Making this goal based on my results last year. It should be obtainable as long as I can keep up similar winrate/volume. I plan on playing live NL cash as my main game with some tournaments mixed in.

January:

Started off on a downer and made most of it back. Played mostly all cash this month.



Feb:

Up a little so far, only played ~50 hours of live cash this month, got in one really good game but ran bad.




I'll prob make a post sometime in the near future with a little bit of background about myself, just wanted to get this up for now, I plan to update frequently.

+4189 today

Ytd:

+2562 tonight

Ytd:

GL. Where/what stakes do you play?

subbed, what stakes do you play? A little background would be nice

I started a write up yesterday, I'll put it up sometime in the near future. So far this year my hours have been ~75% 5/10 and the rest 10/20+. How that split ends up throughout the year will depend on which casinos I'm playing in and how often bigger games run that are good. I prob will leave out any info about who I am and where I play for now. I'm considering including some degen stories and I prefer anonymity if I'm going to be candid.

I'm not sure if this is accurate(I don't always log this correctly bc sometimes there is a scramble to get into a new game when it starts and I just take all my chips over) but here is my ytd filtered by stake. If I switch games I'll log that session as whatever I played the majority of. I used to worry about it but some games play with straddles for some portion of the session and it just seemed pointless to me. No matter how detailed you are with logging these it'll still be misrepresented in some way. No love in the high stakes streets yet.

5/10:



10/20+:

This is what I came up with as a synopsis of my life as it relates to poker. I'm still not sure how much detail I want to get into about certain parts of my life so I left out a lot of things but here are the broad strokes poker-wise.

Poker story:
I started playing poker in home games in my teens. I knew a guy who tried to hold a game once/week. It was dealers choice mostly stud variations and some of the games weren't even poker (blackjack was one of them). No one had any clue about odds etc and you would always get the additional card if there was any card in the deck you could win with. The game was short lived because the host would always loan anyone who lost their $ and couldn't afford to buy back in. Once they borrowed all they could he wouldn't invite them back until they settled up. The game went from 4 times/ month to 3 to 2 to nonexistent. I don't know if I won in the games but it didn't play very big and the big winner was usually less than $200.

I didn't play any poker or gamble for a few years after that until the movie Rounders came out. I had a close friend named Mitchell who had his own apartment with his girlfriend and we decided to have our own home game. It was all NL with a $20 buyin, I don't remember blinds(.25/.50?)but they would always agree to increase them as the night progressed and people started losing. My friend taught me how to play and we were far and away the best players there. Most of the players were in their late teens or early twenties and had jobs so it was a good game that went late and there was always drinking.

Mitchell taught me all the games he knew how to play and took me to some other games around that played bigger. We would go to firehouses, bingo parlors and other places that had games we could get into under age in a rural part of a neighboring state. Usually they would have a NL tournament followed by cash games. There were times we would drive very far and they wouldn't let us play, other times we just walked right in and sat down. We couldn't wait until we were old enough to play in a casino.

My birthday meant we planned a trip to go play poker. All I remember about that first trip was losing a few buyins very quickly and going to play blackjack and drinking. The poker games were much bigger than anything I had played before and the players were much more experienced. Most of the players in our home game didn't know the rules until we explained it to them on their first visit. I think I lost 1-2k in poker and won all of it back in blackjack.

I bought a blackjack book and decided I would learn the proper strategy and wouldn't play anything else on our next trip. Mitchell told me just to play poker. He would drink and play in the pits too but he knew better and tried to keep me out but I wouldn't listen. So we get there and check in and I go straight to BJ and play at a $25 min table. I got destroyed and told Mitchell I was going to another casino. I lost more there and quit. I lost a few k or something and was fed up with blackjack.

Mitchell had been doing well in poker and we still played some home games a couple nights a week. He always wanted to take trips to casinos so we would usually end up playing 2-3 days there and a couple nights in home games and party on the weekends. He was a good player in those days and I emulated everything he did and was winning. The biggest games I would play were 5/10 and had a 1k Max buyin but I played smaller games too. Mitchell had started playing some tournaments and was trying to encourage me to play them as well.

Sometime after Chris Moneymaker won the wsop Mitchell had gotten in debt to me. He gave me an imac computer to settle up. I had a family computer growing up but never had one since I had moved out. Mitchell showed me how to sign up to poker sites and deposit onto fire pay, neteller, e-passport and play for real $. Most of the poker sites didn't have apple versions of their software so I could play on Pokeroom.com. I played some cash games on their with no success and I finally started playing some tournaments based on Mitchell's advice. Pokeroom was very small and the biggest buyin tournaments were $100 and only got a few tables. I knew all the tournaments that Mitchell played in the casino were at least $100+ so playing anything smaller than that seemed silly. I got first place in one of them for less than 1k but it was thrilling. Mitchell showed me how to use virtual PC software so I could play on UltimateBet and Party Poker. Full Tilt launched sometime after that and I ended up winning a 6max $100 buyin for 7k. Mitchell was sweating and that was the most $ I had ever won in one day. I used some of the $ to buy a PC so I didn't have to use the janky virtual PC software anymore and I could play multiple sites at once. Mitchell taught me how to game select and convinced me that playing only $100+ buyins wasn't the best idea.

The next few years continued on the same way. Trips to the casino, spinups online, home games. I had stopped partying so I usually had $. Me and Mitchell were still close he even lived with me for a while. He had settled into a cycle of beating low and midstakes, taking shots, dropping back down and having to beg and borrow to stay in action. He would drink beer nonstop and if we went to the casino he'd get free liquor(grand marnier). At some point I had to distance myself from him because of an incident.

We would transfer $ to each other online to avoid vig. Back then you had to deposit to an ewallet from your bank before moving the $ to the poker site and there was a fee. So we had each other's passwords( I trusted him). We would just let each other know if we had to login to each other's account to move $ and settle up later. I was on the biggest heater of my life and had a good bit online across all sites(~60k maybe). Mitchell had $ online and sent me a message saying he busted his full tilt account and was going to transfer from my account, I said no problem. Later that day I got a call from him saying he had lost all the $ in my account playing HU 50/100 cap vs grimstarr. He didn't have enough $ to cover all of his losses. I was appalled, I couldn't believe he would do something like that. I had almost 10k in the account when I had left the house. He assured me he would take care of it and I didn't have to worry. Sure enough he sent me whatever he had online and invited me to his moms house and she wrote me a check for the remainder. We remained friends and kept in touch even after moving to different parts of the country. He eventually free rolled me on a % of some Sunday tournaments and never settled up.

Black Friday was a difficult day for me. I had the least amount of $ on stars and the bulk on the sites that didn't pay. I made accounts for the US sites that remained but I didn't deposit on them. The tournament schedules had very small guarantees and I just didn't feel ok with playing online after having so much of my $ taken. I started going to the casino and played the biggest games I could with the $ I had. I started winning right away but I didn't enjoy playing live poker as much as online. The etiquette in the smaller games was horrible and the table talk was tilting. My results were ok but I eventually got fed up and went back to playing online on the US sites.

I spent the next couple years of my life in front of a computer screen. Sometimes I wouldn't leave the house for long periods of time and didn't have any interaction with anyone besides my girlfriend(who lived with me) and friends on Skype. I would occasionally go to the casino to break up the monotony but prob only a few times a year or so. I got better at poker and won some $, was having the best year of my life results wise and then went on biggest downer I'd ever had. I got to a point where I wasn't motivated to wake up and grind online. I started to play live cash more and my results were good and the games were amazing. Over the course of a few months I went from playing 1-2 days of live cash to 5-6. I still played online some but very infrequently.

I took some time off from poker to take care of some personal things. It was the longest period of time I ever went without playing poker and it gave me time to reflect on my life and think about what I wanted in the future. I came to the conclusion that live poker was going to be my main game and that's what I've done for the past few years. I don't regret my decision and I've probably made more $ than I would have otherwise. When games are very good they usually fill up and full ring cash is somewhat straightforward. I sometimes feel like I'm kind of taking the easy way out and not challenging myself to grow as a player. I'm very fortunate that I can play in good games that run often but it's very tempting to ignore everything else because of that. Waking up and going to the casino has become a ritual and that prob will stay the same for the foreseeable future.

good read

Subbed cool story !

+1470

Ytd:

Good story indeed, subbed. Good luck, looking forward to updates.

Growing up

I grew up in an upper middle-class family in one of the wealthiest counties in the US. I played some team sports as a kid but my main interest was video games, my dad bought me an Atari when I was prob 4 years old or so. I got every new system as soon as it came out starting with NES and Genesis. I loved to read Nintendo Power, Gamepro and Electronic Gaming Monthly when I wasn't playing games. I don't remember doing any school work outside of class during those years. I also collected comic books and baseball cards and would ride my bike to the comic book store all the time. There was a lot of places to ride bikes in the neighborhood and a lot of my friends would do that and go to the pool when the weather was nice.

Around the age of 8 my parents built a new house in another county. I had to go to a new school and make all new friends and it wasn't an easy transition for me. Our house was built on a few acres and there was only one kid my age within walking distance. He was a year older than me and his father was a lawyer. Later in high school he used to dress in a suit and carry a briefcase to his classes, needless to say he was somewhat of an oddball and I didn't like him very much. Sometimes my parents would encourage me to go over to his house instead of playing video games inside all day and I would grudgingly oblige. He liked to play in the woods and fashion weapons out of different sticks he found. They also had a dog that my family would refer to as Kujo because he would attempt to maul any of the neighborhood dogs that wandered into his electric fence.

My parents would sometimes take me to the mall and drop me off for a few hours after school or on the weekends, I would call them from a pay phone when I wanted to get picked up. I would spend a lot of time at the arcade and made friends with a couple kids who lived within walking distance, Allen and Mark. Mark had a speech impediment and was a little slow but was amazing at fighting games. There was a comic book store at the mall and we would spend our time there when we weren't at the arcade. Lee the manager would let us stand around and talk to him and look at stuff in the store. Sometimes he would go out to smoke and jokingly let us "watch" the store while he was on break(he could see if any customers walked in from outside).

Some of Lee's friends would come to the comic book store and hang out and play D&D type games, MTG and Warhammer in the back room. Steve was a pizza delivery driver who lived in a trailer park and Carl was the Manager of the toy store in the mall. Carl was a weed dealer and always wore designer clothes, he would get every new video game when it came out from his job and I remember thinking I wanted to be like him when I got older.

Some years later we got a 4th member, his name was Jared. Jared's parents were divorced and he would go to his dad's on the weekend. His dad would let him come to the mall and he would buy pot from Carl. Saturday's consisted of smoking weed outside the mall(we had a spot behind a hill near the parking lot) and hanging out at the arcade/comic book store. Jared would let us stay the night at his dad's house. His dad lost his sense of smell somehow so we would smoke up in Jared's bedroom. He had Christmas lights in there so as long as we had a window open his dad could walk right in and didn't see any smoke.

One day we went out to smoke in our usual spot. Jared had brought a bong and was carrying it around in his backpack. We were sitting on the side of this grassy hill taking hits when a Nissan Pathfinder came around the row of trees and started driving towards us with yellow lights flashing, it was mall cops! We all took off running, I saw Jared chuck the bong into the bed of a pickup truck. The mall cops hopped out and started after us on foot but we had a head start. Me and Jared got to the main road adjacent to the mall and just bolted into traffic, the mall cops didn't try to follow us. As we were running across the street one of the cars slammed on its brakes and a short middle aged guy wearing a polo shirt and jeans yelled "stop FBI". I kept running and this guy catches up to Jared, does some kind of leg sweep take down and pulls out some plastic zip ties and uses it as handcuffs. While he's doing this he tells me to stop and I just froze in my tracks. He walks Jared over to me and takes one of my arms and twists it behind my back and starts walking both of us back across the street where the mall cops were still waiting. On the way there I take the weed from my pocket with my free hand and drop it on the ground. The mall cops take us into an office and ask us questions, threatened to ban us from the mall and call the cops etc. We didn't have anything on us so we just denied everything and said they could call whoever they wanted we just wanted to leave. Eventually they told us we could call our parents to come pick us up and we weren't allowed back for x amount of time(might've been a week). Jared called his brother instead, first stop was the pickup truck to get the bong, 2nd was the bag of weed I dropped and we were on our way. We never found out if that was an actual FBI agent or not.

good read and good luck to you, where do you play?

-2703 got stacked with 77% equity and couldn't recover.

Ytd

.

+344

Ytd:

Good luck , will be following !

Enjoying this thread. Keep the stories coming!

Whats the app that you use?

tyty
Glad to hear.
Poker Journal

Will part 1

Will was a friend of mine that went to school with me since we moved in 3rd grade. He was in some of my classes in elementary school and middle school. He was big for his age and was always the best at sports. When we were in 7th grade he tormented one of our teachers so much that he somehow got kicked out of the class and moved to a different teacher. One day he took something from the shop class and ran by the classroom and threw it at her. He missed and he hit the wall but she ran into the hallway screaming that someone threw a razorblade at her(it was just a piece of metal).

One day we were walking through the hallway together with another one of our friends. We were going down the hall and some 6th grader wasn't paying attention and walked right into Will. He didn't swerve and shoulder checked him as he walked into him. The younger kid flipped him off when he had his back turned to look cool in front of his friends. Our other friend Derrick told Will about it and he followed him into the bathroom. The young kid was at the urinal when Will came up behind him and shoved him into the wall while he was pissing. He fell on the floor with his dick hanging out of his pants. After he stood up and zipped his pants Will put his hands up and started circling him. The kid took an open handed swing that landed on Will's chest when he leaned back. He jabbed the kid then hit him with a right that put him flat on his back. I walked out of the bathroom and went to class, Will went running. He got juvenile life(you have to stay in juvenile detention until your 18) because he actually hurt the guy pretty bad, I think he said skull fragments got in his eye and messed up his vision. From that point forward none of the older kids were allowed to walk down the 6th grade hallway anymore. One of my siblings went to the same school years later and the rule was still in place.

Later on in high school I remember him coming back from jail. He got out I think in our freshman year because he entered some program that allowed you to get out earlier. Now he was selling hard drugs and carried a gun with him at all times. His older brothers would have parties at their house and all the girls who were into partying would go. When I would see him around he pretended like he never knew me. He got arrested again within months for something to do with credit cards and went back to jail. I think he got released again when I was 16, this time he didn't return to school. I can't remember the exact reason but someone brought me to his house and I finally spoke to him for the first time in years. This would set my life on an entirely new trajectory.

Sub'd originally for the poker content, now most def subbed for story time. Keep it coming, this thread has serious potential

was already subbed, now hooked.

+1 million.

Subbed, this has real potential to be a great thread.