“The purpose of life is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experience.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt

I am starting to play live full-time after successfully grinding part-time for the past few years while I was finishing my studies. Now that school is over, I am interested in living the life of a “poker pro,” while I transition to a job in my field of studies. I have been a long-time lurker on 2+2 and owe most of what I have learnt about poker theory and strategy to this community. I have passionately followed several threads in this forum, silently cheering the OPs in their quest for poker success and using their stories and accomplishments as motivation for my own grinds. This is my story as I live my dream.

Why play poker?

I am 28 years old. Happily married for 2 years. No kids. I have been a full-time student for as long as I can remember. Earned my Bachelor’s, then promptly moved on to grad school. Last month, I graduated with a doctorate from a prestigious university. Logically, the next step in this journey is to start a 9-5 job and slowly make my way up the workplace food chain. So why put a seemingly obvious career path on hold and instead rub shoulders with aggro maniacs, rock-solid nits, check-raising blufftards and fellow grinders? This is a decision that I have struggled with over the past few months and I came up with two reasons for playing poker full-time:

- I love pokerzzz!

- I have always believed in living life to the fullest. My absolute worst fear is that of having regrets. 50 years from now, when I am a grumpy old man, dragging my nut sack along, I don’t want to look back at life and have any regrets. I don’t want to say to myself “what if…?” While I don’t see myself playing poker as a career, I do want to prove to myself that I am capable of living a comfortable lifestyle while doing what I love most. That I can beat this game in the long run. But most importantly, I want to be true to myself. Playing poker for a living has been my dream. And I know that once I join the normal workforce, it will be very hard to come back out of that cycle and instead play poker for any long stretch of time. I am at stage in my life, where my responsibilities toward my family will only increase with time. And perhaps in a few years’ time it will not be fair for my mortgage payment or kids’ school tuition to depend on the outcome of a single pot that wiped out the entire month’s profits. Keeping this in mind, I have decided to take my shot now. Oh, and did I mention I love pokerzzz?!?!

Poker Background

Like a lot of people, I discovered this game while hanging out with friends and playing for micro stakes, trying to out do each other for bragging rights. My infatuation with this game was instantaneous and I was captivated by the intricate complexities of a seemingly simple card game that required players to match hole cards with cards on the board. Luck was definitely a big factor, as you are betting even before knowing what the next card is. Or so I thought. Beating my friends was easy. Surely, how hard can it be making some decent money on the side, playing for stakes a little higher. I had it figured out. I still vividly remember my first time walking like a boss into the poker room at Tropicana in Atlantic City and getting completely owned. That’s when I realized this game wasn’t a piece of cake after all.

What I took away from that ass whooping was that there’s so much more to learn. I was motivated rather than dejected. I found a local home game and started playing there regularly. I found 2+2. I learnt what floating, implied odds and set mining were. And then casinos started popping up in my neck of the woods and they were spreading poker. Now I had 24/7 access to pursue this hobby. I was still going to school so I started playing in the evenings and weekends when I had spare time. I slowly transformed from a slightly losing/breakeven player to a winning player. I made poker friends and discussing hands with them was invaluable. My bankroll was rapidly growing. I transitioned to 2/5 NL in 2012 and have since had a healthy win rate over a fairly decent sample size.

Poker Goals

I am planning to play full-time for the remainder of 2014. I will start applying for jobs towards the latter half of 2014. I have discussed with several peers in my field who advised me that up to a 2-year gap will not negatively impact my career opportunities. Hence, I am not in a hurry to latch on to the first offer that comes my way.

From a poker perspective, I am interested in further developing my game by learning advanced strategies and new skill sets. I have already identified several leaks in my game, and now that I can devote more time to study this game, I want to make a concerted effort to fix them. For example, while I do have a TAG style of play, I tend to pot control and limit the variance more often than necessary. In the past, I believe this was a by-product of playing very few hours on a weekly basis, and thus the fear/necessity to limit losing big pots. Now, I will work on aggressively pushing smaller edges. I will discuss more leaks and remedies in subsequent posts as I continue working on them.

I have a healthy bankroll for grinding 2/5 (max buy-in is $500 at my local cardroom). In the past, I have taken shots at 5/10 but felt intimidated due to bankroll issues. I have yet to have a losing 5/10 session, but I feel a bigger bankroll is essential for playing my A game. Although permanently moving up to 5/10 is not one of my immediate goals, as my bankroll grows I will try to play more regularly if there are good games going on.

I have played some PLO and the games were juicy every time. It is very tempting to sit at a PLO table, especially when I see hyper aggro NL fishes and whales playing in the game. But I feel that it is more important that I focus solely on improving my NL game for now. Studying PLO is another goal that I have reserved for the second half of the year.

Immediate goals:
- Play 140hrs/month.
- Plug leaks.
- Learn new strategies and skill sets.
- Write down hand-histories more frequently.
- Chip porn.

Distant goals:
- Play PLO, 5/10 NL and tourneys, as bankroll permits.

Year-end goals:
- 100K in winnings
- Final table a $300+ buy-in tourney
- Personal satisfaction

I started my grind in February and I will provide a summary of my first month “in the office” in a separate post.

SHIP IT!!!

Subbed. GLGL unless you're at my table again.

Looks like you have a good shot at it, GL subbed.

glgl

good luck, which school did you get your doctorate from

I dig the goals, play well!

You have a nice style of writing. gl op!

Thank you for the warm wishes.

I got a PhD in biochemistry from Georgetown University while doing cancer research. I noticed you are from Montreal. I went to McGill for undergrad and then Dawson before that.

February was my first month in “the office.” It was also the first time that I could play poker without any other pressing issues on my mind. I could finally make poker a priority over other things in my life. I had been waiting for this moment for a long time and it was here at last. I was ready to embark upon this new journey.

One of my goals for this month was to step up the aggression factor in my play. Surely, it would increase the swings, may even negatively impact my win rate until I get more comfortable pushing smaller edges, but in the long run I am hopeful that it will prove profitable. Initially, I managed to completely butcher some hands. On the flip side, I was surprised to learn how willing short-stack players (<50bb) are to get their money in pre-flop with weak holdings. The following hands illustrate this:

Hand 1

Effective stacks 210. Hero covers.
Preflop: ($7) Hero is in the HJ with A10.
UTG raises to 55, 2 callers, Hero shoves for ~750, UTG calls, callers fold.

UTG had been raising aggressively preflop with a very wide range. He was in for his second buy-in. The limpers were playing pretty deep and both had me covered. They took some time before calling the initial raise, so I was pretty sure they will fold to a shove.

Flop ($537): 678

Turn ($537): J

River ($537): Q

UTG shows A3

Hand 2

Effective stacks 265. Hero covers.
Preflop($7): Hero is in MP with AJ
Hero opens to 35. 3 callers, UTG+2 raises to 150, Hero shoves ~600. Folds to UTG+2 who calls.

UTG+2 was slightly drunk. He was frequently raising preflop to $10 or $15 with any 2 cards. He would lead out for more with premium cards. It was unlikely that he limped with premium holdings from UTG+2 position, given his previous betting tendencies.

Flop ($642): 257

Turn ($642): 5

River ($642): A

UTG shows KQ


I was involved in several other similar hands. I only used this play when there was enough dead money in the pot to justify a coin-flip. My hand did not hold up every time but in all cases I was getting close to a 2:1 return on my investment. In the long run, I expect this to be a profitable strategy.

I played a fairly eventful session towards the middle of February. I joined a short-handed 2/5 table with deep stacks during the wee hours of the morning. The action on this table was largely driven by a hyper-aggro maniac who was sitting 4K deep. I had played 2 short sessions with him the week before, and both times be built a big stack and spewed it off. He would open 80% of his hands with a $40-$45 bet. C-bets almost everytime. Runs up a big stack since he gets paid off when he has a hand. But as soon as he catches a sustainable run of bad cards, his stack starts to dwindle. To his credit, he is very attentive at the table. He has a good sense for reading weakness and developing reads on his opponents, and he uses his aggression to push players around when he senses weakness.

Early on in the session, he felted me when we got our stacks in on the flop when I had TPTK and he rivered 2 pairs. I reloaded and the very next hand I flopped a set and tripled up.

Then this hand came up a couple hours into the session. By now villain had settled into a consistent betting pattern that I had picked up on.

Effective stacks ~1350. Villain has me covered.
Preflop: ($7)Hero is on the button with JJ
Villain is UTG and opens to 45. Folds to hero. Hero flats.

Prior to this hand, I had 3-bet him pre-flop on 2 separate occasions and both times he folded. I decided to play passively this time and let him drive the action. I wanted him to essentially hang himself by giving him a chance to bluff all the way.

Flop($97): 2410
UTG leads for 55. Hero flats.

I am fairly confident that I am ahead on the flop. Villain c-bets $55-$65 every time, regardless of whether the flop helped him or not.

Turn ($207): K
UTG leads for 225. Hero calls and throws 2 black chips and a green chip quickly in a careless, annoyed motion one by one close to the pot.

Villain’s bet sizing on the turn is a tell that I picked up on fairly early on. If he has a showdown-worthy hand, he value bets the turn. If he’s bluffing, he bets pot or more.

Villain also likes to develop tells on his opponents. K is a scare card for my hand (which he will find out on showdown). I am pretty sure he will notice how I threw my chips when I didn’t like the turn card. I’m not bothered by the turn card, but this is a fake tell that I expect him to exploit in a future hand.

River ($657): A
UTG checks. Hero checks.

Villain shows 97. My hand is good.

An orbit later, this hand came up.

Effective stacks ~1650. Villain has me covered.
Preflop ($7): Hero is on the button with 88.
Villain is UTG and opens to 45. Folds to hero. Hero flats.

Same story as previous hand.

Flop ($97): 4510
UTG leads for 55. Hero flats.

I am planning to evaluate his hand strength on the turn by using the turn bet sizing tell.

Turn ($207): J
UTG leads for 250. Hero calls and throws 2 black chips and a green chip the same way I called his turn bet in the previous hand.

Villain’s bet sizing on the turn tells me he is bluffing. I am sure he picked up on the fake tell during the previous hand when a “scare card” came on the turn. I expect him to value bet the river if he makes his hand, at which point I can evaluate and act accordingly. If the river misses him, I expect villain to act on the fake tell and massively overbet.


River ($707): 4
UTG goes all-in. Hero calls.



I played 119 hours during February, which is lower than the 140hrs I had planned. I had family visiting from out of town so had to cut some sessions short. I expect to play my full quota during March.

Great Thread! I look forward to monitoring your progress throughout the year!!