Brief Update/Backstory
After quitting playing online, for the second half of 2016 I didn't play much poker at all. Late last year, I was put into a pretty -EV life position. I was studying philosophy full time and working part time. Monetarily, I was pretty broke and going no where. I absolutely love philosophy and it will always be an enormous part of my life, but I've decided to put it on the back burner while I try get my paper right. There's no short game career you can get from philosophy. At the age of 21, I've basically overstayed my welcome at home and so need to move out ASAP which can't be done (easily) studying full time and working part time.
About midway through November, I got my first ever full time job while finishing off the semester. I work in dispatch at a glass manufacturing company, preparing large quantities of glass for transportation. It involves a lot of heavy lifting and very early starts. The whole long pants during Queensland summers is pretty -EV as well. I'm currently making about $800-$850 a week after tax from this place. But this is a means to an end for me and could never work at a place like this for more than a year. The idea of full time work anywhere (excluding self employment) strikes fear into my soul and I imagine I'll avoid that trap for the rest of my life.
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Goals for 2017
In a nutshell:
1. [ ] Save $25k so I can,
2. [ ] Quit my ****ty labouring job ASAP
3. [ ] Move to Melbourne
4. [ ] Begin playing 2/5 live full time to prepare myself for a huge 2018
1. I need about 20-25k to move to Melbourne. This will afford me a $10k bankroll (20 BIs) as well as a 10k liferoll which is 6 months living expenses. In all honesty, I'll probably want 2-5k more to cover small things like flights, bond, furniture, unexpected expenses, etc.
2. I prefer indulgence over abstinence. Getting up at 3:30am 5-6 days a week for chicken feed is far too much abstinence. I simply have no idea how some of the people I work with do it. I imagine I'll pledge to never work a full time job for a year or more in my life; I'm just really against it on a conceptual level.
3. Why am I moving to Melbourne? Well with QLD's Treasury Casino's poker room downsizing to a tiny hole in the wall that can fit a max of 4 tables, I figure I may as well move to Melbourne so I can do some game selection at least at Crown Casino (largest poker room in southern hemisphere). Secondly, the weather is waaaay higher EV for me as someone who despises the heat. Basically, if you're going to play live poker professionally in Australia, you're going to want to be in Melbourne. The alternative to Melbourne was London. I can get a UK passport on account of my grandma having been an Irish citizen, so it means I wouldn't have to worry about visas or anything like that. I like the idea of London better because the rake is so much lower than in Australia but ofc the liferake there is pretty tough to beat as well. If my first year/full year in Melbourne goes well, I may look at making the move to the UK. AUS/UK are both good options because it means I won't have to pay off my HECS debt/student loan. Since gambling income in AUS isn't a recognizable form of income, in theory, if 100% of my income >$51k is from gambling, I'll never have to pay the government my tuition fees. It also means I can freeroll a tertiary education if I choose to continue studying in the future. I could, in theory, be enrolled in uni full time (while not attending), be living out of home, and earning welfare money to suppress the swings of live poker. This would mean I'd rack up an even bigger debt and it's super unethical, but it's an option I'm willing to consider if need be later down the track.
4. I decided late last year I'd give playing live a crack. Having spent so much time studying the game over the past few years, I thought it'd be a pity to not put this wealth of knowledge to good use. That, coupled with the fact that I really hate the idea of working full time, I decided poker was a good option for me to pursue in 2017.
So 2017 for me will be the biggest year of my life: Quitting my first ever full time gig, moving away from friends and family, and beginning a brand new career. But in a way, it'll be an intermediary year for me. Assuming all goes well for 2017, 2018 will be my first full year as a pro. I intend on chasing 2,500 hours of volume for 2018 as well as potentially moving to the UK/elsewhere to chase some bigger games if I run at or above EV.
Back to the present moment. I have about $7k to my name (after dusting off $1k in tonight's game). I need $25k to complete my first annual goal. That's about $18k to save. I'm hoping I can do this in about 6 months, preferable no longer than 9 months. Say I have about 25 weeks, conservatively, to get this money together. From work alone, I can probably bank about $600 a week after weekly expenses. That's $15k right there. I also want to play poker for about 2 sessions per week. I'm estimating that'll be roughly 16 hours of poker per week. If I assume my hourly is roughly $30/hr, that should be another EV $480 a week which will be about $12k over the 6 months. So if I can keep my job for 6 months and play 2 sessions per week and run at EV, I should have roughly $34k in 6 months from now. Ofc, this is well over my $25k target, so hopefully we can get it done ahead of schedule and get to Melbourne before July.
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Poker Strategy & Approach
I just recently discovered the underground cash game scene in QLD. It's essentially a home game but everything's run professionally (ofc it's still illegal). You have professional dealers and hosts, free/unlimited food and drinks, a home cooked meal/dinner break, comfy chairs, and reasonable rake. Basically, these home games are way higher EV than the casino - mainly because you have much lower rake (I believe these cash games are 10% capped at $8 - or maybe it was $11, not sure. Compared to the 10% capped at $15 you'll get at the casino, it's way way better). You also have no food rake.
You're usually looking at $2/3 NLH, $100-$500 buyin. Quite often these games will be rotation (NLH + PLO) though which IMO isn't a good thing. I feel as though I can control variance better in NLH games and, while I'll have a good edge in both games, I am simply more confident with hold'em. So I'm going to do my best to avoid playing in rotation games.
This brings me to my next point. Live poker is extremely beatable. The issue with it is the very few hands you see. This means your swings will last longer. Variance is often much higher than in FR online games because you get many more multiway pots. The biggest thing for me when it comes to live poker is reducing variance. The best way I know how to do this is to play a fundamentally TAG strategy as opposed to LAG. You can pretty much get away with playing quite nitty overall in live games. It also means calling more than raising (i.e. preflop, calling TT instead of 3betting in some spots). And of course it means running it twice/thrice whenever possible (I can only do this in home games as everything is RIO at casino).
Over the past few weeks, I've been getting some good reps in with these live games. I've been working on adjusting from online to live and perfecting my low variance/highly exploitable lines approach. I've also downloaded Poker Income and will be tracking all my 2017 results. I'd estimate I would be up $3k ish from the few weeks I played toward the end of 2016. I will post daily updates as well as weekly graphs/results and big/interesting hands I played during the week and hopefully some chip porn. I've also been inspired by LLApex and will be implementing a variant of his nut strategy for savers.
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Today, Jan 5 2017
Tonight I dropped $1,060 in a 2/3 rotation game. Everyone was pretty deep but I really don't think the EV of this game was that good. There was 3 players who were talking a lot about strategy, twoplustwo, and seemed like semi-pros all sat directly to my left. I'm also a little rusty when it comes to PLO. Anyway, I get double suited pocket aces at about $550 effective. A
3
A
4
which I understand is like the nut best hand? Anyway, I get it in vs some dude w double suited kings, only I dominate both his flush draws. Literally the best possible way to get yourself into a $1,100 pot preflop. Anyway we run it twice and chop. Various other generally ****ty spots. I misplayed one hand at $700 effective. Board was like 5
6
8
and I had 47. I lead pot, and get repotted, another guy jams for like (~300-400?), I probably should have folded but got it in and they both had 79 for like a $1,800-$1,900 pot. Like can you really donk pot and fold here? Do they ever raise worse? The guy who stacked me said he probably plays a set similarly and that I probably played it okay. I still feel like I should muck since there's like 12 combos of the nuts either one of them likely has.
Anywho, keen for tomorrow's 2/3 NLH game. At this particular game, my previous results are +$280, $1,100, and +$1,180 so I've been running pretty well there.
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NSFW Saver
Last edited by meale; 01-04-2017 at 11:20 AM.