Quote:
Originally Posted by gobbledygeek
I bumped my "1000 hours of 2/4 limit" thread in the Small Stakes Forum (which I posted in 2007) and was shocked to find Jesse8888 as a poster in that thread. At the time, I think he was just some small stakes rec guy like me. Then he took a different path, quitting his lucrative but soul crushing day job to become a full time grinder. I still read his blog religiously (a mandatory read for anyone even considering going pro), and it's very interesting how lives can go. I took the solid-but-soul-crushing-job route (I never had any serious interest in doing any other route, I'm a fairly conservative guy) while keeping poker as merely a hobby. He did the other route, and I believe he's done quite well financially, although you wonder how he is doing mentally after reading the occasional blog post (sometimes he's up, sometimes he's down). I've always thought about what I would do if I lost this job tomorrow, and frankly, I might be tempted to take the exact same route as you (i.e. poker while figuring things out)
GdingdongG
I like the way you've alluded to this issue of "poker as-hobby or poker-as-job" consistently throughout your post. While it is one of those topics that dominates this forum, especially in the "Poker Goals & Challenges" thread, your analysis does offer a different perspective, especially as you have a sufficient sample size to support your conclusions about your results. Since you've structured your poker "hobby" so well in relation to your other life needs, I believe that, psychologically, your game is particularly strong, which, in conjunction with a solid LLSNL strategy, has the effect of making poker seem easy. But, of course, your level of discipline is perhaps much greater than most others sitting at the table, a fact that I'd suggest is underestimated by many.
Anyway, let's say, for instance, that you had to rely on poker as your
major source of income, and were playing 30hrs+ a week rather than 10. How would your poker life change? Would you need to play 2/5 more often than not? And, importantly, would you need to develop a strategy that was more "balanced", both in terms of your preflop range and turn and river play? For, what strikes me about your strategy in general is that, while it's clearly successful in your poker room at 1/3, it's not so open to "adjustment" (apart from table selecting). I say this because the need to "adjust" becomes even more important when you are playing more hours, since other players in the room have greater opportunity to analyse your game style and exploit its predictable elements. I would be very interested to know whether you've been placed in many situations where some of the better regulars have placed sustained pressure on you (e.g. by 3betting light, floating to bluff turns and rivers, etc.) and whether you've responded in any other way apart from a table change
Personally, if I was in your room, and I saw how you were raking in pots, with your game style, I would be making poker life difficult for you, almost as a default, and hoping that you
would adjust, as a basic levelling strategy. Or are you just too nice a guy to allow this to happen?
All said and done, though, congratulations, on a "model" 1000hrs at 1/3. Enjoyed every word!
Last edited by DrTJO; 03-01-2013 at 10:24 PM.