I'm not sure if I'm reading this the way you meant it but my first impression was that you think getting a job would mean you somehow failed? Or are you saying you will only get a job when you go broke...which is something I guarantee you're going to do given your behavior.

Having a regular job, even a part time one at that, for most people reduces the pressure and feeling that they need to win right now because they have a second stream of income to help decrease the burden of monthly finances.


All that said, I've read post after post of people giving you solid advice and making accurate assessments about your destructive behavior. You should quit poker and get help. You clearly have a problem. Also pretty clear you're not going to get serious about it.

This guy is the most unreal person I have come across in maybe forever?

You say you want poker to work out and do almost everything you can to make sure it doesn't.

• Play out of your roll
• Play like a ******
• Gamble
• Play drunk
• Spend an absurd amount on stuff you don't need
• Spend an absurd amount on food
• Also ignore every single decent piece of adivce you get

There's like 20 things I probably missed of that list.

Seriously dude, get your ***** **** together man.

OP, correct me if I'm wrong but it seems like you were playing more, winning more, playing better and enjoying the game more when you had a job.

6,

Your ego and unwillingness to accept how little you actually know about the game are probably bigger hindrances to your success at poker than your degen tendencies.

You continue to post hands with very basic fundamental mistakes, then in the next post talk about GTO balancing considerations and such. None of that is relevant to what you need right now. Your top priority should be learning how to play winning fundamentally sound ABC poker. But that’s not exciting and doesn’t involve any 5-bet bluffs, so I understand it’s not the right thing for you.

I don't know how you've missed the probably 200+ posts where Mike talks about his graph or winrate but yes he crushes 2/5 by any reasonable definition.

You're trying to run before you know how to walk. It's great you have ambition. I do too. I want to move up as high as I can go. But one step at a time.

You think you can crush 1/3 but there's no evidence of that. Your results are poor. You move up in stakes to 2/5 and lose. You decide to play tough 50NL online games which you also assume you crush with no evidence. When you run bad for one day you jump up to 200NL. When that doesn't work out you start playing super degen gambling games. This is not the plan of someone working hard to move up in stakes.

That plan would look something like this for live games

Play a borderline nitty TAG game at 1/3 until your roll reaches at least 20k.

Play a TAG game at 2/5 until your roll reaches at least 50k. If you drop below 10k or believe you are tilting or losing, go back to 1/3. There is no shame in this and I dropped down myself after my first attempt moving up. You want to be really disciplined never tilting and making close to zero mistakes before considering moving up.

Now consider moving up. At 5/T you can experiment with playing a more sLAG game but still you should start out pretty TAG. When your roll hits at least 100k consider moving up.

You get the picture. You'll hit a ceiling somewhere and it's fine to stay at that stake. You said you'd rather play 1/3 forever than go back to a regular job. So do that if you have to. Or stop at 2/5. Wherever you make the most money.

Poker is about making money and you seem to be more interested in being the best...just focus on making money for a while.

And nobody here is rooting for you to lose. The evidence is just strongly pointing that way. I really hope you can pull it together. Truly. Gamblers Anon may not be right for you but you should ban yourself from non poker games at least.

So much this.

Actually all the posts after the one I quoted are great and very on point too, but not going to quote them all obv.

OP, You need to read all that stuff and let it sink in; it's all excellent commentary. If you keep doing everything you are doing there is 100% chance you will fail and be broke, or even worse in serious debt that you won't be able to cover. The advice in this thread is gold. Follow it if you truly want to make money OR keep doing what you are doing and be a broke degen who will lose everything. The choice is yours, you truly have a fork in the road that you must decide which way you will go; the fork toward money and success or the fork that heads to no money and loss. GG

The 50 year olds are telling you that you've got a gambling problem. Sure, poker can be +ev vs. other games. However, your love of poker is only when you are gambling.

The end is in sight. I don't want you to hit bottom. Neither does Mike. Maybe you can grow out of this eventually. For now, you're an addict. Those 50 year olds that were telling you that you're addict were once 20 year olds. Do you want to end up like them?

The whole gamboolin in a casino thing is really weird. I have finally caught my personal limit. After a long time mixing it up I have decided to step away. I literally can not stand to be in a poker room any more. I have spent my entire adult life making my living as a gambler. I have seen the misery and angst that problem gambling causes. I have heard and seen too many tales of woe and lives ruined. Countless wannabees blowing through their roll doing stupid sht. Some people just have to beat their heads against the wall and leave a path of destruction before they can begin to pick up the pieces. Sadly I believe 6 bet me is one of them. I wish you the best pal but I will no longer be following your personal train wreck.

skwid signing off

I managed to recover most of my losses last night when I came 1st in a $100 hyper turbo SnG for $390 and won a bit at 50PLO too when I flopped a set in a 3bet pot against an obvious AAxx. At one stage in the SnG, I was down to 30 chips when my 77 lost to KQ on a 57KQQ runout. It was pretty crushing when they gave me so much false hope on the flop, and I really needed that win. Blinds were 50/100, I had 30 chips left and hope was almost futile. But I somehow managed to win flip after flip after flip and built up my stack to 3000 chips and won the tournament. Scary to think that I would've pretty much completely busted my online roll if I didn't pull that miracle right at the end.

Well today is a fresh day, so I'm going to put the past behind me and put in a session of 1/3 NL live tonight. It's never too late to change.

I was averaging about 20hrs per week back when I was working, whilst I'm averaging about 25hrs per week now. It just feels like I'm barely getting in volume when my goal was 40-50hrs per week.

Since quitting my job, I'm $450 up live and about $550 up online. But prior to quitting my job, I was $10,635 up live and $1000 down online. So results had definitely been better before I quit my job, but most of that had to do with variance, rather than playing worse. I actually think I've played slightly better since quitting my job.

When I look at my results per game, since June, I'm:
2.4k up at 2/5 NL
1.4k up at 1/3 NL
$200 up at 10/20 NL (had one degen session)
1.8k down at 1/3 PLO
1.8k down at 1/2 NL (mostly home games)

So if I just stuck to 1/3 NL and 2/5 NL at the casino, then I wouldn't be on such a long breakeven stretch.

Results oriented much?

You should be grinding micros to build your online roll not trying to bink 100 dollar SNGs IMO.

And you decide what game you should be playing based on results since June? Less than 200 hrs? You should pick based on what you're rolled for and can beat with low variance which is probably just 1/3 NL.

This was one hand I played a few days ago at 2/5 NL which I'm not sure about:

$600 effective, 2/5 NL:
3 limpers
Hero raises $35 BTN with TT (no club)
All limpers call $35

Flop ($133, 4ways) is Jc 5c 3s

3 checks
Hero bets $50
2 folds
Loose reg calls $50 CO

Turn ($232, HU) is Jc 5c 3s 8c

Reg checks
Hero checks

River ($232) is Jc 5c 3s 8c 2d

Reg bets $90
Hero folds

Thoughts?

Many have advised a part time job. Good advice. You are sinking. Outgoings (cost of living at all levels) exceeds incomings (single source - gambling).
But looking at the bigger picture; credit rating is non existent. Rental history: non-existent. You will drop off ATO's radar next fiscal year - not good. Employment history - speaks for itself. Academic history: suspended at best. Chances a bank will look at you for a mortgage in the next decade or two? Big fat zero.
Poker is drying up. You play illegally online (and you will have flags on multiple government monitoring sites via ISP data requirements) and Crown surveillance has your archived images as well if you think you are moving around anonymously. If you sink a little further you might start making really bad decisions to continue this 'lost quest'. The income you thought would be a piece of cake in reality has gone mouldy. Don't end up finding the popularity you crave in a jail cell (and the rear vision mirror will be popular). Final post in this thread; dreamtime over.

Yes, that's exactly what I think. My goal is to make it as a full-time live pro. The moment I get a job is the moment I admit that I failed at my goal. And I'm not ready to give in just yet.

Reads on players would be helpful, such as how often villain has been bluffing. Readless easy fold OTR

raise more pre

Villain is certainly capable of both bluffing and thin value betting. He's a fairly competent player postflop, but he's too loose preflop and does a lot of limp-calling with junk hands like 74s and 42s, as well as raising hands that are too weak for their position (eg. Raising KTo to $40 in the Lojack after 3 limpers).

Think of it this way. You need at least a $10K roll to feel comfortable, especially if most of your winnings are going to be going on living expenditures and not building your roll.

If you get a job now that will cover your living expenses you still have enough money to play, grind your roll back up, quit your job and try again, this time with a much better idea of what to do and not what to do.

If you let you roll sink all the way to zero before getting a job you will have no money for poker, your income will be in constant competition between living expenses and trying to set aside a buy-in to go and grind. Every 1-3 session will be "shot taking" and if you bust you'll have to save for another couple of weeks just to be able to afford another shot. And that's if you're responsible enough to just go home after losing the $300 you have set aside for poker and not just shove your credit card into the atm or start hitting up friends and acquaintances for loans and you may never have the roll to shot take going pro again.

Seriously, poker ain't going anywhere. As an experienced driver I'm sure you could get another job delivering pizzas tonight. Just pull out the phone book and start calling places, tell them you x years of experience driving for Pizza Hut and I'm sure you can nail down a job with an hour or two. Work 3 or 4 nights a week, grind during the day on weekends. Stop doing ******ed ****ing **** and you may well be back at $10k and ready to give the pro thing a go in one or two months.

With a $4k roll you should really just start grinding the 100nl cash games after pub poker. They sound like a low variance gold mine.

People keep mixing it up between "poker's not going anywhere" vs "poker is drying up". So which one is it?

Poker is not drying up. It's just getting tougher. But don't worry, I can't imagine the Crown games changing significantly in the next couple of months. Besides, even if it is going somewhere and this is your last chance, you'll be in no position to capitalise on it with a $0 roll.

I have so many responses to that I don't even know where to begin. I'll start with a cliche. Failure is not the enemy. There's not a single human past or present who hasn't experienced failure in life. Failure is part of growth. Some chose to wallow in despair and gain nothing from it while those who succeed chose to use failure as fuel. You can learn from your mistakes and let that shape what you do going forward.

All that said I'll be blunt. The idea that getting at least a part time job while you grind equates to failure is just narrow minded and silly. That would be like telling someone with a full time career who gets a part time job for extra cash that they're a failure. Damn near every wealthy person got there by having multiple streams of income. I guarantee it.

It sounds like you're putting the idea of being a poker pro on a pedestal where anything else is beneath you. I'm pretty sure if you ask any pro what poker is to them they will answer it's a way to earn an income that allows them freedom and it's something they enjoy. Poker is simply a vehicle to other things.

I would figure out a schedule for when you want to play and look for part time employment around that schedule. Having duel streams of income will do wonders because it would reduce the feeling of having to win at a specific pace which is entirely unrealistic. You should treat your bankroll like an investment which you clearly aren't considering how frequently you play well above your means. It's a recipe for disaster that will catch up to you.

I'm not saying that anyone who plays poker part-time is a failure; I'm just saying that my person goal is to play poker full-time for at least a year before I get into other sources of income. If other people don't prioritise poker as much as I do then that's fine for them.

And 13 buyins is 13 buyins, regardless of whether I use them up now or use them up slowly over a 6 month period as I work a job on the side, so what difference does it make? Mathematically, it actually makes more sense for me to shoot for the stars now, since if I succeed now, I'll be 6 months younger and have more time to invest it elsewhere, and if I fail, I'll have 6 months longer to pick myself up from the ground. Why delay an investment for the future, if you know you're going to put that money in it eventually?

You already only play part time poker. How do you prioritize poker when you spent the last month playing computer games and couldn't even get off the couch to walk 10min to the casino. It's like your living in an alternate reality or something.

What evidence do you have that says poker should be a priority? Just because you want to be a pro doesn't mean you should or are in any position to be. You should be treating it like a business. That requires a well thought out plan that you follow, which you don't have nor have displayed the ability to do so. Also it requires time and money management which are boxes you are also unable to check.

As previously mentioned it's like you're operating in an alternate reality.

As someone that has had issues with casino games in the past, experienced the whole preachy GA thing and just wanted to grind poker I can empathise a lot with OP. It's a tough grind but I did everything I could to just focus on poker. I played on sites where I could ban casino games or restrict limits to what stake I could play poker at, I kept myself busy by grinding long hours and I kept my living expenses down to a minimum to remove as much pressure as possible. OP on the other hand will never ever succeed if he can't find ways to control, restrict and remove that **** from his life, I can assure you of that.

Ask yourself one question OP, do you really want to be a pro? Because if you did, you would do anything to be grinding today, tomorrow and the day after.