Sensi, is the plan to move back to Chicago at the end of the year regardless of the results?

What are some of the books on your reading list?

Can I get a link to your Insta?

At the moment that's the plan, but my wife has expressed interest in staying up to one year more if she is enjoying and moving forward in her job.

I'm intrigued by 'big history' as a starting point to building foundational historical knowledge useful for a) increasing perspective and awareness of the key factors that modern issues are comprised of in the context of our history as a whole, allowing us to make better decisions and b) making you a more interesting and compelling person. The book next on my list is a self-proclaimed intro to big history, Maps of Time by David Christian. After that I'll likely reread Island by Aldous Huxley because it's so damn good. If you haven't read that one I'd highly recommend it.

If you dont mind me asking, can you give specifics on your apartment?

Size, cost? How far from Commerce...in miles and time wise?

We were able to secure a place in west Culver City. When looking through apartments I was thinking about centrality over anything. Most places close to Bell Gardens are far from anything that isn’t downtown and there’s no way in hell I’m living there despite it being cheaper. Where we’re at now we’re not far from the beach and really close to both the 10 and the 405 so my wife doesn’t have a terrible commute to work. $1800/month for a spacious one bedroom in a gated area. Quite nice.

With all that said, I got the short end of the stick wrt commuting. It’s about 16 miles to Commerce: 30-50 min drive depending on traffic, ~2 hours via public transit.

Ive played 20 hours the last 3 days in L.A. Ive played Commerce, the Bike, Hawaiian Gardens and Hollywood Park.

Ill just say this...My GOD, the players are bad out here. They are really bad and they are everywhere. I cant even believe what Ive been seeing. I cant put it into words how atrocious at least half the 5/5 players are. The 5/10 at Commerce was a little more respectable but still super soft compared to what Im used to in S. Florida.

I may have to come back and spend a month or so here sometime.

Welcome to LA mike

Thank you , Sir.

Exactly why I moved out here. The COL is high but the average game quality more than makes up for it.

You should check out Downey. It's a really underrated area. I play Bike 5/5 regularly (although branching out when tournaments aren't going).

You must be great at parties.

RIP
-------------------
Welp, it's been real but I've failed. Over the past few months, I've been a slight winner after life expenses but I was doomswitched pretty hard over the past few weeks. Despite refocusing on volume since my last update, the results have been piss poor. Some would say I had a really bad downswing after setting poker goals. It's been the biggest downswing I've ever experienced and it pretty much crippled my bankroll. I knew from the beginning given the relatively small size of my starting roll that my ROR was significant when expenses piled up; thus, I was fully prepared for this from the get-go. I don't regret taking the shot at all and am far from out of the game.


Lessons So Far
-------------------
I've logged 575 hours of poker since my professional journey began in June and it's been a wild ride. Going in I thought I'd be able to stoically exist in the casino without any of the negative aspects of the grind getting to me. All my life I've been very resilient and dispassionate, two character traits that I figured are decidedly important in poker and would thus give me a leg up on the competition. There are a few things that I didn't account for as much as I should have to start, especially given the advice of many regs who float around the PG&C threads, simply because I overestimated my ability or means to circumvent them.

• Casinos are littered with scum - The number of toxic regs in the game feels like it's increasing by the day. They'll be the absolute death of this game before long. They come in all flavors, from the young wannabe headphone-wearing pros to the scummy old school angleshooters + slowrollers. Just being in the presence of these people wears on you before long, it's like they're sapping you of willpower and energy all at the same time.
• LA poker is especially swingy - Despite the relatively shallow buyin structures for the games I've been playing (2/3, 3/5 and 5/5), they tend to play deep and splashy. LA has a reputation for having a ton of action and it does not disappoint. Of course there are times where the games are mostly comprised of OMCs and nitregs, but on average I've seen more multiway AI pots and people giving action than I ever experienced before.

A decent portion of the latest brutal downswing was just running like dog **** in really big pots. I'd say I'm likely running above EV overall but losing the big ones really hurts the bottom line. Those losses definitely were compounded by me playing badly. One specific mistake that kept creeping up, especially in sessions where I started down, was simply calling with way too many hands and reverting to a reactive style of poker. Another is that I tried pushing the action in spots where I have almost no FE. One final big failure of mine was not sticking to my stop-loss and not being more conservative with my small roll overall. There were times were I adopted a "fake it til you make it" mentality and would fire more than 2-3 BI in a single session because that's what a well-rolled pro would do. The reality is that my roll was way too fragile and exposed for that mentality to ever work and it almost certainly seeped into my play. I kept telling myself to make the most +EV decision when I could have taken an overall nittier approach to limit losses and shift my focus to winning small to rebuild.

Another unintended consequence of having so much free time to myself was pissing a lot of it away. When I wasn't at the casino, I've spent way too much time playing videogames, scrolling through Reddit, lurking 2+2, etc...I found it quite difficult to regiment my time effectively without resorting back to old habits (smoke weed, grind videogames, jerk off, rinse and repeat). Obviously this failure is all on me, and moving forward I'll be replacing these destructive habits/cycles with better ones.

Pivot
-------------------
The plan now is based on 2 simple tenets gleaming off my experiences so far:

1. 40 hours a week is much too long to spend in a casino for a sane person
2. A large bankroll is necessary to ensure success for all but those who sunrun to start

To address these, I'll be getting back on the corporate grind. This will help me out by:

• bringing some well-needed structure back into my week
• limiting the time I spend at the casino
• replenish the bankroll and allow for low-risk shots at better games

Despite holding on strongly to the idea that the poker dream is still alive, I've learned that although it certainly is, it's on life support and requires more than what it did in the glory days. Everyone I've met who has continued sustainable success in the game over a long period either made the bulk of their money when the gettin' was good and have been coasting or just make most of their money outside of poker. I'm inclined to agree with those in the PG&C crowd who insist that semi-pro is the way to go. Playing for rent money is just too stressful without knowing you have cushion to fall back on, whether that be other sources of income or a backer.

With that being said, I want to focus now on really breaking down my game at the ground level, going over the foundations to ensure they're rock solid before moving to higher level material. I've almost cut out studying entirely over the past month because of my extreme focus on volume but the deterioration of my play is testament to the fact that I can't cut out studying any longer.; I need to make my B and C-game better while improving my ability to play my A-game longer. I've already got a nice roadmap for various spots that I'd like to study in depth so it's just a matter of putting in the hours.

To work on study concepts while keeping the skills sharp, I'll be putting in almost all of my volume online until I get a full-time position locked up. Obviously this won't mean much in terms of hourly since I'm primarily playing 20NL with the occasional 50NL thrown in, but it'll give me the opportunity to apply concepts and experiment without decimating the rest of my roll.

Once the money starts rolling in, I'll exclusively be playing night sessions as that's all that my schedule will allow: one weekend session + 2-3 weekday sessions. I'll definitely be more diligent about table selection since my time will be limited and focus will be on playing the best NL game in the room, regardless of the stakes. I'll just say the pay difference between Chicago and LA for positions with my experience level is quite favorable so the salary will be comfortable enough for me to shot take and save up simultaneously rather easily.

I'll keep y'all posted about the results of the job search in the coming week or two, I've already got a meeting setup with a tech recruiter on Monday so hopefully we're on the train soon. Down but not out!

Sorry to hear about the downswing but great self reflection!

What type of position are you looking for? I moved to Orange County in July from MN for a tech job and it has worked out great so far.

Thanks! It's painful being honest about failures but it feels good to be on the road to progress again. It just took a bit of trial and error.

I'm in the market for a mid-level SDET position. Honestly, I'm not too concerned about the long-term potential for growth or career prospects as it'll be more of a transition job. I'm just looking to stack as much cheddar as possible and preferably not take work home with me, leaving as much time for poker and study as possible. I've got a few prospects lined up in Santa Monica, Culver City, and downtown so we'll see how it goes.

How's the work out in Orange County compared to the Midwest?

I’m doing pretty much the same thing just getting paid a lot more to do it! Lots more opportunity around here as well if/when I want to change jobs again.

Sorry to hear about the way your journey turned out. I'm actually pretty surprised because although I dont know anything about your skill level, the rest of your posts give the impression that you have your **** together so I thought you would do pretty well. It just goes to show how tough being a poker pro actually is. They say 90-95% of all players lose money so imagine how many can actually make money and make enough to live on. Maybe 1-2%?

I dont really find casinos littered with scum, as you say. I do find them littered with terrible poker players even though most of them think they are good. Of course I do know several regs in my room that dont deserve to breathe the same air as most of us, but Id say its the minority of them. I mean, there's probably only 5% of them that I would want to be friends with or have a drink with but I dont think that many of them are scum.

Id have to agree with you about LA poker. Its very swingy. I did very well when I was out there not long ago but I also sat down and lost $1200 in 1 hour which is the most Ive ever lost that quickly. I do think win rates for a good player would be higher there than any place else Ive played and Ive played all over the Country. I did sense a higher "scum" factor at the tables in LA than most places. LA seems like a sesspool overall to me.

I have a pro friend who is a pretty decent player who moved from S. Florida to Maryland to play at MGM. When I read his HHs he had some leaks for sure but overall was pretty good. After about a year he has quit and gotten a job also.

Being a poker pro is a very hard thing to do for a number of reasons including the ones you listed.

Scummy "co-workers"
Bad work schedule if you want best results.
Sitting for long periods
Long periods of total boredom
Income sometimes based on total randomness.

Ect....

Hey are you from UofI? I got a CEE degree from there and now play poker in vegas lol. Good luck to your job searching, mate.

One of my main underestimates was simply how expensive it would be to move out here. I started my journey in the hole with moving expenses, so once rent and normal life expenses were piled in it became too much to outpace despite having a solid winrate. Although I think it's doable to live off of 2/3, I'm convinced you need to be playing 5/5+ as your main game to make real money out here, and starting off under-rolled was a big detriment to me being able to play those games consistently. Ideally I would have liked to work another 6 months or so before leaving but the timing of our lease put us in a bind: it was do or die so I just went for it. Overall I'm happy that I'm profitable over those 500-something hours but "I'm up this much since I started" doesn't matter when you have bills, plain and simple.

I may have been a bit harsh in my initial assessment of the scum level in LA casinos; it's by no means the majority or even close, and I've met quite a few intelligent, likable people at the casino. What gets me is the level of depravity that these few individuals have stooped to. You don't need a bunch of toxic people at the table if only one is so damn strong. So the depth of depravity is much higher than the breadth, at least from my experience. I don't think it's an LA-specific thing, I think it's just a numbers game - more tables in a casino => higher likelihood of degens.

I'll be focusing more on table/casino selection moving forward as I believe being in the right game trumps almost any other external factor when it comes to determination of the profitability ceiling. On average, the 2/3 games at the Bike are way better than anything comparable at Horseshoe Hammond, but they, like any other game in the country, decline in quality and availability in various spots throughout the week. Sitting for hours while attempting to be focused in a nitty game really starts to mess with your head after a while. I may even consider branching out to home games or online poker clubs if necessary. I want to exhaust all options once I have the means to. My BR constrained me quite a bit before to play mostly 2/3 with some 5/5 sprinkled in but with real income I can explore all the possibilities.

I must be running super good in the not getting angle shot or having scum bags at my table. I’ve been playing mostly 5/5 and 5/10 (with a bit of 5/T/20 and straight 10/20) at Gardens and a bit of 5/5/10 PLO at Commerce and haven’t ran into anything too terrible yet.

Nothing worse than regs seat changing too much and taking way too long but that’s not really scummy just super bad for the game and seems to be happening everywhere.

I take it back there was one scumbag that purposely misdeclared his hand at showdown to try to get someone else to muck but I am pretty sure he was just a degenerate and also not a reg.

Good that you pointed this out. Another reason why I want to exclusively play 5/5+ is exactly what you mention: the degen to normal person ratio is much lower overall. The types of people I'm referring to tend to fester in 5/5 games at Commerce and 2/3 games at the Bike. I don't have much sample at Gardens but the times I've been there have been standard, nothing bad to note.

The incessant tanking is one of the most annoying parts about live poker for sure. Rounders also ruined things for everyone and made it so that most people wait til the action is on them to look at their cards. Just stahp.


Nah, my brother went to U of I for something unrelated to engineering so I've only been there to visit him. I got my CE degree from IIT.

I cant imagine why you would need to branch out to home games. You are in the mecca of live poker. I played in 4 different rooms while there and Im sure I missed 1 or 2 others. Every one of them has great action at all hours of the day.

I stated playing each day at about 10AM and never played past 9PM. The morning games had a few nits but still more action than what I see even in evening games.

I know playing for a living and having to pay bills out of your roll has to be very stressful. There have been times for me during a downswing where I thought about that and wondered how some guys survive emotionally. Obviously most dont as I hear stories like yours quite a bit.

The guy who I have told people I believe to be the best player in my room (he was a semi reg between my room and another one), recently quit and got a job at the Post Office.

Not having a car makes it tough to hit up rooms besides Commerce, Bicycle, Hollywood Park, Gardens, and Hustler. Game availability is pretty good most of the time but it’d be nice to have a closer game available to throw into the rotation.

Yeah, when you’re sitting there dead even or maybe +1K after living expenses after putting up solid numbers at the end of the month, it’s pretty demoralizing knowing that variance rearing its head in at any moment will ruin you. I don’t think my emotional response would be an issue if I were well rolled but it definitely messed with me a bit at various points since I started. People only see the big stacks on IG and romanticize the poker life but the downsides can be brutal.

I'll never quit and get a job, but thats because ive already been out of the job market for 30 years so its too late for that option, no matter what happens to my roll. but im still clearing 25-47k at 1-2 1-3 every year. and its sure as hell stressful as can be. but u dont need a large roll, ive lived off the same 10k or so without ever going broke for quite a long time. what makes it stressful is knowing that 10k or more has to pay all the bills and last the rest of your life.

i wouldnt be able to either if in california, costs too much to live there. theyres cheaper places in the midwest

You should have no problem getting a decent job. Good testers are hard to find.

We outsourced a lot of ours to China and Belarus and it’s been a bit painful as I was used to a large, good US based test team at my previous job.

No doubt I’d have a much higher chance of success if I moved to somewhere like Vegas or somewhere in the Midwest due to super low COL but I needed to balance other things like my wife’s career prospects and range of experiences. I’ve lived in the Midwest my whole life so wanted to try something different (I.e. no more snow)

I’m not worried about getting another job fairly quickly. Everybody wants to be a developer but nobody wants to test so there’s plenty of opportunities to provide value.

Not to be nosy, but you said you have a solid win rate but expenses got the best of you. Whats your win rate in those 575 hours? What did you expect it to be when you set out on this journey?