Depends though 11t. It was a lot better to graduate in 2005-2008 than 2009-2011. It was much easier to find a job in many fields when the economy was humming. Picking online poker over college until the UIGEA passed could have screwed you.

It can also be hard financially to quit in the middle (i.e. when you turn 21 or something like that.) Your loans require monthly payments, increasing your monthly expenses. You often lose the scholarships you had if you quit, so you're stuck paying more when you go back or going to the cheapest place possible. I think that's a situation that would vary heavily by person.

I was just making broad generalizations fwiw

I own a business and play poker for fun and as a challenge. While I have a life roll to play way higher, I set myself the challenge to grind up 20BI or more out of nothing from Jan low stakes just to prove to myself I'm good enough to move up. I never want to have to dip into life money for poker and made that deal with my wife.

I've now moved up to 5/5 when the game is good and 3/3 when it isn't (I don't play it when there is no bigger table open at the casino, as I don't want to be playing the 10/20 regs), although I haven't had much chance to play over the past few months

Man I can't figure out what's right and what's wrong.

1/1/12-6/30/12

501 hours/$4,825 profit

7/1-8/31
114 hours/$739 profit

9/1-12/14
148 hours/$7,475 profit

12/14-12/31

52 hours/$2,945 LOSS

Obviously, consistently winning at $50/hour (mostly at $1/$2; pretty breakeven at $2/$5) is not consistently achievable. But $20/hr should be. Yet I can't get there.

And 2013 is basically breakeven to this point.

52 hours is nothing. Keep your head up. Good results there overall. Think about that.

Is it, though? I mean, 815 hours for about $10K in profit ... so barely $10/hr. It should really be double that.

Closer to $12.50.

That quick loss in 52 hours looks really nasty. How much could you attribute to tilt vs run-bad?

$1/$2 NL - 722 total hrs recorded

Profit- $14,045 ($19.45/hr)

$2/$5 NL- 215 total hrs recorded

Profit- $10,155 ($47.23/hr)

Current Bankroll- $14,000

A little of each. I spewed a couple of buyins here and there and there was one night that was -$1,000 at $1/$2 which is unacceptable. First $500 of that was spew; second $500 was run bad.

Sometimes you make a bad decision, though, and it's neither, it's just poker, which I accept. And I absolutely can admit that I flat-out spewed some.

kolb institute a 500 stop loss

Can you really still be playing well after 4bi? I have a 3bi stop loss at 200 and 300nl and 2.5bi at 500.

I know some guys who can keep going tilt free but I'm not one of them

This is why i have decided to completely stop recording winnings, im pretty sure i can win at least 30 an hour at 2/4 going by prior records. Long as im having fun and winning a little, I really don't care.

funny thing is, i had a $400 stop loss (two $200 buyins) and $600 for $2/$5 and it was just that the $1,000 night was an EXTREMELY rare saturday night when i was there with my female friend ... so I broke my rule, which i will try to adhere to better in 2013.

I always implement a 2 BI stop loss to keep my loses small and my wins big. I also barely play sessions of 8+hrs unless table is super juicy and loose. My sessions average about 4-5 hrs. It works for me because I tend to play worse after 4 hrs and especially if I am down over a buy in.

I also always buy in for 100 BB's and when i have a 4 BI loss at $2/$5 I drop down to $1/$2 for 2-5 sessions and make up a minimum of $500 to regain my confidence/ conserve my roll. I also table select a ton and most surprisingly my overall highest winnings days are Tues, Wed, and Thurs! lol I use *************.com and takes daily notes on my phone for every hand I play. Hope that helps!

Fair enough. I've had similar months.

Losing two 150bb buy-ins in under an hour from massively ahead can be tiliting, as can botching reads and getting the money in horribly behind. I find I have to fight the urge to try to "force it" when I'm running bad ... because that always seems to lead to either spew or very marginal spots that are bad for the psyche (low EV, high variance, yuck).

Ugh. I'd rather spew an additional $200-400 doing something stupid to impress a ladyfriend than stick around and spew at a poker table. Obscenely fancy dinner, corner suite, etc.


How/why do you think your Tues/Wed/Thurs results are so good?
I've never found my local games to be very good on those days. Fewer players, generally nittier, hard to table select when there's < 3 tables and no open seats.

If your highest win rate in a decent sample is on weekdays, the most likely explanation is that you are a winning player running badly in the high variance games. But you can't rule out the possibility that you have a very specific leak of putting drunks on a wider range than is realistic even for a drunk.

Kolb I have a great memory and recall you admitting to being a small losing player in 2011...

You made nice progress in 2012, you should be proud of that. Rome was not built in one day. Nh

52 hours is not that much of a sample size, I would start worrying about general leaks aside a little tilt if this continues over another 50 hours

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hey kolb, just try harder. that is your only real option. all you can do is work harder and let the chips fall where they may.

It's certainly possible that it's variance but it's also possible that the room is more profitable during the week than on weekends. The big night in my poker room is Tuesday night.

Well, as noted above, it's more like $12.5 per hour.

You act like you have to make $20 an hour. Why? This isn't your job. It's a hobby, one you do quite well at. You've worked very hard to get this far, and you should be damn proud of that.

Now, your winrate does suggest you have the ability to improve your game, especially since you live in a city where many tables of 2/5 run regularly. If you improve your game, you could significantly beat 20/hr by moving up stakes. How to do that really depends on you, there's no easy answer for me or any of us to give you. I could give you the standard answers but you already know that.

Well I barely play on sundays and I usually play on the weekdays cash and i play tournaments on Friday and Saturday so thats probably why.

100 session 1/3 swongs

What the hell happened in those first five sessions?

Doomswitch