Good day to everyone. Many of you may know me at this point, some may not. Warning, WAY TL;DR

I've had a few PG&C threads on here, most recently, my thread that chronicled my way through crushing the 90 mans on FTP from February until BF, and then became a thread about me grinding live $2/5-$5/10 cash games in the ChicagoLand area. It can be found here.

Little bit of background for those that don't know, I was pretty much a breakeven TAG fish online in both cash games and tournaments post Party Poker days. Never really played much, didn't really care, and ground out a nice side income playing live cash games as I traveled the country for work.

I found out at the beginning of January 2011 that I was being laid off from my job of 6.5 years (FU small company, lol loyalty). I had a small amount of money saved up (about 3 months living expenses, and my living expenses are high) so decided that I would give online poker a shot, see if I could make something that I always wanted to happen, actually happen now as I was being forced into that or looking for a real job.

I found myself a staking+coaching deal (primarily for the coaching) and quickly flew through the stakes of the 90 mans on FTP. Began to mix in some 45 mans, 9 mans, and was about to transition to playing $12 180 turbos on PS when BF happened (my first session of $12 180's was a -60 BI session the morning of 4/15. I profited about $8500 from Feb/March and the first two weeks of April.

Towards the end of April, I said wtf, and threw the little bit of cash I had lying around ($1700) together and headed off to my local charity poker room to play some $2/5 ($500 max), lol BRM. Managed to have a great first couple of sessions and was pretty quickly properly rolled for $2/5 with about $10,000. Slacked putting in hours some months, picked it up other months, but in the end, the live grind was just too taxing on me physically, and extremely taxing on my relationship with my wife (she works 7AM-4PM, my grind time was usually 2PM-Midnight) obviously doesn't allow for much of a relationship. I made about $20,000 in 574 hours of grinding live, for an hourly of $36.14 over this time period. It was higher for awhile, but dropped off some towards the end as I finished on a 110 hour BE stretch. (Only up $4,000 total over my last ~300 hours).

That was obviously discouraging to me, and I was determined that I could make online poker work again.



My main game now, and the way I view it, is that I am Jdawg91's replacement on Merge. He's off to Mexico to grind Hyper's on Stars, so I figure someone needs to fill his shoes on Merge. I have put in a small amount of volume in these hypers (3500 games or so) and with my current VIP deal/RB I can clear $50/hr post-RB grinding $2.12-$20.90 6-max Super Turbos. So, that is what I shall do. I am currently playing backed as RL funds are short, and I'd rather not risk money being seized etc etc, but I have a reasonable percentage of myself with some incentives as well.

My goal for my first month grinding Merge supers, is to play a minimum of 10,000 games.

10,000/85 = 117 hours (85 games per hour, my average is closer to 95, but I like to lowball)
$0.47 average rake = $4,700 raked

With SNG LB (if I can make top 5 spot in November) I will be over 100% RB for the month.

Seems simple enough. The trouble with me for the most part lately seems to be motivation, I simply haven't been putting in the hours on the tables. Usually (playing OnGame anyways) I was stucking playing sets cause the software is so terrible, so I'd play an 18-21 table set, then take a break for 15 minutes. Do that 5-8 times a day and it winds up taking me 7 hours to play 4 hours worth of poker.

My schedule:
2PM-6PM Monday
5PM-10PM Tuesday
5PM-10PM Wednesday
2PM-Midnight Thursday (double VIP point day 10% extra RB)
2PM-Midnight Friday (double VIP point day 10% extra RB)
OFF Saturday (might grind some though)
4PM-9PM Sunday (optional)

That gives me 34 hours set aside for grinding Monday-Friday, of those 34 hours allotted, my table time will likely be 25-28 hours (I am a smoker which requires me to take breaks, need to quit that **** I know I know...) Sunday, if available I will grind whatever hours I can.

I'd like to be at least break even pre-RB in these games, although, If I continue to study as I have, I'm pretty sure I can maintain ~1% ROI (especially with the recent structure changes).

Cliffs:
1.) 10,000 super turbos in November
2.) 120 hours minimum
3.) Win Merge SNG LB in January or February
4.) Come March, 300 hour month, Win Merge SNG LB and play 3,000+ games on (profit $12,000+)

Graphs and ****

On Game 10 mans


FTP 90 mans


RPM Super Turbos


Lock Poker Super Turbos


I will be playing under the SN Zorandar on Merge for those that couldn't figure that out.

And lastly, needed threadsavers!

First

glgl

3rd in

Hi

Nobody's good enough to be my replacement .

Lol totally jk, gl broski. Enjoy the soft games, they were hard as **** in July/August/September before 6max DoN's gone and before Merge reopened

They seem stupid soft to me at the moment, but maybe some of the regs are just taking a break. The worst I've seen in last 4 days was for like 30 min today, 3 regs + myself loading the $10s...

----------------------------------------------------------------

Played a super short session this evening out of boredom, been saving my energy to put in some real volume starting tomorrow.

Played really well, ran well in terms of card distribution, but a bit below EV in $10 games (ran ok in $5s and $20s).



Might fire up a session right now to get started on my November grind but I doubt it, likely going to load up a movie and head to bed and get on my grind a bit earlier than scheduled tomorrow.

Didn't mention in the OP, but even though I'm shooting for 10,000 games and 120 hours on the tables in Nov, I have 4 days of vacation scheduled where I won't have any internet (in-laws just finished building a bad ass vacation home up around Stevens Point, Wisconsin) and we're helping them move and get setup Nov 10-13. Sucks that I'm going to miss TWO double VIP point days but not much I can do.

Not sure I can wait til tomorrow, might get on the grind now to start November off right.

Op, you seem like a beast already no doubt you'll crush. Gl gl hope for the run good!

Best of luck Blake. I'm pretty sure you can beat anything you put time in to.

Good luck! Was following the live thread, and good to have someone taking up JDawg's mantle now he's changing games AGAIN :P

Put in a solid grind today. Unfortunately ran terrible in terms of card distribution and managed to lose money post RB over 600 something games. Currently 2nd on the SNG LB, still stuck on a 3 streak. Zack pulled ahead after binking a 4, Hubs isn't far behind and still sitting on a two streak.



Think I'm done for the night. First time in awhile I've put in hours like that and I'm pretty beat. Going to relax a bit, watch some Warehouse 13 and crash before getting up tomorrow, grinding on the special site, before starting my super turbo grind.

I'm hoping for it, it'll appear one day...

And thanks for the vote of confidence Dan. I'm pretty sure I can as well. How have things been going for you and Angie? (haven't had a chance to read up lately, got a bit dis-interested when poke4fun and whoever started their dick measuring contest).

LOL @ Jdawg. Can't believe he wants to grind Stars instead..........lol not, so jealous. If I could convince the wife I'd be down there with him in a heartbeat. Thanks for continuing to follow, hopefully I actually make some monies to show off as this thread matures.

Uhh, wait what? How are you playing OnGame from the US?

EDIT: I don't want to be a dick but should you really be talking about having an illegal account? If that is what you're doing and I'm not just ******ed misreading things.

Sorry to see your live thread end/was one of my favorites, along with your HH's in live low stakes forum.

I'm curious tho/you listed wife-relationshop as a live issue due to the evening hours, but your new online schedule seems to conflict with your wifes working schedule just as much?

How much was burn-out a factor playing live? You seemed to have inconsistent hrs/month numbers and I'm wondering if that was a factor. I'm considering playing more live and worry about that for myself.

Regardless of playing online in the evenings, the difference is that I'm actually home even if I'm not doing things with her. Burn out was definitely a factor playing live, the pace of the game was also getting to me after awhile.

Decent day of grinding today. Didn't quite get in the hours I would have liked but was getting ~119 games/hour to help make up for it.

Managed to profit a tiny bit pre-RB, and obviously did decently post-RB.

Also, binked a 4 streak about 2 hours ago so I'm now on top of the LB (although Zack just fired up his evening session, so he may catch me). I'll be grinding again in about 3 hours to get a headstart on double VIP point Thursday. Going to miss some of my scheduled grind time Thursday night (mother-in-laws b-day and we're having her over for dinner).

Pretty happy after the first two days, putting in good volume in short amounts of time. Need to increase my average session length a little bit before I'm really happy (about 50 minutes at the moment). Going to do my best to keep it up, hopefully continue to rake $250+ per day generating a nice paycheck for me at the end of the month.

Today


Merge SNG LB as of about 10 minutes ago

Are you playing 5-20s?

See ya at the tables

How did you get 83% rb?

Sure, let's just add in another hardcore reg now that Josh has left. Damn you!

This could be a very interesting month as far as the leaderboard is concerned. As long as we don't all get lazy, it could easily take 2mil to crack the top 5. I know Merge loves us so much!

Did you switch to lock?

Anyways, good luck my man

meh if crzzy wants to win it he prob will imo.

BOL Blake..will def be pulling 4 u

Oh I agree completely. I'm hoping he gets lazy, but if he wants it, he probably can't be touched. I was just saying there's a lot of guys that are probably gonna be grinding a lot.

this may sound stupid, but why do you think it is safe to play online again?
best of luck as always

Thats kinda like asking the heroin addict why he thinks its safe to shoot up after his friend ODed

Theres a chance the DOJ could shut Merge down, but if u wanna be a US online pro its a risk you have to take. Im sure most of us are a bit more cautious with how much we leave online now.

Plus obviously people (should be) mitigating the risk. Regular withdrawals etc.