**Official uNL Microbrew thread: September**

[Gelford]

Frosteater ... playing poker for an income and not having a job is a very painfull ordeal once you go down that road.


It took me a year to get hang of it and especially the downswings of march and november 2006 where brutal ... the first especially was amazing ... I blew my entire roll down to a mere 300$ with no back up in my bankaccount as all it contained was the 1500$ or so to pay my forthcoming rent and fixed expences.

Luckily 300$ was plenty to rebuild from the pre-Frist party 11$ sngs and I survived and quickly got on my feet again.

December was brutal too but in no way lifethreatening in the same maner, but it was the worst week of my sng career followed by three weeks of breaking even in the end tilting me so I couldn't play sngs anymore and forcing me back into cash. Still by this time around I knew that I could always grind out 20$/hr at the 11s or 25NL if need be, and that is what I did for a while ... just rebuild at 25NL, put a bit aside and then start moving up again.


I still can't stand sngs, but due to real life forcing me to cash out more than I liked to, I have completed the 25NL to 100NL trip a couple of times since ... which in turn makes me more confident and more pro like. Starting with 500$ and playing 25NL it takes me two weeks to hit a 2000$ roll (logging at LEAST 2K hands daily that is, which I rarely do when I have a nice roll)... unless the sky really falls and variance decided to rape me anally over and over again .. then it takes three weeks.


Ama is where I was once too ... but it will take him a few weeks or a month to lick his wounds and then get back into it .. and I'm guess that in six months to a year, he will no longer sing this song.


On a different note, I like having a job ... tho it really has cut a lot into my playing time (but once I get used to it and getting up early I think I'll get much more hours or so I hope). But I'd always prefer to only play poker and not have a job if I was forced to work in a Callcenter again.


Ama .... If I was your Doctor I'd prescribe a few weeks playing something non NL Hold'em .... pick up the new Borer & Lawrence shorthanded limit book or something like that [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[Student Caine]

Morning all...I am getting ready to head to work. I swear this next two weeks is gonna' suck.

Here's to being a working stiff *raises his coffee cup to the forums*

EDIT:

Haha I didn't see Gelford's post when I posted this. Looks like there are a few working stiffs on this morning. [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

I really cannot imagine trying to do this for a living (cards that is). Having 4 kids at home has a huge part to play in that, because expecting myself or my wife to be a little lean one month is not the end of the world, but expecting my kids to go without just can't happen.

I once read that "Poker is the hardest way to make an easy living". I never understood this fully, but I think that curbing your spending after a huge upswing and going lean during a huge downswing would be really damn tough as you would feel that winner or loser you were always lean.

[tehDiceman]

i could do it, i just dont beat the game enough yet. [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

im a life nit. [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]

[ama0330]

Thanks to Gelford and frosteater for the words.

I think what Im dealing with is not so much the ins and outs of running bad, these happen to everyone and I am more than capable of playing through a bad session. Im dealing more with poker as an addiction and a drain on what would otherwise be a productive existence.

When I used to crush 50nl (Im talking 9+ptbb/100) I was employed in a really well paying job which I found fulfilling and I was happy there. I had a very nice regular income and had nothing to worry about, my days were focussed on design and achievement and I felt that I was making good use of my time. I loved poker, I was obsessed with learning and threw myself into the mindgames and HH analysis with great enthusiasm.

Unfortunately the job turned bad and I had to leave. I resolved to take some time off work to get away from the corporate environment and just chill for a little bit. Unfortunately what this left me with was literally all day to do nothing but play poker. Having just moved to 100nl, and playing a lot during the day (DONT do this. Dont take on the regs.) I found myself knee deep in [censored] as I was totally outclassed. Playing about 3k hands per day and losing constantly, and tilting too hard to analyse my play, AND having nothing to distract me during the day because I was unemployed with literally NO plans, was a recipe for disaster.

So fast foward 1.5 months and here we are now. Im ready to go back to work, but Im so addicted to poker that I spend 8+ hours a day grinding, get to 2am, wonder where the day went and feel insta-depressed because I have so much stuff I could be doing to further my creative ambitions, but Poker just sucks all the time I have out of my hands. So I cashed everything out so I CAN'T play now. And just today, I've polished off my portfolio, organised a job interview for monday and got a bunch of calls for an ad I posted for a room to let. All stuff I would have done WEEKS ago were it not for my inability to get away from grinding 100nl.

Poker is an excellent slave, but a terrible master. I let it get the better of me and it was ruining me. I guess I was in the begninning stages of gambling addiction and I didn't really see it. Now that I've removed that problem from my life I'm free to get on with what I need to be doing. Before, it would be "great, Ive got a spare hour, I'll 4 table for a bit" then 8 hours would pass and I'd be a tilted, exhausted mess. I woke up thismorning to find that I have no food in the house. What the [censored]!

So I am re-exerting control. Poker is a great game but you need to keep a handle on it. Keep it caged. I am amazed that some people play for income - I could NEVER do this. All this time ive been unemployed, Ive had a pretty large sum of money in the bank which I have saved up over the years, more than enough to live income free for over a year, so I was never dependant on poker for income. But even just the thought of going through what I did in the last 2 months or so and depending on poker to pay the bills? Jesus. No way.

I'm probably not going to cash back in for another 2 weeks or so, just until I get this job locked down. During that time I'll be watching poker videos, reading the stickies, and all that jazz. Then Im going to pone 100nl, hopefully. But believe me, I've put the poker monster back in the box, and its staying there.

[traz]

It's one of those things you have to learn on your own. No matter how many horror stories I hear about how hard it is to play poker as a fulltime job, if I get the opportunity (and the winrate) to quit my job and grind it out for a year, I'll probably take it.

It's just one of those things.

[Frosteater]

Don't get me wrong, Gelford, I don't doubt that playing poker for a living can be a major pain in the rear. Even though this is the goal I set myself to achieve.

It just saddens me a bit to see this despise of the game from someone with such a grasp on it, at least from what I can read on the forums. Just like you I'm merely going for the "take a break" advice here. Sure, I just have to cover my expenses with poker, which is about $200 a month, so I can't put myself into your place when it comes to grinding out a grand because one has to. But I still think it's a wonderful game and there's money to get. I'm doing my best to understand it can be a horrible grind, though.

On a side note, ironically my last job was in a callcenter and I actually kinda "liked" it (if you can call it that) and figured it to be a huge step up from the stuff I did before. So I guess there's a lot of jobs with the potential to make you so sick that poker becomes more and more attractive as an alternative.


Edit:

Thanks for the explanation, Ama, that clears up a lot. And relieves me a bit. But I guess I can see where you're coming from, if you lose a job you actually like and the refuge (if I may call it that) in poker turns out this way, I guess I'd be pissed of as well. That was just hard to see from my point of view without explanation since I'm a lazy bum and playing poker is actually by far the most productive thing I can think of at the moment. [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

[HBomb]

I'm also on the job hunt as of now, I've just about completely busted my roll and I won't be able to deposit until what seems like Sept. 25th, so I think this would be a good time for me to take a break after playing nearly everyday for the last month or so. I always do tend to play better when I'm freshly back to the game. I just wish epassporte didn't take so long to be activated.

[wudabum]

meh...me for the past 2 and a half weeks

[Nogatsira]

Running terrible wudabum or playing bad?
Seems like its time to start posting hands!

[wudabum]

i have, in the microstakes bbv...