Thread has got progressively worse since OP became a pro.

OP, you should buy a Onewheel board. You could ride it to the casino and turn your 10 minute walk into 2 minutes of fun. You'll probably go to the casino twice as much. And it's barely more expensive than the new iphone you bought

^ Yah Onewheels are pretty sweet. They just came out with a new model that has a 20 mile range and these things can hit 20 mph on rough terrain. Incredibly fun to ride.

I was thinking of getting one for my city commute.

"aggro solid reg" -donks turn and call a 3x pot jam at a live table with top pair lol

wait, you mean being a poker pro is like a real job that isn't very exciting and you wish you were doing something else like playing video games instead? wow, who knew!!

OP, you should actually start studying and working on your game. Not because it might actually turn you into winning player, but because you'll find all kinds of excuses not to do it, one of which is playing poker!

Yes. After I met OP irl I thought something similar tbh

Johnny I have had a onewheel for 1.5 years now and have an absolute shtload of miles on it. I have been 18.1 mph gps verified and absolutely terrified. It is ossum. However, I have some time on a boosted board. I honestly think for an urban commute you will be far better served. I have been 20 on the boosted and it felt chill AF. I think in an urban setting it is simply better suited cuz of its stability and better handling of the speed while in proximity to traffic.

No need for the psychologist. Without gambling, poker is a boring game. If anyone doubts this, play poker for two hours with toothpicks, redistributing the toothpicks back to everyone at the table every 15 minutes. I'll guarantee most of the table will leave long before that. Gambling is exciting. As Nick the Greek once said, "It isn't the winning or the losing that is important. It is the gambling."

You know enough to know that you have to play tight to consistently win money at your skill level. However, you aren't gambling much. All alcohol does is reduce your inhibitions keeping you playing tight. It makes it easier to decide to scratch the gambling itch. That's why you're excited to play when drunk.

Runescape gives you the same buzz, without the risk of being forced to stop because you ran out of money. It is why Pokerstars spend years looking at how they could copy the economic model of Candy Crush. It is also why you now prefer playing it.

Sounds like OP should quit live and become an online grinder, then he can sit at home with the heater on.

This is the first thing you have said in years that makes any damn sense.

Really well put imo

It will be less boring when you move up in stakes. Maybe concentrate on putting in hours at 1/3 and studying so you can move up. Think of it like working towards a promotion. Also the more skilled you get the more aggressive you can play profitably, but it's never going to be as fun as getting drunk and degenning it up.

I just see poker as much more preferable than "real jobs" I've had. Not like those were super exciting. And I have a lot more freedom with poker. It's not the end of the rainbow a lot of young guys tend to think it is but I'm still glad I went pro.

Don't see a psychologist. You will be diagnosed as a gambling addict. I guess you could not disclose your job or say you do forex trading or some other self-employed thing and can't motivate yourself to do it when sober.

And your current goal is 160 hrs a month but you're getting like a third of that? Maybe set more realistic goals for now like playing 100 hrs next month and adding hours each month to more slowly acclimate you. To go from a rec to playing 40 hours a week of 1/3 sounds pretty terrible.

The top pros in Vegas use boosted boards to get up and down the strip.

has several k to play poker, can't afford a 50$ bike to actually play poker
I don't know man. Maybe hopping between GA and AA?

This is the most outrageous thing I've read in the thread. Where the hell do you find a $50 bike?!

a store that rents bike went ouf of business, sold all of them and I snatched a used one up. but ebay could have worked too I guess?

Why not just buy an electric bike? Those are what, only like $3k or something?

or a porsche, while we're at it. but yeah, OP can't be forced to ride a bike 5minutes a day.

Don't be silly, you can't buy a Porsche from a ~$7 roll. That's irresponsible.

Are we really acting like a 10 minute walk is a chore? lol

Maybe think of that time as an opportunity to mentally prepare yourself to play, OP.

if he's slower, he can get mugged more easily

It's not hard to find used bikes for 50 bucks but there is a substantial quality jump at 100 to 150 bucks. I bought a new one in grad school for 100. It wasn't fancy but got the job done commuting a 15 minute ride to campus. Of course Aussie dollars are like 3/4 a US dollar so maybe a more realistic price would be 75 used 150 new.

10 minutes though I would just walk. Good exercise. And why live in a walkable neighborhood and not enjoy it?

This is getting more and more ridiculous. When I go to the Hard Rock its a 10 minute walk from the parking garage to the poker room. I guess we are adding walking 10 minutes to OPs list of problems/issues/complaints?

OP is in a fairly comfortable position right now, relatively speaking of course, and that is the issue. If he goes to the casino and grinds he has a realistic chance that he will lose a lot of his bankroll or go busto without another source of income to turn to, where as at the moment he can live off that 4-figure roll grinding Runescape not having to change his habits or put in any effort. I suspect that when the roll starts to diminish we will see a few punts in an effort to get back to where he was.

OP simply doesn't want it enough, he has a great opportunity but he's not even playing, let alone studying. He has excuse after excuse. He should be willing to walk an hour to sit on a 1/3 table for 8 hours to grind $20/hr until he has earned the opportunity to play higher. Back in the height of when I was into poker and wanted to go pro I would literally wake up and turn the laptop on without leaving bed, grind for 16 hours and go to sleep. My enthusiasm has wavered over time as I've done the whole full time job thing, got a proper relationship etc, but even now I play more than OP. Anyone can sit here and root for him but if they are being honest, he is not a poker pro and will unlikely ever be one based on this attitude, desire and commitment.

I make similar excuses as OP with my job but I get paid at the end of the month regardless.

+1,good post.

When i started out live with close to nothing, and was grinding up my first real bankroll 6-7 years ago (like $12000 or something like that), i was driving to the only game available to me in another big city. I live in Norway where we dont have any casinos so this was a private homegame in the middle of Oslo: 1 hour drive each way for me.

I did this commute for almost 2 years, close to every weekend both friday and saturday. At this time i was working in an 80 percent position too, close to full time. So on fridays i would first go to work for 8 hours usually. Then get home, make homemade dinner for myself in order to eat healthy and to keep my food expences down, shower number two for the day and make the drive to the homegame that i played all night for like 10 hours straight.Often when i came home in like 8am in the morning after the 1 hour drive home (often even 1,5 hour during wintertime and snow), first thing i did when i got home is firing up 2+2 and discussing hands for 1 hour before even thinking about going to sleep. It was a freaking hazzle so why did i do it? I felt like i didnt have a choice, as i simply had to play poker.Ive said to my friends and family when we have talked about this that i felt that poker had choosen me, not the oposite. It was my biggest passion ever, so i didnt care- my attitude was that i am gonna do what it takes to play poker and grind up a roll for myself no matter what.

After some health problems and 2-3 years later i had only like 2 grand as a pokerroll left due to money was spent on life issues,private health treatment, old depth from my study days at the university++. I also didnt have a car at this point, and my closest pokergame was in another city with a 1 hour bus trip each way. I was once again determined to prove to myself that i could build up a roll even from close to scratch, and so i did. 3 times a week for 1 year or so i did the 1 hour bus commute each way, grinded all night for 8-10 hours and jumped on the morning bus back home. Even two of my good friends who knows me very well said to me that they coudnt understand how i could manage to do it. They said that they simply woudnt been able to bring themself to do what i did day in and day out having the stamina and willpower to go through it. My explenation to them was that poker is so important to me, that i do whatever it takes in order to play and do what i love to do- and the thing i feel that i am good at. I said to my friend i dont care if its 3 hour bus drive each way: ill do it in order to get to play and build up a roll again.

Reason i am bothering to share this OP is to show you what kind of determination+ stamina is needed to get anywhere,regardless if its poker or other goals you have in life that you want to achieve. If you truly deep down have a passion for _poker_ (not passion for gambling,drinking,action++), putting in the work at this point should be very easy for you. With your 10 minute walk to the casino it should be the easiest walk in the park ever. You should be excited as hell to put in massive volume at this point: IF poker truly is your passion and your dream of becoming a poker pro means anything serious to you deep down.

For several years of my life, ive truly been breathing,thinking,talking and doing poker 24/7, and ive still havent played fulltime yet for any significant timespan with the exception of a few months here and there.