The House

[JJSCOTT2]

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JJ: I am very tempted to ban you for the horrific memories you have brought up with that Cisco comment.

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Sorry to continue to get off topic, but it could be worse, my uncle works for Cisco and (until then) like many who didn't know any better had somewhere about 100% of his net worth in cisco stock. His homepage on his computer is a Cisco stock page...he lost several million dollars nearly instantaneously, that's gotta hurt.

[NozeCandy]

You could always grind SnG's if you want to run up a small roll with minimal risk. They are so easy to learn and yield a pretty steady profit.

[gumpzilla]

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You could always grind SnG's if you want to run up a small roll with minimal risk. They are so easy to learn and yield a pretty steady profit.

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As a former SNG player, I wouldn't recommend this. I think: they stop being fun pretty quickly; you need to get a pretty decent feel for ICM before they become particularly profitable; I get the impression that the games have become pretty grim. Microstakes NL would work just as well and wouldn't lead to honing a skillset you probably never want to use again.

[Dids]

I actually think grinding SNGs is super easy money. It's how I ran some money up the last time I had any online. I don't really have the sample size to support this, but my lifetime SNG roi is pretty damn sick.

Basically I'd only do that enough so I could play like 1/2 or 2/4 underrolled though.

[MarkD]

Well, I also sort of relate to this.

I wanted to go pro years ago but decided to finish off a few other life goals first. These goals stretched and stretched (they weren't small - buying a house was one of them) and now I am still working. I make ok money for a job, but don't really enjoy it. I ran horrible in poker in 06 and broke even for 120k hands of limit poker, but I never quit. I didn't play as much as even Diablo (10-15 hours a week is a good week for me) part time but always had fun.

I've accomplished my primary goals and am now trying to rebuild my roll from using most of it on the downpayment and hope to give playing pro a shot later this year. I don't have aspirations of making 1M+ a year like the big boys but my yearly salary is just over 70k and I think I can reasonably expect to make more than that playing cards and hope to have a higher quality of life doing so. Maybe it's delusional to think that but I'd rather try it and fail and at least find out then to always wonder what I missed out on. I often have the same thoughts you expressed about the money I've missed out on over the years - hopefully I get a chance to find out this year. I'm being really conservative about it though and hence the delay - I still don't have enough expenses / bankroll saved up to make a go of it.

Limit games are still good - you just need to be diligent about game selection. So many people (who must be 2+2 based on stats) have horrible game selection that it's unreal. I understand why people complain about games because they just sit down and play and feel they are the best. With some selection I've seen good tables all the way up to 30/60 (I watch and datamine) and definitley find lots of good ones at the 10/20-15/30 range. GL in whatever you decide man.

[offTopic]

I wouldn't worry too much about it for a couple of reasons. As others have mentioned, it's water under the bridge...there's no sense in fixating on things that could have been done differently in the past.

Also, based on your starting stake, and the disposal of the nice windfall, it sounds like you might be around here on the risk aversion scale:



There's no harm in that, but it seems less likely that someone that leans towards risk-averse would pull down some huge cash in a couple of years unless you lucked into a six-figure tournament score. Note, I didn't say it was impossible, just less likely.

[JaBlue]

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LFS,

"Thank God online poker didn't exist when I was in college."

Had it been present, I could see myself potentially being far less or far more successful right now. I've contemplated that a number of times.

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I feel like I'd be much richer, but also much much much fatter, anti social and useless.

However, on another note, it would be nice to go to school in the mid 2000s, when girls stopped wearing clothes.

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The guys that are college-age and play poker and are miserable are so because they do nothing to balance their lives. If you make any kind of effort to have a normal college life along with poker, it can be great. Playing college pre- and during- college has made my life much, much easier. And besides, if I hadn't played I'd probably have to work for <$10/hr. I usually play 30-40 hours a month (this month 20) and it doesn't really effect my social life or exercising habits. The vast majority of the fun I have comes from sources other than poker.

[PITTM]

i casino whored during college and made a ton of free money. Its funny contrasting that lifestyle with today's internet poker player. My average summer day was: wake up, still stoned at like noon. Turn on my computer. Find like 3 new blackjack whoring sites. Take their bonuses, set my computer to autoplay like 5000 hands. Go to the beach all day and then come home to more money then when i left and cash it out. Then spend the night dealing with their security dept.

Whereas nowadays college internet poker kid is like: play 5k hands/day. hate life.

[xxThe_Lebowskixx]

I have a few regrets about online poker.

1. Dropping down too often during down swings

2. Not playing the Party $10/20 NL 6 Max games enough since that seems to have been a gold mined I missed

3. Not forcing my siblings to learn to play poker. This one bothers me the most.

[ImsaKidd]

[ QUOTE ]
i casino whored during college and made a ton of free money. Its funny contrasting that lifestyle with today's internet poker player. My average summer day was: wake up, still stoned at like noon. Turn on my computer. Find like 3 new blackjack whoring sites. Take their bonuses, set my computer to autoplay like 5000 hands. Go to the beach all day and then come home to more money then when i left and cash it out. Then spend the night dealing with their security dept.

Whereas nowadays college internet poker kid is like: play 5k hands/day. hate life.

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God I miss bonus whoring. I kind of enjoyed a few bonuses I did, just standard grind for the +EV.

As an additional plus, I've played so many pit games online that I could never stand playing them without a bonus.