One of my opponents has:

- open limped btn, while also ...
- 3b 95s from SB against btn open

oooooook

Edit: add l/rr in BvB

So that means you are getting raped, correct?

I'm somehow up like 2200

just flopped nuts in bb against fish, he b/c, r/c, called, and I can't know what he had because HH doesn't work (think I have to restart comp)

this particular fish is the kind of fish that I love playing against; I call this breed a "spazznit"

he's absolutely destroying everybody else

of course, nobody else is what I'd exactly call competent

Preflop power: dude limps all his premiums and raises all his air

DECEPTION

this dude is reporting me and the fish for collusion

he mad

although in a vacuum it did look pretty collusion-y

Didn't realize tpiranha plays Bovada.

For someone who has no need for social interraction you sure spend a lot of time on this forum.
So in other words you are just like the rest of us buddy
No matter how hard you try to convince yourself otherwise.

Grats! Career in what field?

I think that to get out of poker while still having success at it would have been very very hard for me if i had gotten accustomed to living above the standards that a normal job would provide.
This is why one of the smartest things i have probably done as a pro was to withdraw from poker exactly the sum i made at my old job.
That way any extra profit could be used for investments that could actually positively affect my own and my familys life for x years into the future.

To start up something would be a great choice for many if you have something you burn for and/or want to test out. I chose the slightly more conservative approach of paying down the house mortgage. Which many probably find boring but the added freedom it gives you really is priceless. Had I not had kids though i likely would have "gambled" a little bit more with at least some chunk of it.

UG, playing a game for a living and making good money is pretty cool.

A lot of the pleasure derived from games is feeling yourself get better.

The year before BF I switched to TD and PLO because my LHE game felt stagnant. Since BF it's NL, PLO, O8. I am improving and enjoying all of them.

Making rapid strides in chess and enjoying it immensely, so clearly not $$ related pleasure.

Poker always a hobby for me. Don't love my job. I'm a realist not an idealist. OK not to love your job.

I think most of us(or at least me), came into poker with the idea of locking up like 500k min so we could move onto other things in life. Kinda the whole means to an end idea, maybe some of you guys could enjoy playing cards forever but I always knew that wasn't for me.

The problem with that goal is that it's basically impossible, especially with LHE and most especially with someone who got into the game as late as I did(started at .05/.10, in the summer of 2010.) But how was I supposed to know that back then?!

So now what do I do? What better option does a 22yo college dropout have besides hanging out in the greatest state ever, going camping and hanging with friends grinding the bovizz for idk $50/hr? I don't have it in me to learn another game, wtf would I go to that isn't already where lhe was at in 2010.

The fact of the matter is that the lifespan of poker is coming to an end, and if you didnt already make your fortune, or are at the highest stake, I think it's impossible for someone to not end up in a spot where they are forced to quit and are left with a feeling of "I just wasted the last 5 years of my life, FOR money?"

This thread has been fun so far this month, you guys are awesome <3

Cody

this thread delivers, but it's also making me depressed.

everyone i know is so disenchanted with poker right now. tryptamean had two losing live 20/40 sessions and quit for the year. bigbadbabar plays more words with friends than poker. tw2238 has retired completely. UG, well, you know. who will i look up to? who will i go to in the dark moments of a 600BB downswing? they won't be able to relate. they'll all be snickering inside thinking, "poor fool, he's got no chance. i thank the lord above i quit when i did." i guess maybe i should try and make friends with elo. it seems like that may be difficult considering he has no need for social interaction.

for me, poker has always been this way. like codygary12, i started playing lhe in 2010 at .05/.10. i have no idea what it's like to log on to a fancy money printing machine, win all of the dollars for a few hours, and **** off for the rest of the day. the poker boom was over before i knew that a full house beats a flush and there's no such thing as 3 pair or a wrap around straight (QKA23). i mean, i play live 20/40 so i may have a decent idea of how easy poker may have been in the days of boom, but even that is a poor representation.

i didn't get in to poker for the money. i got in to poker for the opportunity to have freedom. the freedom to do whatever i want whenever i want to do it. i'm a full time foster parent for emotionally disturbed, behaviorally challenged, at risk youth. the supervision level for these kids is "sight and sound". that means whenever they're in my care, (not in school), i have to be able to see and hear them until they go to bed for the night. although i love working with these kids and am rewarded by they're eventual progress, i have no real freedom. just recently, i've been making enough money playing lhe to transition out of this line of work. i hope to be able to play poker to pay my bills and then work with kids as a volunteer. that's the dream.

all of this talk about lhe being dead and people hating poker is making me worried.

Here's a great post from poker theory about volatility drag and how taking shots underolled is only slowing your progress. Elo plz read!

Networth, I still enjoy games for sure. I ranted a lot earlier this year about my love for video games... especially old school NES/SNES games. Last year, I went through a gin rummy phase. I'm sure I will always love games. But poker... imagine you beat Super Mario Bros for the first time 7 years ago. And you've been playing it over and over ever since. That's what it feels like to me.

Cody, you're really talented at poker and prolly lots of other stuff and don't seem to be a huge degen ****up like the rest of us. You'll be fine!

Rodeo, if you love poker, you should be fine. I never loved poker. I just wanted to make easy money and not have to work a real job. At this point, I prolly need to make a very easy $200+/hour after expenses to make it feel worthwhile. Considering Tpir himself makes 200/hr or so before expenses and busts his ass, I don't see that happening. I would have to fully commit myself to poker and work harder than I ever have before which isn't going to happen when I hate it.

I still love poker. I love poker even more now then I used to. I still spend several hours a week studying, thinking, and trying to improve; which is where a lot of the pleasure comes from, I believe. Poker is much more enjoyable when I am actively trying to apply concepts that I have been thinking about, rather than just sitting there plugging away, playing the same way I've been playing for 3 years.

I consider myself lucky that I am in basically the same boat. Sure I missed out on all the free money of the poker boom, but ultimately I am a better player for it. I see so many of the guys that were making money hand over fist in the old days, and are now grinding 10/20 complaining about the games are so tough and LHE is dead. It's not dead, it's just evolved. Players like us who rose up after the poker boom have managed to grind up bankrolls playing in much tougher games, and get through the raketrap levels that were jam-packed with grinders. But we came out on top and now Black Friday has ensured that no other players are able to get the experience that we have, of playing millions of hands online against other tough players, (in the US at least) So here we are, left at the top of the player pool with no ladder for new players to climb. Ship it!

this is encouraging.

Idk if encouraging is the right word, I know when I'm old I don't want my greatest accomplishment to be that I was the best at lhe. Who the hell cares about that? Yeah we may have had a more difficult path through the game but I don't think that's anything to be proud of.

Bottom line is anyone who's plan is to continue to play poker for a living, especially LHE, is ****ing delusional and should get out now.

Poker is gonna be awesome once it becomes legal in the US, probably better than it was before.

troll.

good post! Just wanted to add that when you cant even find 3-4 tbls above 15/30 across 5-6 sites a lot of the time then the game really is dead, by my definition anyway.
Sure its also evolved and it will always evolve but the there is just no potential in it anymore. And to make matters worse all history shows that it likely will decline every year to come as well.

So imo if some part of you want to quit and you have an escape route planned then go for it now rather than later. It will only get tougher the longer you wait.

It's legal here and it's not yet awesome. (I should update my location to New Jersey.)

This thread makes me sad.

If you want to override a habit, you have to overwrite it. Replace it with something else. That was Hen's suggestion, too, but you can be even more literal about it. Find a replacement to plug into the exact spot poker occupies in your life, and then find something to get excited about. And then be happy.

Or just keep grinding and descend into a self-loathing abyss. That would provide more entertainment for the rest of us.

You know who I ****ing hate? Airport gorillas. Twice in a row now on my trip home from Van, I open my suitcase to see the little "TSA was here" note. My monitor, which was carefully wrapped in my clothes, is just floating around easily smashable. Last time, they opened a bottle of multivitamins and were apparently too stupid to close it correctly because there were like 100 of them all over the suitcase, many of them smashed to pieces and stuck to everything. This time, they managed to tear open a bag of tea and just throw it right back in so this time I have tea leaves all over everything. ****ing bitches.

On a completely unrelated note, I want to be able to have music from my office PC sent to a separate set of speakers in my bedroom. My office is too far from my bedroom to just turn the music up really loud. Is this possible?

I ask because I listen to a lot of music on youtube and don't want to buy a separate computer and waste space in my bedroom just to listen to youtube.