What about India instead?

Heh, last class wasn't that bad! I'm learning a lot about Muslims, Hindus, and Buddhists. WOOOOO


Would much rather talk about colonial Jamestown, but I'm a huge dork.

Classic poker answer: "It depends." While some Protestants seem to shun Catholics, I don't subscribe to that. A real follower of Christ is a Christian...regardless of some differences in ceremony. However, there are a lot of people that identify themselves as Catholic as more of a cultural thing as opposed to really believing. (To be fair, there are some Protestants in a similar boat...but it doesn't seem as rampant.) Y'all related one of the sad notes about the Catholic church...it seems to churn out atheists.


I'd love to match up politically/socially/economically, but I'm not disqualifying any girls for differences there.

As for that relationship...I was 20...she was 18. She was also a virgin, though we fooled around, and she was willing to have sex...and we likely would've if I'd been game.

The issue was mine. I loved her, but my beliefs hold that I can't marry a non-Christian. It greatly pained me...and my hesitance led that relationship to linger as long as it did. However, beyond mere "commandment", I also viewed it practically. I've never heard of a "mixed" marriage working outside of one partner converting after marrying...and even then, it comes with a lot of difficulties. Basically, I have very different definitions of love and forgiveness from atheists. I think those two concepts are extremely important in the context of a relationship...so both parties should agree about their basis.

It's not that I didn't want to be with her. I did. Christianity didn't limit me from loving her. It just meant we couldn't get married. I think you'll find that I'm a very accepting and forgiving person. I try to avoid excluding people, and I get frustrated with the Christians that are quick to judge others.

Funny sidenote, jennifer tilly style play at my 1/2 game last night:

3 people

Preflop pot is raised to $13 and there's 3-way action on the flop, so pot is $~40
Flop is
Jc-10c-8s

First guy checks, second guy bets $20, third guy calls $20, first guy raises to $60, both call.
Pot is $~220 on turn.

Turn:
Jc-10c-8s-Jd
First guy checks, second guy checks, third guy checks

River:
Jc-10c-8s-Jd-Ac
First guy checks, second guy checks, third guy checks

First guy: Q-10
Second guy: JJ
third guy: 99

Second guy: "I was going to check raise on the turn but no one bet, and then I thought the (third guy) had QcKc on the river"

To me, that is frustrating. I mean obviously it's fine with you because you chose that path, but it just seems so unreasonable from my outside non-religious naked eye.

I remember an angry post you made about not +1'ing. Minus points for you, and minus more points for +1'ing yourself.

lol

+1

no argument here

meh, take it easy.

I have to take a shot at 5/10 next time I'm in a casino. I don't want to get old and die without giving myself a chance.

My track record is ghey at 5-10. But I haven't played in forever. From what I know about your game (your posts) you would be a favorite in my 5-10 game (this means not very much for you).

Thanks for the input.

My main concern is being intimidated by the money. I've had trouble in the past folding on late streets ("Holy crap, I can't invest $x and then fold." Complete crap thinking.) after moving up.

I definitely had troubles with money too. The last time I played 5-10 the deck hit me in the face for a bit, and I got up a ton, misplayed a hand and lost the biggest pot of my life. I posted the hand awhile back 910hh v Axhh with a xxhh9 flop and 10 turn. Bah. I'm never in the "I've invested so much" corner, it's more of a "this game is so much different than the 2-5."

I still don't know how to beat it, but I haven't really been playing much poker. The game I played in was 400min-1k max. But sometimes there are 2-3 players that open raise to like $75-100 pf. I just sit there clueless at how to play since they are handcuffing me so much and when I play it I'm taking a shot, so it's quite intimidating. That makes losing a 6k+ pot or whatever it was all the worse because I thought there was very little chance I could book a losing session once I had 3k in front of me. Very frustrating experience for me overall, especially since I think I'm at worst the 4th or 5th best player at a table of 10. Oh well, glad I opened those old wounds.

Omg, a religious debate.

Run!

Oh, and right now I wish I had the money to play 1/2, let alone 5/10.

Meh, for me I really don't have the money for either. But it's an ego thing, I don't even want to play 2-5 anymore because I want to prove to myself I can beat that 5-10 game. So when I start trekking it back out to Buffalo I'll probably put in a couple 2-5 sessions and then take on a friend to buy up some of my action for 5-10.

I swear my ego kills me.

I own NL strat right now and have made the last 9 or so posts. ROARRRRR

Alright, I'll start it up. People you want to start posting again in NL strat, or to just start posting in NL strat.

1st pick: Holyfield.

Save up for a car.
I actually want to get a motorbike, do you think If I saved up enough fpps theyd buy one for me?




::raises hand::



QFT

I've played 5/10 lhe twice. I lost big (for me) both times; first time $150ish in my first year of Uni so that is huge; the second time about $600. The second time I busted myself for the weekend leaving $40 for all my meals, luckily I still worked at the delivery company and got cash tips and discounted food. LHE is the devil, especially unbeatable games where it costs 75c a hand before you recieve your cards.

I think I've said it before, Bankroll management is the most important skill in poker, learn it as quick as possible. Not for you David, for the lurkers reading, you know who you are.

I can't wait till I'm rolled for the 5/10 nl game at the casino down the road from me.

Concierge service, ftw!

Zach --

Do you have any contingency plans if you have another bad month? I'm just a little worried you're getting in a hole here.

I think it might help to reevaluate your overall strategy for managing the bankroll. I think you might be playing too low. I know that's a mistake I made when I was playing full-time. Don't wake up one day and realize you were doomed to failure just by your choice of stakes.

The problem you have now is that the necessary bankroll : winrate is very high for LHE. Are there live games available to you? If so, what game variations?

If this comes off as patronizing, I apologize. We can take this to PM if you prefer.

I wish we had a local 5/10 game. There is a 2/5 pot limit mix, but it's unlimited buyin and I don't like omaha. It's wild and I think you need about a $40K bankroll to play it right. Biggest HE game locally is a 1/2 NLHE with a $300 buy in. Not bad, but I wish there were bigger games.

The thing is, I'm not necessarily having a bad month. I mean, I'm only down $200 total. But I was just having a liquidity problem, basically, since 2/3rds of my non-poker winnings come in the form of rakeback and Absolute Reward Points, that I get in the future. Since this downswing happened just as I needed to take out my money for the bills for the month, I was pretty screwed in a cash flow sense.

Now, I realize I don't have the ideal set up to be a pro, but I don't really have much other options. I'd love to be able to play higher, but with my roll, I've only got enough for 3/6 right now. Ideally, in the future, very near, I hope, I'll be able to get to, and stay at 10/20+. All that would take are two average months in a row. Fwiw though, if I were to play 30,000 hands of LHE in a month, I'd clear approximately $4,000 worth of incentives. However, only $1000-1500 of that would be in the form of cash I could use immediately, so the cash flow thing is something I hadn't quite thought of up until this point. At the same time though, I usually get my rakeback check, for ~$1200-1500 right at the time I cash out for my bills, about the same amount, so that's basically my backup for a bad month, but again, it sorta screws me if I don't keep my BR at the level it needs to be for 3/6.

Meanwhile, I'm still making enough money at this game, that I can't justify going to get any job that I could possibly qualify for at this point. The best I could do would be an $8-$10/hour job, and frankly, that's just a waste of time.

Anyways, I'm open to all sorts of criticisms, ideas, etc, but for now, this is the best I can think of. The only live poker here is 3/6 limit, so that's even worse than playing online.

If you're playing full-time to pay for a $2,000/mo lifestyle with no reserves, break-even is a bad month.
So why hasn't this happened already? Unexpected expenses?

I don't think the cash flow issues are a big deal, so I wouldn't focus on that. It's the sustainable income rate.
How many tables are you playing? 30k hands is a lot of poker playing. Please, please don't assume that you can maintain the same winrate when you play more hours.

I know that I couldn't play poker for more than 30 hours a week and keep sane. You have to do something in the rest of the time. You can ****-off some of that time, which I support also, but pulling in another $1k every month can't hurt. Think of it as life-back or something.

Makes me LOL every time I read it.

David,

I don't understand the point of asking Zach this stuff. I mean, I know you're trying to be nice and point him towards some friendly advice, it's just very hard to toe that line without looking a little invasive (I think you're currently doing a good job toeing the line).

I mean Zach understands the swings of poker. He knows he's a real bad month away from looking like a schmuck and having to ask for backers, or getting a job. He's aware. I think it would be wise for Zach to remedy his employment situation, I don't know his personal life but I'm assuming he didn't graduate college if $8-10 is the best job he could find, but I might be wrong.

I don't know, I'm just uncomfortable giving someone advice when they aren't looking for it and aren't incredibly naive to the poker world.

My 2 cents.

Yeah, sorta. There's always unexpected expenses. I've been playing "pro" since January, and since then, I haven't had a month where I've been in the red. Being down $200 after easily the worst, fastest downswing I've ever had is quite a good result. There's still 17 days left in the month, so I have no doubt that I'll be able to make the money I expect to make.

On the other hand, another reason I haven't been able to make the transition up to 10/20 full time, has a lot to do with luck, to be honest. This time, for example, I moved up to 5/10 full time, and got killed for 200 BBs really quickly. Combined with my bill money coming out, I'm forced to move back. That's happened a few times, and it's just unfortunate, but not much I can do.

Also, earlier in the year, I spend my money too liberally. Ie, trips to Vegas, etc.



Well, I only need ~$1500 to cover my expected expenses. Obviously at other times, there are unexpected expenses, that would be very nice to have a plan for, but honestly, nothing is going to change that. Working an $8 job isn't going to make me money any faster. Since January, I've made $20,000 over the first 8 months. This amounts to $2500/month. In fairness to me, I believe my overall income potential for any given month is currently a lot higher than that. A lot of those months were played before I got to Elite on AP, a few of the months were very limited in terms of playing time, for a few reasons. School being one, and times when I was out of town, etc.

I generally play 3-4 tables, and have been doing that for the entire time I've been playing LHE. I'm not worried about my winrate falling at all based on the number of hands I'm playing. It just means me being less lazy more often and putting in the number of hands I should be.



It's honestly not worth my time to work 40 hours/week to make $1000 a month. I really don't think it's even close.



I don't mind the advice. I'm quite open to discussion. But basically, yeah. I realize this is not even close to the ideal situation to be in as a "professional" poker player, but it's really the best I can do right now.

I'm basically just planning/hoping to do this for a year, build up some savings if I can, but first and foremost make sure my bills are kept up to date, so that I can go back to school in 2008.

I'm in a decent situation. My living expenses aren't through the roof. I mean, $1500/month is pretty good, imo. And I couldn't make that at a real job right now. I'd be forced to move back home if it were not for poker.

Zach.
Temp service.
Work when you want/need to.
Say you're unavailable when you don't want to/don't have to.
Just be reliable and work hard when they send you out,
and you'll never worry again.
And grow your roll.
In 12 months, this won't be an issue any more.

Never heard of a temp service in this town.

Try 1/2 $100 max buy in and $5 rake

Are you really in Thunder Bay, Ontario?

Do you ever go to the USHL hockey games .... DM Bucs used to play Thunder Bay.

I think the DM Menace play a TB team, too.

No thanks.

I'd start a home game.

And I'm serious.

We haven't had USHL for like 10 years.

Used to go though. Thunder Bay Flyers.

We don't have any pro teams here anymore.

Just our University team.

There's over 100,000 people and a university there.
Gotta be a temp service.

Yeah, but I'm lazy, and not getting a job.

Is this a Canadian tax thing?

8 hrs/weekday * $10/hour * 5 weekdays/7 days * 31 days/month = $1,770/mo.

I was thinking of something part time.

LOL.

I think it had more to do with top thing, than with it only being 1k thing. Just from someone basically the same age, I think Zach and I have a similar thought process here. Well had a similar thought process, I've basically realized I suck at poker and will play it for entertainment while hoping to use it as a financial supplement to my career.

I also agree that part time job is the way to go. Even delivering pizzas or waiting tables, the first you'd make a good $10/hr for something so simple and waiting tables is a little more money and a little more stress. I just think guaranteed income no matter stress/downswing etc is always the way to go unless it becomes painfully obvious you are costing yourself money by having a job. Even then it's an alright social option.

You know, I can't act all high and mighty. Look at how much effort I'm putting into my job right at this moment.

If my company only knew I had 16K posts on an internet forum and I've spent at least an hour today watching the WSOP Europe feed...and this is one of my busy days.

Link please?

are they hiring? I am willing to move

Actually I think we are, trade in those snow shoes for sunglasses. And live poker here sucks as mentioned earlier.

Na, tax isn't much of an issue. I was just guestimating. Any job I've ever worked, I'm lucky if my paycheck every two weeks was over $600.




Well, it became painfully obvious to me that I was wasting time when I did have my job in January.

I don't disagree that getting a job would be a good idea, but I don't necessarily think it's the best. At least for now. I'm willing to accept an extra level of stress in order to not do some BS busy work to make a corporation rich. This isn't a long term thing, most likely. Unless I improve my poker play, and manage to vault through the limits soon, where I can be making > $100,000/yr, then it's not a long term thing. My plan is just to take the year off from school/work while I regroup, and refocus my energy and decide exactly what it is that I want to do with my life.

I've actually got a degree in Economics at this point, although I've yet to officially graduate, but I just dislike the field, and don't really want to do anything in it. I'm really not going to compromise and do something I hate just for it to be acceptable in society. I know that's not what you guys are talking about, but it's part of my views as well.

For now, I'm certain I can continue to win at this game, enough to get myself out of debt (and I don't have very much debt), and continue to pay the bills, as well as moving up periodically.

no kidding, i am in the exact same boat. GO GO GO GO GO ECON MAJORS!!!!

The UPS truck driver that delivered to my house when I was a kid had a masters degree in economics.

I don't know what the point of this story is. Everybody hates economics? UPS is a good place to work?

Econ degrees are good for getting jobs at banks, but unfortunately they are high stress and long hours. Which is not what I am looking for. It sounds like Zach really isn't either. I do really love economics though. It is pretty crazy how people have set up this system and it is basically a living thing that needs to be constantly adjusted so the whole thing doesn't explode and you end up with 1/3 of the country at a soup kitchen.

What's pretty amazing to me is how many people go to college and graduate with a degree having no clue what it is in life that they want to do.

Guilty.

And now I'm back at school for it.

Time to go to Jersey for the weekend for a wedding. Meh.

Good Luck at the tables schmucks.

what did you grab the first go around?