$50/hr, $40k bankroll. Poker as a side-job
08-20-2015
, 12:48 PM
Background:
I just turned 28 and live in Montgomery County, Maryland. I own an insurance agency (auto/home/life/business) that is in its 3rd year. I've been married for 2 years now. Used to be a professional gamer (Call of Duty 2 & 4 on the PC) and naturally poker became a perfect competitive outlet for me.
I'm officially over the hump of grinding of building a book of business and have a nice passive income of ~$6,500/month from my customers renewing their insurance and making monthly payments.
I wake up around 9:30AM every day and answer any e-mails from the prior night or that morning. I do this until around noon and then head to the casino (90%+ of the time it's Maryland Live). Luckily most of my service calls happen in the morning so I can knock them out of the way before heading to play for the day. I'll play from noon-7pm every day and head home. Wife thinks I'm returning from work (I am!). Once a week I have my "poker night" in which case I'm playing from noon-midnight, and I play a full day usually on Saturday/Sunday.
Poker start:
I started playing for the first time right around the same time I started my insurance agency (3ish years ago - I am terrible at remembering specific months/times of things). I was making no money, living off 12k in savings and 25k credit-limit from various credit cards. I played in a 1/3 game where people were colluding and the dealers were taking triple rake. These aren't excuses for me dropping 15K in this game over the course of a year though - I was god-awful anyway. It played like 5/T - needless to say, not a great place to first start learning how to play the game. From there I'd venture over to Charlestown (WV) and play 1/2. I was a losing player over there too until Maryland Live opened in August 2013. I may have been a slight-losing/break-even player by the time this place opened but I decided to hunker-down and viciously study out of the game.
I discovered 2+2 in 2013 and would post and read strat threads which helped immensely. I joined Crush Live Poker and that helped even more. I pretty much have been self-taught (via 2+2 and CLP). I grinded 1/2 at MDL until I built up a bankroll of 5k and then moved up to 2/5 in March of this year. 5k seems risky but with my insurance income every month I thought there wasn't much of a risk of ruin. It helped that I ran very good my first few months. My bankroll is now 15k. It isn't growing as fast as you'd expect because I spend half (maybe more) of what I make in poker on expenses/entertainment.
I'd like to use this thread as a sort of diary of my progress, hand histories, and feedback from you all on anything you think I'm doing wrong or could be doing better.
I started tracking my results January 1, 2014.
1/2 MDL 01/01/14-03/01/15: $14,172 playing ~25 hours a week, $10.31/hr
2/5 MDL 03/01/15-present: $25,210, $37.27/hr
Goals:
1) Pay off 24k credit card debt through poker
2) Increase winrate from $37/hr to $50/hr (MDL just went from a 5+2 rake/jackpot drop structure this will be even harder now)
3) Take current $15K bankroll to $40K to be able to comfortably play in the biggest games when they appear to be good and to also start playing in the occasional tournament
I just turned 28 and live in Montgomery County, Maryland. I own an insurance agency (auto/home/life/business) that is in its 3rd year. I've been married for 2 years now. Used to be a professional gamer (Call of Duty 2 & 4 on the PC) and naturally poker became a perfect competitive outlet for me.
I'm officially over the hump of grinding of building a book of business and have a nice passive income of ~$6,500/month from my customers renewing their insurance and making monthly payments.
I wake up around 9:30AM every day and answer any e-mails from the prior night or that morning. I do this until around noon and then head to the casino (90%+ of the time it's Maryland Live). Luckily most of my service calls happen in the morning so I can knock them out of the way before heading to play for the day. I'll play from noon-7pm every day and head home. Wife thinks I'm returning from work (I am!). Once a week I have my "poker night" in which case I'm playing from noon-midnight, and I play a full day usually on Saturday/Sunday.
Poker start:
I started playing for the first time right around the same time I started my insurance agency (3ish years ago - I am terrible at remembering specific months/times of things). I was making no money, living off 12k in savings and 25k credit-limit from various credit cards. I played in a 1/3 game where people were colluding and the dealers were taking triple rake. These aren't excuses for me dropping 15K in this game over the course of a year though - I was god-awful anyway. It played like 5/T - needless to say, not a great place to first start learning how to play the game. From there I'd venture over to Charlestown (WV) and play 1/2. I was a losing player over there too until Maryland Live opened in August 2013. I may have been a slight-losing/break-even player by the time this place opened but I decided to hunker-down and viciously study out of the game.
I discovered 2+2 in 2013 and would post and read strat threads which helped immensely. I joined Crush Live Poker and that helped even more. I pretty much have been self-taught (via 2+2 and CLP). I grinded 1/2 at MDL until I built up a bankroll of 5k and then moved up to 2/5 in March of this year. 5k seems risky but with my insurance income every month I thought there wasn't much of a risk of ruin. It helped that I ran very good my first few months. My bankroll is now 15k. It isn't growing as fast as you'd expect because I spend half (maybe more) of what I make in poker on expenses/entertainment.
I'd like to use this thread as a sort of diary of my progress, hand histories, and feedback from you all on anything you think I'm doing wrong or could be doing better.
I started tracking my results January 1, 2014.
1/2 MDL 01/01/14-03/01/15: $14,172 playing ~25 hours a week, $10.31/hr
2/5 MDL 03/01/15-present: $25,210, $37.27/hr
Goals:
1) Pay off 24k credit card debt through poker
2) Increase winrate from $37/hr to $50/hr (MDL just went from a 5+2 rake/jackpot drop structure this will be even harder now)
3) Take current $15K bankroll to $40K to be able to comfortably play in the biggest games when they appear to be good and to also start playing in the occasional tournament
Last edited by Havax; 08-20-2015 at 12:56 PM.
10-12-2015
, 12:04 AM
10-12-2015
, 09:22 AM
11-11-2015
, 01:07 PM
Sorry guys I literally forgot I made this thread and have been busy with various things (both grandparents died + hired an assistant at work to service current clients). I'll start updating regularly and putting up hand histories.
You'll have to understand how I got into the debt to understand why I'm not yet out of it I suppose. I started playing poker about 4 years ago right around the same time I started my own insurance agency. I started playing poker at a 1/3 home game that was dirty (colluding, cold decks, triple raking pots) and played like 5/T. On top of all that I was a massive fish who had no clue what I was doing and was regularly shipping 1K for like a year straight. I burnt through my savings and 401k and lived off my credit cards.
On top of shipping it learning the game of poker at home games, I was starting my insurance business. I did not have a salary or a loan, I literally only made what I sold. The commission on an average policy is ~$150 and that is spread out over 12 months. So it basically took 2 years to even get to a point where I was making enough money to pay my bills and not live off my credit cards anymore. That's how I accrued ~24k in credit card debt.
Fast forward to today where I've been studying the game hard for 2 years straight and have become a winning player at the 2/5 level plus I'm making about $6-7k monthly in passive income finally in my insurance business -- I'm in a much better situation. I am currently paying $2k a month towards the credit card debt and am pace to have it paid off by August 2016. I'd contribute more but I have a lot of other expenses, $2k month in rent (yes Maryland is super high cost of living), $4k month in bills/entertainment, etc.
Update
Now that I've hired an assistant at my job, I told my wife I'd be playing poker more often and she now accepts and sees poker is a significant chunk of my supplemental income. No divorce!
Since August, I'm +$11,057 ($3,864 in September and $7,193 in October).
2/5 overall hourly: $37.98/hr
This could be a small excuse but I feel like my hourly is slightly hampered by my inability to play late nights more than once a week - a vast majority of my hours are in the weekdays from 1pm-7pm. I feel like I miss out on a lot of good games that develop at night. I'm also only playing one day a week on the weekend and only during the day so I miss out on those potential great games too.
My upswing in October was a fun one obviously. I was on a week-long vacation in Florida and got a chance to play at The Isle and Seminole Hard Rock Hollywood. I rarely play 5/T at MDL but the games looked great at both these places so I played and ran well and played well.
The biggest part of my game I'm focusing on and improving on is my bet sizing with value hands basing it off my opponent's range. Here's a hand I played last night:
Hero is running pretty good sitting with $1,100. V is new to the table, MAFWG. The F is for fat. He's sloppy looking and we're only two rotations in but he's been involved in most hands. He has $500 in MP2 and we check J
9
in the BB. We're 5-ways in a limped pot to the flop:
($50): Q
TA
Everyone checks.
($50): 8
I bet $60. My old self would bet something like $35ish here. I know that this board is super wet now and no one is folding any flush draw or any pair+gutter at this point.
V next to act snap calls. Everyone else folds.
($170): Q
I bet $280. He thinks for a few seconds and throws in a single chip and I'm good he flashes KQ.
I know that he's either missed a draw and isn't calling a small value bet anyway and he is never folding a Q -- and he could potentially hero call me with an A because I look bluffy with missed diamonds. I know I would have heard from him by the turn if he had KJ as even these slow-playing trappy rec players want to protect themselves from a bad beat on such a wet board against someone showing strength overbetting the pot.
On top of shipping it learning the game of poker at home games, I was starting my insurance business. I did not have a salary or a loan, I literally only made what I sold. The commission on an average policy is ~$150 and that is spread out over 12 months. So it basically took 2 years to even get to a point where I was making enough money to pay my bills and not live off my credit cards anymore. That's how I accrued ~24k in credit card debt.
Fast forward to today where I've been studying the game hard for 2 years straight and have become a winning player at the 2/5 level plus I'm making about $6-7k monthly in passive income finally in my insurance business -- I'm in a much better situation. I am currently paying $2k a month towards the credit card debt and am pace to have it paid off by August 2016. I'd contribute more but I have a lot of other expenses, $2k month in rent (yes Maryland is super high cost of living), $4k month in bills/entertainment, etc.
Update
Now that I've hired an assistant at my job, I told my wife I'd be playing poker more often and she now accepts and sees poker is a significant chunk of my supplemental income. No divorce!
Since August, I'm +$11,057 ($3,864 in September and $7,193 in October).
2/5 overall hourly: $37.98/hr
This could be a small excuse but I feel like my hourly is slightly hampered by my inability to play late nights more than once a week - a vast majority of my hours are in the weekdays from 1pm-7pm. I feel like I miss out on a lot of good games that develop at night. I'm also only playing one day a week on the weekend and only during the day so I miss out on those potential great games too.
My upswing in October was a fun one obviously. I was on a week-long vacation in Florida and got a chance to play at The Isle and Seminole Hard Rock Hollywood. I rarely play 5/T at MDL but the games looked great at both these places so I played and ran well and played well.
The biggest part of my game I'm focusing on and improving on is my bet sizing with value hands basing it off my opponent's range. Here's a hand I played last night:
Hero is running pretty good sitting with $1,100. V is new to the table, MAFWG. The F is for fat. He's sloppy looking and we're only two rotations in but he's been involved in most hands. He has $500 in MP2 and we check J
9 in the BB. We're 5-ways in a limped pot to the flop:($50): Q
TAEveryone checks.
($50): 8
I bet $60. My old self would bet something like $35ish here. I know that this board is super wet now and no one is folding any flush draw or any pair+gutter at this point.
V next to act snap calls. Everyone else folds.
($170): Q
I bet $280. He thinks for a few seconds and throws in a single chip and I'm good he flashes K
Q. I know that he's either missed a draw and isn't calling a small value bet anyway and he is never folding a Q -- and he could potentially hero call me with an A because I look bluffy with missed diamonds. I know I would have heard from him by the turn if he had KJ as even these slow-playing trappy rec players want to protect themselves from a bad beat on such a wet board against someone showing strength overbetting the pot.
Last edited by Havax; 11-11-2015 at 01:22 PM.
02-16-2016
, 03:10 PM
