Quote:
Originally Posted by SpinMeRightRound
Trying to work out whether you're playing any poker or if this is just a personal blog. What stakes do you play and what game formats?
Well, I’ve had this thread for 5 years and it’s been through a lot of different things in my life. There’s a lot about poker, but also a lot about life outside of poker because things that have happened in my life have made major impacts on poker for me.
I played for a living full-time when I started this thread. Over the last 5 years a lot has changed. I had a kid, he turned 2 in March. Last June he was taken to foster care by CPS because I was smoking pot and struggling with panic attacks.
I moved to Austin in Oct. of 2018, and poker is a lot different here. They charge time in the poker rooms rather than take rake. Underground games are raked, so there are a lot of those out here but they’ve gone through their own transitions in competition with the card rooms.
I primarily play PLO, preference for 1/2/5, which those games live are very scarce in Austin. I started working as a poker dealer when I moved here, and have worked at several rooms and underground games in Austin.
I had some stuff happening between Oct-Dec that had me inside my head for awhile, and I wasn’t in the headspace to play my best, so after being back to playing live full time from March-Dec, I decided to take some time off and just focus on getting my son home.
He came home at the end of February, a couple weeks after I changed employment in February to SA Card House in San Antonio. Due to restrictions on who can watch my kid, along with the 1.5 hours to and from work every day, my free time was taken up.
I was only able to play live 1 time before everything shut down due to COVID. Since then, I’ve started to play online, but my heart still isn’t in it the way it was before. Most likely due to the stress of being in the process of moving to San Antonio before August 3rd, having to work with my child on behavioral issues he developed in foster care, and trying to keep a roof over our head.
So if you’re trying to figure out if I’m playing poker or if this is a personal blog, I’m not really sure that’s the right mindset to have. This thread is in “Poker Goals and Challenges”, so currently I’m in the “Challenges” to poker part of that. And since I 100% believe that a big part of being a successful poker player has everything to do with your mindset, I’ve chosen to share my own struggles regarding those challenges I’m having.
I have money on PokerBros, and can play whenever I want. Online has never been my favorite, and I mostly just play online to study my hand history. I’ve been waiting for my friend to switch her PLO game from the pokerrr2 app to poker bro’s, since it’s the only online poker game I’m willing to sit in, so aside from that game I’ve just been playing Holdem and honestly as a PLO player I don’t “enjoy” playing NLH, so if I don’t “have” to, I usually don’t.
As for the “Goals” I have, they are to be able to get back to playing more live. Poker rooms here have opened back up and I’ll be going back to work this week. Once I am able to settle and get through moving expenses, along with having my cps case closed at the end of July, I’ll have a lot more freedom to play more regularly as well as a lot less stress on my mind when I do play.
In the 7 years since I started playing for a living, the number one rule I adhere to is: if I don’t ‘feel’ like playing, I don’t play. I’d only be setting myself up to play poorly, and to not be focused. And right now I have so much other stuff going on, I just haven’t had the patience to play well or confidently as I would normally.
I’m glad you brought this up, because honestly it’s been eating at me. I feel guilty to be posting here and not have much to say about poker, but I post on here most of the time because I just want to get back to playing full time. It’s difficult to be the only person my child has, and to have the one thing that’s always given me the freedom in life put on the back burner while I figure out all this life ****.
But I’m a PLO player at heart, and always will be. I might be going through some stuff right now, but I will always find my way back to playing, no matter how I have to do that. This is one of the longer breaks I’ve had to take, mostly due to COVID, or I’d of been playing more by now. I do think you’ve motivated me to at least get back online since it’s been a couple weeks. Wanted to play yesterday, but it’s really hard to find time to play online when you have a toddler that needs you every second of the day and is also newly refusing to nap -_-
For those who’ve been following me for awhile and have read everything in this thread, they know that I am very open on here about everything I go through, in poker and life alike. Not sure if you’ve read everything from the beginning or not, but I hope you find something unique and admirable about me sharing the experience I’ve had being a poker player in ways other than just the HH. Poker is about a lot more than a HH, has a lot to do with how well you’re able to maintain an optimal mindset, which is the chapter I’m in now. We all have our off times, but that’s just the challenge that comes with being a poker player.