Join Date: May 2009
Posts: 1,201
Without too much history. I have been taking poker very seriously since the New Year. I have played at least once a week, sometimes much more for the past 7 years, and have played full time and then busted and then gotten a job at least twice in my career.
My aim, since the new year, has been to build a bankroll again and hopefully eventually graduate to being a full time professional. I have been taking this very seriously and have been trying to play at least 4 times a week. Most weeks I have played closer to 5-7 times per week.
The past 10 weeks I have played primarily live $200 NL, and currently have roughly a $5k bankroll. I was playing well, and up until this past week was running around $35 an hour through 100 hours of play. The past 15 horus I have been getting crushed, I went from my high point of $6.5k back down to what I have now, and squashed my hourly back to around $19/hr. Ive definitely seen some nastiness, but Ive definitely also let the nastiness affect my play, and although I feel as though I wouldve been losing the past 15 hours whether I liked it or not, I also know I should not have lost as much as I did.
I know that $35 is probably unrealistic; but Im very competitive, and have had problems with tilting off large sums in the past (at one point I ran up nearly 17k in $500 HOE only to let that slip back to bust.)
I do not want to squash the rest of my BR, I do not want to lose sight of my goal to go from semi-professional to full time pro, and I do not want to let my competitiveness and desire to succeed start to work against me when the going gets rough.
I guess what Im saying is Im looking for some advice on getting through the really rough stretches. Ive seen some bad ones before, basically bad enough to knock out my BRs.
What types of review and recapping are you doing as a professional to stay grounded when the cards suck and to learn from your mistakes?
When I was building momentum earlier this year, basically my principal was that I wasn't going to get rich from any one session. My goal was that if I made $100/session + what Im making at my 55/hr week job the money will accumulate and things will be alright.
I was playing shorter sessions, but was much more suited to deal with bad beats, because essentially I told myself that if I just quit after a bad hand, the quit would end up being very ++ EV long run. (much the same as when I was playing omaha for long stretches, I would assign disciplined preflop folds a +$1 EV for myself and tell myself that I was putting that money in the back... a positive quit avoiding tilt would save me a stack, a positive quit = +$200 EV)
I think where I veered off was seeing my hourly so high, and wanting to be a hard and discipline player (I come from a very blue collar back ground) I wanted to play longer sessions; thereby working harder, and earning my way closer to my goals.
Any comment on managing longer sessions and still playing well through the inevitable bad beats that go along with them??
I know this is long, and fragmented. Any advise on any of this would be much appreciated. I want this so badly and have worked so hard in conjunction with my job; and it is very frustrating to watch things slip as I have seen them do in the past. Need desperately to get back on the right track and learn from my mistakes to start building again.
