What i was saying is that anyone who tries in college and tries their first 2 years in the corp world is pretty much set.

The only "work" I've done today is post on 2p2. Well i did go to one meeting but i just used that time to browse hurricane irma photos.

People that complain about working for the man or in a cube or whatever dont get it. They are the equivalent of breakeven $2NL grinders that complain about whatever they complain about.

As a live poker player, you are much more of a slave than I am. I would know, I played live for a year professionally. My schedule is much more flexible now that I am back to a 9-5.

Ben has a good heart imo and we are very fortunate to have someone of his caliber still contribute to 2p2 but his perspective is the equivalent of Lionel Messi telling us about a career in professional football. Its neat to hear and sure anyone can do it...with a sh*t ton of dedication and hard work years in the making + good circumstances + a solid inner circle. (That's meant as an introspective compliment, ben)

GG is correct, now is the time to take silly risks and yolo...so I am not naysaying here. Just adding perspective.

So much this, imo.

I've been at work for 2 hours, but have done like *maybe* 1 hour of actual work. And today I'm taking a half day to go camping the next 3 days, making good use of my 5 weeks paid holidays per year.

I'm currently sitting in my office with jean shorts, bare feet, with a ratty shirt on, and it's the exact same outfit I wear to work every single day of the summer. And my beard is ****ing out-of-control (haven't shaved in a ~year?).

Gtherearelikelymoreoptionsthanyouareawareof;butsti ll,yolo,andgoodluckG

Bena man, just cut the bull**** ok. I get that you probably don't like me as a person considering I'm insulting your "profession". I get that. But just please don't spew garbage / be pedantic over it. For the normal human being, money, happiness, and freedom are all correlated to a certain extent. A person isn't going to feel free if they don't have the dough to do the things that make them (or the people they love) happy.

You wouldn't talk about happiness and LIVE poker in the same sentence if you actually have been playing LIVE POKER for your sole source of income for the last 9 years as you've alluded to. Don't believe me thats ok, See: DGAF, a respected person in the community who shares the same view points (with many other well respected, high earning pros saying the same things as well). Me bringing up your extensive online poker background is relevant considering Meale is giving LIVE poker a shot, not online poker.

Normal, ambitious, forward thinking people don't have student/single life expenses for very long. They move from only wanting sushi and football tickets to things like assets (ie property), marriage, kids, retirement, health insurance etc... which can be freaking expensive as hell... and subsequently are the things that the poker lifestyle cannot provide for.... which is exactly why so many "pros" exit poker. Bena, how many pros have you played against over the years that dropped out and disappeared? Countless. How many professional poker players as a whole have their been been, and of that number how many have actually built a very nice life for themselves? Very few. How many have even survived to 10 years? again very few.

In fact, what has the general attitude been towards poker (even online poker) the last couple years? Especially in online poker, many many pros are getting out of the game the last few years, and if they aren't out already then they're making plans to do so. Even the guys still left in frssnl. So please dont use broad strokes to portray professional poker as a stable, happy, fruitful industry to be devoting time to when most of your buddies you came up with and used to talk strat with on this site have either already exited poker or are planning to in the near future.

You're right though that I don't like professional poker players/ the industry, although i still love playing poker. I think it's a massive waste of time and energy in 2017 for anyone to take it seriously or just hop into it cold feet. And considering the graveyard of failed pgcs, the real "wells" of being a professional poker player, I don't think i'm wrong to be against the idea.

edit: I want to make it very clear again, that I have no ill will, mal intent, hate etc towards you or really anyone. Again, it's just my informed, educated opinion of what an absolutely stupid, stupid, stupid idea it is for anyone to aspire to be a professional gambler and also incredibly cringeworthy it is to see and read and hear about others encouraging people to get into the business.

I tried to write a balanced post about this that was well thought out but I'm going with cliffs now.

My focus has always been on being able to be the rich recreational player playing for fun, but at the same time I've played a lot of poker and had the pleasure of meeting a lot of people I know consider friends through online and live poker.

I've met people in both the poker and corporate world at both ends of the spectrum. There is a lot of burnout in poker and high pressure corporate jobs. I know a lot of examples of people quitting their £100k+ jobs and going to live on a beach renting surfboards or selling 'street food' at festivals.

I think it's really a case of horses for courses, you need to make your own way. If someone asked me I would advise people to take the corporate route because it isn't as bad as you think. If you can be a successful poker player you would kill it in the corporate world IF YOU FIND YOUR NICHE! Yeah the hours can suck and you have to work with unpleasant people but that can be said for poker too at times.

Regardless of my choice, I think everyone should make their own decisions and do what makes them happy. Planning more than 5 years down the line is so difficult; I could well end up a partner in the firm, driving a Bugatti and playing on Poker After Dark donating to Bena and his mates or I could burn out and end up in a mental institution. For me, I like my odds so I'll keep at it and I'm glad there will be people like Bena, Meale and my other poker mates to take my money when I make it to the tables.

The bolded part is what it all comes down to for me and it took me a while to realize this.

Never understood the appeal of going to work to not work but maybe I'm weird. I used to get $30/hr to stand around doing nothing and I was never more depressed. Obviously if you're getting 6 figures might be a different story and your workplace environment might be a lot better.

I find the toughest days in the office are the ones when I have the least to do. When I'm busy time flies, the same way I can play poker for 12 hours+, when your brain is engaged and dialed in it's great but I can't handle boredom. I imagine if I played live poker full time my brain might begin to wander.

I guess the diversity of challenges in my job is a big plus. Maybe I would struggle in a 9-5 where you do the same job every day.

Yeah, I had a part time job that I ABSOLUTELY loved, but there would be shifts where you're literally just standing still doing absolutely nothing for 8 hours. The time distortion when you're on $21 an hour can make it a pretty brutal enduring.

Agreed 100%. When I was working full time, if I had a reeeally busy day and was constantly running around, I'd find the time to pass much quicker. In my previous role at the same company, I'd often finish my work in the first 40 minutes and then spend the last 7 hours hiding from my boss or sweeping the floor - drove my ***** head in.

Tonight @ the cas I played for 9 hours and tbh, I just sat on my phone most of the time I wasn't in a hand talking **** with some reddit poker regs lol. I even had my book out and was reading at the table for a bit I was that disinterested. That's just the casino though - I'm far more engaged at homegames where you're getting 50x the hands in.

Daily Update - Tues 12/09/17

Hours Played: 9
Profit: $909

Notes: A good day today. In all areas. Have had a slack start to the week and had a lot of volume to put in today. I was shooting for 10 hours but was fairly happy with 9 hours. Also played one of the bigger hands of my career today. Was pumped af after the session so I got a quick workout in after the 9 hour grind. Quick back/shoulds/triceps circuit to get the blood flowing after taking the last two days off working out.

Hand 1 - VARIANCE REDUCTION

I played this hand poorly. There is a better, lower variance way of playing this hand.

I post first hand at table in CO $5 w K7o, goes 4-5 way to flop.
Flop: Q56r
Checks through
Turn: 8o
Checks to me, I bet 2/3 pot, two callers
River: 6o
Checks to me, I bet 65% pot, one caller, I muck

Notes: I don't hate the way I played the hand. We turn a lot of equity although I don't think our bet on the turn really has much fold equity. On the river I expect the bluff to work sooooooooometimes but maybe no one folds an 8 and people can still have Qx.

I think we can exploitatively bet like 25% pot on the turn to "price in" our draw. Or who prefers checking back and taking the free card? I think checking back is probably best in terms of EV and variance reduction. Because when we bet we often have to fire river like we did not knowing how much fold equity we actually have. I'm trying to get into the habit of "making a hand" and THEN betting - because we just have ****all fold equity in live poker. Online you can just bet 1.5x pot and go crazy but we're just not pulling that trigger here in a live game. Obv you wouldn't bet 1.5x pot online, but the point is it's never as multiway and if it's HU we have a much better river bluff.

Hand 2


1 limp, hero opens AKo UTG+1 to $25, 5 callers.
Flop $150: AJ4hh
Hero cbets $85, CO calls, UTG calls.
Turn $405: 3hhcc
Hero bets $225, CO calls very quickly, UTG folds
River $855: Ko
Hero shoves $465, CO snapcalls and we scoop a $1,785 pot vs AJ.

Notes: Flop we have to cbet obv. Turn, not loving life because we get called in two places on the flop but IMO we have to bet again since there's plenty of draws we can still get value from and we're just never check folding here. Interesting that CO snapcalls turn, I expect him to have a flush draw very often which is why it's quite surprising he had what he did. River with 0.5 SPR, we're never check folding, kind just have to stick it in. Don't really hate it actually because realistically, villain probably raising sets and AJ earlier and the only hand that gets there is QThh. Hated life when I got snapcalled OTR but lol at seeing that hand.

Kinda funny because villain berates me for the rest of the night for "hitting a 3 outer" - like dude, you can still fold river. And he should imo. I have top and middle set, top two, and QThh - and absolutely no bluffs on the river. Why tf is he snapcalling what a phish.

Full Results & Graph: https://onedrive.live.com/view.aspx?...7C8876B842!334 - Don't think giraffe is updating properly, will check in on it again in a couple days.

"He calls, I muck"

Not to open a fresh wound but....

Jk jk buddy


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Hahahha yeah ik ik. I'll always muck but I'll ALWAYS dive into the muck to snap turn my cards over if anyone ever asks to see it.

Lmao ahaha


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Gl meale!

You have a good head on your shoulders, you're motivated, and you're an aussie. Recipe for success imo.

Also your thread is filling up with some wise poasters, so take advantage of them. I'd second the advice to check out DGAFs thread.

I hear ya and I definitely do have a biased opinion as pointed out. It's second nature to defend something you're passionate about - particularly when I spend a decent chunk of my life justifying my decisions! That's enough to drive anyone mad.

Thanks man. I'm actually going to hunt it down and take a look now.

Search doesn't work on my phone, can someone please link me to this dgaf PGC?

https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/1...r-obv-1167630/

Definitely a must read

Read the entire first page. Am I supposed to read it all? Pretty sure a lot of the value has been indexed on the first page. Very very interesting read.

I do think dgaf and me are polar opposites though... I'm young and single, he has a wife and kid, he started playing like 10 years before I did in a different environment, he played a notably LAGgy style while I play the opposite, he had insanely high cost of living compared to me. He seemed to have money management issues /debt etc. One thing we did have in common is that we both worked as dispatchers, although I didn't get to play NLH for most of that stint. :')

Ben, when are you going to get a REAAAALLLLLLL job?

Are there any cliffs to DGAF's thread? Or to be more precise, I'm interested in the cause of his disappointment in poker.

My guess would be that the policeman wage coupled with the volatility no longer cut it for him after the baller phase.

haha, 2-3 years probably!

Please don't, I live vicariously through your PGC.


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Ye wtf why would you get a real job ever? Unless you mean self employed etc

I would recommend to read it all. Don't have to read any replies, just his posts. Some of it is legit pure gold... esp for an aspiring pro.