abarone68's 2016: Still Grinding
04-30-2016
, 04:43 PM
Well, hello there.
My name Aaron and I'm a 30-year old professional poker player. For the past seven years I've made my living on the e-felt under the username 'abarone68.' I've had year-long PG&Cs since 2013 and below you can catch up with my journey from nitty and uncreative low-stakes 9m SNG reg to 'whatever I am now.'
I suppose that begs the question, what am I now? Well, that's deep. Poker-wise, I'm a $60s/$100 Spin reg who also mixes in mid to high-stakes SNGs and MTTs. For each of the past two years I reached Supernova Elite and in January, I began my own MTT stable called Psyduck Staking.
Human wise, I'm a totally different person than when I began playing poker back during the Chris Moneymaker era. Poker has allowed me to travel the world, be immersed in a variety of cultures, and meet all sorts of people. I'm much more confident in myself, socially aware/intelligent, and willing to be put in uncomfortable/new situations for nothing more than personal growth. Simply put, choosing to play poker for a living (and/or the fact it forced me to out of the United States/my comfort zone) was easily the best decision I've ever made.
Late last year, I made another decision -- to 'retire' from posting threads in this subforum and focus on the blog on my website. Well, clearly that didn't last long. Had an issue with my website and not currently able to fix it so I'm back to complain about negative variance, show off brag-worthy graphs, offer occasional freerolls, and post pictures of my travels. Been living in Puerto Vallarta since late March and it's quickly become my favorite spot in Mexico, beating both Rosarito and Playa del Carmen.
Hoping this thread can also give me a kick in the pants in regards to my own grind; without the motivation of needing 50,000 VPP months to keep Supernova Elite, I haven't put in the sort of hours/volume I need to be successful. I do get to keep my SNE status until the end of the year, so definitely need to put in volume and capitalize on that 45% rakeback while I still can.
Suppose I should set some goals for this thread, but to be honest I haven't exactly hammered them out yet. I'll tentatively list a few right now, but obviously these are subject to change:
1) $200,000 profit
2) 1400 hours played
3) Be in the best shape of my life on my 31st birthday (September)
My name Aaron and I'm a 30-year old professional poker player. For the past seven years I've made my living on the e-felt under the username 'abarone68.' I've had year-long PG&Cs since 2013 and below you can catch up with my journey from nitty and uncreative low-stakes 9m SNG reg to 'whatever I am now.'
I suppose that begs the question, what am I now? Well, that's deep. Poker-wise, I'm a $60s/$100 Spin reg who also mixes in mid to high-stakes SNGs and MTTs. For each of the past two years I reached Supernova Elite and in January, I began my own MTT stable called Psyduck Staking.
Human wise, I'm a totally different person than when I began playing poker back during the Chris Moneymaker era. Poker has allowed me to travel the world, be immersed in a variety of cultures, and meet all sorts of people. I'm much more confident in myself, socially aware/intelligent, and willing to be put in uncomfortable/new situations for nothing more than personal growth. Simply put, choosing to play poker for a living (and/or the fact it forced me to out of the United States/my comfort zone) was easily the best decision I've ever made.
Late last year, I made another decision -- to 'retire' from posting threads in this subforum and focus on the blog on my website. Well, clearly that didn't last long. Had an issue with my website and not currently able to fix it so I'm back to complain about negative variance, show off brag-worthy graphs, offer occasional freerolls, and post pictures of my travels. Been living in Puerto Vallarta since late March and it's quickly become my favorite spot in Mexico, beating both Rosarito and Playa del Carmen.
Hoping this thread can also give me a kick in the pants in regards to my own grind; without the motivation of needing 50,000 VPP months to keep Supernova Elite, I haven't put in the sort of hours/volume I need to be successful. I do get to keep my SNE status until the end of the year, so definitely need to put in volume and capitalize on that 45% rakeback while I still can.
Suppose I should set some goals for this thread, but to be honest I haven't exactly hammered them out yet. I'll tentatively list a few right now, but obviously these are subject to change:
1) $200,000 profit
2) 1400 hours played
3) Be in the best shape of my life on my 31st birthday (September)
04-30-2016
, 06:52 PM
05-01-2016
, 12:33 AM
April recap!
Hours: 79
Profit: ~$7600
The last two years have spoiled me. And by that I mean any month where I don't make at least five figures feels like garbage. The hourly isn't terrible though and it'd be even better if I ran at expectation. Finished the month $6,000 under, so my EV hourly was in the neighborhood of $170.
Just need to start playing more often. May is going to be difficult though, as I'm headed to the US twice for weddings and then moving back to Vancouver at the end of the month. If I can play 100+ hours, that'll be a win.
Hoping to get back in the gym tomorrow, I took today off because I'm currently dealing with both a neck strain and chest soreness. Neck strain happened a few days ago while I was doing overhead barbell press, seems about 80% right now. Not exactly sure about my weight/body fat at the moment, but yesterday I was walking shirtless on the beach and some guy stared me down, removed his sunglasses and said "Ay dios mio."
Hours: 79
Profit: ~$7600
The last two years have spoiled me. And by that I mean any month where I don't make at least five figures feels like garbage. The hourly isn't terrible though and it'd be even better if I ran at expectation. Finished the month $6,000 under, so my EV hourly was in the neighborhood of $170.
Just need to start playing more often. May is going to be difficult though, as I'm headed to the US twice for weddings and then moving back to Vancouver at the end of the month. If I can play 100+ hours, that'll be a win.
Hoping to get back in the gym tomorrow, I took today off because I'm currently dealing with both a neck strain and chest soreness. Neck strain happened a few days ago while I was doing overhead barbell press, seems about 80% right now. Not exactly sure about my weight/body fat at the moment, but yesterday I was walking shirtless on the beach and some guy stared me down, removed his sunglasses and said "Ay dios mio."
05-01-2016
, 04:33 AM
05-01-2016
, 06:08 AM
05-01-2016
, 07:08 AM
05-01-2016
, 08:04 AM
05-01-2016
, 12:39 PM
05-01-2016
, 02:05 PM
Quote:
April recap!
Hours: 79
Profit: ~$7600
The last two years have spoiled me. And by that I mean any month where I don't make at least five figures feels like garbage. The hourly isn't terrible though and it'd be even better if I ran at expectation. Finished the month $6,000 under, so my EV hourly was in the neighborhood of $170.
Just need to start playing more often. May is going to be difficult though, as I'm headed to the US twice for weddings and then moving back to Vancouver at the end of the month. If I can play 100+ hours, that'll be a win.
Hoping to get back in the gym tomorrow, I took today off because I'm currently dealing with both a neck strain and chest soreness. Neck strain happened a few days ago while I was doing overhead barbell press, seems about 80% right now. Not exactly sure about my weight/body fat at the moment, but yesterday I was walking shirtless on the beach and some guy stared me down, removed his sunglasses and said "Ay dios mio."
Hours: 79
Profit: ~$7600
The last two years have spoiled me. And by that I mean any month where I don't make at least five figures feels like garbage. The hourly isn't terrible though and it'd be even better if I ran at expectation. Finished the month $6,000 under, so my EV hourly was in the neighborhood of $170.
Just need to start playing more often. May is going to be difficult though, as I'm headed to the US twice for weddings and then moving back to Vancouver at the end of the month. If I can play 100+ hours, that'll be a win.
Hoping to get back in the gym tomorrow, I took today off because I'm currently dealing with both a neck strain and chest soreness. Neck strain happened a few days ago while I was doing overhead barbell press, seems about 80% right now. Not exactly sure about my weight/body fat at the moment, but yesterday I was walking shirtless on the beach and some guy stared me down, removed his sunglasses and said "Ay dios mio."
05-03-2016
, 02:47 PM
It's not that easy!
Neck strain occurred immediately after pushing up the last rep on overhead press and I was near failure, so I'm guessing my form was poor. Spent the last five days avoiding shoulder/neck/back exercises and doing a lot of cardio/iso/leg stuff. Today I did a few light sets of shoulder press and it felt fine, might give it a go tomorrow.
05-03-2016
, 04:31 PM
I'm honored just to be able to post in your thread. Your consistent hard work year after year is beyond impressive. Good luck (I feel silly saying that as you don't need it) and keep crushing. 
Regarding working out as you get older (I'm 44) you'll stop doing silly exercises like bench pressing (puts major strain on the shoulder) and barbell presses over your head (strains the neck
) that cause unnecessary injuries. Just like you've come a long way in your poker development I look forward to the day when you talk about doing plyo pushups, v pull ups and monkey pumps.
Regarding working out as you get older (I'm 44) you'll stop doing silly exercises like bench pressing (puts major strain on the shoulder) and barbell presses over your head (strains the neck
) that cause unnecessary injuries. Just like you've come a long way in your poker development I look forward to the day when you talk about doing plyo pushups, v pull ups and monkey pumps.
05-11-2016
, 12:44 AM
Quote:
I'm honored just to be able to post in your thread. Your consistent hard work year after year is beyond impressive. Good luck (I feel silly saying that as you don't need it) and keep crushing.
Regarding working out as you get older (I'm 44) you'll stop doing silly exercises like bench pressing (puts major strain on the shoulder) and barbell presses over your head (strains the neck) that cause unnecessary injuries. Just like you've come a long way in your poker development I look forward to the day when you talk about doing plyo pushups, v pull ups and monkey pumps.
Regarding working out as you get older (I'm 44) you'll stop doing silly exercises like bench pressing (puts major strain on the shoulder) and barbell presses over your head (strains the neck
) that cause unnecessary injuries. Just like you've come a long way in your poker development I look forward to the day when you talk about doing plyo pushups, v pull ups and monkey pumps.
Thanks!
Had my worst day of the year today by both EV and actual $. On the heels of that, it's probably a good time to discuss something. I took the last few days off to go to the US for a wedding, but before that I noticed quite a few guys had been attacking me in chat. Not sure exactly why, but I wouldn't be surprised if it had to do with my posts in BigHusla's thread.
If you're inclined to read it, our keyboard warrior exchange begins about post #206. Cliffnotes are that I thought it wasn't fair to encourage customers to purchase his product with the promise of additional (reg vs reg) content and subsequently fail to deliver; he in turn said I didn't understand what goes into the additional content because I was a 'bad reg.'
I've said it before, but when it comes to Spins and my place in the ecosystem, I'm still not sure where I reside. It's certainly not at the top. I do struggle vs better regulars, losing slightly vs the $100s pool and only have a marginal winrate vs $60s pool. Thankfully, I happen to beat fish at a higher clip than most, which brings my ROI up to respectable levels.
Really though, so what? Why do I play poker for a living? It's not for showers of adoration from my opponents and it's certainly not out of some innate desire to be the best. I don't have that Kobe gene, unfortunately.
When I was (arguably) the best 9-max reg, I could only play during peak hours, traffic was dying, and even then that winrate was much less than the one I have currently. I suppose I could have stayed in my lane and grinded SNGs until the games dried up, but I decided to switch in hopes of a) Becoming a better player and b) Having a less rigid schedule c) Making more money. And about a year into the transition, I'm 3-3.
Currently, life on (and off) the felt is great. EV hourly @ Spins for the year is $175+, the four-month old MTT stable is +$100k, and the flexibility of my schedule has allowed me to visit friends, stay in shape, and enjoy the beaches of Puerto Vallarta. If the worst thing in life is that I'm being harassed at the tables by a few regulars, well, I guess all I can say is:
Spoiler:
05-12-2016
, 03:52 PM
05-12-2016
, 05:05 PM
It's not entirely false! Let's hope 9-mans get revitalized so I can thump my chest again.
Cardschat?
My friend's Dad has played online since 2003 and all of his hands have been for play-money. He has notes on regs and is routinely tilted by their "unbelievably bad" play.
To be honest, I noticed it in myself about a year ago when a fellow regular shipped the 3,000x $60 Jackpot for $180,000. I was legitimately upset because he 'runs good vs me' and I thought he was less "deserving" than I was. Eventually I learned to keep the jealousy/anger in check and then Stars came out with the 1M Jackpots, which sent me back to square one.
At this point, I've learned to celebrate the victories of fellow regs as I am quite familiar with the struggle and realize that a life-changing bink can really improve not only their quality of life, but the lives of their loved ones. I know it's somewhat sappy and there are tons of holes in my logic, but please don't burst the bubble.
Cardschat?
My friend's Dad has played online since 2003 and all of his hands have been for play-money. He has notes on regs and is routinely tilted by their "unbelievably bad" play.
Quote:
I think the 'haters gonna hate' meme sums it up, but I think that "reg vs reg drama" (on the forums especially) is only going to get worse as the games get tougher and edges get smaller. There seems to be a lot of very frustrated players out there, but your ability to stay cool, calm and collected should pay dividends in the long run.
At this point, I've learned to celebrate the victories of fellow regs as I am quite familiar with the struggle and realize that a life-changing bink can really improve not only their quality of life, but the lives of their loved ones. I know it's somewhat sappy and there are tons of holes in my logic, but please don't burst the bubble.