very difficult to get out if you want to.

Of course if you happen to be in the top 0.0001% in skill and variance tolerance and go on to crush the high stakes and able to retire in a few years of playing then great, but otherwise I would strongly advise against doing this as a regular career.

So having detailed all my perceived cons, do I regret the path I chose? Yes and no. All the things listed in my pros list were very significant so despite the difficulties poker has given me so much and I’m really grateful for those things.

It’s so weird right now not having poker tables open waiting for action on a computer that’s been almost solely poker oriented for 10+ years. It’s an even more weird thought that I may never play another online poker hand again, although I’ll likely drop into casinos now and then to do a bit of Live. I guess that’s all I have to say, I will monitor this thread and answer any questions and then I will likely be gone from twoplustwo forever.

Looks like the cons outweigh the pros and is therefore probably a good decision you're making. I wish you luck in your new career!

I can relate to a lot of what you say, but especially this. I remember when I first started playing online I couldn't wait to get home from work and play poker, and would often fire games up as soon as I walked in the front door, and while cooking and eating dinner.

However, sure enough eventually it became like any fairly dull job, but unlike you (I also played PLO, and I had several 10,000bb -ev runs) the emotional detachment I eventually had for the game meant I hardly ever tilted. I guess this was the only saving grace, and why I was able to grind a modest income while transitioning to academia.

Anyway, good luck - I'm sure it will al work out

Thanks for the well wishes Onehand and Elrazor.

Excellent honest, balanced and interesting post. Best of luck for the future.

Thanks Milkman

Rapala,

Great post. I felt the same way, but I was much younger than you (I assume) when I started playing. I played during my last two years of high school, college and 2 years after graduation. After that I worked for a year then started my own business.
I used to 8-12 table for full days, and poker got really boring to me. Everything seemed "standard" unless I was playing a very good player.
I feel that in this day and age in order to play profitable games you need to play during hospitality hours (evenings and weekends). This would definitely get in the way of your social and family life.
Also the marketing for poker is basically non existent and over until it gets legalized everywhere, so the field will forever get tougher. Unless you bink some big tournaments, you can expect your earning potential to be severely capped. This was a big downside for me.
I still read 2+2 for maybe learning some new strategies and for poker news. Poker has definitely taught us a lot about emotions and money. I'm glad I played when I did and for as long as I did. It will always be a part of my life, but not a big one anymore.

Maybe you come back ever and just play like once a month