If you guys ever win a couple million at poker, Jesus, just quit poker. You've won. There are so many easier ways to make money with that kind of cash then to keep playing. If I ever had a big hit like that forget poker, if I missed it, I'd go play 2/5NL and 3/6, go hang at the 1-5 stud game with the old folks on occasion.

But to come across that type of cash, and then decide to sit there hunched over a PC or some dingy poker table for a living, ouch. As much as I love poker there's just so many better opportunities out there.

I think a real estate investment can be quite conservative regardeless of the market prospect if one's buying for his own living space for a long term.

The Money Show Las Vegas
5/12/2008 - 5/15/2008
Mandalay Bay Resort
Show Focus Managing Your Portfolio During Uncertain Times

http://www.moneyshow.com/msc/calendar.asp

With the subprime mess, Fed rate cuts, a government stimulus, and a Presidential election only a few months away, The Money Show Las Vegas, May 12-15, 2008, at The Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino is your best opportunity to learn how to manage your portfolio during these questionable, economic times. Hear from world-class experts in more than 220 FREE workshops where they will give you every opportunity to prepare yourself for the uncertainty that may lie ahead. Also, visit the exhibit hall and meet over 200 exhibitors face-to-face and evaluate the latest tools and software—all designed to help you profit in 2008.

http://www.lasvegasmoneyshow.com/msc/LVMS/main.asp

Move to Harlem rent is half and it is slowly gentrifying........

That's fine to buy commercial property but $1.5m cash won't buy you much commercial property in Manhattan. Apartments are easy, readily available, and take very little effort to rent (Craigslist). As far as other messages, the whole point is you don't need a mortgage -- you are paying cash. The rent is your income and living money/bankroll. Your principal is protected. If you want to use the $1.5m as a bankroll that is a completely different story but the OP sounded like he wanted to protect his $1.5m and play off interest, etc.

The other guy posted the link.

I would suggest not signing up for any of the paid sessions on your first visit. Just go to the free stuff. You won't have time for all of it anyway. Make sure you go through the trade show, but go slow on buying or subscribing to anything. They have lots of "show specials" and it's easy to get carried away with signing up.

They have this show all over the country, including NYC, but that one was earlier this year already. If you still have interest, consider attending NYC next year. I bet it gets a lot of locals that won't travel to Vegas.

sup doug. i'm a good friend of your roommate and they told me that he's living with u following with "he's a baller... he made the final table in the wsop a couple years ago".

anyways, good for you that you decided to look into other options. i feel bad for your roommate who works like a dog and never hangs out with his friends. he wants me to visit this fall before he leaves for boston but i told him that he'd have to come with me to AC for the weekend. perhaps i'll meet u then or at the wsop.

I don't underestimate that. I absolutely love when my employees take on debt.

Nothing makes me happier than my guys buying vehicles or houses.

The employee with debt has to work, the employee who wants to work is ~ 3x more effective though.

Are your total expenses (living costs) less than what you get in interest? Cuz that would be str8 balla.

haha, he has time from time to time. he's really looking forward to going to school though.

only because a certain someone will be in the area at least that's the joke amongst us.

Wasicka has a column in the recent Bluff about keeping your monies after you win it.

hookers and blow?

screw you doug

lol awesome bump

is Techno still playing?

Yea I saw him the other day:

i lol'd

so amongst other things (people mistaking me for a certain toolbox, boredom, it being one year after as an adventurous poker player) i decided to post about how it's been since i quit my job and what my thoughts are. true, this may not be as interesting as a raptor blog entry, or a juicy durrrr challenge, but what the hell, bbvaments.

when i came back to poker, i didn't really know what to expect. before the uigea, i was playing a LAGtard style of something like 28/17, making standard bread and butter plays, c-betting, cold calling with drawing hands and just making money by taking people to value town, etc. but i decided to stay in manhattan, and play online, since i'm lazy and i don't like to move around a lot.

so after using the rest of my fpps in my stars account to win 1440, i used that to grind .5/1 in march. i played that for 50k hands until i felt i was winning satisfactorily, and then moved up to 1/2 in april and played another 50k hands. i also had a trip to cancun with my family which was a lot nicer than i expected, it's good to get out and travel every now and then i think.

.5/1 results:


1/2 results:



then i moved up to 2/4 in may.

2/4 results may-present:

results are roughly 50k hands per month, sort of



3/6 results may-present:

i played 3/6 a lot less frequently, only when there were good games running so i actually have a better win rate at 3/6



it was crazy at first. as evidenced by my graph, i ran into a rough patch early before breaking through. the growth was slow, but eventual, i finally realized that people were doing something different. 3-betting, 4-betting light pf, i started to think these games were crazy aggressive. i started to adjust, and started to think more deeply about hand ranges, 3-bet frequencies, c-bet frequencies, and how to counter my seemingly wild opponents. i remember an aha momemtn, when dcalzone told me that AKo had 40% equity against a range of AA-QQ/AK which made me go ZOMG AKo iz teh nutz0rs! and started to really think of poker through a bayesian theory perspective. however, my cash game adventures would have to wait as i had the world series of pokers to contend with in june-july.

the series this year was my first time spending an extended time in vegas. in 2006, i had just went to vegas in july 25, 3 days before i started my run in the main event. in 2007, i just went solely for the main event, to take as little vacation time as possible. i spent the summer at a house with some 2p2ers, which was kind of a disaster tbh. the house was half the original house we thought we were getting, air conditioning was broken sometimes, there would be random workmen who broke windows, the tv was meh, the plumbing in one of the bathrooms was broken...etc. it was as anti-baller as you can get. now, i'm a pretty frugal guy, but i think if i had to do it over again, i'd definitely spend more to get better living conditions than that.

to top it off, i went 2-11 in series events (both mincashes), and played my final hand so badly in the main event after clawing my way back as a short stack that i became so demoralized from poker in general. i did get in one episode of the 2008 broadcast though (ironically, i was next to jen harman, may the doug lee jokes commence) i was mad at myself because i was still making fundamental errors in my game from both an emotional and technical standpoint. vegas was a sobering reminder that not all is sunshine and happy for the professional poker player. i also realize that i don't really enjoy vegas (my personality isn't really suited for the partying lifestyle).

in august, i decided to get coaching from tommy angelo. i think this helped me to gain some sanity back, and realize that i needed to make some goals in my life. i thought i wanted to be an awesome player, but i think that's coming out of some foolish idea of trying to "validate" my poker win; that i'm not just a random luckbox. don't get me wrong, i still want to get better at poker, but i think that i've come to accept that i may never reach that elite level, and that i even truly want to. i decided that i was going to use poker as a means instead to do what i wanted to, and that i wanted to be a performer. throughout high school/college, i was always doing music things trying to tell a story, etc. i decided to try to learn about acting. being in new york city, it seemed natural then to find a school in the city to learn instead of looking like a clueless newb (el oh el ADZaments?), so i applied to and am currently enrolled at a studio in nyc.

but before that i decided to take one last shot at tournaments when i went with t_mac to the borgata to play the WPT events and the WCOOP. with my superb math skills, i estimated the chance of either of us making a final table of one of the events was probably around 60%. i managed to go deep in the 2.5k event, only to bust in 20th with a top 10 stack with J7 vs AThh on a QJ7hh flop. then i went from 40k to 12k in the main event, to finish with 252k, 3rd in chips after day 1. apparently my run good got sucked out of me by one vivek rajkumar after sitting next to him at the end of the day, because i sat at a table on day 2 where i was the best player by far and the next best player was probably steve dannenman, and i got 3-bet and c/r to slow and painful death by the weak tightest of all tables. i finished in a demoralizing 70th place (top 54 paid) towards the end of day 2 as a short stack ninja. i swore that tournaments were a mirage and that nobody ever won at them afterwards. (don't flame me plz) oh yeah, i also went 0-wcoop.

since september, nothing exciting has really happened pokerwise, but school has been an enlightening experience. acting truly is a lot harder than i thought it was, almost impossible at times. i don't really know if i have the chops for it, but i'm just having fun right now and taking it one day at a time.

since i had a lot of my winnings in the market, i am no longer a millionaire. i won't say how much i lost, but it wasn't pretty. probably enough so that i think i'm going to get somewhat more serious about poker. however, i have less time because of school, so my poker growth has been somewhat stagnated. i still am trying to break out of being a 2-2.5ptbb winner at 2/4-3/6, but feel like i am playing some of my best poker and am better prepared for the WSOP this time around.

a bright spot is that my sister's business is slowly starting to make strides. she had a pretty cool fashion showcase that got decent press coverage, and she managed to get a trunk show at a very good location in nyc (not sure if i'm allowed to disclose that info will find out later), so if all else fails, i'll fall back on my sister's coattails to fame and fortune. well, just fortune, heh.

hopefully this coming year will be brighter and cooler in terms of finance and life decisions. (that wasn't worded well but i'm kind of tired right now) i have to admit that the past year as a poker player was not an easy one as i was pretty much almost breakeven (those tournament buy ins really add up in a hurry), and losing almost half your net worth in a year is hard to recover from for anyone. but i'm not one to back into a corner and die easily, i look forward to pwning fish and getting back in the thick of things. wish me luck, bbv.

Wow long ass post, I still read it all. Pretty gross that despite the quality grinding you did you finish breakeven in poker. Lesson=**** donkaments. You've had your one time lol!

Sorry to hear you lost so much of your net worth. Its still a pretty good BR for MSNL though lol.

good thread IMO

sick downswing at 12k

[ ] doug kim is a tool

I saw this thread and I was actually going to ask about your sisters business (I remember you posting about it) before I saw you mentioned it at the end

think about this. I've seen you post on 2p2 for a while, I've never talked to you in person but I know who you are, you have a big OP saying how you're quitting the world to be a poker player and live a different lifestyle. I know all about that.

And the thing i want to know most is how your sister's business is going.

[ ] Sick downswing
[x] Standard downswing at 600NL.

Nice post, takes balls to talk about some of that stuff. But looks like you are developing a pretty solid cash game. Good luck!