Intro:

I made a PGC thread awhile back and wanted to try and build up a bankroll. I thought I had a decent system figured out and maybe that it could "work". However, what I came to find, not even results based, is that there is no such thing as "making it work". We can play poker, we can make money, but the only thing we can "make work" is ourselves. We can choose to study things, look at where our leaks are, and to take a step back and re-evaluate our life situations. I fell into the latter category.

What I am doing this year is a little different than most, and something I should have done a long time ago, and that is just not play for all of 2014. I don't mean that I won't get on twoplustwo and learn, or I won't buy a membership to a teaching website, and I won't discuss all of the things relating to poker whether it be a soft skill like managing my money or understanding the math behind semi-bluff situations, because those things are tangible and are very good for not only being better at poker but also just better at life.

In October, I had a vision, and not to say that was God or something of a higher power, but I mean the worst vision possible: I was sitting at a desk in this dream and all around me were computer screens. The room was dark and it was very military/civilian like, where missions are taking place and people are working on looking at different objectives and figuring out what things are on imagery or video surveillance, sort of like you would see in a military movie, but then I really got into the mission and I noticed a guy, probably around my age, and he was staring at the screen. His right hand was clicking away, as he peered into the screen. Then, I saw him lock his screen, stand up and stretch, look around, say something funny and light hearted to a person nearby doing the same thing, and then he sat back down, unlocked his work station, and kept on going about his business.

In this dream, I got to walk, in spirit, to this person and found myself asking him a question telepathically and I asked "Why are you here?" and he never responded, not in anyway, shape or form. He just sat there, and kept pushing away on the keyboard and using the mouse to roam around his products until he was finished and began on the next.

So, I think you can all relate and could probably guess who that person was and he was me, and has been me for 10 years. In order to gain a vision on what you want in the future, you'll have to gain a clear vision on what and who the hell you are, RIGHT NOW. Right now, I am a military veteran of ten years, with $20,000 in debts, which is not bad, and only two years of college complete. However, those numbers are nothing. Truly, they are nothing.

I have seen my daughter four times since she was 8 months old and she is now 3 years and 4 months. She sings to me on the phone and she tells me she loves me every time we talk, which is almost every other day (she has a short attention span). My wife, or ex-wife rather, left me about 2 and a half years ago because I used to take our paychecks and go play poker with them, and lose our money. Some months, when my daughter was still a baby, we had to go to the LDS church my wife attended (I left it, though now I consider myself a Christian without denomination) and ask a member of the church for baby formula, and pay them back. Seven. Seven is the number of times I remember catching myself not breathing the day I dropped them off at the airport on the car ride back from the airport, which was only 25 minutes, because I could not believe that I just left MY LIFE at the gates of Terminal D at McCarran.

Why am I telling you this? I am saying it because I have never said it out loud. Today, I am recovering in many ways. In 2013, I barely played poker, and for a change, I did not lose money, but I realized everything I had lost. Life, unlike poker, does not have swings that we can recover from. I wouldn't call getting married or having a child an "upswing" but rather we get married or have children as a result of blessings that cannot be described and in fact these are "upswings" in our lives. Conversely, when we lose these amazing people from our daily lives after working in a dark cave all day, we not only feel dejected but we feel as if anything else does not matter.

Poker was using me in that I needed it to cope. Just like I needed drinking. Just like I needed sex. Just like I needed going out and spending lots of money on concerts, tickets to shows, and all of these THINGS.

So, to make it simple 2011 and 2012 were a lot of deployments and 2013 was a very even keel year, but I wanted 2014 to be something I could look back on and say "Okay, kid, you are starting to get all of this not just in your planning but in your execution of those plans." I could sit and make a laundry list of goals but in fact, I want to build a vision and my first step is not actually going to play the game...but getting better at playing the game of life.

I hope this PCG thread, while different, comes to be an inspiration for others, and if nothing else, a place to share my thoughts, my shortfalls as a human being, and hopefully make it open and known that I am not the only one with problems in their life or even blessings, depending on how you want to see it. TwoPlusTwo does a lot of good for the poker community as a whole, and I hope this different perspective can give back a bit. Thanks for reading.

Brett

P.S. Sorry for spelling or grammatical errors in advance...I type fast and don't edit much

First comes the bread, and then comes the butter:

Have you ever taken a spoon, opened the Country Crock butter out of your fridge (I am sure most of you degens don’t even have butter at your house, but that is beside the point) and just eaten a spoonful of it? My guess would be that you have not and neither have I, but I would venture to guess that you have eaten bread without butter. Whenever I go out to eat I always use some of the butter that is offered, or better yet, if it is a Texas Roadhouse they may offer something with cinnamon or when I went dining in Sicily last year (Work trip. I am not that privileged just yet.), I would always use the balsamic vinaigrette and oils that were available. See, yes, now you are fully intrigued because I found a way to almost every person’s soul: appetite. However, let’s get down to the bread (and then the butter), since eating butter or any other condiment is just not that good without a base (unless it is mayo or ranch, I could drink that stuff!).

Bread:

Unlike most people on TwoPlusTwo, whether factual or imaginary, I am not inclined to give poker advice. I may ask questions, have my own theories, agree with others, disagree and learn, and then end up agreeing because they are smarter than me (call that humility, for another post), but for the most part I am just building my poker knowledge or “bread”. Now, before we can even begin to apply that information in real form (i.e. planning to play poker, actually playing poker, investing in something, buying pieces of a player, discussing poker and giving effect advice), we have to build a base elsewhere, or a bread, in another very important arena, and that one is life. We all are inclined to share experiences in what it takes to live our lives and what we have done or want to do and I hope in your responses to this post you will share them.

My “Bread” has zero to do with money, poker, drinking, hooking up, etc. Well, maybe hooking up is somewhere in there, but not in the way most “single” 28 year olds would be. My “Bread” starts with who I am and asking myself that question every day and seeing if my life is a reflection of that. Currently, my everyday life is working in a job I don’t like, not seeing my child that much besides Skype and phone calls (technology, love you lots thanks!) and dealing with some health issues that could be easily corrected by not being laziness. So, the bread is not so great and what we typically do is put butter on it or just go and eat fast food (i.e. find distractions from facing the truth) and that is living a lie. What we need to do is correct the courses, find new ingredients, set the temperature on the oven at the right temperature and keep an eye on “our bread” and what is important to us.

I recently read an amazing post on Facebook and wanted to repost the text. It could really describe in an analogy what I am trying to explain.

A professor stood before his philosophy class and had some items in front of him. When the class began, he wordlessly picked up a very large and empty mayonnaise jar and proceeded to fill it with golf balls. He then asked the students if the jar was full. They agreed that it was.

The professor then picked up a box of pebbles and poured them into the jar. He shook the jar lightly. The pebbles roll
ed into the open areas between the golf balls. He then asked the students again if the jar was full. They agreed it was.

The professor next picked up a box of sand and poured it into the jar. Of course, the sand filled up everything else. He asked once more if the jar was full.. The students responded with a unanimous ‘yes.’

The professor then produced two Beers from under the table and poured the entire contents into the jar effectively filling the empty space between the sand. The students laughed.

‘Now,’ said the professor as the laughter subsided, ‘I want you to recognize that this jar represents your life. The golf balls are the important things—-your family, your children, your health, your friends and your favorite passions—-and if everything else was lost and only they remained, your life would still be full. The pebbles are the other things that matter like your job, your house and your car. The sand is everything else—-the small stuff.

‘If you put the sand into the jar first,’ he continued, ‘there is no room for the pebbles or the golf balls. The same goes for life.

If you spend all your time and energy on the small stuff you will never have room for the things that are important to you.

Pay attention to the things that are critical to your happiness.

Spend time with your children. Spend time with your parents. Visit with grandparents. Take your spouse out to dinner. Play another 18. There will always be time to clean the house and mow the lawn.

Take care of the golf balls first—-the things that really matter. Set your priorities. The rest is just sand.

One of the students raised her hand and inquired what the Beer represented. The professor smiled and said, ‘I’m glad you asked.’ The Beer just shows you that no matter how full your life may seem, there’s always room for a couple of Beers with a friend.

I really love the beer part and playing another 18 holes of golf, as I am sure a few of you play golf or drink beer, like I do, even if for pure enjoyment, like I do (is there professional beer drinking?). One critical thing that this professor says is that our passions are a part of the golf balls in the jar or happiness in our lives. So, when looking at my own life as an example, is working a job 60 hours a week that pays around $70,000 a year and full benefits the happiness in my life (golf balls) or is it something that financially supports the happiness (pebbles or sand)? I believe it is the latter. However, is it something I have chosen to do? Yes, but I made that choice about ten years ago and then again five years ago and sometimes our life changes and makes us question our decisions. There are times when we just need to be persistent and just stay the course in life but there are other times when we really need and should want to change our lives and why we do things.

Once we establish why we want something and for what reasons, and we have standards for what our priorities should be, then we can finally figure out “how” we will accomplish the things we want too. What is our vision for our lives versus what are our actual goals? Goals are great and people love them because they want something tangible and they want something with quantity to attach themselves to so they can make their goals and accomplishments apart of the reality of their lives, but if they chose to ask “why” a bit longer, they would understand, which would be much greater than knowing in the long run of life.

I have chosen to not just quit playing poker for a year, but literally focus on what I am doing each day, such as reviewing poker hands, or reading books, watching strategy videos, budgeting my money well, reassessing my finances for once I will play again, and also working out and eating well. Even in two weeks, I have discovered that I really love the game and by not playing I am learning a lot more and establishing habits of study and preparation that I never had before, and I did study before and probably more than most players who play live NLHE and some PLO or O8 when it runs.

So, in my life, I would be just slowly mixing the ingredients to build the bread of my life, but soon enough I will be able to watch it rise and possible even bake it and enjoy it. Maybe, after some time, I won’t be adding a distraction, or the “butter” as a way to make it taste better, but as a way to bring out its flavor. It is really tough to face the truth of who we are, but if we do, we can bake our cake, have our cake, and eat it too (and feel pretty damn good about it).

P.S. - I think the butter is pretty much self explanatory concerning poker...

^ going to need it...tough not playing, not going to lie...thanks for reading

Execution:
I had a somewhat terrible day mentally at work. I was just eating sugar to keep myself awake, did not get much sleep the night before from watching PCA live feed (which was great, by the way), and just was not feeling so hot emotionally. So, as usual, I made excuses in my mind to go play poker, which would not be optimal in the quest for actually playing well and playing with a purpose besides something results based, and I just wanted to play to erase myself from my brain, which is also completely off in so many ways that there is not enough time in the day to explain them all.

So, I went home, immediately got out of uniform, and began getting dressed and had my shoes on, and then my thought changed: “I could just go get drunk instead, save some money.” Did I just openly admit that playing tonight would lead to losing? Seriously, I just basically told myself before I even left that I would lose money. Also, I just told myself to go get drunk instead, using something else to erase myself from current situations, instead of facing them.

The problem with finding a balance between setting goals, budgets, etc. and having a vision is that setting goals is very fixed and set before us, and a vision is very vague. Conversely, goals are usually unemotional and just represent something with quantity while vision represents the quality of life we want as well as our dreams and aspirations for how we want our life to be once we have determined why we want our life to be that way.

Let’s look at my situation as I am paused at the door (kind of like that old Eminem and Dr. Dre music video “Guilty Conscience” where Dr. Dre keeps freezing the frames to tell a story and give advice to the person to not do something unfavorable to their lives or someone else’s). I have a few goals for this year and I have a vision. Let’s establish those first and see what actions help them and which ones don’t:

Goals:

1. No drinking. It is a day to day thing, and I am sure once in a while I will have a beer or two, which is perfectly acceptable, but if I can keep this under ten days of any drinking and not spending more than $200 for the year on alcohol, that would be quite an accomplishment (I spent around $5400 last year on alcohol…seeing that number makes me sick because alcohol should never cost that much for a human being with my income)

2. No playing poker. This one had no budge room. DO NOT PLAY!

3. Study poker, make posts, read hand histories, watch people play online/live feeds, and study poker theory and concepts every SINGLE DAY! Again, no budge room.

4. Save Money. It is not about how much you make, but how much you keep, case in point, that alcohol figure above. If I had spent 30% of that I would have avoided some less than worthy of being a human being situations and not risked any more children. Granted, children are a blessing, and I have one angel, but I also was married then and chose to have her…however every time you have unprotected sex you are choosing to possibly father or be a mother to children depending on your sex. Bad decisions. Anyway, I digress, but it does work for this goal since having children would not be so optimal for this period of my life. So, besides paying child support, monthly bills and expenses, I need to be saving money. My actual goal for savings is $50,000 by February 2015 if I am released from the military early this summer and if not; my goal is $56,000 by February 2016. I want to be able to use $18,000 for a bankroll for poker and start playing in 2015 while working a part time job, or 2016 if I am in the military till the middle of 2015 instead of getting out this summer.

5. Improve my relationships. This goes for my girlfriend, my family, and my daughter. Since I won’t be out having much fun drinking or dancing since it will lead to drinking and shenigans, I can always post on here, work on writing better, play my guitar or piano, take a college class (free education from my job, why not right?), and also talk on the phone and Skype with family and friends. They all live 3000 miles away but I will likely be home with all of them by September and only a few hours from my daughter then as well right before she turns four. My greatest investment is them and their happiness and its just residual in improving my happiness. The more love I give the more I get, as long as I have no intention for it.

Vision: I want to be able to play poker all the time and write about my experiences traveling and possibly write actual articles about overall poker bankroll management and “life” management. Additionally, I would want to do a lot of volunteer work and possibly do counseling on the side for people who need the help on getting their “investments” in order, such as spending less time on their habits and addictions, and more on the things that can lead to their overall happiness, such as family, friends, love, and more than likely, just loving themselves.

So, as you can read, going out the door made no sense. I stopped, started texting friends to get myself to “come down” and ended up laughing to a movie with two amazing friends from work and did not play.

Execution takes time and it starts day to day. If I choose to continue this trend, I will meet my savings goal this month. Yes, the lure of the games is strong, but I NEED to get better at the game first. It sounds terrible to say out loud but it actually excites me. Literally, I am learning information on here for free and getting better, and in effect, earning money while I am not actually earning money. My vision is to play poker one day with absolute freedom and that day will come and poker will be there, but first, I need to free myself from whatever is going on in my head, my heart, and my current financial situation. I have a job to help me with that and I have skills that can keep me going in the meantime and poker is not going anywhere. The battle is one day at a time…or maybe it is not a battle but rather a passage way and I have to learn to walk before I can run.

Anything worth it takes time and anything not is not worth my time.

Gl with your goals

Cool thread

oh thanks, appreciate that

Thanks Pita and peez

Interesting read!

Best of luck with your goals

Nice thread, keep on with this stuff.

Thanks Vee and Ky appreciate it and more posts to come I cannot wait till next year when it can be about "playing" poker but just this journey is great all in itself

nice thread RM5K. I like how your honest and improving on every aspect of life. I say if you can continue to improve your life and keep up with your goals you should at least dabble back into poker say at the half way point (June)

best of luck

Thanks I appreciate it and certainly August is possible for at least "dabbling" but even more important is just the everyday understanding that I really have a strong desire to respect the game and the beauty of it. So often I feel as humans we don't even grasp the magnitude of our minds and how some of us in our society are not as blessed as the people who play this game at whatever level. If I accomplish anything I hope it's humility for the power of the energy of our collective intelligence and playing again would just be a bonus thanks for reading I will keep on trying to express as honestly as I can

A perfect time in my life

I think we all can remember a point in our lives where we were super happy. You know what I am talking about, right? I mean it was as if nothing was bringing us down. We felt as if love was so powerful in our lives and things were going so well that we could just leap and we might never touch the ground again. You felt as if you were so strong, so above the World, that you might even be invincible? Well, I am a mortal and not invincible, but I did feel like this at a certain point in my life and that was about two years ago.

The thing about separation after marriage is that it ends. Eventually, you will have to move forward and progress with your life. At that particular time in my life in the middle of 2011, I was having a lot of fun and distracted at work because I was training to go on another deployment. I was excited to make more money (tax free and a few other perks) and just stoked to live on a base where I could work on self-improving. I remember boarding the plane after a fun summer in Las Vegas and a very fun last night (something to the effect of meeting a girl at a local bar, getting kicked out, taking her to my place, doing what young people do in a house at 4 a.m., and then leaving her my keys for my car and house because my plane left at 7 a.m.) and thinking “I am really going to enjoy this trip”. You might be thinking this is where I was feeling about my life situations and everything that meant the most to me, such as my daughter not being close by, but that is not the case at all.

Enter stage left: Shawna.

Shawna and I had mutual friends through the people I danced with in Las Vegas at different country line dancing bars. We had met before, or so we thought, but our actual relationship began on the only place that would make perfect sense in today’s World and for a guy about to have an ongoing and unconscious rebound relationship: FACEBOOK. So, from September 2011 until February 2012 that was my life: leave my tent, go to work, eat, Skype Shawna, and sleep…and repeat.

During my time on that trip, right before the holiday’s and my birthday (I am not Jesus, but I was born Christmas Eve), Shawna had a family tragedy and I was stuck in the desert, doing my very best to support her and she always said that I was doing absolutely everything and more help than I knew. We were madly in love and I just wanted to be there for her through everything that happened. Our bond grew stronger, and upon returning home, we were now dating and right in front of each other and the connection was instant!

Today, I was on my own Facebook page, that I have gone through closing down and reopening often in the past five years, and found an album titled “Washington Trip”. I have a lot of fond memories of my relationship with Shawna. When I first returned home we used to punch each other whenever we would see a Volkswagen buggy and we would laugh, or the times we went out to dance, but just ended up being such lightweights after three beers and then we would just want to go home and attack each other. There were the times I taught her the basics to poker and she would play and try to figure things out and write down hands for me to look at and we would discuss them. I even remember my friend Grant (Dbl_G on here), playing in some live tournaments with her and helping her out or just all of us talking a few times about the game and different situations. I remember how she would work and then stop by my house and surprise me with things, and she would always hold her kisses just a little bit longer and look me right in the eyes and tell me that she loved me. Whew! Dang, even thinking about it brings back a lot of emotions and when we are inspired we need to get it out and for me it is in writing. However, the best memory with Shawna was our week in Washington in April of 2012. I won’t ever forget it.

During my deployment, Shawna asked me if I wanted to go anywhere. I told her I had not been to California yet since moving to Vegas two years prior and would love to go, so she made this really cool trip when I got back where we drove out to California and stayed in a nice hotel and ate on a cruise type boat and saw a show and went to different beaches and just got to relax for a few days. You would think that sand was the last thing I would want to see after nothing but sand and the color brown for five months, but when your backdrop is blue skies and perfect weather, and your focal point is the most beautiful woman, inside and out, that you have ever known, well, you can stand a little bit more sand. Anyway, I asked Shawna the same question, and she thought about where she would want to go and then suddenly said “Port Angeles, Washington.” At first, I thought to myself “Where the hell is that?” and then I paused and said to myself “Really?”

Twilight Tour.

So, that is what we did. We went on a “The movie Twilight tour” and went around Washington and the Seattle area. We took pictures, ate at different restaurants, experienced some hot springs in the Olympia National Park, and really had so much time driving around to talk or just enjoy the silence as we listened to music and looked at the amazing forestry and habitats that the state of Washington had to offer besides the down pouring of rain that we experienced almost every day. Of course, the books of the movie series have these towns in them but the actual movie scenes were shot elsewhere, but just making her entire trip by exploring was well worth it and she was quite pleased.

Not everything has to relate to poker or life, but for me, it always seems to come full circle. Shawna and I broke up about two months after this trip and quiet suddenly. Sure, I worked a lot, but before this trip, we had spent lots of time together and we were balanced in many ways. However, after the trip, as I prepared for a trip to Sicily, I became busier at work, and the only time we spent together was “hooking up” because I was not LISTENING to her and could not see that she wanted to just spend time together and not always be having sex and I was playing a lot of poker in my off time and took it seriously, which bothered her immensely that it occupied so much of my mind and my daily energy. She ended things and found her happiness. In all honesty, I am still recovering in a lot of ways, but I learned something valuable and I hope it hits home for some of you who may struggle in relationships for whatever reason.

Love yourself and watch; today, tomorrow, and always. - Buddha

If you do anything right in life, ever, just SLOW DOWN. In the American culture, we are constantly rushed to decisions and someone else making our time their time and that is just complete bull****. If you were born again today, and you had no rule book, how would you live? I mean, every day, I try to wake up and live that way. We cannot go back and change anything we did before and sure, life hurts and it sucks sometimes, but goodness gracious you have to give yourself a shot today and really just bring things into perspectives: is anything really that bad? You have who you are and you can build that every single day for what you want. You will make mistakes and your next mistake will never be your last, but will you learn from them and apply and Shawna woke me up in many ways by not just leaving my life but also by coming into it.

So, if you have found yourself on top of the World, and suddenly it ended, there is still hope. Set a plan, laugh each day, enjoy the good times and take joy and believe in yourself and be confident. Push yourself to work harder and when you are inspired, do something about it so not only you know but someone else can be inspired too. If I have any regret at all it is because I never was in the moments with Shawna emotionally to tell her right into her eyes that I loved her too and that the embers of the fire that we created were burning inside of me all the time, tingling at the reservoirs of all of the passion I had to offer, and as I move forward now, I know the pain of the end of all of that amazing high that I felt with her. I am recovering, but to fuel that fire, we have to be present, constantly nurturing the one person that determines our happiness: ourselves.

Great stuff in this thread. I think it could be beneficial to a lot of people (myself included) I am taking today off to spend time with my daughter, it was somewhere in the back of my mind and now that I read this I realize how very much more important it is that I do. Thank you.

I think not playing in '14 was a good decision , good luck .

Yes, I really am writing this fully on selfish bias, not going to lie, but I feel there could be an effect for others and that would be fantastic. I don't live with my daughter but we talked today for 35 minutes and she is forming words so well and responding and it was really awesome. More posts to come for sure, even though I am on nights now and it is tough to generate something. Thanks for reading, those are very kind words.

You know, the real key to not playing is just day to day and remembering that there are lots of other things I am doing right now. I am investing a sizeable amount of my money in some new stocks as well as looking into buying a franchise back home, and more than anything I am focused on the "relationship" with my girlfriend (I believe in relating rather than give it as title like the word "relationship" because relating seems to be growing and flowing to me) and the ever growing bond with my daughter, as well as establishing my finances and creating a healthier path in those areas. Making money is very easy, but fulfillment is really tough, and I am working on the tough parts this year...I agree, good decision not playing this year

Great Thread OP!

Hey Thanks, going to keep working on more posts soon...night shift is brutal, lol!

really enjoying your posts in this thread. You have a very engaging and endearing writing style.

Good luck in your quest, I look forward to reading more.

I love the golf ball story.

Seven Months:

It is amazing to think that by mid-August, in less than seven months, I could be in a truck hauling all of my belongings to Las Vegas. If things go the way I would like them to go, which is highly likely (if not, this whole plan just backs up 10 months, still going to have the same money and perhaps an additional $5000-$7000), I won’t have many debts left, about $35,000 in the bank, with steady income and free schooling waiting for me in the city that I call home. Vegas is a place that without poker will always hold something dear and near to my heart because I went through some of the worst personal tragedies in the city and had the best of friends and the greatest moments of aloneness (by choice) help me out of the depths of despair to become who I am today and to be grateful for this gift of life that we all have.

Looking back on what will be 10 years and two months of active duty military service is quite daunting in that more than a third of my life has been spent doing intelligence operations in the Air Force. A whole decade! Now, I am not one to glorify my job, in fact, I despise it in many ways. I know it helps people, but am I a benefit or hindrance to my society? In lots of ways, I feel like I hinder society more than I help it, but some would argue that certain rights and privileges have been afforded to me: I graciously accept them when they come up but I never ask for anything. I just feel a true professional is one who can stay humble about the things he or she does and also private about them. My family taught me this and beside me saying it right now for the purposes of writing, military service is something I just keep to myself, but it has been a huge part of my life, so I cannot ignore it either.

Finally, that is all going to change.

Once I get the official news and fill out the paperwork and leave Northern California, life will be very different. I have a place to stay and I don’t plan on starting four to five classes at a community college in Las Vegas until the spring of 2015. I want to collect the unemployment benefits for six months that go hand in hand with my contract for separation(around $1750 a month and insurance for myself and daughter), work the maximum hours I can with those benefits, and also work “under the table” for a few friends as well for the rest of 2014 once I get there. A few fast figures:

Income/Outcome:

Monthly Income Currently: $4170 take home (tax refund and bonuses not included)
Monthly Outcome Currently: $2639
Monthly Leftover: $1531 (Call it $1500)
Monthly Approximate Income in LV starting in August: $3400
Monthly Outcome LV: $2000 (Rent, food, gas, monthly bus pass to save on gas, child support, cell phone, insurance, car payment…all I plan on doing is working a lot)
Monthly Leftover LV: $1400

My goal until my move to Las Vegas is just to keep saving the $1500 monthly leftover, and use my roommates $300 in rent to pay my car bill (buying my brothers, more fuel efficient) until August when I move. Now, in August, I still get paid for my military work and can work all that I want that month and part of the next until the unemployment starts rolling in, in which case my hours are limited to approximately 20 hours a week (still checking on figures for that, but not like I will get audited really hard, but random audits happen, so better safe than sorry). I am also saving around $2000 of my current tax return, using the other $2400 to pay down some debts, and I will also get a $6300 bonus in August that I don’t have to repay since I am being involuntarily yet honorably removed from the service, and I will also get a severance, which comes out to around $24,000 after taxes. Now, I don’t want to have any monthly debts I pay on, so I am paying off two debts in August, and maybe one of them before then, which takes $8000 away from the savings, but no more monthly payments for those. My total savings by the end of August should be roughly $36,000, but my plan is just to have around $35,000 due to traveling to see my child and girlfriend again (my girlfriend will likely visit me as well right before I go to Vegas to live).

While in Las Vegas, I want to be saving the $1400 per month from September of 2014 through February of 2015, as well as a tax return of around $4500, but then take off $2500 for Christmas, and likely some travel back and forth to see Bella and my girlfriend. That will bring my life roll to around $48,600, and that is where I am on my own, plus or minus if GreenGro climbs to four or five dollars and finally trades on the NASDAQ. I am not holding my breath on that one.

I have allowed some room in my monthly expenses while in Las Vegas for fun as well because I frequent the country bars and after hours bars quite frequently. I lived there for four years but spent the last two drinking my weight in alcohol most nights, but now that I work out a lot, I just want to dance and socialize every once in a while. Most of the reason I am moving to Las Vegas is my seven or eight close friends and how we support each other, so I want to keep that bond very tight, even though they are all starting to have kids.

Once school starts in the spring of 2015, things become a bit more difficult schedule wise, balancing work, school, studying, play, and travel out of the state to see my kid and my girlfriend. Here are those stats compared to the previous six months of income and lifestyle.

Income/Outcome:

Monthly Approximate Income in LV starting in August through February 2014: $3400 (goes up $1100 during first two months of 2015 because of the G.I. Bill monthly stipend, but that money will just go into savings)
Monthly Outcome LV: $2000 (Rent, food, gas, monthly bus pass to save on gas, child support, cell phone, insurance, car payment, $200 for Miscellaneous expenses…all I plan on doing is working a lot)
Monthly Leftover LV: $1400
Approximate Monthly income in LV March 2015 and after: $3100
Approximate Monthly Outcome in LV: $2300 (same bills, plus $300 for insurance premiums)
Monthly Leftover LV: $800

So, for each year I am left staring at the $9600 that will allow me to see my daughter a few times each year, while I am working 30 hours a week, in four to five classes, and studying for those classes. Do I even see poker as a possibility in any of this? Yes, still possible. Am I going to play poker before I do school work? No, unless it is just the best time to play or there is a game worthy of my time over studying. I think this is where the time management factor comes in the most.

Let’s say I work enough on four week days to do all my classes in one day or even partly in another day, and there is enough time in the evenings three nights a week to get class work done and then I work another part time job on the weekends. I still have some extensive time to get in nightly sessions four nights a week, and play maybe 15-20 hours a week. Now, by 2015, I will have not played for a year but certainly learned a lot, but is just jumping back in the right thing to do? Absolutely not! The best thing to do is go to school full-time and to gradually play again.

During my sessions, my focus needs to be on a few key areas, regardless of having a nice life roll ($18,000 used for bankroll).

A. Only take my stop loss amount for the day ($600)
B. Look around the room and decide which games are good based on things I can see and hear…take the time to look at stack sizes, where I could get seat changes, etc.
C. Focus on writing down hands as they are played, whether the hands are mine or otherwise, and posting them from the phone after the session or at home.
D. Have a stop loss for time played, and follow it strictly and leave. Poker is not my number one priority away from the table.

I think $600 is an appropriate stop-loss for starting out, and considering I will be mainly trying to just get back in the flow of things, and folding a lot in the spots where I cannot correctly play hands yet (it will come in time as I learn more on the forums, I have plenty of friends, lol), I should not really be reaching this stop-loss too often. The one I really have to watch out for is time. Time management is key for me at the poker tables and especially away from it.

Disclaimer to everything: If my girlfriend gets hired in Las Vegas (lots of skills in what she does and experience, so likely getting hired), then we will own our own place and my monthly expenses will go down enough that eventually, by like 2016 I could just go to school and play poker. I am really hoping for this, but that is ultimately up to her. I wanted to move back to Pennsylvania, but I would have been unhappy there.

So, this is just my plan so far for the year and into 2015, and I seriously do not even plan to dabble a little bit at the end of this 2014 in poker, because I really want to keep this goal of not playing going, and it is really helping my brain in a lot of ways I never imagined. I feel really healthy this past month, and I am reading a lot of hands in the cash game forums and learning from the better players on here as well as just bringing up PokerStars and watching cash game sessions of all types of regulars that I continually research.

I spoke with a friend about poker and addiction and he said “So, you don’t get a rush when you win or lose?” and I said “It is a lot like being a free-solo rock climber in that if you are getting a rush, something is probably going wrong.” In this journey of life, there will be times when I have a rope on, which is when I am in school or working my part time job, paying my bills, and out having fun, and I will definitely be able to do great things by having some harnesses in place to slow me down when needed. In poker, there are no ropes, because if there are, you cannot achieve much. The only true stop-loss in poker is staying even keeled in your mind and actions, moving methodically and slowly, and taking everything one hand at a time. It is nice thinking about that in just 11 months I will get to enjoy the friendly and not so friendly banter of the table again, feeling the chips riffle through my fingers as I sit staring at every movement at the table, starting fresh into the game I once had a passion for and now, I just have a vision for and I want to see it through. I want to find out not just how much I could make in profits financially, but what processes I will do and make better and better, and why I really love the game, and I want to control it, not let it control me like it has in the past.

Oh, that is really nice of you to say...my most recent post I just put up is a little more numbers based, but more posts like my other ones are forthcoming, and even next year when I play again, I plan on writing similar posts. I am very emotional guy, which is why I actually love poker, because it is truly the one place I feel very little emotion, if not any at all.

Yes, it is definitely a quest, and I just hope it goes where it goes, and I will just enjoy the experience.

Yeah, I love that golf ball story too, great to teach younger kids too but it seems like that professor made an impact on some young adults as well.

Thanks for reading, I will post more as I can! GL in all your endeavors!

Jumping for Joy!!!

Patience is sometimes the most important thing to cope with anything we have to deal with or want to get away from to go out and do something we desperately want to do. For me, I have wanted to be out of the military for a while so I can spend some much needed time with my daughter and family, and possibly get everything in order to be able to play poker again next year. Lately, doing all the math has seemed impossible as far as finances, and a lot of uncertainty. Today, things got a little less uncertain.

My leadership informed me that I could apply for a program that became available to my rank this past Friday and that I would likely be discharged out of the military as early as 15 March 2014, and I also would be receiving around $38,000 in severance. I immediately called my girlfriend, Lauren, and we were just so over joyed. We don’t have anything official in front of us but we are excited for a future together and already planned a trip to Las Vegas for her to do interviews with several schools and to look into houses in the Henderson and Providence housing areas (Henderson being in the south and Providence in the northwest for LV unfamiliar folks). As long as things go as planned in the next 48 hours and the Air Force Personnel folks have no reason (that I know of) to disapprove me, then I should be a civilian again really soon. Besides graduating high school and spending a few weeks in my hometown before basic training in 2004, I have no idea what to expect in civilian life. I am excited to feel it.

Today, as I was driving home for a break before I have to go back into work tonight, I thought about traveling to Las Vegas Golf Club with a friend this summer and teeing up golf balls, and not having to worry about being anywhere or some crazy rules at work or putting on a uniform. It just made me smile that a moment like that was so close. I thought about possibly dealing poker during the World Series of Poker this year, and just being able to sit in a seat I don’t mind sitting in and dealing out cards to hundreds of people having fun, chasing a dream, or just making a living, and being happy for them and not having to balance my time watching a game I love and going to do some other job I just don’t enjoy anymore.

The military has given me a ton, but I have given a lot more back. A lot. What I want is just this final thing, this final bit of money (they save money so not bad in their favor) and send-off from them so I can really set myself up to have my daughter in the summers and holiday’s, and I can go to school, live in a home I own with my girlfriend, and chase our dreams together. I have big ones far beyond poker. I never wanted to own a fancy car or house, but just a somewhat comfortable life, and I always wanted to do mission trips to Cambodia, Africa, and the Philippines, and I definitely want to get back into being involved in the homeless shelters and small church I was a part of in Las Vegas and make a difference in the city as well.

My initial plan is to get out and go visit my daughter for two weeks, and then be with my girlfriend before we fly out to Las Vegas for nine days in the middle of April and look at some houses as well as a few job interviews. She has never been to Las Vegas so we are going to Red Rock to hike around, as well as Mt. Charleston, and also to the Hoover Dam, and likely a lot of nights out at shows or the country bars and dancing places I love to go too. She wants me to play some poker, but I am not doing that. I am staying true to my path this year. I am going to continue to read posts, write posts, and get better and offer the little bit of life advice I have for people on here chasing dreams and goals, but without playing.

After that trip, she is going to head back to Pennsylvania, and I am going to look into dealing from then until through the Series before collecting unemployment and going to school in the fall. Hopefully, she will be living there by that fall or the next.

Once 2015 rolls around, I will have around $65-70K in my life roll and plan on putting $22K into a poker bankroll fund and playing strictly $1-$2 games and withdrawing $15 per hour of play from the bankroll. I will likely start dealing again then while doing school and playing poker sparingly until I feel I can increase volume and still be profitable. During the Series, I will likely not deal and just try to play and if I do deal, it will be away from the Rio or its associated properties. I’d like to be able to justify playing some $2-$5 by then since it is pretty good during the Series, as well as some satellites, but if not, I am okay with $1-$2 and $1-$3 games or just dealing a lot more during the Series.

I hate that my plans have been changing so much, but now I feel this is exactly the plan that will take place and just thinking I could be out of the military in about six weeks is slightly daunting but also really exciting. I can't wait to get back to Las Vegas, I miss it so much!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lyD_Qg5JNo8

The Super Bowl

I love when I can watch something and really am inspired to write something. Lately, on this PC&G, I have found it difficult to write something that not only has an effect on me, as sometimes these threads are primarily self-soothing and purposely selfish, but also something that others could relate to as well. So, I came across a part of the Seattle Seahawks QB, Russell Wilson, interview with David Letterman, and he keeps saying this saying his Dad used to tell him “Why not you?” I thought I would write about that, and something inspiring about poker, and perhaps I will in a post this weekend, since I have three days off, but then as I continued to watch the clip, as I had about ten times already, something else hit me square in the face and I could see it as something interesting for a read...

Before it even starts…

Hopefully, you will watch the link at the top of this and watch before even reading all of this, but you can go back later and still understand the content. At around 1:56, Russell talks about doing broadcasting for the previous Super Bowl, even though Seattle was not in it, and just discussing how the feel of the game was and all of the timing. He begins to talk about how the field is always the same size, long and wide, and all of the constants, as well as all of the variables, such as halftime being a bit longer than a normal game, or all of the pre-game things and how he used the time to his advantage.

How many of us think about these things when we play poker? Seriously, when is the last time you did not just walk into a casino, wherever it may be, pull out one of your bullets for the day, put your name on the list, and then proceeded to wait and take a seat. Sure, some of the posters on here do what I would do and that is walk around and see how the action looks, spot some regulars, see where empty seats might be or where an empty seat could open up and how to get it. However, to do this day to day, even when losing or rather when on quite the heater, is really tough and takes a lot of work.

I bet one, maybe many, would find it crazy to walk around Las Vegas, and to every poker room, and just walk around and begin to take notes, even if just to say they did it, with no intentions on playing. Could you watch a few hands, record them mentally, write them down later, post them, and learn about them from fellow members and begin to formulate ideas and questions on betting lines, hand ranges, and table dynamics? I would incorporate all of the last few paragraphs as everything before the game starts, and some of it is even during the game.

Pre-Game!!!

Russell used a great word when describing why he loved the pre-game the most: visualization. However, what caught my attention most was David Letterman and his words “You know, I have been trying to kill the pre-game for years” and how Russell was so adamant with saying the Pre-Game was his favorite part! Now, this next part might get me in trouble but if someone is truly reading this, and coming from a guy like me, for the few personal friends I have on here (Dbl_G, who I saw often and first met in Vegas and still talk about hands with when we can even now) can truly attest too, it might be good and relevant information. Sorry for the crazy run-on sentence I just wrote.

Have you ever went out to a bar and before you went, maybe in your youth, you wanted to go out and “meet a girl”? I work hand in hand each day with younger adults in my line of work and a few are quote “Virgins” and do from time to time ask me “How do you get girls?” and my answer is always “You don’t”. It’s true! Absolutely true. If you actually “got a girl”, you wouldn’t know what to do. However, what you actually do is get into a rhythm and you begin to understand yourself and what works for the end result, which may just be a dance, a drink, or possibly some extracurricular activities (like…bowling?) and you begin to develop a comfort zone that coincides with the comfort and uncomfortable zones of other people that you are attracted to and vice versa.

So, before going out to the bar, every guy should probably pre-game, in whatever way he needs too. We all have seen, or well most of us have seen, the movie “There’s something about Mary” where Ben Stiller’s character pleasures himself so he will be a lot “calmer” during the date and perform better in case something happens with Cameron Diaz. For other guys, it’s just having a shot or two of Jameson or another alcohol (I’d have to do Jameson because Jack Daniels is almost water now) with his boys and for the Colorado or California natives on here it is likely hitting something of the herbal variety and crushing dreams. I am sure the latter one can be found just about anywhere, including these forums.

In poker, the pre-game is much different. Russell Wilson, with his amount of preparation, and visualization, is like seeing Phil Galfond come to your table whereas David Letterman would be any sort of player that is not a profitable player and just wants to “get on with it”. If money is the girl, Phil Galfond wins out way more often than David Letterman, and while David does win sometimes, his frequency is much lower than Phil. Phil, like Russell, has pre-gamed and done his homework, while David is in it for the thrill and the rush.

What are some things you do to “pre-game” in poker? Do you visualize sitting at the table, making correct decisions, taking that extra 3-5 seconds to make a solid PF fold from the blinds, or taking the additional time to bet the correct amount on the turn with a strong holding so you can value shove the river into an opponent who will generally call you with their range of hands you evaluate them to have? Do you take the time to drink water and eat some sustenance to keep you focused throughout your session and do you even play some brain games or read some hand histories on the way to your success or while you wait so you can get into the right frame on mind? PREGAME!! It is vital!

The GAME (or session)

In other interviews, I have heard Russell talk about a few things, such as “having a championship mentality every game” or going “1-0”. Sure, he is not saying he is guaranteeing championships or winning, but he is saying he is guaranteeing a championship mentality and also a winning set of processes and executing them to perfection, even when things don’t go the right away, and all the way to the final whistle.

What is that final whistle in poker? Some days, for a cash game grinder, it is just when you have done everything you can, but you have reached that stop-loss, and it is time to take those 12-14 hand histories you have recorded and your small loss from your conservative bankroll, and head for the exits, and go home and begin to post hands and think about the session and find any leaks you can (because there always is a leak…always!) and I will talk more about that in the “When the Fat Lady Sings” portion. Also, sometimes the final whistle is when you are up 3-4 buy-ins, but you can see the dynamics of the game changing, and how you prepared and visualized does not fit, and it is time to find that visualization elsewhere, or just get up, rack up, and get out…and still go home and do those posts on TwoPlusTwo anyway.

Bottom Line: This is the real deal, where we play and we get a chance to really see how well we did our homework, and how we adapt to situations. The constants are that everyone gets two cards, the game is completely fair (hopefully, play in the right places everyone, plenty of them), and besides the few times some meaty, sweaty guy is sitting next to you breathing loud, you have plenty of time and space to think and make clear and conscious decisions. What you do before, during, and after, in your conduct, temperament, and game play actions, ultimately, will determine not only your profit, but who you become as a person. I can promise you that on the last one…I’d bet my life on it.

When the Fat Lady Sings (Like Football, there is always an off-season in poker)

Russell Wilson does a lot in his off season from football and we can compare a lot of the things, such as mini-camp in football to instructional videos watching the likes Taylor Caby or Brian Hastings teaching us advanced strategies to get better at the game. However, the best thing I think Russell Wilson does in the off season or his days off is just get away from the game, because it is always in his mind anyway, but he does certain things to really get away from it all and I saw this one video, and I think it displays it best. I hope to do these sorts of things in Las Vegas, and I will, and not just because they will get me away from my work schedule, or school, or playing poker, but those are the things that I schedule the rest of my life around: helping others. Hey, it just happens to help your poker game as well…gratefulness can go a long way in anything we do.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oiMsGIadk40


I hope this finds you well and continue in the quest to play poker and better yourself...why not you, right?

Good stuff homie, great read. I really like the analogy between Russell & Letterman, so true.