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Home game

Once Mitchell had moved away I didn't really have anyone else that I could trust. I tried to make things work with some other people but ultimately they would all disappoint me. I was intrigued by poker and knew that it'd be possible to make just as much money or more playing. Without having someone to make casino trips with I mostly just played small and mid-stakes tournaments online. Without having passive income and no alterations to my spending habits eventually it all began to melt away. I was under a lot of financial pressure and the first thing I would think about when I woke up and the last thing I would think about when I went to sleep was how much I had won or lost that day.

A friend of mine knew I played poker and told me that his friend Owen ran a home game nearby where I lived. I told him I didn't have any money to play right now and jokingly suggested that I had some pistols that I could give him for a buyin. He introduced me to Owen and when I met him he mentioned that he wanted to see the pistols I had. He told me when the game would be and said to bring whatever guns I wanted to sell when I came. I had bought a Taurus .38 special on my 21st birthday for a few hundred dollars. It was a black snub nosed revolver with a rubber grip that I could carry in my coat pocket. I didn't want to sell it but I was in a bad spot and I didn't really need it.

I got to the game and it was 2/5 NL with a lot of money on the table. Owen greeted me and we went into the other room so he could look at the gun. He liked it and told me he'd give me a rack of red chips for it. I agreed and went into the other room to sit in the game. It got short handed late in the night and there were straddles. The dealer switched with Owen and dusted off a few K then got back in the box till the game was over. I won a couple thousand and talked to Owen about coming back before I left. He asked me if I'd be able to guarantee that I could come to the game when it started and play until it was over. He needed people to fill the game because some people didn't like playing short handed. I agreed and in return he said he would settle with me outside of the game if I lost, that way I didn't have to bring any money with me when I came. This would allow me to keep all my money online and I could transfer him some if I lost.

This game was bigger than any game I'd played in outside of the casino. People would often buyin 2-3k and the big winner every night would usually be 5k+. Owen, his partner and his partners wife would all play in the game and just splash around with the money they were making from the rake. They only had one dealer and he usually wouldn't play but when he did he was a huge blaster. I did well in the game and kept up my end of the bargain with Owen. I played every game and was there from beginning to end.

One day I was at home watching TV and planned on going to the game later that night. I was looking at the lobbies and I noticed that there was a big overlay in a $50 freezeout on Bodog. I kept my eye on it and decided to hop in near the end of registration because they were no where near covering the guarantee. I figured I still had plenty of time before the game started and if I went deep Owen would understand. Sure enough the game was about to start and I was still in with a stack. I let Owen know that I would be late and I'd come as soon as I was done with the tournament. I made it down to the last two tables before I busted. I tried to let Owen know that I was headed over but he didn't respond. I thought there was a chance he was mad at me and I didn't wanna drive over there without knowing for sure the game hadn't been canceled or anything. He never hit me back so I went to sleep. The next day I heard that the game had been busted. One of the players had gotten caught with drugs and brought an undercover with him to the game. When Owen got out of jail he told me how the cop had called an allin with no pair no draw and left after shipping one buyin. Shortly after it got raided.

*Disclaimer* Don't mean to try and one up your story or anything or deter from your thread, but this post made me think about a somewhat similar experience that happened to me a while back. I don't have many good opportunities to tell this in my circle of friends.

I was living in Gainesville, FL attending UF. Always loved poker since high school/moneymaker etc.. Started to play online once i got to college in 2005 and had moderate success but nothing crazy. I then started to play home games at this kid Austins house who i had met through a mutual friend Matt. We would play SNG's usually or cash games in the $50-$100 buyin range, so nothing big. He would deal and not play if it was cash and we would rotate if it was SNG. Usually the same 5-6 of us, Matt, Myself, a few other randoms and this Huge black kid with dreads, Lion. (His name and look was so unique i will never forget him) Anyways, one of the days i had planned to go with Matt but for one reason or another couldn't. We ended up hearing a few days later that the game got robbed at gunpoint. I was terrified thinking i should/could have been there when it happened. I ended up not playing cash games in gainesville for a long time.

Fast Forward probably 2-3 years or so and i'm near the end of college. Still playing poker, 100% online (MTT's and 180 man SNGs) again with moderate success. Probably was making $10k/year which is HEAPS to a college kid, in Gainesville no less. Anyways, i get invited by my friend James to a home game that he says he's played a few times in the last couple of weeks and had done really well. I expressed my concern about the last time i had planned on playing live in Gainesville. He laughed it off and said he was sure it would be fine. Now James was probably the most succesful of us all during college poker-wise. Making it up to playing 200NL or 400NL regularly and having $10k+ months sometimes. He was a really nice kid but really weird too. Kinda had a man crush on me and would always just show up to my crib and stay for hours and hours. But for the most part we enjoyed his company. Anyways i agree to go so we head off. As we're on the way i ask James what the name of the kid hosting the game was, he says Lion. I immediately get a bit nervous and suggest that we shouldn't play since Lion had been at the last home game that got robbed and was just a scary dude in general, i didn't think we should risk it. Again, he tells me not to worry and everything will be fine. I say OKagain, but if we are to get robbed he owes me what gets stolen. (Half-jokingly). He says OK.

We get to the game, i think it was like 1-3 NL and 5-6 handed. There was maaaayyybe $2k on the table. A few hours into the game, a few of lions friends come in and are just like standing around watching. (Like Lion, just scary looking thugs in like hoodies and ****). I'm still not really nervous at this point but am certainly keeping an eye out for stuff. One of the kids goes out the sliding glass door behind me to go have a smoke, and the others slowly file out a few minutes later. No more than 10 minutes later 3 dudes in hoodies with ski masks and AK's coming barging in the sliding glass door behind me. The first one in comes up and puts the rifle to the back of my head while the others file in. They all knew exactly where everything was, reaching immediately for the money in the chip case. Told us to take everything out of our pockets and give it to them while kicking us out of the seats to the floor. It was at his moment i look over at James and give him the "I told you so" look. But find him hysterically crying begging these guys not to kill him. I'm not much of a tough guy myself but for some reason was relatively calm during all of this given the circumstances. I know they just wanted the money and to get out. Anyways that's exactly what they do, grab the money and are out in a flash. Lion grabs his keys and takes off saying he was going to catch them. We're all like WTF? But he runs out the door into his car and peels out. We're all just trying to get over what happened and this dude is driving after them? I didn't buy it. He comes back 5 minutes later saying he couldn't find them, but again i wasn't buying it. To this day i don't know anymore than that as to what happened but it all felt setup for sure. I think it's crazy what these kids did for like $2k. I think there were 4 of them total (5 if you count Lion) so they all made $400 at the risk of going to jail for a VERY long time had they been caught.

I did end up seeing Lion about 3 years later (maybe a year ago) at the casino in Jacksonville (BestBet) for a $1,500. He was actually at my day 1 table. Everyone at the table seemed to know him, i didn't say a word but after he busted a few hours in i told them to just be careful with that kid.

Well that's my story. Didn't mean for it to be this long, just started typing and it kind of dragged on.

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Nice finish! Enjoyed the read all the way throughout. Know name of 2nd to last girl w the long hair? Looks ~familiar but striking out on any clue at the name

Thanks. nah idk name

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Dec Update

I got sick again at the beginning of the month and had to sit out almost a week, kind of made up for it by playing a lot last few weeks. Played no tourneys again. Won 23,672 over 180 hours.

GG WP, crush it in 2017!

2016 Wrap-up

I made 126,023 between cash and tournaments and played 1839 cash hours. I played ~50 MTTs and had almost 100k in cashes but barely made any money. This year I played less online poker than I ever have in my life. I messed around some on Bovada and played some of the regulated sites when I was traveling for tournaments, ended up breakevenish.

When I look back on this year in regards to my own poker play I don't have many regrets. I was somewhat restricted in how I could game select during the week and I think I did the best I could with what I had. Historically I've always struggled with complacency esp when upswinging and I had a little spell during the summer where I wasn't motivated to play and things were going well so I wasn't driven. It took torching a bunch at wsop to force me to buckle down and play a lot again.

As far as things I improved on I'm happy to say I'm in a much better place today than I was a year ago on almost all fronts and I haven't really regressed anywhere. My diet and exercise habits are better. I was able to identify two major sources of stress in my life and I've taken steps towards lowering them. I have a system in place for strategy. I have a lot more time for poker and I'm delegating menial tasks to others. I'm going to the casino fresh more often and not finding myself in v good games where Im extremely tired. I'm tilted less often and doing a better job of identifying when I'm too tilted to play well. I'm coping with downswings better and playing better when I'm losing during a session.

Goals for 2017
[ ]maximum 10 MTTs-this will force me to game select better and cut down on expenses
[ ]minimum 2 hours/week coaching or study- my ratio of hours playing and studying was way off kilter for most of this year. I need to continue having my regular study routine for NL and not make excuses as to why I'm skipping or putting it off. Right now my filler games consist of smaller NL games when there are similiar stakes running in different game types. I should be dedicating some time to getting myself to a point where I can sit in them. Right now I'm denying reg HU action, I should put some time into HU so I don't have to sit out. Being able to deny HU deals in MTTs vs regs would be useful also.
[ ]0 flips for hundreds of dollars or more-This doesn't benefit me in any way besides the fact that it's fun. If I want a sweat I can find plenty of +EV things to fire by bap tourneys/cash
[ ]plan a budget for non essential purchases, make it contingent upon poker results-I get some sort of satisfaction from online shopping I can't explain. I really love looking at things on my phone, reading reviews and getting cashback on my credit card. When I buy smth that I think is v good value I get a sense of accomplishment. Once the purchase is complete I don't get that feeling again until I buy smth else. Sometimes when I'm bored I'll find myself going down a rabbit hole of some random stuff I prob wont even buy or don't need for a very long time and I'm like "wtf am I doing". I think for the most part I'm not that spewy and I do mostly use the things I buy but I recognize that I'm leaking some and it gets worse when things are going well with poker. I'm going to postpone all non essential purchases until after the completion of a winning month and give myself a budget of what I can buy for that month. I haven't decided hm is the right amount yet, I'm going to look at 2016 spending first and try to cut down on it.
[ ]no chair massages at the casino-this is a v expensive habit and the temptation is there for 40-60 hours a week for me. I think there is def benefits to massage but the value is much higher at a spa. I also think that I play more passive and straightforward during a massage.
[ ]update this thread at least once/month-this will assist me with self reflection

[ ]Do not add any live cash game horses-this is prob one of the fishiest things I've ever done in poker and I think I'm v lucky to be up money overall. I've always had an interest in staking and would read almost anything on this site related to it. I was fortunate to have a friend of mine talk to me on Skype for years about anything staking related and always answered my questions when I had any. When I got to a position where I was able to start investing in other players I wanted to make money but also it felt good helping others and watching someone mature and grow as a player is rewarding. I really enjoy the comradery aspect of it. I think a part of me felt obligated to give back and it might've made me feel better about myself after wronging people in my past. The fact of the matter is that there is an extremely limited amount of qualified candidates for live poker staking. Games are soft so it's tempting but the amount of time necessary to do it right is basically total immersion and there are major drawbacks to doing it in these games.

Very nice synopsis and a great year for you!

I'm curious about the staking you did. In your experience, what do/did you look for when considering a horse?

Nice year dude. Any volume goals for 2017?

Results in the games they want to be staked in, trustworthiness or reputation and a willingness to play full time.
Nah, monetary and volume based goals aren't going to benefit me a whole lot. If anything setting these types of guidelines for myself will just add unnecessary stress.

Are you going to keep posting asian titties though?

Congrats Boss, PGC thread of the year IMO. Like how this thread isn't bogged down in hand histories which are almost always dependent on player dynamics anyways

Also, I was always too busy to click on any spoilers. Were they any good?/JK

don't coach or stake people man. I love teaching and helping people as well, but poker is not the place for that. If you think deeply about it, you aren't doing any good.

congratulations on a good year, strong finish, and great thread.

Congrats on sick thread/year. Hopefully you have one for 2017!

Congratulations on a great year. Thanks for giving me something to do on the boringist of days.

<3

Outlook good
Ty
I'll go into this more later. I've had varied experiences and everything that's happened to me in its entirety has lead me to the conclusion that staking for live cash games is not a good idea overall and esp bad for me specifically.
Thanks u2
Ty, np

great thread!

do you go to the casino with a set number of hours in mind to play? seems like you put in a lot of long sessions..

do you have a stop loss?


this was LA right?