Get some full-spectrum lights for your room too. Artificial sunlights can do wonders to lift your mood.

What are those, grizy? Light bulbs that have the same positive effect on your skin as sunlight? (i.e. vitamin D iirc?)

I know you have given some good advice but flipping burgers is just ******ed for multiple reasons and i'm not sure how serious u were on that one.

First off he is 'afraid' of going outside so this isn't really an option, at least not at the moment.

Coaching is an awesome idea, not only is he making more money but also communicating with others and stuff. Like he mentioned he might need to drop his rate from $600/h - even i would consider to purchase for like ~$200 (only playing plo once a month or so...) and at such a rate he probably will find a ton of others being interested to buy some sessions.
You might feel too proud about dropping your rate by a lot DB, but if you enjoy coaching i'm pretty sure it's not a bad idea.

To ever overcome problems, you have to deal with them. Doing things you are a afraid of "because you have to" is a good excuse to actually make them. If DB would try it for a week, he will realize that seeing some ppl arnt that bad. Doing things you are afraid of is what make u stronger. If almost nothing is an option with the excuse that your afraid of walking outside, you are never going to get out...
imo LJ:s advice are good

^ just meant he won't overcome that over night - besides his main problem (at the moment) is his financial situation, therefore i like coaching which he is doing anyways, so that's a good start.

For the social part i like the volunteer thing better than flipping burgers - nothing against burger flippers it's just that a) there are likely more interesting people volunteering b) he does something he can be proud of.

decision between flipping burgers and lowering coaching rate seems a bit trivial no?

Actually.. I'm not sure if the financial situation is the worst problem...

What are life without having fun, friends and dreams?! As I mentioned earlier itt I think it's more important to have something to live for, outside poker or whatever it is, that make you happy. Let's say db was without debts etc. what would he do?! Play poker maybe? But meet friends and do other things?! idk. I'm not sure poker is that fun for anyone, that playing 24/7 is making you happy. Of course the financial problem was factor that put him in his fear etc...

Agree what volunteering could be a good way to give both A and B from your quote. Also studying is very very good to meet new ppl, that wont judge you from anything in your life until the first time you meet them!

btw I'm having similar troubles atm (in debt, feeling down, lost in life, wanna stay inside etc) but minor ones, and I can feel the same things. But I know nothing will change without trying. You cant be stuck in ur home and feel self pity or thinking of the past, "what if" etc... therefore I've come to some of these conclusions which I've suggested. It may sound hard and all that but you MUST face your fears!. gl

Xpost from HSNL transfer thread:

Im holding 1400 on Stars for Doorbread (US player) and want BoA to him.

Willing to pay 2% but will deal with reputable posters only preferable ppl I know. And you send first.

My references for 5-6 figures trades is: gavz101, terken89, luckygump, ashman101 stinger88 and more.

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/15..****-dr-1123196/

For reference on why Im holding for him and how it would be really nice helping him out.

PM me.

Just to put it out there I have lowered my rates to $200/hr $800/5hr and am willing to negotiate with people who play plo 50 or lower.

I don't get how u still want to charge $200ph for coaching but work for $12ph

Why not charge $50ph and get 20 players onboard?

Don't mean to dampen the spirits with all the positive comments on here but seems you are still a but deluded imo

Doorbread,

we never met etc. but I want to jump on board of the advice train.
You wouldn't be where you are today if you were incapable of pushing yourself, of trying harder than most people, of going beyond what is expected. At some (more likely several) point(s) in your career you were faced with difficult situations, and you mastered them. You have risen to the top of the game, which is obviously a tremendous achievement.

You are obviously suffering from mental illnesses, so offering advice such as "it could be so much worse, just look at all those starving kids in Africa" will be of little use, but don't underestimate the power of your mind. My grandparents told me many stories about their time in various concentration camps during the Holocaust, and of the inconceivable physical and psychological duress they were forced to undergo. Not eating for days at a time, seeing death all around you and not knowing if you will see the sun go down another time - how can the human body endure this kind of stress? The answer is: it can't. But the human mind is capable of things that science can't explain.

I guess the point of my story is that you have no idea just how much you can achieve when you're forced to. One of these days when you feel strong enough, gather all your courage, open the door and just go. Don't think about it, just do it. Force it. Based on your success at poker it seems pretty evident that there is a lot more willpower in you than there is in a vast majority of people.

Good luck with everything, hope you get your groove back.

Sometimes just going outside to simply remember that an entire world exists outside of your room works wonders.

Perhaps I'm underestimating the amount of students I could get for $50/hr vs $200/hr. 20 students seems pretty high. I've discussed coaching prices with people itt to come to my current number and admittedly wouldn't have gone this low on my own.

I am not sure if you can get 20 students even if you coached for free.

That's not how it works. Lowering your rates doesn't increase the number of students significantly. $200/hr is probably sub-optimally low if anything.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_phobia

love peace courage heart
Symbols of Power for the Soul. Remember them.
Dont forget, it is in your head nowhere else.

Just Do it ? Try it one more time to create a new map of the enternal world and adjust the map of the world. you have the luck to adjust cuz you dont get the right map on the first couple times. Its a gift to learn.

Its not bad but it doesnt do his job, the map dont overlap with the purpose thats the main point of a Problem.




you can try to mae every day ministep
first time you go till you can
next time you try a bit more, lie one cm more movement to your anxiet
not more, a bit more, where you push your boundaries but are comfortable

regards

A couple people have asked what I've been up to lately, and I've hit a milestone not too long ago so I thought I would update this thread.

Since I last updated this thread I was pretty much in the same place mentally, but had gotten some coaching done and made some money to help out my mom. I still wake up some days feeling awful and wanting to die, but for the first time in a few months, I have little doubt that things will end up well for me in the end if I’m willing to work on them.

My backer rang me on Skype and told me had a layover in Vegas a week ago. I really didn't think I was ready to at the time, but I thought it was important that we talk so I told him I'd be able to make it out to grab a bite with him. We ended up having some miscommunications in that he didn't have a phone or something and was only able to txt through Skype but I was unaware of that, so after ringing him for an half an hour and sending him a message on Facebook, I suggested to my chauffer for the night (my brother) that we go grab a bite. I chose not to drive myself because I still haven’t replaced my license and am too blind to read street signs.

We ended up eating at Musashi sometime around 9 and although I wasn’t surrounded by people, I was still outside and didn’t spontaneously combust. It felt really good to be outside again for the first time in so long. I missed sushi. Even though I haven’t left since or gotten to the point where I want to be out and about every day I can say that I’m over that fear, which for me, felt like the most daunting task.

Looking forward I’ve set some goals for myself in the long and short term that I think will get me out of this depression. At the top of the list is to get my mother to a place financially where she’ll stop talking about moving out of Vegas because this is my brother’s and sister’s home and we have a lot of family here. I’d like to take some classes at CSN to clear whatever conditions I need to go to a real college and I’m hopeful that that will aide in fixing a lot of other problems that I do have. (Establishing a social circle leads to attaining some hobbies, more confidence leads to getting laid etc.)
Hopefully after I’ve mastered the basics of being a human I can settle down somewhere that’s not Las Vegas for a while. This is my home. I grew up here. My family is here. I truly do love it here, but experiencing another place should be really good for me.

Lastly, I want to fix my whole backing situation. I feel I need some advice here as I don’t think I see eye to eye with my backers. I want to outline the situation as completely as I can so everyones’ perspective can be known. Sometime in April we made a deal for 120k hands from 3/6-10/20. At a later date this was changed to 2/4-10/20 as I was down on the stake early. The deal was originally for heads up, but I was told I could play 6-max at various points in the stake. I had at a max 60k spread across something like 5-8 sites. This made it difficult for me, as a bad day at 5/10 or 10/20 could bust me on any given site. Because of this and a lack of communication (it would take weeks, some instances months to reload accounts, a couple months to get me an account with rakeback on it) it was difficult to get any volume in. For my last 40k or so hands I was playing mostly 2/2 with an unsuccessful shot at higher stakes where I broke stop loss ( I will touch upon this later) At the end of the stake I am down around 45k not including 5k or so that is locked up with Full Tilt.

Since wrapping up the stake, I have said that I felt really bad and suggested that we continue the stake, but in its normal conditions where I play the stakes we had agreed upon. They have said they want me playing lower stakes for awhile and that it would be really bad etiquette for me to leave them now since I had broken stop loss a few times. There were certainly a couple of occasions where I’d bust a 10k or something roll at 10/20 on a fish. In our last Skype convo one of my backers pasted something he had said about me quitting that day when I had lost 6k. This number didn’t stick out to me and the quote was from April. It wasn’t made clear in any sort of formal contract, but I never asked for a clear figure of what stop loss was.
I understand how they feel and asked that I play a number of ‘good faith’ hands where I abide by all rules that will be clearly written out. I feel this is good for me and them so they know I’m not a selfish ******* and that I can be a good horse when things are made clear. I’m sure they thought getting into this I would be a really easy person to deal with and I’d be up a **** ton, but that isn’t how things worked out. However, they did not respond to this idea when I brought it up. Instead they’ve proposed this guideline of buy ins and stakes. SL is stop loss.
Assuming Current Makeup is 50k.
Pkrbt is giving him 57% Loyalty/RB.

My Ideas for going forward effective today.

Playing:
1. HU is the best game to play game selecting. 5 and 6 max are profitable and can be played, but the emphasis still is on HU.
2. To get HU action, more than 1 site is necessary.
3. Another 5k will be shipped to properly roll for 5/5

Current Online: 13k

2. Current stakes 2/2 and 5/5. HU and 6 max for both.
- Number of maximum tables: 4-6 short handed.
- The highest limit you're allowed to play isn't the only for playing. It's still GAME SELECTION.

Limits are according to aggregate balances not including frozen FTP:
DAILY... Not a session stop loss, daily stop loss:
0-10k - 2/2
SL; 2000

10-15k - 2/2 5/5
SL:3000

15k-25k - 2/2 5/5
SL: 4000

25k-40k 2/2/5/5
SL: 6000

40k-50k 2/2 5/5/ 10/10
SL: 7000

50k-75k - 2/2 5/5 10/10
SL: 8000

75k-100k
SL: 10000

100k+ - 2/2 5/5 20/20 5/10
SL: 14000

If there's a super fish , call us for possibility of raising it for extreme circumstances. CONTACT MUST MADE.

Shots when moving up.
You have a 7 buyin threshold at that limit. Clear example would be you have 107k and want to play some 10/20. The MOMENT balances get to 93,000 there is no 10/20

whatsoever. Additionally, you'll have already reached your stop loss for the day.

On Money Now.
-500 Monthly No Matter What.

Additionally:
15% of profits and 15% of total rb shipped monthly.

I have 20k active at the moment and this seems really low and I feel like them not responding to my idea of good faith hands or wanting to refresh a contract of 100k hands, but rather saying no hand limit is just makeup and that the structure of buy ins is really low. The $500 a month is a stipulation they’ve added there to keep me happy as they know of my current financial situation. I would love to continue being backed by them as the original deal is very good, but the lack of communication and speed at which they perform tasks makes it really difficult to work with. I should be able to play 120k hands in 2 months VERY easily I feel. They said they plan on setting up a Skype phone which I’m free to call anytime, but after not being able to meet in Vegas because of not having a phone, I’m not too optimistic on how much communication will improve. What should I do?

To wrap things up I wanna thank everyone who’s made a post in this thread or an effort to reach out to me. I am truly thankful to everyone who sent me PM’s with words of wisdom, and an ear to listen with. I know I didn’t get back to quite a few of you and I plan to soon. Talking about my feelings can be pretty taxing and it’s not something I’m used to doing or want to do.

-db

GL DOOOOORRRBREAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAD!!!!

I really hope things are going to turn for you! And with this update, it seems you are on a good path!!

I'll let people more qualified than me to talk about your stake issues

gl

Unless they had stated in the staking agreement that any losses would be carried on into future stakes and that you would have to play x amount of hands after the stake if you were down, then you don't have to be staked by them again and it isn't unethical not to be.

The staking deal is over. You have no obligation to begin another. If you want to then it's up to all of you to decide on the rules (which it looks like they've done), and if you don't want to do that it's not unethical to part ways. You've offered a peace offering of sorts where you say you'll play x hands due to not abiding by a stop loss and they rejected it so you shouldn't feel bad about that either. I don't think you needed to make that offer in the first place.

The fact that you broke a stop loss in the first place was unethical, but it shouldn't have a huge bearing on how you proceed going forward. This is especially true of the fact that there were no hard guidelines of what your stop loss was and that there was a lot poor communication throughout the entire deal (which appears to be of the fault of the backers).

I think the first stake should have been set up like the second one for sure with strict guidelines of the stakes you can play and a daily stop loss and a "call/contact us if you want to change anything" stipulation. It wasn't though, and that aids to your benefit.

If you want to continue to be backed by them under the new agreement and are happy with the terms and the communication issue is the only problem then you should go ahead with the deal with some sort of stipulation that if you try and make contact x amount of times and they don't respond y times in z timeframes then you are free to leave the contract or do other things. It's terrible form for them to stake you and in essence "trap" you into only playing under the stake and then leave you high and dry with no money on sites, no account with RB, no response to questions about getting these things done, etc.

Bottom line is you shouldn't feel like you owe them anything. It's hard not to because you feel like you've let them down or lost them money but at the end of the day it was a business transaction that didn't work out -- it easily could have and I bet you if it did they wouldn't have felt bad about taking your money.

GL and am glad to hear things are looking a bit brighter than when you made your OP. We're all always here for you bro.

well, the good thing is you can start playing without much risk and get 500 for sure. actually, 50000 shouldnt take you that long if you can play 120k hands at 5/5. you ll probably be done in 2 months and make some money for yourself, too.

+1 to what roy said, you have absolutely no obligation to play in makeup if it was a no-makeup stake. The fact that you breached a somewhat wishy washy stop loss provision by a few K is more than counteracted by the enormous amt of time they left you high and dry with no money to play on the stake. I mean I'm not sure how a typical arrangement works, but they went numerous months without reloading your acct and then made you play stakes that were 1/3 as low as the very minimum specified, and imo you would have had a very good case for getting out of completing the original 120k hands and it's completely ridic that they would be able to force you to play more in makeup if it was wasn't stipulated in the agreement.

And gl, glad to hear you're making a few good steps with finances, mood, and getting back out in the world a little

Edit: On rereading I see it is not totally crappy and unreasonable deal for you with the 500 "salary" + 15% cut, but still think if you were to continue playing you should get more favorable terms.

I don't know anything about staking, so I'm not going to comment on that, but I would like to say I'm glad that your doing a little better. You were able to get out of the house and really enjoy yourself. Keep staying positive and keep pushing yourself a little more each day and just keep this momentum going for you. Wish ya the best.

-Jon

Yea, sounds like the backers are fairly inexperienced and just figured you'd be a low maintenance horse who would set his own stoploss, BR management, etc. If you didn't explicitly agree to not leave them in MU, you shouldn't feel you owe them. The best way for them to get their money back is agree to stake you again and give up on previous MU to keep you motivated.

How many hours have you put in coaching at $200/hr so far?

I find it surprising that people are lining up to pay that hourly in today's poker climate further complicated by your current situation(s.)