So I'm not really sure how to start this as I can't bring myself to read any boring poker crap to see how these go, no offense. I guess I'll start with a little background, why I'm doing this, and then we'll see.
Background:
First poker- I started playing ol around the time I signed up here. having never played (or read any books about) NL, PL, or any type of tournie poker I was a +30% ROI low stakes SNG player from day 1 just by using some common sense. Quit my job in spring 04 and played for a living until BF. I wasn't good, at all, low stakes bonus whore/RB grinder. I never really worked on my game, but it was a nice way to make an easy, meager living. I always had plans to go for SNE and other lofty goals but they never came close to getting off the ground. Other than a small working roll I was pretty much broke on BF, so I had to get a job (vomit) right away.
Fantasy baseball- I've been a baseball stat nerd since I opened my first pack of baseball cards as a kid. I started playing the sporting news national game in 95, that soon turned into the CDM Diamond Challenge (and this highly competitive great game is still going today) I played that until 2014. The only reason I didn't play last year is I found out in 14 what a grind full time MLB DFS play can be. Anyways, it turns out that obsessing over every detail of the league and playing with the cap all winter, making changes over and over again looking for that perfect lineup turned out to be pretty good DFS training.
DFS- I had heard about DFS several years ago, but I think that's when there was only snapdraft or whatever with double what the rake is now, I believe. At any rate I was under the impression that it wasn't beatable due the the rake and variance and never really thought about it again until reading a thread that popped up in the 2p2 fantasy section before the 2014 season where someone was asking for advice on what site to play. I read that thread and that was enough for me to decide to give it a shot. I deposited $200 on opening day. I don't remember if I won or lost that day but I knew there was money to be made based on structure and how terrible people were. A little over a week later I was down to $80 and deposited $350 more, 2 days later I came in 1st and 2nd in the $2 Squeeze out of 8360 runners for $2K+$1K. Boom! instant bankroll. Despite running most of that down to about $1K total after a brutal May I've never had to deposit non-DFS money again.
My first season went like this-
April: Starting BR $550 (my only 2 real money deposits) to $4K
May: BR $4K to $1K. I was heavily invested in every pitcher that gave up 8+, and there seemed to be a lot of them. I still "knew" I was +EV but I'll be honest it's hard not to have a little creeping doubt when you're getting killed every single night for weeks.
June: 6/1 played 224 $1 and $2 cash games, went 10-214 Rock bottom and I was under a grand, rest of month +$8K
quit my hated job
July: starting BR $9K, moved up, ROI came way down from impossible June levels but still made $7K at higher stakes with more volume. BR $9K-$16K
Aug: Month started well but then I had to move, this cost me time and money I didn't want to spend, and was a major distraction, ended the month +$1K
Sep: I never felt comfortable in my new office (I quit a 2 pack a day cowboy killer habit cold turkey the day I moved, maybe that had something to do with it) I ran like ****, probably played like **** too. -$1500 month
MLB Season 1: a very swingy +$15K
NFL- I had to take out for taxes. I still had a decent amount of savings left to live on, but I wanted the least amount of real life stress as possible for my 2015 grind so I left myself with $7K BR. I knew NFL was supposed to be soft as hell but I just didn't feel I could risk any of my MLB roll as it was so small and I knew I could make money from it at MLB, so I skipped NFL
I ended up dicking around a little at PGA and NHL, mostly to kill time until baseball -$300, so I started the 2015 MLB season with my bills paid for awhile and a $6700 bankroll.
April: I was playing over my roll by quite a bit (like 2-3K a day in action) trying to strike while the fire is hot in April. Swingy as hell, up 3k in 3 days, down 3k in 4 days, etc, etc. Break even month. rutroh we're looking at half a MLB season BE at this point, and 9+ months real time, what a pro!
May: Started off just like April and after 2 BE weeks I decided to quit playing cash games on the big sites with no bonus/little rewards to focus on GPP. Victiv was the only smaller site I was playing at the time so it was GPP on FD and DK and a little small stakes cash action on Victiv, maybe $300-$500 a night and another $500 or so on small stakes GPP's. That's when things really turned around for me, won a couple small GPP's on DK for a +1K day, then at the end of the month came in 3rd out of like 6000 in a DK $9 buyin for $1500 and had a good day otherwise for a total over +2K. +$3K month
June: June 7th I threw maybe $100 or $200 into late only (west coast) $2 and $5 GPP's. I usually diversify a ton, but there was no options here, so I went 100% Kershaw, 100% Castillo (C Ariz). Well there was no hitting in these games and Kershaw was in top form so he and Castillo's HR had all my teams all over the top 100 in both GPP's. I don't think I scored a win, but I was 2nd in 2 $2 GPP's and 3rd I believe in the $5, between that and all my other top 10/25/100's it was a tidy $5K profit, my best day by far at that point. The rest of the month was just steady profit and I hit +$10K for the first time
July: Sun July 5th I took dear old mom out for a steak dinner and while we stuffed our faces I won the $5 late rally for $3K, came in second in the 15K runner $2 squeeze and once again peppered the top 10/25/100 of these games, +$7500, my new best day. Unlike the June score I don't remember the details at all, not even the pitcher but I think Tulo helped a lot, maybe. I'm way more interested in process than results, and while it's fun to jerk it over your scores I just move on, mostly, after a little jerking. The rest of the month was mostly hit or miss with a little hot streak at the end to give me my second +$10K month in a row. Now I feel I'm really on to something.
Aug: I continued my hot streak from the end of July and while I wasn't taking any GPP's down I was just crushing every night. About a week into Aug I had had around 10 50+% roi days in a row and for the first time I really felt like I couldn't lose (and that includes all those years at poker) I'd check box scores, knew I had lost, nope +$800, ugly looking boxs the next night, had to have lost, nope +$1200. That's just about when I started my 20 or so day losing streak. I don't mean a 20 day downswing, I mean losing every day for 20 in a row, seems impossible, but that's the way this beast works. Then I won a small $2 GPP for $2K. Even though it was only a quarter of what I had lost mid month, and my BR was still fine anyway it felt like such a huge relief, just to turn it around. I won the last few days so what started out like it was going to be my best month ever, and what turned into what looked like the worst month anyone was ever gonna have at anything ended up right about BE, heyO
Sep: By the end of Aug I was really turning my attention to NFL, but of course I'll keep grinding MLB, just not as hard. I ran well before football started, and once I started better than expected in football (more on this below) I really scaled back on MLB. There's only so many hours in a day and I was using most of them cramming NFL, a sport I didn't/don't know. Anyways the little baseball I did play I crushed so despite playing half the volume with a quarter of the attention paid I still had a +$5K month to close out the MLB season +$28K. Well short of my goals, but considering I started with a tiny $6700 BR and a 6 week mind numbing BE streak I'll take it!
NFL: This is getting long so I'll try to bang out a part 2 tonight or tomorrow covering my NFL season and a little on why I'm posting this. Also, I know this is real bloggy, that's not my intent going forward, just trying to give some detail.