Hello fellow US grinders. Happy six month anniversary of the most detrimental day in our poker lives! Whether you've started a new career, moved to a country where "free" isn't just an empty word in an anthem, or are living under a bridge and eating dumpster salvaged meals, your life has probably changed at least a little since mid April. The reason I started this thread is to find out how everyone has coped since that day. How have you managed to make lemonade from the orchard of lemons grown by the DOJ? Any input would be much appreciated, even a "Cool story, bro. GTFO." (Apologies to mod if a similar post has been started elsewhere)



My personal struggle post Black Friday (Not necessary reading):



Anyway, enough about me, how have YOU guys adjusted to life in the US after the poker apocalypse? From the guys and gals who played on Stars and got paid two weeks after "Vendredi Noir" (pardon my French) to the less fortunate who had their life's work on FTP and Cereus, I'd love to hear from you all. Looking forward to being inspired and entertained by your tales. Thanks for reading.

Phil

1st... & unemployed.

I was HSMTT pro who made avg 50k a year for the last four years, paid my taxes, saved money toward a house and marriage.

I have a Bachelor of Business Administration which I graduated with in 2007. I applied for every kind of job imaginable. I finally found a job in a jewelry store as a salesman(yay). I have exhausted most of my savings and moving to another country isn't an option bc my fiance is a school teacher here. I will be taking a massive pay cut as well as not being free to do as I please or enjoying my life. The past six months has been horrible for me. My life since graduating college up till BF was great and I loved every second of it. Lately I have wondered if dying would be easier.

Oh and I live with my future in-laws since June after being on my own for 10 years. awesome existence

We should forward all these stories to Senator Kyl.

was a pro for just over 7 years. now unemployed and living with parents with no real chance at doing anything better with life.

Not trying to be mean at all, because you story sounds VERY similar to mine except I got my degree earlier/married earlier.

But if your fiance is a teacher, she has to make 35-40Kish. Surely you make 25-30K working any sort of sales job. Why can't you guys afford an apartment on 70K a year? Is it a 'can't move in until married' thing?

cool level, if you were a pro all the way back in 2004 you would not be living in your parents basement. Games were easyyyy

Been a pro in some capacity since 04 or 05. Played pretty much every type of game over that time period. For the last year I ran a pretty large staking group that consisted mainly of US players.

I think I got pretty lucky in that I bought a house in 2010, before BF. So my bills are set, I know how much I need to make, etc.

Since BF, I spent several months just trying to recover the funds from my staking group. Spent a month or two working for Subject : Poker about FTP paying people back until I exhausted most of my resources. Then I had a baby and have stayed at home with her for several months.

I still back a few people overseas, and still get in the occasional live game. I have enough money saved up to survive a year or two before needing to look for a job. Hoping we have a time table on legalization before then.

OH this is gonna be a good reading thread

Dude with a bachelors degree chooses online poker after UEIGA as a profession and now lives with responsible adults and now wonders if death would be easier. I know its not as easy as sitting in front of PC playing poker all day but in 4 years since getting a degree, poker is what you have to show for it

Another is unemployed (Like all of america I might add) but since black friday, the poker community are the biggest victims. Tell that to all the unemployed people whose jobs landed in another country which by the way is where your poker money is supporting other jobs in other country with the biggest scumbags alive who pose as human beings.

small stakes pro for a few years pre-bf, now back in college at 30, still trying to avoid a real job with playing on merge + coaching + savings. might get some student loans too... hopefully poker is legalized within a year or two and then I'll be making plenty of money to get me thru school

Angry troll would like to remind you that the folks who work for online poker companies in places that aren't the US are not people, but rather scumbags who pose as human beings.

I'm going to guess that angry troll has never been a winning player.

gl my american friends, hope you can poker soon.

why aren't any of you playing live instead? is it a massive paycut or something?

much like everybody else, i only care about myself.

Living in a van down by the RIVER....

Currently grinding eBay and Craigslist for a bankroll for live play :=)

IN BOLD should be the #1 quote ever posted anywhere on this site since its the only thing you can say when people speak the truth about your god POKER. TYpical answers from typical losers. Probably never been a winning online player because GEEZE I dont play online cause of its wonderful track record dating back to the early 2000's. I hope yall get your money cause you will be the same people depositing it again and losing it all when another online site breaks the law or has great upstanding people working for it. According to this site every single poker site has some sort of scam, collusion, inside job WHATEVER. but the 3% of you that do make money for NOT 4 YEARS like 20 YEARS that is impressive.

first, you're being more than a little obtuse / incomprehensible.
second, why so angry? seriously, I'm curious.

also, I find your assertion that you don't play online odd, given that one of your recent posts concerned your merge cashout attempt.

I just got a job in the last week and she didnt begin teaching until September, getting no check till mid September. We plan to try and save some money over the next month or two then get a place.

I feel like you're about to ask me to cash a check for you, keep 20% for my trouble, and ship the 80% back to you in Nigeria. Maybe you're interested in buying my iPod off of craigslist?

I graduated college 5 years ago but had just been playing MSNL cash until BF. Since BF I have been trying to find work, have had a few interviews but it is hard getting your foot in the door when poker is the only thing I've done for the past three years job wise. So I'm basically looking to take a job doing something at the time being. I have also tried getting into the grind of playing live but have really been struggling with this, I just don't enjoy playing live as much as online. I have also been playing Merge a little bit but am having trouble getting into the habit of grinding the tougher games at lower stakes than I was pre BF. The games are def tougher on Merge which stinks but its better than nothing. Anyway good luck to me and all of you! Hopefully we get something in the US within a year or two.

This is a online poker forum dude. If you want to talk to "all the unemployed people whose jobs landed in another country", which at least had a reasonable cause, find the appropriate forum.

I'm now a penniless junior college student living at home. Even though I was backed on BF I had a decent chunk of money that got stuck when the cashouts started going to ****. Without that I am busto and can't even grind 1/2 100max.

I thought about getting a job but getting less than 10 an hour not even in cash and possibly interfering with school didn't seem worth it. It seems somewhat tough to get anything other than a below average <10/hour job. Maybe if I really got after it I could get a pizza delivery job if they don't care about gap. I researched it briefly and I don't think I could be a garbageman if I wanted to.

Poker would be nice to grind as I could fit it in perfectly with school and get optimal number of hours. But Merge is really depressing. Because of Black Friday even at 4NL you get some lineups where everyone has less than 5 gap between PFR and VPIP and all reasonable VPIPs and its tough to beat that for much with higher merge rake. I would still try to grind up from micros again if you could get paid in any kind of reasonable way and didn't have to pay massive vig or wait over a month to get paid with good chance of getting DOJed soon

...at least next semester I will be at at some kind of 4 year school.

sat shivah for a couple (ok, several) weeks where i sat on the couch, drank all day, and waded through my dvd collection.

most of my br is on full tilt, and unfortunately it makes the difference between a live 1/2 roll and a 5/10 roll, so i'm extremely unmotivated to play live. i also despise the people, the pace, and the environment. i keep earbuds in and i don't talk to anyone. i usually last 2-4 hours/session when i do go.

i started going back to school at the end of august, picking up the same program i left 4 years ago to go full time online. i've also started smoking weed all day and watching hulu/netflix instant/dvr, and i'm counting that as an improvement as well.

i'm trying to cut back my forum posting cause i went a little manic with it after BF, really obsessing about the FT situation and legalization efforts. I'm an athiest and i think the wait/push for ipoker legislation is fitting into the part of my mind that most people fill with religion. I'm obsessed with the idea, and the parallels of waiting for something sudden and amazing to happen "some time soon", after which everything will be infinitely better for me, disturbs me, and i feel like i'm losing my mind a little.

cliffs: ****ty.

Half a year later and most of us are still feeling the pinch from BF. I can relate to most of the sentiment, life definitely feels like going through the motions some days. Reading the replies on this thread though, it's pretty impressive how you guys have been dealing, especially since most of us were so "pot committed" to grinding for a living.

Thanks for the posts, guys, and thanks for the support meow_meow, good looking out.