Hello all,

My name is STATUSQUONOMO and I am a professional poker player and an alcoholic.

It has taken me many years to admit to myself and others that I am an alcoholic, but I have done so a couple months back and will be celebrating my two month birthday this week. With a couple exceptions I have attended an AA meeting daily. I am not court ordered to do so, and am not entirely sure why, but I decided that for the first 3 months of my recovery I would try to make it to a meeting daily.

I am also a professional poker player, and have been for a very long time. I have always found myself to be a much better and motivated player than most of the people I know, but ever since COVID started I have found myself in some sort of a trance, with no specific goals in mind and a level of discipline and motivation that leaves much to be desired. I think that somewhere along the road I have lost sight of what matters most, and in combination with significant increased drinking, I have been wondering around aimlessly.

This blog will serve as my outlet for sharing insights regarding my poker journey and my struggles with alcoholism, motivation, life in general and how all of these things are connected. I am not sure how often I will post updates or what the topics will be, but I guess we will find out.

My short term goals of six months include:
* Staying sober
*losing 20 lbs
*make 125k playing poker. Anything over 100k is acceptable.

This is my first time around in the program (AA), and I am still learning a lot about how it all works. If any of the posts I make regarding my personal experiences (stuff that happens in meetings, thoughts about things, interactions I have had) related to AA are considered offensive or in violation with their anonymity policy, then please let me know and I will delete those messages.

I play online poker in a variety of different places. Some of these are just regular poker sites and apps, others are private games. Some are HUD-supported, others are not. Keeping track of my results is only for myself. Although I intend on recording my sessions and making regular updates on my financial status, it is of no concern to me to validate my results to anyone else.

I invite anyone to come along on my journey, and hopefully I can turn this blog into something inspirational.

STATUSQUONOMO

Hey STATUSQUONOMO,

Thank you for sharing your journey with such openness and honesty. Acknowledging and addressing both alcoholism and personal struggles is a significant step toward positive change. It takes strength to confront these challenges, and it's commendable that you've decided to share your experiences to inspire and connect with others.

The goals you've set for yourself—maintaining sobriety, focusing on your health, and achieving success in poker—are ambitious and meaningful. It's evident that you are determined to make positive changes in your life, and having clear, measurable goals can be a powerful motivator.

Using this blog as an outlet to share your insights and experiences can not only serve as a form of self-reflection but also provide a source of support for others facing similar struggles. Your openness about your journey in both poker and recovery can be both inspiring and relatable to those who may be going through similar challenges.

Remember, your journey is unique, and progress may come in different forms. Celebrate your successes, no matter how small, and be patient with yourself during moments of difficulty.

Wishing you continued strength, clarity, and success on your journey. I look forward to hearing more about your experiences and insights as you move forward. If there's anything specific you'd like to discuss or share, feel free to reach out.

Hi there! Just wanted to say congratz on find your way back to some level of healthy life style. Seating here and reading your post made me realize I need to become a better poker player. Wish you a great journey on your new begging!

I started the poker part of this journey on NOV 17. I decided that it can only benefit me to record all the sessions I play (minus the private games I might play on tablets/phones), so I've been doing that and will continue. Naturally, I will forget a session here and there, but as this is only for personal purposes it doesn't really matter.

I have started off by playing 100nl. I will probably continue to do this mostly until the end of the month to get back into a good routine. My daily grind consists of roughly 8-10 hours, logging about 50-60 hours weekly.

My results so far (100NL)
NOV 17 600 MIN, + 500.
NOV 19 180 MIN, +700
NOV 20 200 MIN, -250
NOV 21 500 MIN, +1350

+2300 over 25 hours or 90 usd/hr

I try to play roughly 3x3.5 hour sessions, and plan to (roughly) have 1 session 6tabling, 1 9tabling, 1 12tabling. This will give me an idea of different winrates, and quite honestly sometimes I just like a faster paced grind of just clicking buttons. Instinctively I am inclined to say that my winrate would be higher sticking with 6 tables vs 9/12, but in case that I'm wrong I might as well try adding more. Obviously I will need quite a large sample of hours to say anything meaningful.

I'm recording all my sessions and labeling them as '12tabing 100nl, 180min, afternoon session,+500' and such, but it's going to be very hard to really know how much of it is 9tabling vs 12 vs whatever. Most of the games I'm planning on playing in the near future are semi-private games with no tracking options.

That's it for now. I just wanted to get the ball rolling and make a first update!

Sad to hear that you're in this rut but happy to hear that you've taken charge of your situation.

This sounds silly but I would tell you to go watch Rounders again. I'm not sure if you've seen it but few movies can get you as hyped to play poker.

Take it easy and good luck

Finished a productive day. Played 3 sessions for 10hrs total and +1900 result. added some 200nl because... why not.

It's rather nice to start off this new thread with a bit of goodrun, because the last 60 days or so have been quite bad. It's been a long time since I had ran that poorly, so it's nice to see that perhaps the weather is changing.I'll probably grind out mostly 100nl for the rest of the month and aim to play around 200 hours of 100 and 200 in December. A 20k+ month would be nice, pushing for 25k though.

For those of you unfamiliar with AA: It's based on twelve steps as well as twelve traditions. The first step (these are all suggestions, not an action forced on you) is:

We admitted we were powerless over alcohol-that our lives had become unmanageable.


After nearly two months in the program, I find myself struggling with this first step quite a bit. I notice that a (big) part of my brain still holds on to the idea that somehow, some way, I will eventually manage to find a way to just drink in moderation. Being an alcoholic means that you are NOT capable to have that first sip and stop. It might work a few times, but you are bound to relapse and end up abusing alcohol. Non-alcoholic people on average do not comprehend this. They see this as a matter of 'self control' and 'will power', and not being able to just limit your drinking to a few beverages is just poor discipline. Part of my brain likes to believe that this is true, because it would mean that if I just solve this problem, I will some day be able to drink (again). Going to the meetings has taught me that this way of thinking is exactly the problem. I've lost count of the amount of people I have heard share their experience in these last two months, explaining how they too thought that maybe they would be able to figure out how to just drink moderately. It ALWAYS leads to the same result.

I think in my core I understand that I am a true alcoholic that can never drink again, and attending meetings/listening to others with similar struggles reminds me of this. I hope that over time I hold on to the idea of maybe being able to manage it less and less, and FULLY admit to myself that I am powerless over alcohol.

I am in no rush to work my way through the steps. I rather make sure my sobriety is never at risk while I slowly get to the point of fully embracing the first step, than move on to the second one. I do not intend on relapsing at some point down the road, and I am painfully aware of how much the odds are against me. Again, I have lost track of the countless stories I've heard at the meetings so far of people relapsing through their journey. People with 10+ years of sobriety and no relapses are rarer than unicorns. If I am to stand a fighting chance at being one them, I better make sure I get it right.

The second part of the first step is also a tricky one. My life was/is still very much manageable. A lot of the people I've met in AA have gone to jail, OD'd, will die if they drink again,.... You name it. It's important for me to realize that even though none of these things happened to me, it's just a matter of time before they will. Perhaps not in such a drastic way, but my alcoholic tendencies/drinking has gotten worse and worse over the years, so naturally it would just continue to evolve to the point where my life, indeed, would become unmanageable.

I get great pleasure in going to the meetings and listening to other people share. The self inflicted misery and horrible experiences some of them have had is beyond words. It makes me feel embarrassed to be in the same room as them. A lot of them have had horrible childhoods, and I catch myself thinking 'no wonder they ended up messed up.' What's my excuse? I am the definition of a privileged individual. I have never gone through a bad thing in my life. Yet here I am. Luckily for me, the only person judging me in these meetings is myself.

That should be enough for one day. Later!

Figured I'd do a small writeup for November and discuss goals for December.

December goals :
*25k profit and play around 250 hours of 100NL and 200NL. I'll settle for anything over 20k profit and 200+ hours.
* Continue to attend AA meetings daily for about half of December, then start cutting back to 2/3 times a week.
*Drop down to 190 lbs.

Prior to starting this thread I was running very poorly for quite some time. I think a lot of this was also suboptimal play and a bad mindset. It's nice that as of day 1 of tracking my results here I have been doing a lot better. I decided to record all of my sessions and keep track of my results in a very organized manner (hours played per session, profit per sessions, amount of tables, stakes,...)

So far I have played a total of 12 days for a total of 86 hours,. The majority of my volume has been on 100nl, but I have started adding some 200nl as well. My profit currently is 10750. This translates to an hourly profit of around 125. Obviously that means I'm running quite well. Having said that, I expect my long term hourly to be around $50/65 for 100nl and around $85/100 for 200nl. I'm sure I'll catch a lot of crap for this, but I'm confident that in the games I play with my skillset this can be obtained. Maybe I can't, but I rather set my goals too high.

Let's gooo December.

We're a couple days into December, time for a small update.

Total time played 2380 MIN
Total profit +$4000
$100/hr more or less exactly (funny coincidence).

The goal for December is to probably 12 table 200NL for the most part and add some 100nl if there aren't enough tables running. I combine multiple platforms and apps so that shouldn't really be an issue. In January I either continue doing the same, or I start adding 400/500NL.

Hey guys,

I ended up playing around 136 hrs in December and profiting around 21k. Add some RB to this and it was about 25k total. I played mainly 1/2, but added some .5/1 when there weren't enough tables running, as well as chasing a fish on one private site up to 5/10.

Not counting RB the profit breakdown was:
Site A total profit 5500.
Site B total profit 9500
Site C total profit 6000 (mainly 2/4 and 5/10 and probably only around 2.5k hands)

Everything combined I managed to get an hourly of about 150 usd. It gets a little unprecise, but when I filter out Site C I get an hourly of about $110/hr for December, which was roughly speaking 75% 1/2 and 25% .5/1.

Although the result is pretty decent, I didn't get anywhere near my projected goal in terms of volume. I underestimated how busy December gets with the holidays, I went to play a live tourney for 4 days and got sick soon after,.... All in all I would say that nearly 30% of the month was unplayable.

I've been mainly 12 tabling, but I'm probably going to drop down to 9 tables. I make countless mistakes while 12 tabling, and I just autopilot way too much at times/missclick/... This might be ok at current levels, but I do intend on adding $2/4 $2/5 $3/6 the latest in February, and I think the will become too costly.

There are a couple huge leaks I have that I need to plug, which will probably increase my winrate by 10-15%. This is a random number, but it sounds about right to me.

My biggest 3 leaks are:
* Having TG or similar programs opens while grinding. Needless to say 12 tabling and interacting with other people is a big leak.
* Playing sessions that are too long. My optimal length is probably 3.5hrs. I aim to do 3x3.5 a day.
*Checking my results too often. I can't believe that after all these years I'm still a noob that checks results during sessions, which I need to stop. Besides it messing with my mental state, it also takes time away from focusing on all tables.

It's been hard for me to motivate posting here regularly, as you can see by the lack of updates last month. Moving forward I will try to get in the habit of posting almost daily, even if it just means to give a quick breakdown of hours played vs profit. Perhaps if I start posting short updates, I get into the habit of doing it more often and more lengthy.

My goals for JAN are:
*At least 200 hours at mostly $1/2 NL. I will add .05/1 if there aren't many tables running, and I might start adding $2/4,$2.5/5,$3/6 depending on the results.
*30k profit. This is obviously a huge number to hit at 1./2, but best to aim big. Anything above 20k profit is acceptable, but anything below 25k will be a slight disappointment.
*Reach 190lbs body weight. This means a drop of about 15lbs in one month. I haven't been dieting or working out at all in the last 3 months, so this is not an extremely difficult goal to reach. It will be much harder to drop 10lbs from 190-180 the second month than it is to drop 15lbs going from a state of not working out/dieting at all to actually managing both.

I have been recording 99% of all my sessions, and will continue to do so. I don't think this will ever be relevant for anything except my personal use, but I like the idea of having a record of what I'm doing. Who knows, maybe if I crush 2024 for 2k+ hours at $100/hr + MSNL there might be some interest from a party to look at my vids.

Happy 2024 to everyone, and may the poker gods be on your side.

Stats for Jan:

Jan 1 X
Jan 2 215 Min
Jan 3 600 Min

Total hours played 13.5
Total profit 335

$/hr 25

Starting weight 205 lbs
Current weight 202.2
Total weight lost 2.8 lbs

Random thought of the day: I'm ***** hungry!

Stats for Jan:

Jan 1 X
Jan 2 215 Min
Jan 3 600 Min
Jan 4 530 Min

Total hours played 22.5
Total profit -1465

$/hr -65

Starting weight 205 lbs
Current weight 203
Total weight lost 2 lbs

Random thought of the day: Looks like my great run from last month has come to a halt. Let's hope it's just a little bump in the road and not the start of something. Also #loldsample only played 3 days this week of which I won 2.

How's the recovery going?

Stats for Jan:

Jan 1 X
Jan 2 215 Min
Jan 3 600 Min
Jan 4 530 Min
jan 5 600 min

Total hours played 32.5
Total profit -1115

$/hr -34

Starting weight 205 lbs
Current weight 201
Total weight lost 4 lbs

Random thought of the day: Nothing really going my way, better luck tomorrow.

I'll have 4 months soon. I haven't had any desire to drink except for a couple sporadic moments of thinking I'd be nice to have a drink. No real temptations though. I've had multiple dreams in which I find myself drinking/about to drink, realizing that I'm doing something very bad. People in AA told me this is a very common thing after quitting drinking in your first year.

My recovery is going... ok. I should probably work on the steps a little harder, but to be honest I'm not giving myself too much of a hard time for taking it slow. There's only so many hours in a day, and between grinding full time, family life, trying to stay healthy mentally and physically, not much time is left. I am content with the fact that going to AA keeps me from drinking for now, and will try to start working the steps more seriously as I go along. To be honest, there are countless of people in AA that have relapsed, and it's important for me to do it right the first way. I rather work on fully accepting the first step my entire first year and not drink than move on to the next ones and risk a relapse.

Step 1: ''We admit that we are powerless over alcohol, that our lives have become unmanageable. ''

I still struggle with this step every day. I would not be truthful to myself if I said I have fully accepted the idea of never drinking again. I keep having the thought that if I can resolve my underlaying issues that lead me to not manage my drinking, that one day I can drink in moderation. Basically everyone in AA has felt similarly to this and eventually realized that's just never going to work, but I'm not quite there yet.

Congrats on making it this far, that's quite an accomplishment. Happy for you. However long you put off the steps, hopefully you are at least on the lookout for a good sponsor to help you when you do decide you need to move forward with them. Someone who has done them.

There's a thread in OOT called Quitting Alcohol. The guy who started it just celebrated 11 years sober. He's very active in AA and there are several others with multiple years sober who are as well. It's not a very active thread, but I'm sure if you have any questions or need to talk to someone who's been there, you can easily find a sympathetic ear there.

Quitting Alcohol

Hey man, congrats on making a decision to quit drinking. I will have 14 years this month. I also started my journey as a live poker pro last August.

I am not so active in AA these days, but it saved my ass, if not my life. Life can be unimaginably awesome without alcohol.

Thanks. I guess I forgot to mention it, but I found a sponsor on my second day. A guy offered me a ride home after my first meeting and suggested to be my sponsor the next day. He's got over 40 years of sobriety under his belt and can relate to a lot of what goes in my life (poker, crypto,...) so it's a pretty good match.

Stats for Jan:

Jan 1 X
Jan 2 215 Min
Jan 3 600 Min
Jan 4 530 Min
Jan 5 600 min
Jan 6 470 min
Total hours played 40
Total profit -115

$/hr -3

Starting weight 205 lbs
Current weight 201
Total weight lost 4 lbs

Random thought of the day: When you run good, everything feels so easy. When you run bad, it's hard to imagine ever achieving a winrate longterm.

Jan 7 X

Stats for Jan:

Jan 1 X
Jan 2 215 Min
Jan 3 600 Min
Jan 4 530 Min
Jan 5 600 min
Jan 6 470 min
Jan 7 X
Jan 8 430 min
Total hours played 47
Total profit -115

$/hr -2

Starting weight 205 lbs
Current weight 201
Total weight lost 4 lbs

Stats for Jan:

Jan 1 X
Jan 2 215 Min
Jan 3 600 Min
Jan 4 530 Min
Jan 5 600 min
Jan 6 470 min
Jan 7 X
Jan 8 430 min
Jan 9 455 min
Total hours played 55
Total profit 2885

$/hr 52

Starting weight 205 lbs
Current weight 202.2
Total weight lost 2.8 lbs

Stats for Jan:

Jan 1 X
Jan 2 215 Min
Jan 3 600 Min
Jan 4 530 Min
Jan 5 600 min
Jan 6 470 min
Jan 7 X
Jan 8 430 min
Jan 9 455 min
Jan 10 570 min
Total hours played 64
Total profit 3685

$/hr 57

Starting weight 205 lbs
Current weight 201
Total weight lost 4 lbs

Stats for Jan:

Jan 1 X
Jan 2 215 Min
Jan 3 600 Min
Jan 4 530 Min
Jan 5 600 min
Jan 6 470 min
Jan 7 X
Jan 8 430 min
Jan 9 455 min
Jan 10 570 min
Jan 11 520 min
Total hours played 72.5
Total profit 2735

$/hr 38

Starting weight 205 lbs
Current weight 203
Total weight lost 2 lbs

Had my worst session this morning. Woke up late/tired and instantly sat down at tables with the goal of grinding 5 straight hours. I quit 3 hours in after dropping 14 buyins. Probably wise to make sure to stick to my (very limited) waking up routine prior to playing. Also best to stay away from grinding 5 hour sessions AND 12 tabling. Basically been 12 tabling again for about 2x5hrs and it's just not a good idea. One day I'll learn...