Quit Work - Going to Play Poker For a Living!

Wednesday, July 11, 2007

That's right - on Friday 29th June I handed in my notice at work meaning that following a notice period and my annual holiday up north, I will return on Monday 6th August as a jobless poker bum.

I cannot stress how massive a decision this is for me and how difficult it was to make. I had hoped that when I came to make this decision it really would be something of a no brainer, in that, I had been crushing online poker part-time for more than I make full time for months. This is not the case and my decision to play for a living really is a leap of faith - I believe I can make enough to cover my outgoings per month and build a bankroll to allow level progression but I don't know that ... and certainly can't guarantee it!

Since I got Pokertracker I've logged around 100,000 hands through it. That's not a great deal in full-time terms but is not statistically insignificant either. My game has changed markedly over that sample and my 6-max NL/PL cash games work out at 2.5ptbb/100. A number of those hands suffered from my mixing up of cash and tournament game principles and I have made some big personal breakthroughs in separating these in the last few months. I strongly believe I can manage 4-5 tabling at 3ptbb/100 at NL$200 and that would work out at about $39 per hour with about $8 in rakeback on top. I always factor for 25 hours a week 45 weeks of the year on average and thus my annual income would approximate to £2225 a month if I didn't improve or move up the levels. That's around £400 more than I net from my current job per month, which is encouraging.

Critically though, I believe I can improve on 3ptbb/100 significantly and furthermore, I believe I could operate at similar profit levels at NL$400 and NL$600 if appropriately rolled. I'll not number crunch anymore; the bottom line is I'm going with it and I'll just have to see how I go.

This has certainly not been a quick or easy decision as I've been thinking about it for years and seriously for a number of months. The final deciding factor was that I simply concluded I was miserable in my current job but was nevertheless quite employable and thus, could afford to take a shot at something. In short, if it goes pear-shaped I should be able to get back into secure regular employment quickly and crucially I will have resolved and put to bed my 'poker dilemma'.

I'm really excited to get stuck into poker full-time and have a real drive to learn and succeed. I believe I have the mentality, personal skills and disciplines required to succeed and any gaps in my theory, knowledge or experience should be filled quickly as I immerse myself in subject. I've got a really good 'gut' for the game and have always let myself down with what can only amount to misinterpretation or holes in some of my game theory…

A simple example of this is that for the last year I've had the phrase, "if a hand is good enough to call, it's good enough to raise" ringing around in my head and have often used it to get agro with top-pair top kicker and other such hands that have good but not outstanding showdown value. My failure in interpretation is that the phrase applies much more readily to tournament poker where there is a goal to not only acquire chips but also to protect your stack and investments within a pot. This is not so of cash where each decision is much more independent of any of your previous decisions and where the pot - and the money in it - isn't yours to protect. In a tourney there are times where you'd re-raise all in with TPTK knowing that only a better hand calls you, whereas in cash, this would be foolish unless the pot was already massive. The logic in a tournament is that you judge the percentage chance of the superior hand being out there as low enough to justify a play to secure the pot now and the chips within. In a cash game it is likely you would take another approach since there is little value in betting off all inferior hands and pot building for the hands that crush you. From time to time the more conservative play will result in your opponent catching a miracle card or backdoor hand but the play has a positive expectation overall and thus is desirable. The same play in a tourney may have a positive expectation but can be deemed an unacceptable risk to your overall strategy of survival as once your chips are gone you are gone!

It is through finally separating my cash game play from my tournament play that I feel I have found a confidence to play turns and rivers that was previously lacking. Previously I was over-eager to shut hands down whereas I am now judging each street and decision on its merits. This simple and yet fundamentally important shift in thinking has given me the confidence to take the plunge. I like an analogy in life so allow me to put the above another way:

I'm like an engineer who has crafted a fine performance engine through years of knowledge and experience. The engineer is confident of a high specific output and the engine is hooked up to a bench dyno ready to give the desired results. However, the bugger just won't start and the engineer has spent hours taking bits off, checking valve clearances, spark plug gaps, the electrics, the mechanicals and still she just won't take for more than a few lumpy seconds. In a moment of simple clarity the engineer thinks to test the petrol to discover he's accidentally put diesel in!! A few tweaks, an engine flush and a fresh batch of petrol later and the engine is up and running.

That solid well designed engine is my poker game and the diesel represents my thinking patterns. In the right engine the diesel fuel burns well and powers an engine, but in this instance it was inappropriate. I feel like my cash game has finally started and is based on sound engineering principles - I hope that through playing for a living I'll continue to fine tune it to a thoroughbred race beast.

So that as they say is that! I don't have a massive bankroll and I don't have the thousands and thousands of pounds in savings I hoped I would when I took this plunge. Furthermore, I need to clear at least £1250 on average per month or I'll quickly find myself in trouble. However, I have faith in myself and I'm full of drive and enthusiasm to give this a proper go - If I fail I'm confident it won't be through lack of trying or application. What is important to me just now is that for a long time I have been miserable in my planning career and I'm finally doing something about it. Poker may not be my path but at least I've stopped walking down the wrong path and in the wrong direction.

More...

I actually wrote the above part of this entry shortly after handing my notice in and a week has passed since then. I have come to expect the worst of life and that way anything good is a bonus, but I wasn't quite prepared for how badly poker treated me the from the very session after I handed my notice in. At one point I found myself $2,000 deep from just $240 investments into NL$600 and I was very stressed, bitter and disappointed. I'll not bore you with bad-beat tales but suffice to say there were two key $800 pots played one night after another in which I was a 60% favourite to win them both, 39.5% likely to win one or the other, with just a 0.5% probability of losing them both. I lost them both!

With my job security blanket removed, my finances otherwise in 'not so great' condition and having hacked off 20-25% of my bankroll I was pretty distressed to the point my brother and a mate came round for a serious chat to pull me back from the road of negativity. I recovered back to just $1200 down but haven't play much poker since. Instead I have been using my time to watch some TV, play some computer games and read some blogs, etc. Poker isn't going any where and it'll still be waiting for me to get stuck in properly when I return from my holiday. When I do I'll try to quickly get geared up to playing NL$200 on 4 tables and will buckle down and put in the hours.

For my limited blog readership this is where things could start to get interesting as you're going to get a first class view of a horrendous life buckle or alternatively watch another hopeful flourish into a poker professional. Place your bets...

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