Let's start out with the basics. I'm from the East Coast of Florida, I'm 18 and I just moved to Gainesville for college. I'm a biochemistry major, but my real passion is poker.

Now we can talk about my poker history. I started playing poker online when I was 17. Played PLO and some NLHE sit n gos. Stopped playing poker for whatever reason (probably school,) and stopped until I turned 18. When I turned 18 I started playing live poker. Now when I say "when I turned 18," I literally mean the day I turned 18. I had about 5 winning sessions in a row and made about $900 the first week I played. Of course at the time I thought I was hot ****. Without going in to too much detail I donked away all the money I won plus some and donked away about every paycheck I made at work ($200 a week) for about three months. Lost a lot of my parents money as well and lost a lot of trust with family and friends. I don't know why, but at no point did I ever think about giving up poker. When you love poker and you love the math behind the cards it's really addicting. I'll go in to my degen stories later at some point. Anyways from this point I started playing online again. I was playing DoNs and started making decent profit. A couple months later I started playing live again and at this point I was crushing souls at my local poker room. I have now moved to Gainesville for college, paid everyone back that I owed, and left myself with a pretty small bankroll.

The gist of this blog is to track my live poker stats and post some hands or some funny stories. So without further ado I'll start writing day one.

Day 1

Profit: $521
Session Length: 2 hours
Profit Per Hour: $260.50

So this was my first day at the Ocala Poker Room and I had a really short session cuz my roommate wanted to rail me and he had to go back home after a couple hours. Took a while to get a seat for 1/2, although I did go in the middle of the day on a work day. I ran really well. That's a no brainer for the profit per hour, but most of my run good was on two big hands that made the difference between a small profit or a huge profit.

First hand: I don't really recall the details of this hand other than it was a failed semibluff vs a nit where I put him all in on the flop for about $40 in to a $70 pot. I had an open ended straight draw and he had an overpair to the board. I turned a straight to win the pot.

Second Hand: Came down to the river and a really terribad player pushed on me for $75 into a $150 pot. I had an open ended straight as well as a flush draw. I called him off as I was getting 2:1 to call and it was a 35/65 flip. I rivered the flush and he tilted pretty hard and left, twas great.

Overall very successful day. I only made two really bad plays that I can recall. One was a failed bluff for a $75-$100 loss and the other was the first hand I mentioned. Very happy with the lag style I am playing and seemed to work well for the first day. Made some super soul reads on a couple players that saved me about $100 over a couple hands and minimized my losses on hands I wasn't going to win.

Might go play some more later tonight, and definitely will be playing later as I don't have class tomorrow.

Gl bro from a UCF player.

Tyvm.

Looks like I am gonna go play some more now so I'll leave another update whenever I'm done.

Day 1 Session 2

Profit: -$400
Session Length: 7 hours 40 minutes
Profit Per Hour: -$52.15

Overall Profit: $121
Overall Time Played: 9 hours 40 minutes
Overall Profit Per Hour: $12.51

So... This was a pretty sick session. I played really solid for about 9 hours and 39 minutes and then lost $400 on a failed triple barrel. I started off the session running pretty bad and capped up from $100 up to $200 3 times. After the last time I topped up to $200 I played really solid for about 6-7 hours and grinded back the losses. During these 6-7 hours I think I might have showed down about 3-4 pots and most of mt profit was from stealing blinds and pots in position. Anyways from hours 7-9 I pretty much bounced between $300 ($100 loss) to $550 ($150 gain) for said time. I was going to leave much much earlier but we had an insanely drunk agro tard at are table (ended up winning a lot, go figure.) Too much action at the table and too close to the card room closing for me to call it a night once it got to about 2 or 3 am.

To set up how I lost all of my money let me first explain the circumstances. This guy in his mid to late 50s had lost about $400-$600. Not completely sure on the amount but he bought back in multiple times after losing showdowns. Anyways he gets up to about $250 from his $200 buy in and gets in a multiway all in with 3 people after the flop. Pot total was about $600 and he ends up rivering a royal flush. At this poker room they do $500 for a royal flush at any time. So he went from being stuck about $400-$600 to being in the green around the same. This was about 20 minutes before the pot I got involved in with him. As I said, I tripple barreled on a board with 3 6's and he called my shove on the river for about 75% of the pot with a full house. This was a pretty bad play in retrospect, and I have no problem with it because I will learn from said mistake but the main problem I had with it was what was said after by the villain. His exact words were, "I've been waiting all night to do that." This was in reference to his problem with my play style. I was playing very lag, making some bluffs, stealing pots and blinds when I was in position, and it seemed that everytime I bet he would roll his eyes or mumble something under his breath. It was clear he had a problem with my play style, and maybe it's just me, but I thought this comment was way over the top when he just won a $800 pot from me and that put him $1000+ in to the green. Anyways rough night, but I made profit during the day so no worries. I was gonna write about how ****ing hilarious the drunk guy was, but it's almost 5am here now and I cba.

Day 2

Profit: -$400
Session Length: 3 hours 30 minutes
Profit Per Hour: -$121.21

Overall Profit: -$279
Overall Time Played: 13 hours 10 minutes
Overall Profit Per Hour: -$21.18

Sigh. Started off the day with two missed nut flush draws ai after the flop vs shorter stacks which put me down around $300. I ended up winning the high hand with quad 4s which paid off $100 and put me back to a $200 stack ($200 in the hole still.) I worked my way back up to $350 with a couple good showdowns and then I run in to the nuts with the second nuts preflop. Guy to my right raises to 15 in mp and I raise to 45 in mp+1 it folds back the him and he flats. Flop comes j46 rainbow. He checks, I bet 55, he raises to 155, I shove, and he flips AA.

Day 3

Profit: +$1190
Session Length: 6 hours (3 hour tourney + 3 hour cash)
Profit Per Hour: $198.33

Overall Profit: $911
Overall Time Played: 19 hours 10 minutes
Overall Profit Per Hour: $47.52

Such an awesome, sick and weird day all at the same time. Started off the day with a $115 + $10 add on tournament (10,000 + 10,000 add on.) Paid top two places and we just chopped for $1000 each. We gave the bubble $50 each and we also tipped the dealer $25 each so I netted $800.

I then played 1/2 and had the sickest heater. I always play very lag and I was just hitting every hand no matter what. I was up like $500 in 30 minutes and then I got called by 3rd pair on a perfect triple barrel bluff line. Everyone agreed they would have folded, but the person in the hand didn't. I was still up like $200 after that and was still on a heater. Ended up cashing out with $650 or something of that sort.

The craziest part of the night is that I got robbed for $100. I always buy $400 worth of reds at the cage so I have chips to top up with. Like everyone else in the room I put them (still in the rack) on one of those little rolling food/drink tables right next to me. This guy sitting to the left of me was with his girlfriend, you know, one of those pilled out couples trying to make rent. One of the couples that come in together and she rails him while he donks away the last $400 dollars to his name while she sits there shaking because of the pills and the fear that her boyfriends is going to lose the last dollar to their name. Anyways he stole $100 off of my rack and I didn't notice til he was literally leaving the parking lot in his car after he cashed out my $100. They looked at the cameras and saw him take the money. They can't reimburse me and they can't really do anything about it other than permanently ban him from the poker room. I said I wanted to press charges if they could, when/if he comes back. Anyways I don't really think anything will happen with it and I'm grateful that I had a great night either way.

The lesson learned here is don't leave chips sitting off of the table. Everyone does it but all it takes is that one pilled out excuse of a life to take them, cash out and walk out the door.

Forgot to mention I'm playing the WPT event #15 at the Hardrock in Tampa tomorrow. It's a black chip bounty $240 + $30 +$100 + $20 re entry 15k guaranteed. If anyone is going to be there tomorrow send me a pm and maybe me and the friend I'm going with can meet up with you.

I've been too lazy to update anything lately, but it's good to note I run pretty awfully in tournaments. Played one tonight and the 3 hands I played were: k10 vs k10 runner runner flush, AJ vs 44 no hits, and A6 vs A4 with a 6 on the flop runner runner flush. No bounties at the WPT event and I didn't cash obviously. I ran into quad K's and then lost A5 vs 58 to knock me out of the WPT.

Some questions because I'm interested in your story.

What is your eventual goal? What does "stardom" entail for you?
What do you think the odds are that you have an unhealthy addiction to gambling?
What do you think the odds are that you play in a way/select games where you have an edge greater than the rake?
What do you think the odds are that you are capable of ever having an edge greater than an average wage, when rake is accounted for?
How much money would you need to make in the next five years, to make 18-23 spent playing poker, rather than out enjoying and building a life and a work history, worthwhile?

I'm not trying to make a point. I'm genuinely curious as to where your head is at/if you've thought about them.

Thanks for the questions means a lot.

• My eventual goal would mean making a living out of poker until I can happily quit and be set for life w/ stocks, savings, etc.
• I wouldn't say I have an unhealthy addiction to gambling, because at this point I feel like I can control it as I used to not be able to. I think I'm definately addicted to some extent still, but I think I have enough knowledge of bankroll management at this point to not just degen my money away.
• I think I definately edge out the rake. There's not much table selection at my poker room, but it's soft enough where table selection isn't a problem. I play LAG which I feel is the best style for the room, I pick my spots vs villains and try and not get too involved in pots with regulars. I probably need to work on minimizing losses and not getting too concerned with pot odds when I know I'm beat.
• I think I currently have an edge greater than an average wage and I think as I build my bankroll and start moving up to higher stakes I will continue improving profit per hour.
• I think balance is the key. I'm in college and I'm currently having a great time while playing poker as well as focusing on school. I don't think it's too much of a stretch to balance everything at this time and I'm not too concerned with making a large sum at the moment, but I believe becoming better at the game and not destroying my bankroll are my two main concerns at the moment.

Once again thanks for the questions, and they're all very good questions.

Played another tourney at the Hard Rock on Thursday. $50 +$50 bounty +$20. Placed 4th which paid $182 and scored two bounties as well for $100 more. Shoved 77 and ran in to JJ to knock me out.