Found one double in the Bonanza, but then busted with AA vs 98 on JT9r. Alas, it was not meant for us.
Claimed my free $0.25 this morning so the br is now $35.44.
About Me
I started playing poker in high school. I used to only watch two tv channels when I was younger, ESPN and the History Channel. After midnight every night, ESPN used to just show poker highlights. WSOP final tables of all different games, US Poker Open, etc. I was immediately drawn to it. I used my moms laptop and deposited on FTP. I would fire the daily dollar tourney nightly and genuinely loved playing the game. I started organizing $10-20 games with my friends and was routinely able to take their money. I made my own account on PokerStars when I finally turned 18, but then Black Friday hit about a month later.
I went to college and used the money I earned delivering chinese food to play in a local 1/2 game I found, with mixed results. Eventually, me and my buddy made the 4.5 hour trip to the nearest casino for a $235 $100k GTD tourney. I had only my experience playing the daily dollar and knowledge from reading a couple of books on tourneys, so naturally I won 1st place for $33k as a 19 yr old. Of course I was a huge luckbox, but I didn't know it at the time. I started to venture up to the casino more and more to play 2/5 NL with my new found bankroll, but wasn't having much success. I remember reading Easy Game 3rd edition, and then it all started to click. My trips to the casino became more and more frequent and I seemed to win $2-4K every weekend I went up there. I also found a ROE game that usually became straight PLO later in the night at a local bar, and after reading a couple of Jeff Hwang's books, was crushing that game as well.
My interest in college started to dwindle, and I made another trip to the casino over the holiday break. I was planning on staying just a few days, but a massive winter storm hit and I stayed nearly two weeks. I ran incredibly well at the 2/5, took some shots in the 5/10 and won nearly $20k over that two weeks. I was done with school and moved into an apartment 5 minutes away from the casino. The next 5 years are honestly a blur. Things went well for awhile, but eventually drinking and drug use got the best of me and I was busto and couldn't bring myself to sit at the table for more than an hour without being messed up. Maybe I will share more stories of my experience later, but I'll keep it at that for now.
Busto and turned off from poker, I went back home and finished my schooling. I got a masters degree in accounting, and while generally I did my best to put my demons behind me, I got two DWIs during my time in college. Still, I managed to land a good job out of school and was working in the accounting world for a few years. My poker play over this time was mostly micro stakes online to pass the time. I won a couple tourneys on ACR and my graph probably shows like $1.5k profit playing like avg buyin $3 tourneys. I live in TX, which eventually started opening card rooms, so I had the occasional dip back into the live cash scene. Whenever I started playing too frequently, I found myself always go back to the booze and wipe away whatever winnings I had. I wasn't happy working in the corporate world, and longed for the freedom I had from my poker days, but wasn't disciplined enough to stay sober and grind out the cash games.
I quit my job in corporate America and moved in with my brother. I worked at a gas station and then at a grocery store. Despite giving up my "dream job", my goal of purchasing my "dream house", and making far less money, I finally found some peace. I quit drinking (have had a couple slip ups but probably been drunk 3 times in the last 3 years), lost 75 pounds, and fell in love for honestly the first time (not rly gonna dive into my relationship right now but were still together and live together now). I had a couple opportunities to be staked in the live games around Houston, one by someone I consider to be a truly world class player in the top 50 GPI rankings that was my best friend for a time when we were coming up in the 2/5 games, but could never bring myself to put in the volume and could always hear my demons creeping up in the back of my head. Eventually my backers would lose interest in my excuses for not putting in the volume and end the deals.
Fast forward to now, and I find myself back in the corporate world. Even though I had worked my way up in the grocery store to a respectable position with not terrible pay, it was still very difficult to get by paycheck to paycheck living with my GF. Through a connection, I managed to land a very cushy finance job paying low 6 figures. Even though it doesn't bring me much joy, I feel blessed and fortunate for the opportunity and for tripling my salary. We had built up some debt living paycheck to paycheck, and that is all mostly taken care of now. I have started to find myself feeling bored and depressed with the routine, and itching to play some poker. But I have also learned a few things about myself along the way that I am hopeful poker can now become a constructive outlet for me and bring me joy.
I've realized my true love is for tournaments, not the long never ending cash game grind. Even when I couldn't stay focused in cash games for more than 30 minutes, I never had the same issue with long 12 hour tournament days. It makes me sad to think its been 4 years since I have played in a live tournament, but the prospect of being able to plan some poker trips to play tournaments a few times a year truly excites me. Deep down I always wanted to just live out of a suitcase and travel around the country exploring national forests and mountains and beautiful scenery during the week and fire some main events on the weekends; I almost bought a van back in the day when the money was coming in easy. Now I feel like at least I can dream that dream again and it doesn't seem so out of reach, and it gives me hope.
My Goal for 2023
Cash a live tournament
My Goal for Life
Invest wisely, work hard and long enough to get a couple of big bonuses, and hopefully bink a few tourneys to speed up my retirement from the corporate world so I can live on the returns and live on my own terms. Traveling and playing poker tournaments.
My Plan to Make it Happen
Starting out poker wise, I'm going to try to take advantage of the free money and daily and weekly overlay tourneys and freerolls to build up a bankroll to play micro/low stakes tourneys on Global. I honestly don't have huge ambitions to play high online and instead want to view my efforts online as ways to satty into live events and offset some of the travel cost and buy-ins.
Also, with my current salary, expenses, and investment strategy, I can comfortable set aside $200 from every paycheck for future tournaments. I don't currently have a plan as to which tournament I want to play first or anything like that. Right now I'm focused on playing the micros and trying to be profitable while knocking off the rust on strategy, push/fold, etc.
I'd also like to read some more current books or resources on the current state of MTT strat if anyone has some suggestions I'd very much appreciate it.
I am not in a hurry and do not want to repeat the mistakes of my past. I will not play any cash games. My goal for the short-term, 2023, is to simply cash a live tournament again. I hope to do this by getting my game back with micro/low stakes and study, and hopefully find some decent wins on Global. Say I'm able to run it up to like $1k, take that $1k and withdrawal $1k from my poker savings account to take a trip to fire a few bullets at a live re-entry like $500k GTD tourney with $400-500 buy-in. So like I said kind of try to satty in to live events playing low online and maybe match those winnings with my poker savings to plan a trip.
