I'm a 29 year old dude. I have a girlfriend of 4 years and 8 months who has two kids. I live in New York. I'm an Organic Farmer. I've dropped out of college five times. I have no future plans or retirement building. I'm tired of working physical labor. I want to be in control of my life, not a slave to the dollar.

It's about to be winter here, and in my down-time, I usually grind. This time, though, I want to continue to grind all through next season (and the following season, and the following season, and the....). I want to only be a part-time worker next season, and rely on poker to make up the income I'm missing (I only make 21k net, so it won't be hard lol)l
I want to build a different life for myself and my family. I'm hoping poker can be that vessel. Have no fear, for if I fail, I do have backup plans. None sound as romantic as cards, though, so here's to hard work and success!

Short-term goals:
-Take bankroll to 5k. This is a nice bankroll all the way through mid-stakes. I can't play Ignition (which blows) being in NY, so I'm stuck with a small selection. Volume will be crucial. With 5k I will be happy playing tournaments up to $55. I like to have about 200 average buy-ins, as I've experienced some brutal swings before. Not sure I'm a profitable player beyond $55 (at least for right now), so that's where goal two comes in.

-Study Study Study! I need to improve. I want to improve. I want to find the areas I'm lacking in and patch them up. I want to learn. I won't put an hourly goal on this, but will make sure I fill up some time every day (and more on days I don't play) with consuming knowledge to improve my play.

-Second bankroll goal: 10k. This will allow me to play up to $109's (and by then I'm hoping to have improved my game significantly) and start sports betting a 0.5% unit. Sports betting is another passion of mine, and something I have had success with in the past (but have never been able to do it for big money).

-Third bankroll goal: 25k. This will give me a 10k poker roll and 15k sports betting roll. This will allow me to play almost any tournies I want, and to bet $150 as a unit.

Mid-term goal:
-50k. The half-way mark. At this point I believe I can make some solid money betting, and shouldn't have to work any longer (with a savings of at least 6 months living expenses behind me). I will be able to bet at least $300 as a unit.

Long-term goal:
-100k. The end result for me. I want to have a ton of money saved up outside of this bankroll. At this point I will have been supporting myself with betting and poker for a while, and this just increases what I can make annually. 100k will allow me to play any tournies I want, while betting up to $800 per game. I see this as my future. I see this as my dream-ending. I'm hoping to be at this goal by age 35 at latest, but will not be disappointed if it takes longer, as long as I see it fructify. I will only be upset if I fail at all of this due to lack of effort.


Extras (non poker related)
I'm currently reading, "Awaken The Giant Withing" by Tony Robbins. Great book. It has me pumped to kick ass everyday. I love how he simplifies everything. I've also been listening to Alan Watts a lot recently. I've always loved philosophy, and need to get more into it (again).
These are things that are helping me grow. That's another goal I have. Everyday, I want to be a better person.
Seeing as I have no retirement, I've been investing in Crypto. I strongly believe Blockchain is the future.

Extra goals:
-Meditate everyday
-Read two non-poker books a month
-Keep improving diet
-Work out 6 days/week
-Get Youtube channels (comedy) up and running
-Keep funneling money into new Blockchain based companies I believe in

Some of these goals I'll have to ease into, as it's hard to come home from a full-time farm day to do nothing but work some more.

Stats for this year are 333 tournaments (mainly all in my downtime last winter) at an abi of $22.92 for a profit of $5,746.91. I'm keeping $1,000 for poker and have invested the rest in Crypto. I will reset my yearly stats for the point of this thread.

This is step 1 of my journey. The point of this thread is to keep track of my progress, and to be able to look back in 2, 3, 5 years, however long it takes, and experience extreme ecstasy at my growth and success. I didn't session tonight, as I was busy, but tomorrow night I will hit the tables. No matter what short-term outcome I experience, I will be happy just knowing I'm fortunate enough to attempt to sculpt my life with my dreams.

"Life is either a daring adventure or nothing."
Carpe diem.

J

Sounds good but play within your skill, not your bankroll. Good luck.

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Thanks UpDog, I appreciate the advice! I have had long-term success through mid-stakes MTT's, but don't have much experience with high-stakes. I like having at least 200 abi's, and will only move up when I feel I'm ready. I'm also not stubborn enough to know when I'm out of my league, so if I'm getting my ass handed to me, I will move back to where I belong

I spent the first four hours of my shift on my hands and knees in the wet dirt picking up carrots for winter storage. I love my job, but I don't want to do it anymore. I don't want to complain about it, as I know I'm in better shape than 99% of the world, but I have a choice, and my choice is to change it. I will be spending my lunch break reading. Time management is something I have sucked at for the majority of my life, but have really improved the past couple of years.

Firing up the first session of the thread. Hopefully this is the first of years recorded in here!

Final 200 of an 1800 person field and final 200 of a 1300 person field, both on ACR. $2,400 and $1,500 up top in either. Hope I can stay awake and run deep!

100 left of 1300. I have 30th biggest stack.

Better start knocking on wood or something! You got this.

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Haha thanks dog! My biggest enemy right now is being tired...85 left of 1300, I have 18th biggest stack, $2,500 up top.

Subbed!

Best of luck man, i will be following!

Thanks Scarecrow. Took 22nd out of 1291 in the $11 10k and 124 out of 1801 in the $5.50 $7,500. The rest of my session I ran pretty bad.
10/10/17 8 tournies -$15.83. Current bankroll $984.17

It's extremely hard to concentrate after a full day of work. Might have to only play weekends for another 4-6 weeks until I'm part-time farming due to weather. If nothing else, this will give me more time to focus on my other goals until then.

I can relate a lot to this.

I play 3 sessions/week (mostly) and 2 of them are week days (3rd is on Sunday obv).

In order to have some kind of volume i play str8 after work so it can be pretty tough some times (esp late @ night).

For that reason i ve made some adjustments at my schedule (trial and error a lot) and came down to this:

1) I only have 1 mid-week session
2) I play on Friday when i do not have to wake up early the next day (and that kinda works well for my mental game and fatigue) and also Sunday when i am rested well.
3) I never do back2back sessions

Just sharing my opinion

And dont forget to hydrate throughout session!!!

Peace man!

I like your motive of playing and trying to improve. I have to agree with the earlier reply of play within your skill, not bankroll. Don't have any intentions of hijacking your thread or bragging rights, but I think my experience may help motivate you...I'm in similar situation in the sense that I'm tired of working hard and would rather work smart. I'm 37, only played recreationally in the past then decided I'm done living life the way I was.

In August this year I decided to take poker seriously. I spent ~850 playing micro-small stakes for about 1.5 months to relearn the game and considered it R&D cost so was fine losing it all. Down to $28, I felt I was ready for focusing only on MTT, as my goal right from the start is to win WSOP.

Played $3-$5 buy-ins until I got first, moved roll up to ~200. Switched to $7-$10 until making final table a couple times then took a big shot at the 250k monthly (on ignition). Ran bad and busted, but I learned from my mistakes. 1 week later entered my 1st weekly 100k and got 8th. The week after I got 1st. Now I'm transitioning from online to live tournaments (it's insane how bad local gatherings are...most ppl are opponents that belong in the $3-$5 MTT range).

Point being, you are on the right path. I advise against playing on weekdays after work, considering the manual labor you go through. When you do play, allow no distractions and be as comfortable as you can. Good luck!

Scarecrow - I love all three ideas. It's important to identify things like this in order to sustain long-term success. I'm a HUGE water consumer. I drink a minimum of one gallon of water/day. I think for now I'll stick with Friday's, Sunday's, and any Saturday's I'm not busy. I may play one weekday, but if I do, I'll try to pair it with a time when I need to be on my comp anyway, and will only play a few tournies. As a strategy I think I will also ignore the larger fields on weekdays (including Friday's). Usually around Thanksgiving I'm working less than 30 hours a week. I will at that point be going to a Monday, Tuesday, Thursday work schedule, which will carry over into next year, and can then play Wednesday's, Friday's, Sunday's, and any free Saturday's. Volume will just have to suffer for now.
What games and stakes do you play?

Hey Kaoz!
I will definitely play within my skill. I'm not a stubborn person and know what stakes I can't beat. I have long-term success through mid-stakes, but not much experience with high-stakes (where I'd currently prob get my ass handed to me), but I'm far away from that point, so I will try my best to keep improving until I cross said bridge!
I agree about not playing after work. I think that if I'm working on my comp anyway, I can play a max of 3 tournies with small fields. If I'm just in 1-3 games, and not playing past say 11, my play doesn't suffer; it's when it's 6+ after working and they go late. I can't think decisions through fast enough and I'm probably playing my C game.
Congrats on the online binks. How's the live tourny scene treating you so far? I would prefer to be a live cash game player, as the games are softer than melted butter, but the closest casino to me is 1.5 hours.

Well I've been running bad since the big win, including the live tournaments, but I wasn't expecting to win anyway. I was focused on practicing keeping track of pot size and effective stacks (which the locals don't even do. Their bet sizing were also a joke). Once my bad run is over I think it'll be pretty easy to take it down. Once I achieve that I will move on to casinos, with next goal taking down Chicago Poker Classic.

I read somewhere that online field is much tougher than live ($10 buy in about equal to $100 buy in live) and so far I have to agree. I usually have bad luck when it comes to cards, losing majority of 50/50s or outdrawn in general, so long MTT suit me better, as skill and range advantage comes into play. Cash games aren't kind to me, even if I make the right choices mathematically so I stay away. Plus, it makes sense that I only focus on MTT since I'm aiming for wsop lol.

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Hey man,

I play online mtts at European sites mainly (a small amount of my monthly volume is on pokerstars as well but due to day-job i jave to avoid huge fields. At least 4 the time being).
My abi is around 20$ but currently playing a bit underolled due to a big swing I went through, when i took a shot @ bigger bins on September series.

You can check anything you want at my PGC here as well Started May2017.

Feel free to shoot any questions. I am always open to intresting converstations

Glgl at the tables!

Peace buddy!

One last thing... it's great your are confident and profitable at your current stakes, and I understand how moving up to bigger fields can be risky. If you're running good, take some shots here and there (to be safer, satellites are awesome. My 1st 100k I used $18 to satellite into, and 8th place paid 2.2k).
Honestly the player field is NOT significantly harder, only when it gets to around top 36 (out of ~750) or so will you notice difference in play, which you adjust accordingly.

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Played 5 tournies yesterday since I had to do some work on the computer anyway. Kept it to small fields, so they wouldn't be over late in case I ran deep. Got 2 $5 bounties but didn't cash at all. It was a weird up and down session.

Bankroll challenge stats
13 mtts
$54.43
Roll goal 1: $945.57/$5,000

I do partake in sats quite often. Are you going to try to play some WSOP events next summer?

I wish I could play on Euro sites, as well. Being restricted to US sites kinda blows, but I'm hoping the Blockchain technology will reintroduce poker to a lot of people, and maybe create a mini-boom 2.0.

I will definitely sub to your PGnC, and will start any conversations when I can think of certain ones. I don't have any friends or family who are into poker, which is another reason I started this.

Yup, with full intentions of winning it. Yup, with full intentions of winning it. Taking a break from playing now due to running bad, good thing I bought 9 poker books to study during down time.

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Won a seat into the $109 $400,000 on Sunday on ACR. Going to ship it obviously

Outside of that I only played the $33 10k OSS on ACR as well. 100 left of 450ish a 9 bb stack shoves from mp1 w JJ, I smooth with AA in HJ and 22 bbs, big blind 3-bet ships 17 bbs with 66. Run-out was 67J27.

Besides a 4th place in the Betonline $33 15k two weeks ago for $1,350, I've been running quite poorly my last 200-250 tournaments. That's not a large sample size at all, but my AFS is pretty small (probably around 225 people). Hoping to run in God mode during the 400k.

Yesterday I took my girlfriends daughter and her friends out for her birthday, so I didn't play. Still about 30 days until I can get in some legit volume.

I decided to keep it light today since I had a bunch of other **** to do, and don't wanna session late unless I run deep in a big tourny. I decided to just play the $22 80k on ACR, as well as the $109 400k I sat'd into.

Got all in on AKQ with AK vs KQ in the $22 and he turned a Q obv.
Currently sitting at 264th/2710 with a 30k stack (10k starting stacks) in the 400k with about 100 minutes left of late reg. Longgg way to go until I win it!

Best of luck to those grinding today!

My bad. 2710 have regd so far, but there are currently 1300. It should get 4000 people and payout 585 places.

Haven't sessioned in 2 weeks. I prob made this thread prematurely, but w/e, it will be setup for when I'm ready to start grinding a lot (that time will be here so soon!). I've been working 6 days a week for roughly 7 months now. I'm so burnt out and just ready to grind and have downtime. I've also been thinking a lot about different sources of passive income recently, and am hoping to have multiple streams of $ setup within the next 12 months.

I was chillen before I sit down to watch more of Stranger Things season 2 with my girl and won a satellite into Betonline's $109 100k they run the last Sunday of every month. Looks like I will be playing tomorrow for sure now. Good luck to me. Usually 24-30k up top.