great solid post merci DGI

I followed your optimal path during the last few years, but I'm actually hitting a wall. I don't enjoy poker when I log more than 100 hours a month at the table. So even if I wanted to become a pro, it will become a grind. Live poker can only be for me a part time hobby with incomes

Question : Do you still love the game after years logging a decent amount of hours/month ? How you pros manage to not get bored playing 5days/week (for example)?

thanks

I guess for me ,the answer is to just maintain your perspective...

Whenever I'm out and about in the city I see people working hard jobs: janitors, fast food, waiters, laborers...

these people are breaking their backs 50 hours a week in dead end jobs that pay minimum wage...

Whereas, I play cards for a living...

I don't have to "love" the game to play it. Sure, it's a nice fringe benefit that I like poker... but whenever I start to feel like "Man this sucks" I simply remind myself that there are people out there that would KILL to be able to switch places with me.

As for being bored... again, same thing. But after a while, you automate a lot of your play and at least in the casino, you can entertain yourself either watching TV or chatting with your neighbor while you follow the action.

Yeah when I get frustrated I remind myself that I'm getting paid to sit in an air-conditioned room, on a padded chair, playing a game, with food/drink brought to me at my beck and call. Tough life. Also, occasionally you run into really wealthy people who suck at poker, but are a wealth of information when it comes to investing/etc.

Thank you again for your contribution to 2+2.

I just highlighted this quote because these are the little gems that come out that I think many people miss. There are a lot of threads that go, "I'm bored playing live, I want to grind online, read a book, text my friends etc., what's wrong with that while I'm playing?" Notice that dgi is always in the game, watching. It makes a difference.

Posting in thread to read later. Looks great.

Awesome post, Very informative. Should be a sticky.

Thanks for this thread dgi! Im currently grinding 1/2 to build a roll for 2/5 and eventually go pro. Im thinking of griding the micros online to fine tune my game. My casino is filled with regs and i find that im struggling to make 20/hr as it seems everyone is trying to play well. Can you give me some advice on what leaks to look for in regs so we can exploit them?

Call too much. C/f to cbets too much. C/c fold to 2nd barrel when unimproved too much. Sticky with any piece. Calls 3b oop too much. Folds to 3b too much. The list goes on

Hi dgiharris,

At Bay101, what would you say the prerequisites for sitting down at 1/2 are? I am a fairly new player and I plan on going to bay soon to play 1/2. What are common mistakes you see at the 1/2 tables at Bay101

they would be the same mistakes as 1/2nl at any casino.

The LLSNL forum Stickies have great breakdowns for beating the 1/2nl game.

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/17...llsnl-1168186/

and the stickies at the top of this forum are very helpful as well

good luck

DGI - Thanks for this post. I have been reading and re-reading it since it was put up. I am not sure if you intended to answer questions as part of this thread but I have one. I am experiencing my first extended streak of negative variance - going on 3 months now. I thought I embraced variance as the engine that makes the game run but it is getting to me, and I am underrolled. I started tracking my poker sessions about 5 years ago and my graph has been a mostly steady climb. I have played mostly 2/5 nl with 1500+ hours last year. I work outside of poker but poker has become a significant part of my income. For the long term I think this will be good for me as every hole in my game is becoming evident but only if I can survive this streak. A new casino has opened in my area that now offers 1-3 and I have dropped down as my roll can't handle 2-5, and my confidence is pretty shaky now.

Question: Have you experienced a bring you to your knees neg var streak? How did you cope with it. I have heard of many players that do not survive these streaks. I do not want to be one. If this question is not appropriate for this thread no prob. Again...thanks for this and all your posts.

Being willing to drop down in stakes for BR reasons is a very positive sign for you. Good luck

If you read thru his PG&C thread you will see he dropped down a few times when he had some run bad.

Great post DGI.

5*.

Definitely needed this. Great post/thread. Props.

Thank you for this post OP. Well done.

Insane amount of awesome information. I have made a U-Turn and going to the beginning of the Optimal Path to start this journey over.

Thank you!!

Couldn't agree more. And I also used his optimal path as a blueprint for my PG&C thread.

This should be stickied. As someone who is currently reaching that point where poker has a larger upside of earnings potential for me than my crap job, this post is a huge asset. I'm stuck still working full time at my job which removes the most profitable games from my schedule. I work 10PM-630am and never off weekends. I am curious what DGI would say about me. I live 30 minutes from several live games in AC and now have the ability to grind 50nl/100nl online. I'm half way towards my 3k goal (which is now 4k based on this thread) till moving to live a little bit more. Online is preferable due to the increased volume but I also have less game selection the 1/2 games available live. Do I chop them up 50/50 to take away some of the variance of live? I've been owned by the short term run bad of 1/2 too many times to play under rolled again though.

DGI - great info and insight in this thread. I wish more aspiring pros would read it.

I'm just a rec player - a self employed guy who takes his poker pretty seriously (love what I do for a living so no plans to even consider pro poker). For years i was consistently crushing it. And it wasn't until those inevitable, soul-crushing downswings where I would lose every draw etc, that made me really recognize how challenging this "game" is, and how hard it must be for people who do this for a living.

From a business standpoint, it's a highly volatile environment. I couldn't imagine running my business on the financial edge, as I see many inexperienced "pros" do in these forums. But I'm also older, and I already took my shots at having fun as a younger guy.

Like you, I cringe at all the neighborhood stars in this forum who take their shots without a solid plan, who would likely be far more successful if they treated their poker enterprise like any other start-up.

Great op dgi. Well worth reading for all types of players. I'm pretty much in the same boat as naxetami, so to add on to his thoughts, I recommend reading the book "treat your poker as a business."

I just read that book nit3.runn3r. It has little relevance to the aspiring live game pro IMO. Anyway, great post! Not only was this full of info, but I found myself laughing out loud at much of the humor. GL out there, not that you need it!

Thank you for this great post Dgi.

I have a quick question.
How many BI do you have to lose before you stop?3-5?
Does it matter how you lost them? Say you lost most because of bad beats, do you continue or just stop to avoid hurting your bankroll to much?
Thank you.

How does stopping playing help avoid hurting your bankroll? If you're +EV in the game and you have the roll to play then why would the fact you've lost 5BI or whatever make any difference?