Introduction

Hi guys,

I’m making this thread to document my progress for the next little while as I attempt to take on poker as a side job in addition to a full-time job. I hope this will keep me on track and motivated, and if anyone happens to read this, I hope they find it an interesting read .

So a little about me: I’ve been playing semi-recreationally for a few years already (and thankfully ran well enough to have been a winning player). I love traveling and have played in poker rooms all across North America. While I always tried to be good at something that I’m doing, I didn’t start to seriously improve my game in the right direction until I joined 2+2 at the end of 2013. It changed things tremendously for me. I play exclusively live NLHE, started in 1/2, and have moved up to 2/5 early this year. Even though I still have a long way to go, I am confident about my game and thought that it would be worth taking a shot to play for living.

I’m very excited about this decision and I think it will be a great experience. I’m currently in my mid-20s and have no family obligations so this would be the perfect time to do something like this. It would also be great if this helps anyone who is contemplating about taking on poker as a side job and wanted to find out what it’s like.

You can ask me about anything related to poker or the lifestyle in general, but I won’t answer anything that may reveal something personal and identifiable about me.

I’ll be tracking my own hours obviously, but I’d like to not make that the focus in this thread for the reasons stated below. There will probably be no graphs. I will be focusing more on specific poker issues, as well as the process of juggling of various real life responsibilities as I think those will be more interesting.

Goals

At the advice of my much more experienced pro friends, I'm gunna go against the current and not set an hourly or year-end goal. This is because of at least 3 good reasons: 1) since I'm playing part-time, my volume won't be large enough and the result may be predominately a product of variance; 2) trying to achieve a certain hourly or overall goal may be stressful and end up impacting my play; and 3) the real goal should be trying to play well in every spot regardless of what the result may be. If I play well, a great hourly should naturally follow over time.

My two poker-related goals:

A. Volume. Start by aiming for at least 40 hours a month. This should be easily doable if I just play 2x 5 hour sessions over the weekend each week. I think the max I would increase my poker hours to is 80 hours a month (so 20 hours/week), but that would be working for at least 60 hours a week (assuming normal 40 hour weeks at my day job) total excluding travel time. If you’ve done something crazy (or crazier) than that let me hear your experience.

B. Studying. Spend more time improving my game. One thing I have recently started doing is to write down the less standard hands to be reviewed with people later. Obviously more concrete goals will be needed.

My two life goals:

A. Balance. This is really important to me. I will try not to neglect an aspect of my life (eg. health, fitness, social life, hobbies, etc) because another aspect (eg. work/poker) is being too overwhelming.

B. Career. I never desired to go fully pro in terms of poker and this will be a temporary thing that I’m trying out. My actual job will be offering way more advancement opportunities and much less variance, so my main focus will always be on that. If poker ever end up getting in the way then it will have to be trimmed back accordingly.

Thanks for reading, and hope to hear from you as I always love getting comments and inputs!

Subbed.

Will read now that I managed to be 1st...

Tl;dr

But Carlos woke me up, so read anyway.

gl

Good luck. I like your decision to focus more on the important stuff and take the overrated hourly win-rate statistic out of the picture because it often distracts from the big picture.

In b4 busto

Subbed. GL.

Good luck snowball!

Subbed and good luck!

I'm with you on being balanced. Makes every aspect of life so much better.

No obligations must be nice! To be young and freeeee again (I wish)

Glgl

How do you plan to study specifically? Just talking about hands?

I'd recommend trying a subscription to Crush Live Poker or Cardrunners. Online poker doesn't necessarily always apply to live, but I think the online training sites will do a much better job at helping you improve your overall technical poker game than CLP will.

Good luck friend

As I'm doing the same thing (full time job w/ live poker on the side), sub'd. GL

Subbed glgl

subbed - I've been doing this combo for many years (and I'm now an old working professional)

Best of luck

Subbed, gl

1: what is the origin of your screen name?
2: if you could be reborn as any animal what would it be? Trust me this relates to poker
3: If your smart phone held only 3 songs what would they be?
4: If you had to give up one of your senses which would you let go of?

best wishes and good luck on your journey...not subbed as of yet - waiting to see answers before deciding

I know I'm not OP but I can't imagine anyone giving up anything but smell.

taste

see that got a worthwhile debate going already...

Thanks for the subs and well wishes guys

Yeah yeah we all know you have nothing better to do

Oh and I should point out I'm over-rolled for 2/5.. so no chance for busto

Thanks and good reminder. I need to get that CLP code from As-Ah again and sign up.

So far I'm writing down hands and going over them with my coach after a session. I'm thinking of doing more in-depth studying by reading some poker books.

Would love to hear your experience. Hopefully poker can remain a part of my life for years to come.

Too late squiddy since you don't know how the computer works and I hate to break this to you.. but a post in a thread counts as a sub and you just posted

1. the simpsons, not urban dictionary
2. human is an animal... and poker-related
3. a song for the gym (something electro/house), a song for bed time (something acoustic), and a song for driving (something punk rock).
4. I would have to say smell. I've had a roommate who did not have a sense of smell by birth and it seems like she's doing fine.

Urgh I love food too much to give up taste.. Life would be meaningless

Then how would you sniff out bluffs

First update

I've been working at my new job for a week, and played 4 sessions so far for a total of 17 hours. Result's been good but one thing I have to remind myself is to stay positive and play well no matter how frustrating the session is going.

Here are some hands from tonight's session:

Hand 1:
JQss in MP. ($325 eff). H raises to 20. Sb sunglasses (bad wannabe pro) calls.
Flop ($47): 56Jr. V checks. H bets 25. V c/r 60. H calls.
Turn ($167): 3 (flush draw). Sb leads out $85. H calls.
River ($337): Ao. Sb snap shoves for ~$186. H calls. Sb shows TT mhig.

I was actually surprised that he decided to turn a hand with a lot of SDV given the board into a bluff. I thought he had something like 34/78 and once he checkraised a pretty dry flop I knew he's just pretty much going to barrel off. I thought the river was a pretty bad card for him to bluff because once I call the turn, I pretty much only have AJ left in the bottom my range and would accordingly snap off the river.

Hand 2:
AA in HJ. Utg (kinda tight pf, have donked in pots on dry boards a few times before) limps. H raises $25. Eff $650. H has been opening pots a lot recently. Table limp calls a lot and usually fold flop if missed.
Flop (55): 884r. V donks out $30. H calls.
Turn ($115): 2r. V bets 120. H calls.
River ($355): 6r. V bets 150. H tanks and raises to 350. V folds. Claims he had JJ.

I decided not to raise any of the first two streets because he was more capable of value owning himself, rather than station off with his overpair here. I'm only worried about 8x but I don't think he would play it this way as the standard fishy thing to do would be to c/r a cbet. By raising the river I thought I could get him to call off based on pot odds, as well as the fact that it looks so bluffy, because his bet sizing changed, and a 6o on the river couldn't have helped me, and I would never play an overpair by calling behind two streets. But guess not.

Hand 3:
AKss in Sb. 4 limpers. H (have been pretty active but no SDs) raises to 35. One caller in MP (V calls loose preflop. Younger asian. Some fps in him). Eff $1300.
Flop($90): K35r. H bets 45. Call.
Turn ($180): 2o. H checks. V bets $160. H calls.
River ($400): 9o. H checks. V bets $200. H calls. V shows A7o mhig.

I have been opening and cbetting fairly often. Few times I have cbet the flop, checked the turn and folded the river. Based on this meta game I decided to check there after he called because then it looks like I completely missed the board. Furthermore if somehow he had low SCs with decent equity and raised me ott, I didn't like calling a raise there with just top pair. It worked by some miracle and got A7o to bluff over 70bbs into me. I thought his sizing is bad on the river as he could definitely have made it a lot more and make it a tougher decision for me (as we are both 200+bbs deep), it was pretty obvious that I had a K and there were no draws on the board. Good game I guess.

I guess ill just have to station off more then so far I've been bluff catching correctly in the past few sessions.. or as some would say, not bluff catching enough.

poasting is different than subbing - based on those weak sauce answers I currently am unable to subscribe. Get creative (I know this can be tough) but hit me with a real answer to 2...and gimme the 3 songs you would currently have on your semi smart phone. This is like a form of therapy or coaching...you only get out what you put in

your pal

squid0424

We can't be friends anymore if your answer to #2 isn't panda.