TLDR Warning: This first post is a long one .

A little background....

I'm 31 years old, currently living in Tampa, FL. I grew up in South Florida playing Magic: The Gathering tournaments as a kid with some of the more established pros you might know today. I did well playing poker initially in 2003-2004, but growing up poor and being raised by my grandparents led to me making ultra-conservative decisions in life.

Right before the poker boom (and Florida's own poker boom when NL became legal), I left the state to go to college and get my degree and some IT certifications, which basically means I'm guaranteed to be able to get a 40-50k job doing some form of tech support whenever I want it. Meanwhile, almost everyone that was playing Magic moved on to poker and banked infinite.

I'm burnt out honestly. I recently left a pretty cushy work-from-home job with Apple. IT has never been my passion, it's just a safety net. The thing that super smart kids are "supposed" to get into with their lives. I've always looked up to half of the people I grew up with that are now millionaires and have thought to myself.... what if?

I've played online poker for a living all through college, and as a profitable hobby live since 2006. I play mostly 2/5 NL-PLO and live MTT's ranging from $300-1500. I'd say I have low six figures in both in online MTT's and Live MTT's over that span, which basically means i've been making 10-15k a year for awhile now. I've been in multiple spots where a huge six figure score was within reach, but run like absolute ass in closing time so far lol. I'm confident I'll bink one soon, which will lead to more, it's just a matter of putting in volume.

Which leads me to today.... in December, Bovada randomly sent me 5 $10+1 tourney tickets as a "please come back" gesture. I'd stopped playing online entirely since Black Friday, since relocating to another country was a little too crazy for my conservative self. I managed to take down the nightly $10+1 10k guaranteed twice, and have run up my online bankroll to over 20k in 3 months since. I've got a good six months of living expenses saved up, and I feel like now's the time for me to take my shot if it's ever going to happen.

This thread will be a timeline of my journey as a poker pro, a discussion of hand histories, an evaluation of my play by people I trust (you guys ), and a means of keeping myself accountable to goals I set here.

Goals for 2014

1.) Earn 100k between live/online play. I probably won't be attending the WSOP this year, as I'd like to get my feet wet as a grinder before I just throw myself out there, but if the year goes well then i'll definitely be looking at it next year. I'll mostly be playing live at Tampa and Hollywood HR and online via Bovada. I don't believe in setting easy goals, so I think 100k is a nice number to shoot for in my first full year .

2.) Lose at least 50 lbs and become mentally/physically healthy. I'm currently 6'5" and over 300lbs and it's totally unacceptable. When I left for school, I was 6'3" 225 and cocky. Losing my grandparents and a few other bad beats in life kinda made me pick up some bad habits.... and they all need to end.

3.) Enjoy life in Florida, and embrace meaningful friendships. What's the fun of living in paradise and playing by your own rules if you can't surround yourself with likeminded people? . I'm going to enjoy life and not slave away at a desk like I have been for years.

So anyway, Vamo! Let's ****ing Go! Time to crush life and stuff

PS: I'll be playing most of the big MTT's on Bovada tonight, so my first post after this will be a recap with some thoughts....

GL, especially with your personal goals. I'm on a bit of a health kick myself now. I find that cutting down on sugar, drinking more water and exercising is showing results

Yeah, when I was big into working out, I stuck to a low-carb, high-protein diet and only drank water, tea, and occasionally milk for protein shakes. Nowadays it's lots of diet soda (which isn't good for you, regardless of what the labels say...) and more take-out than I care to admit to lol.

GL man hope you crush it!

I should add another goal....

4) Become a more regular contributor in the LLSNL and Low-Midstakes MTT forums. I'd also be interested in any skype/facebook groups, especially for FL grinders if such a thing exists. I'm a fan of the "two heads are better than one" philosophy. Also, poker is just like any other skillset. You either learn and adapt or inevitably become obsolete.

Wow gl op! Awesome goals, u sound like the very type of person who will make it.

March 28th
,
Today I think I took enough coolers/bad beats to get me through for the next week or so. I had got set over set 3 times today, ran AQ on the button into bb's AK, ran KK into AA, had my AA cracked by a 99 that couldn't find the fold button on a 3586 board, even when I 3bet the hand preflop, and had the nut straight cracked on a 4Q78 board in the $215 30k GTD when a guy shoved 84 into me and binked a 4 on the river. Induced a fish to shove 50bbs at me with ATcc vs my JJ and obv. he binks the A..... ah well, just one of those days.

The good news = I made 3 buyins at 2/4 PLO today to cover all of my MTTs today and finished +$550.

A couple of interesting spots I'll add to this for review a little later, but right now my brain is fried from doing the Jackie Chan WTF face so much.
Will update later. I do like that knowing I'll be posting results at the end of the day makes me focus a little more.... it's like I feel peer pressured into not wanting to have to post about a ****ty day or terrible play I made.

Nice goals bro, gl! Doesn't hurt to get some run good with free money eh?

Sooooo I woke up at 4am and immediately hopped on Bovada since late night/early AM Bovada is like printing money. Saw a juicy 10/20 PLO game 5/6 full with 70% players seeing flops (average is like 45%) and decided to take a 1 buyin stab at it. 2 hours later I'm up 6k. I'm proud that I played exactly like I would if it were penny stakes, nitting it up vs. the aggro donks while also taking advantage of my nitty reputation in some 3bet pots where it was checked to me.

+6500 on the first day has to be a good omen, right?

woot woot! that's some run goot/table selection!

Speaking of which, I wonder what other grinders' schedules are like? The "get healthy" side of me is on opposite sides of the "maximum profit" side of me. Healthy me wants to get to bed around midnight-1, wake up around 9-10am, and work out/do normal things until around 5pm when I'd start playing.

The "max profit" side of me knows that Bovada between 2-7am EST is some of the juiciest games since PartyPoker circa 2004. I'm conflicted on what my schedule should be lol.

PS: Ty all for the early kind words/support. I'm gonna do what I can to make this a 5 star thread .

gl! subbed

LOL.... managed to put a 2/4 PLO table on full blown monkey tilt by raising 4/5 hands and crushing them postflop for a good hour. 10% of my goal for the year in the first 24 hours seems like a good start .

Edit: Apparently I'm an image posting noob.

The most important question of all...are you a Rays fan?

I sure hope so...

And congrats on the success. Makes me start thinking that I should be killing myself staying up late on Bovada to take advantage of the monkeyness. Maybe this summer, as I'm a teacher (in Orlando) and like to grind heavy when I'm off.

GL

Lol i'm a sports fanatic and huge homer for all FL sports teams, as anyone on P5's OT that knows me (same sn) can attest to. I live right across from Raymond James Stadium, which is both amazing and a curse during football season. I used to play alot of fantasy sports, but found myself to be a pretty big fish vs. people that'd do that for a living.

My only claim to fame there was winning Draftday's first ever NBA Wednesday Worm. (Interview here). I wound up giving most of that back during the rest of the season as I just didn't have the time to commit to checking on last-minute injuries and emergency starters. Might look into it again now, once I have a healthier BR and can afford to spend the time researching that it requires to be good .

Side note, probably won't be much action from me today. I'll be attending a niece's birthday party and enjoying some family time. Will definitely be playing a full lineup of MTT's and some cash tomorrow though.

Sick start man! Seems like you are heading in the right direction. GL GL!

Welp.... massive storm kinda put a damper on the birthday party. Looks like i'll be grinding tonight after all .

interesting thread, gl man. Is 20k your roll or do you have additional funds? Personal preference obv but omaha is a crazy swingy game so I'd be scared to be grinding 2/4 plo full time on a 20k roll, nevermind shot taking 10/20. glgl though!

I've got some additional funds, but not something I'd be comfortable diving into. I figured 50 BIs is a good BR for it. The 10/20 shot was definitely a little risky (having 10% of one's BR on the table is a huge no-go).... but I saw that 70% players to the flop stat, watched a few orbits before entering, and the game just looked too juicy to pass up. At least now with 30k, i'm up to 75 BIs already..... - what I use for the bigger MTTs each day.

I do agree that Omaha can be a super swingy game, and it's nothing like NLHE where a good player can start with 20 buyins and be fine. There's too many 55/45 and 60/40 spots that just play themselves out. I'm not afraid to drop down in stakes/nit it up a bit more if I encounter too big of a downswing though. I like the Norwegians' take on BR management, "a poker player without his bankroll is like a carpenter without his tools"..... or something like that. Read it in an interview awhile back and it's stuck with me since.

Earlier this week I went to the HR to play some 2/5 PLO since I hadn't been in a week or so.... it's less profitable IMO playing one live table, but it's good for networking and just getting out of the house in general. I grinded my initial 500 buyin up to 900 when the following happened:

Straddle on the button for 10, I limp UTG with AdAhKhTs, rich fish on my left who has been beat up for a couple thousand (but currently covers me) and complaining about not hitting any hands makes it 50 to go, 3 callers, back around to me and I pot to 350. Rich fish calls, everyone else folds.

Flop comes 8d 8h 3d

I ship the rest of my stack in, fish sighs and shoves it in with me, asking if I had the diamond draw lol.

He tables 2d 3s 5d 6c, binks his baby flush on the turn and holds.

It's hard for him to have played that hand any worse, yet even still we were only 55-45 once the flop came. That's PLO in a nutshell, and why I know I need to practice good BR management to stay in the game.

Interesting.... just used a poker variance calculator to estimate possible swings for a 2.5 bb/100 winning player with a standard deviation of 100bb/100 hands and it said I'd need 24k to have less than a 5% risk of ruin at 2/4 PLO. I'd like to think i'm way better than 2.5bb/100 vs. the lineups i've seen so far, but that definitely shows that i'm just barely meeting solid BR requirements for the game.

Don't think 20 BI is good BRM at NLHE anymore either..

Maybe not online where everyone's a genius, but definitely live... at least here in Tampa lol.

That sounds really low

awesome thread man gl crushing! I also play at the Tampa Hard Rock and grind HU sngs on Bovada

Cool Shoot me a PM and maybe we can grab a bite the next time we're at the HR or something. Always nice to be able to bounce ideas off of other people.

As for yesterday...

March 29

I made a whopping $139.30 lol. Just couldn't get any traction going. Funny hand busted me out of the BDPO 109 turbo.

Blinds 40/80, effective stacks around 5500.

UTG limps, I make it 320 from UTG +1 with AdKd. Folds to HJ who makes it 900. Everyone folds, I call (you could easily argue repopping here, but I didn't think anyone goofed around with marginal hands this early).

Flop comes 8c 3d 9d. I check, Villain bets 1200, I shove, he instacalls and shows 9h7h and holds lol. WP sir.

Decided to call it a night early due to storms and resting up for today. Made my buyins back and that little bit of change in an hour of 2/4 PLO before quitting. Let's see if I can keep the streak of winning days alive .