Hey PG&C,

I am not going to do a full bio here as I have three previous PG&C's with plenty of background in them. Can be found here, here and here.

Recently, after binking the Big $5.50 in December of 2017, I began selling action regularly in the MP. I've been doing well in those packs mostly, but still I have not been able to break through and get myself to the low/mid stakes due to a fairly long summer of run bad, poor commitment to grinding, a lack of willingness to start smaller and grind my way up and therefore often getting the short end of the stick in my action when I do have success.

For example, I sold a WCOOP pack that included a 6th place finish in a Galactic Series event for around $1220, this along with some other smaller runs had my September off to a nice start based on my Sharkscope, but as I only had 20% of myself in those games and was paying 80% in all my side action where I proceeded to get crushed, I actually ended up with a losing first half of the month.

And so I have decided to sell less action for a bit and start smaller so I can keep my buy-in range tighter and lower and my share higher. I will finally put in a real grind and given I have 3 more months before I decide if I am going to return to school to finish my degree this seemed like a good time to try it. *I own a small business and my GF and I live together sharing the bills, there is no money concerns for day to day life, but I would like a second income stream to use for saving for a house, retirement, travel, kids, etc...

I will be starting with 150 buy-ins at about a $3.60 BI average, playing in the evening ET. I can add another 100 buy-ins if I bust the first 150 and I feel it is truly run bad and not simply poor play due to lack of interest.

I know what games I am playing, I know I can beat them. What I don't know is can I commit to see it through and move up. I will cash out still some, though not a lot as I said, my base bills are all covered, but I believe some profit keeps the desire for more intact.

I wanted to start this diary so I can keep track of the results and I will be transparent about exact figures for bankroll and cash-outs and results. I want to be able to look back in 90 days just before my holiday break begins and make an informed decision if I believe it is worth giving poker another year in 2019 or if I should accept that the desire to make poker a true side hustle has past me and my interests lay elsewhere and I can get back to school, finish my degree and look at other options for that second income stream.

I will post results after each session and a little recap every so often as well as occasional hands with open ended decisions so I can get feedback.

And we'll see how I do. I was going to take a break after WCOOP, but I won't be able to play on Thursday, Saturday, Sunday or next Monday... so I decided I would start tomorrow and power through 3 sessions to kick things off, then a 4th one on Friday before coming back the following Tuesday.

TL;DR - I'm going to grind some Micro tourneys on Stars and satellites to low/mid stakes tourneys and build a roll for 2019 or quit serious poker in December and play only for fun on occasional Sundays or at the casino.

OK, wow, a lot happened since this, so let's dive into it before I start actually grinding again properly tomorrow.

First, our landlord decided she wanted her place back and we agreed to 40 days notice in return for a free month of rent, but it meant we had to find a place quick and make some decisions about our life plans in the process.

Our rent was fairly high, but our place was nice and big, so we were on a 5 to 10 year house buy plan as we didn't mind staying where we were through the early years of our first kid, but now we had the option to down size and really save much faster, so we decided to go with this plan. So we're in a nice 2 bedroom about 15 mins from my GF's work and we just finished the move and will do the full unpack next weekend when she is off again.

I got my little corner for a desk and a grind station for the week so I don't miss any more volume and my side business is running smoothly in the background as well.

As for poker, I played off and on, mostly even-ish, maybe down a bit, I honestly haven't kept track that well as the sessions have been off and on. I know I won a small event during an overnight session and some other so-so runs, but also had a lot of brick days.

But ultimately my selling action in the Marketplace lead me to an opportunity to have one backer going forward, so we came up with a plan to split a $2000 US bankroll and he would pay me 5% mark-up on all my games. We would keep a minimum of 200 BI bankroll strategy with the mark-up paid weekly on Saturdays and HH review on Tuesdays (I will also post hands in here from time to time). We will split the profits each month, though likely in the early stages most will get rolled over to grow the roll and move up.

I will try to play Sunday, Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, though I may reinvest my mark-up into live sessions on my own each Friday starting in December, which I will update here.

I will post daily results, sometimes that will be it, other times with hand histories or little anecdotes from daily life or the side business (we actually just ran a huge blowout sale as we will be closing down and reorganizing/re-branding over the next 3 months), so yah that's the plan. I am starting tomorrow at 7 AM with my first session and will post when it's done!

I've been reading a lot of the 6bet me thread and posting some and I'm inspired to give the online grind a go as I really haven't used poker as an income since my cash game days in Niagara nearly 10 years ago, it's always been a side income since then, but I have the time to make it more like full time hours, so curious to see how I will enjoy that and what kind of money can be made eventually splitting my time between 2-3 online sessions a week at mid stakes and 2-3 live sessions of 2/5.

Hopefully it's a fun ride!

GL all!

Officially got going today. I should have also said, I won't drop down with the above roll, it will be a bit more than 200 BIs to start and we just go broke if we run that bad or I suck that much. Likely move up around every $5 increase to the ABI and drop down again if I drop 100 buy-ins at that level until back to the starting level.

Day 1

Bankroll Start: $2000

Games: 21
ABI: $8.68
Cashes: 3
Buy-Ins: $182.20
Cashes: $60.16
Cashback: $0.55
Profit/Loss: -$121.49

Bankroll End: $1878.51

Grades
Overall Play: C+
Focus: C

First day back after a break and my house is still in total disarray and freezing, but I wanted to get some volume in, so I toughed it out. I was just feeling a bit auto-pilot in spots, folding a little too much to avoid thinking through spots I knew I should be calling and playing post flop. All stuff I will quickly stop doing as I get back to playing consistently more and get my office setup so I don't feel so disorganized and out of sorts.

Might be back tomorrow as I missed Sunday. If not, then Wednesday for sure.

GL all!

you playing only stars or mixing other sites?
gl man

Thanks!
I am currently on Stars and Stars.ES though I will be adding sites about one a month assuming I make it to 2019. For now I'm fine with about 50/50 regular speed MTTs on Stars and 180-Rebuys. That said if I was able to churn out 2500/month on average and on my own dime doing that on Stars only, I'd probably be fine with that and instead start playing live cash games more again. We'll see, the next two months are mostly a test of schedules and sites and finding something I can grind comfortably.

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The above numbers were not accurate as I missed the couple games I played on .ES:

Day 1

Bankroll Start: $2000

Games: 24 (+2 re-entries)
ABI: $8.67
Cashes: 3
Buy-Ins: $225.50
Cashes: $60.16
Cashback: $0.55
Profit/Loss: -$164.79

Bankroll End: $1835.21

Back to my normal afternoon/evening grind today and tomorrow.

GL!

Day 2

Bankroll Start: $1835.21

Games: 25 (+2 re-entries)
ABI: $9.16
Cashes: 5
Buy-Ins: $247.35
Cashes: $637.36
Cashback: $0.80
Profit/Loss: $390.01

Bankroll End: $2226.02

Grades
Overall Play: B
Focus: B

Good result today. Still shaking off some rust, but focus was better today. Next week I will start marking more hands and posting the ones I have questions about, for now I am just trying to keep up with the action and stay focused.

Back tomorrow for another session.

Lobby:


Later!

Day 3

Bankroll Start: $2226.02

Games: 32 (+2 re-entries)
ABI: $8.01
Cashes: 4
Buy-Ins: $272.40
Cashes: $73.54
Cashback: $0.10
Profit/Loss: $198.86

Bankroll End: $2027.26

Grades
Overall Play: B/C-/B+
Focus: B/D/B+

I started out solid and focused, dragged hard in the middle and almost gave up when all my tables busted at 2:55 PM, but decided to use the break and reset myself and focus on the final 12 games I had scheduled and push through and played much better and focused much better too. Not a great day results wise, but starting to up the volume and the results will come with solid play and better focus. Maybe a smaller session tomorrow afternoon, otherwise back on Sunday.

Day 4

Bankroll Start: $2027.26

Games: 22 (+3 re-entries)
ABI: $6.99
Cashes: 7
Buy-Ins: $174.65
Cashes: $148.06
Cashback: $0.20
Profit/Loss: -$26.39

Bankroll End: $2000.87

Grades
Overall Play: A-
Focus: A-

Best day so far, in terms of focus and play quality. Couldn't close any runs, got called by K3o deep in the B16.50 when I shipped KJo and he claimed it was a mis-click call, but he spiked the 3, so that ended our dreams there. Couple of other deep runs that fizzled pair into bigger pair, but whatever, the first week is done, we got in 112 games over 4 sessions and the play got better every day.

Played a lower ABI because I am playing in some home game tonight with my GF's coworkers and I didn't want to take a big loss today if I ran bad and feel crappy heading out tonight, but I basically broke even anyway.

Possibly back tomorrow depending on how much drinking I do tonight, otherwise Monday for sure.

What is your overall aim in poker? I see no problem at all with continuing to run your business and playing poker on the side. If you are looking to become a full-time online grinder its going to be very difficult/impossible to make 50 or 60K thousand a year at the moment esp in micros (thats if you run reasonably welll). If you run bad you may make almost nothing. Long term unless you can move up to mid/high level, taking a normal job is the better option for 99% of people.

Good question!

Ultimately, I will continue to run and grow my business, but as it doesn't require a tonne of hours I will likely play poker close to full time hours just without the pressure of needing the money.

I would like to grow this roll up to probably a midstakes level on my own while also transitioning back to live cash so in a perfect world I'm doing 2-3 online grinds a week and 2-3 live 2/5 NL sessions (a max of 5 total).

But like if I make 10k/year, then fine its vacation money or just a bit cushion, if I make 50k to 100k or bink something big, then great I can use it for our first house or retirement savings.

Does that make sense?


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Week 1



The graph is off on games played because they count re-entries as the same tourney, whereas I am not, but otherwise it is accurate (minus rakeback) even though the numbers never seem to add up perfectly after a while, but mine are tracked by hand, so they will remain the official numbers.

Day 5

Bankroll Start: $2000.87

Games: 14
ABI: $8.41
Cashes: 3
Buy-Ins: $117.80
Cashes: $54.59
Cashback: $0.35
Profit/Loss: -$62.86

Bankroll End: $1938.01

Grades
Overall Play: B+
Focus: A-

Just a short session to avoid skipping the day completely. Felt good after the night out, but didn't want to go for the full grind, instead took the GF out for breakfast and then finished unpacking our apartment and then settled in for a small grind after dinner.

Didn't do too well, though twice I won big pots with about 100 to go on .ES and shot up the leaderboard only to lose 3 straight flips/bad beats and bust like 5-10 mins later. Oh well, way it goes.

Should get a lot of work in this week.

Day 6

Bankroll Start: $1938.01

Games: 18
ABI: $8.93
Cashes: 1
Buy-Ins: $160.75
Cashes: $65.83
Cashback: $0.30
Profit/Loss: -$94.62

Bankroll End: $1843.39

Grades
Overall Play: B
Focus: B-

Started out strong, but felt like I lost focus as the bad beats piled up in the third hour and ended up cutting my session shorter than planned.

Will play tomorrow, not sure what session. I'd like to just get a schedule and stick to it, but I can't decide if I prefer getting up early and firing right away at 630 AM or a lazy morning start at 10 AM (but where I am forced to eat two meals in session instead of one) or the afternoon session at 2 PM (where I have had most of my success this past year, even though I know that is results oriented).

But one way or another I will be playing tomorrow and hopefully by end of the week I will settle into a schedule.

Day 7

Bankroll Start: $1843.39

Games: 19
ABI: $8.39
Cashes: 2
Buy-Ins: $159.35
Cashes: $719.80
Cashback: $0.00
Profit/Loss: $560.45

Bankroll End: $2403.84

Grades
Overall Play: B
Focus: B

Solid day. My GF's grandmother passed away yesterday, so I cut my session short to be able to hang with her after she got back from the wake, but ended up with a good run in the 6th Sense and got the roll back in healthy profit. Probably back tomorrow for a full grind.

Lobby Porn

Quick update...

I have tentatively sold my business, due to close the deal next week.

So been busy with that, I have played some sessions, but obviously been dealing with finalizing this sale mostly. Once it goes through, I will get back to grinding.

Bankroll has been reset to 2K for a 10 ABI (it was at like $2035 before we reset it). Likely grinding 3 or 4 days a week and I will be splitting profits 50/50. I plan to also start grinding live possibly this month, but definitely in January, so I will update about the online sessions with results and such, but most of the content in here will be about the live games as I attempt to start at 1/2-1/3, shake off the rust and ultimately move to 2/5 as soon as I put together some consistent results and feel my game is solid enough to move up again. It won't be about money as I could sit 2/5 immediately financially, but I'd like to get used to the live grind, force myself to endure some patience testing 1/2 sessions and make sure I am ready to battle for money that means a little more at 2/5.

Anyway, maybe firing tomorrow, maybe taking the weekend off and starting back Monday, we'll see.

Go dude!


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Closing this thread.

My business sold, I am definitely going to grind in 2019 as my main source of income (though given my current financial situation after the sale, I will likely spend most of the first half of 2019 moving up limits and establishing my live poker roll again).

I will document that journey most likely in a new thread starting in January as I will either be off the rest of this month or the sessions I do play will be mostly tinkering with setups and so on and not that exciting.

I will start a new thread in January and do a quick recap of the next couple weeks then.

GL grinders.

Peace!