Cliffs/background: Played professionally from middle 2009 through late 2010. Went through horrific stretch and spent latter part of year playing zero poker and focusing on getting another job (was why I went to poker as job in first place). I made money at a liveable rate even through the downswing, but made the choice to walk away. The fact that I'm still living off that year+ of money tells me that its psychological and not skill (though I like everyone am always trying to get better). Right now am playing as ~50% of my income. The job-side goal is to get a solid FT one that pays my bills comfortably and go back to having poker as a second income.

I started back out online in late 2010 with $60 on FTP. Over the last four months I've achieved Iron (after one month under that). I'm playing LHE and PLO, both FR and Rush at varying limits. Right now its at about $1200. I'm playing as high as 3/6 LHE and 100 PLO using a modified short-stack strategy for the latter. And yes I have rakeback.

I also just started back out playing live a month ago - taking $1200 and starting over. Given that I used to play as high as 5/10 NL and 20/40 LHE in Atl. City (if you play midstakes limit there, we've played or at least know all the same people). I'm playing 1/2 and 2/5 NL and still up to 20/40. I'm preferring the 10/20 unless the 20 game is just OMG SO GOOD until I get back into the game comfortably.

After a month, including an ATLARGE $100 NL final table this weekend, the cash portion is back over $3000, which means I'm just starting to feel comfortable with the amount. Had a very profitable last couple days, making nearly $1k from the weekend even after room and quite a few good meals (Bobby Flay AND Carmines).

Not entirely sure what the poker goals are other than the fairly obvious making of money, but will chronicle here.

GLGLGL sir.

Congrats on the profitable ATLARGE. I know the final table didn't turn out as you wish but it was still a nice run. (This is Chris BTW...pretty sure you know that though)

I'm sure I'll see you at the 1/2 2/5 and PLO tables at the Borgata.

Yeah - I made a horrific mistake five handed. Going to PM it to you.

Actual thread update: Been playing 100 PLO rush after work and running in near-god mode. Up ~20 buyins in the last 3 days (Buyin not $100 sadly). Was up about 40 but the god mode glitched.

Started out the weekend with a freaking nightmare. Had a 3 rack ($1500) downswing across NL, LHE, and PLO at the Borgata.

Generally got the money in decent and ran like dog crap. The one "hilarious" PLO hand we got the money in on a flop of JT2. I had KQ95 and he had KQ97. River the seven ball. I laughed and reloaded.

Got a bunch of it back yesterday - primarily by grinding the hell out of the 10/20 game. Played a short 20/40 session this AM before I had to go back home and won there.

Slowly starting to get my sea legs back....taking awhile, but I really did expect that.

Holy crap - I kicked up from 25PLO to 100PLO in Rush - rakeback quadrupled and this week going to be a bigger number too. Small favors.

Goal is to make Black Card first week in April. I'm at about 425 FTP rolling average, and been adding 5-10 points per day (ie playing 750 to 1000 points per day). I don't consider getting the card meaningful, but its been a target for about two months now, and I've really grinded the last two weeks towards it.

Took a long look at HEM yesterday and it was fairly depressing. I'm absolutely crushing the game on paper and about 80% is just me running WAY over EV - like 25-30 BI over my last 10k hands. Obv I don't mind running like that, but its a good reminder that I'm running hot and that it won't last.

Weekend - broke even. Won and lost almost identical amounts Saturday and Sunday in the 20 game. Sunday was super-irritating - incredible game and I ran horrific.

I've had a running joke for over a year now with another reg. that he just runs like god against me. Early in the session I was teasing him about it and he was adamant that it wasn't true. Later he won three straight pots off me and went "**** you're right".

Really slacked off playing online last week or so, just locked up Iron Man for March last night and won't be close to grinding out that damn Black Card anytime soon. It's not really that I want the card, it's a fixed target. Running super far above EV which is scary because I know it won't last. (Last night 960 hands, 7 BI above EV on allins)

Hey man, interesting story as i think it relates a lot to every poker player. I am currently in sort of the same situation. I've had some nice MTT scores in the last 4 months and then started playing cash. Last week i was 4k profit at 1/2, then sunday came and started playing 2/4 and getting crushed HU. I'm telling you this because i'm trying to make the same goal for myself now. I'm sick and tired of running up my roll then taking "shots", it's not proper poker. Gl to you sir, all poker takes is being patient and disciplined. A concept i have yet to maintain. Let this be a turning point.

Monthly summary: 17k hands +900 online (incl. rakeback but not tomorrow's est $125 pmt).

About +1100 live - and 1200 of that was from coming in 4th at the ATLARGE no limit early in the month. Aka barely losing month playing cash - which is fairly irritating but not surprising. I only really had one significant winning session and had a couple substantial losing ones (including one that had a 2+2er come up to me and tell me he'd never seen someone get cold decked that often in 3 hours).

April's goals are pretty straightfoward - get black card. 100 day rolling average is >425 FTP, and the 10 day required FTP is under 10k (and I'm doing 1k per day generally when I play). I'm also probably going to play more live, which means less time playing online (ldo). We'll see. I'm going to try to stick to 1/2 NL and 10/20 LHE as much as I can - I should be playing those games, but hate passing up a really good 20/40 even on short money.

I also noticed that I have over 55k FTP saved up, so I'm starting to look over what I want. I will not swap for tournament tickets - I just don't like tournaments much these days. I may just do cash from the black card store - I dunno. Need to look into this.

Had a very solid weekend last weekend at the Borgata. Grinded 10/20 and 20/40 both days (game selected to 10 on Saturday and 20 on Sunday). Made about 1.5 racks for the two days, could have made alot more but ran horrific late Saturday and blew back a bunch of money on stupid spots incl. getting 4 outed on a 20 big bet bet.

Also ran into 2+2er and very long time friend pipes which was awesome.

Been grinding hard at nights after work on that Black Card goal - playing about 2x as much as I had been (which is 2x more than I had ever done). At about 470 points on my average and need about 1k points per day for the 5 or 10 day goal. I hope to get it soon - I'll probably be in AC for a day or two anyway and never really play online after playing live for 12-14 hours lol.
Disappointed that its taken this long, but I'm happy with the path - I worked my way up to playing more and more and am doing reasonably well in the games plus making a bunch in rakeback. Right now about 30% of my total return is from poker, which is less than I was hoping for. A huge part of this is some medium shots at tournaments (100-200 BI) with no success. Without those, its close to 50/50.

I really really need to get back to watching CR videos - I have the subscription but am not using it. Unless I want to keep shortstacking PLO, I need to put some work in on my game, and I know the LHE content is solid even if its not quite the game I play in (6 max online vs FR live).

Still running overall very hot - way way above all in EV (13 BI over last 20k hands). Yesterday was a first - the first time I made money while running below EV (0.2 BI under over 1k hands).

Pretty soon going to have to take money off FT and who the hell knows how that is going to go.

Ship the black card. Just locked it up this AM. Now to figure out wtf to do with it lol.

Also played both Borgata and Parx this weekend - won about 3 racks between the two and loving it. Makes up for running 10 BI under EV over 1k hands last two days (not a typo).

Well the good news is that I continued to kick a ton of ass online and did a great job this week building up the roll to the point that I was going to cash out half of it.

Oh wait.

Between what happened Friday and a horrific weekend, I'm reeling pretty bad. I'd call it a 40% haircut in my active bankroll.

And with my current situation, there's really only one option - cut a bunch more expenses and grind alot more live. This is going to suck ALOT and I basically won't be able to afford run-bad or play-bad. The latter I'm not too worried about, but the former is inevitable with my style.

One of my strengths has always been game-selecting and being able to rotate into the best available game. I'm close to the point where I'll have to select the limit based on available cash. Either that or really suck out and find a job that actually pays enough for me to live on (unlikely)

Well the new thread title (thank you to whichever Mod assisted) should sum it up. Going to focus on my live grinding in here. Should anything happen with my present online money, I'll note it as well.

I do not intend to play again online at another site. I don't see it as worth the effort/risk. Should the regulatory situation change (for the better) I will consider, but not until then.

I do intend to move money from LT savings into my bankroll to replace the lost money. Should I recover anything, it will go into savings. That will help balance some short-term variance.

best of luck sir, thinking about trying my hand at the live scene here in Phoenix as well, lots of casinos to choose from, and a couple card rooms as well.

yeah I've heard alot of good things overall about the Phoenix rooms. Several of the more respected B&M and MSLHE posters are in your neck of the woods.

So this weekend was fun.

Friday: Played 20/40 all day at Borgata. I'm not thrilled with how the session ended - I tilted a little (which is rare - someone even commented that they had never seen me frustrated in the 18 months they've known me) and what had been a multi-rack win turned into a 3 big bet loss for a 14 hour day.

Saturday: Had one of the most fun hours of my poker life playing 1/2 at Parx. I was just clicking - making good reads and getting there alot. I had the two players sitting next to me debating (in good humor) which side of me was more of a pain to be on. I was trying to not laugh - though I think the guy on my right had it much worse. Then started the 15/30 game and just grinded that for a million hours. Game was incredible, but I was pretty card dead. Won a rack in 10 hours which I think was under EV for the game conditions.

Sunday - I decided to do a quick morning session at Parx. I lost two buyins at 1/2 in an hour and decided to go home and kick things. The kicking was more fun than poker. I was a little spewy, but also got coolered.

Monday - Parx again. Played some 1/2 running blah again (I really need to either work on my game here). Started the 15/30 and played about 6 hours, winning 3 racks in a pretty good but not spectacular game. I've developed a real pattern of running hot in the shorthanded play that starts the game, which is incredibly lucrative.

Overall I really do think I need to clean up my NL game. Since I'm not playing it as my primary game anymore, and obviously don't have any chance to practice cheap, I really need to focus on locking down and just being a nit. I'm playing 1/2 basically to kill time and make a couple dollars waiting for my primary game to open, and need to remember that. I'm playing a splashy style that isn't going to be profitable unless I run really hot, and paying off too much (a limit habit)

I'm pretty happy with how my limit game maintained over the time I took off though - I'm very comfortable now with the stakes I'm playing and getting there with the swings. It's a process getting re-acclimated to losing 1k intra-session routinely.

wow great to know, i'll have to go trolling those forums then!

thanks!

LC: It's funny how quickly I'm adjusting mentally to not having online poker - I do miss it, but not really.

It's probably been since 2006 that I've made the majority of my poker money in casinos vs online - part of it was always a willingness to play higher live (and not keeping a ton of money online), but most of it was that I'm simply better at it.

The one thing I will miss are small stakes tournaments - I always mixed a pretty sizable number of those into my play through late last year, but not much after that. Now with no more online, I'm pretty sure that my tournament game is going to get substantially worse - at the very least it will be stagnant and rusty.
Since I'm at best a very low ROI tournament player (I hate playing small ones live) now, I'm pretty much accepting that tournament play is going to leave my skill set gradually. I'm not bothered by this - its a fact of life.

The same is probably true for PLO and the other mixed games, I hardly play anything but Holdem live, and will be sorry that I'm not playing the games I enjoy more...but business is business.

Pretty solid weekend despite some ups and downs.

Thursday: Played after work. Started the must move game, which was god-awful. 7 handed with 5 solids including myself. I remember tweeting that I hoped 30/60 would start to thin out the field. Well 30/60 started and I ended up the 19th player between the 9 handed 15 game and the 9 handed 30 game. Oops. After an hour of hanging out with a friend and no real probability of movement, I called it a night.

Saturday: Played ~14 hours. Got stuck pretty good before the game filled up and grinded out a 1.5 rack+ win.

Sunday: Nightmare. Played under 3 hours and dropped 2 racks. I think I won two hands. Just one of those days where I couldn't make a pair or get someone to fold the best hand. Game was good, and I was making it good. Only good thing was being able to quit when I recognized that I wasn't all there mentally and stopped the bleeding.

Monday: Game didn't start til late, which sucked since I couldn't play a long day with work obligations. I was just simply on a huge heater - won roughly 4 racks in 4 hours. I simply had huge hands and got paid. Nothing all that complicated about it. What was odd was that I never had a big Ax hand the whole time - I was playing entirely pocket pairs it seemed. No AK or AQ at all.

What went well: Overall I'm in a very good groove playing LHE these days - I've really been applying the lessons I've learned from time playing and am pretty happy with my game these days. I'm also getting my stamina back for playing longer sessions (I define as 12+ hours)

What isn't good: I'm turning into an NL fish. I'm not focused when I play and I'm playing with too much of a limit mentality and repeatedly getting into stupid spots and paying off monsters. I'm strongly considering just not playing NL for the time being - especially since I can't practice cheap online. I dropped about 1k playing 1/2 last month - and while I obviously made a helluva lot more playing limit, I still don't like losing.

All I gotta say is that I want at least a little rungood back.

4 sesssions over the long weekend - best total was -20 big bets.

*VOMIT*

I think I played reasonably well overall and just couldn't make a freaking hand. AK/AQ didn't improve. Set draws either missed or were made AND lost. Traditional draws rarely got there.

This is a cliffs version of why bankroll management matters. Mine would grade out at best at a C. I'm traditional and not in a good way in that I'm not afraid to play my normal or a slightly bigger game if I believe I'm playing well and the game is too good to pass up. When it works, its great. When you get a deuce 60% of hands, its not.