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i'll no longer be living 'the life'... *updated*


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I don't check FCP forums much, but I happened to stumble upon this thread and found it quite interesting. Ddudley, you have lots of good advice and insight. So, I thank you for your openess and honest responses. You seem like a well-grounded nice person, so I feel compelled to try to help you out a little. Feel free to take any advice I give with a grain of salt. All I ask is you keep an open mind.You have a 60k BR. If the highest you've played is 10/20 then I must insist that you jump into a 15/30 game now. The 15/30 games are very juicy (on Party atleast), and the skill level is pretty much the same. It may be a little more aggressive. I would recommend the 20/40, but there aren't as many 20/40 full ring games on party compared to 15/30 or 30/60, so the table selection is tougher.Jump into a bigger game that you're not used to on a weekend (or any day where you didn't work all day and you are not tired). Get uncomfortable. When the grind wears you down sometimes you need to step up and get some adrenaline going. You have the bankroll to move up. Keep an open mind. Throw everything you know out the window. Don't fall into the "there's only one correct play" mindset. Instead of reading poker books, start saving hand histories and analyze your own hands.DON'T PLAY BY THE BOOK! If you do, you will never improve. The only way to beat the higher limits is to jump into them. You have to adjust and learn. If you stay at the same limits forever you won't get better. If you keep moving up you will force yourself to continually improve your game, otherwise you'll start losing a lot of money, and if you've gotten as far as you have then have confidence that you will make the same adjustments. 30/60 really isn't that much different from 15/30. Just a few less fish and more aggressive play.BTW, my bankroll is much less than yours but I still multitable the 30/60 and 1 table 50/100 when its juicy.Good luck.

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You should go back and try and read your own post. Then you too would have a migraine like mine. Then you will be more careful with the two most powerful sides of the force - punctuation and reasoned thought.
Well done.....I like you already !Dudley....You gave it a shot. I remember your well thought out posts when you were considering this move. I really respect your honesty coming back here to say that you did not do quite as well as you had hoped. I know you've taken a little flack in this thread for "giving up" or "not making it" I think you are doing the wise thing to secure your future.If you think about it, although the life of a professional poker player sounds pretty glamorous, how few really live that life ? We've all seen the posts on here about pros who have gone broke. There all also many...Paul Phillips, Harry D., Phil Gordon, Barry Greenstein,etc who made their fortunes in other areas and have the liberty of now solely playing poker. There are many others, like Phil H who have probably made more in endorsements than at actually playing. Very few have made it like DN, grinding it out and using bankroll management.Kudos to you for recognizing that you want a financially secure life and you can supplement a regular job with the poker that we all love so well.I think future inlaws will be more impressed with an architect too.
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There all also many...Paul Phillips, Harry D., Phil Gordon, Barry Greenstein,etc who made their fortunes in other areas and have the liberty of now solely playing poker.
Barry Greenstein made his fortune playing poker. He didn't make his fortune at Symantech as is commonly believed. At least that's what he says in Ace on the River.
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Dudley,I enjoyed reading your thread. I am a rec player myself playing 2/4 and for me, your ability to be a profitable player is impressive considering that you don't have much experience when you started.My point is this, with your new job you are making 60k plus benefits, so that is 75k a year. Ok what is your salary going to be say 5 years from now? Give a you a 5% increase in your salary per annum, you would come to close to 80k a year.Is 80k a year good enuf 5 years down the road?Let's say you continue to play poker full time and you graduate to higher and higher limit poker, in 5 years are you not confident enuf you can make 80k a year?I mean if you are making 60 in the first year. Making 80 in 5 years shouldn't be a problem.The problem I see is that you don't have much of a life outside of poker and when things aren't working it must feel horrible.I think you should try to have a more balanced life, and play less. Maybe sign u p at a few more sites and when the action dried up on one, hopefully you can find some on other sites.I sincerely think you have the ability to make it if you put your heart to it and plan it out for the long term not just look at the short term results.Anyhows, good luck and hope to hear from you here again.

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This is not meant as a slight in the least, but if you have a college degree and you can't make 100/hr playing poker online then you need to get a job. I can't believe you made 16/hr at poker and stuck with it. Poker is not for everyone and in the long term probably 60% of online players can't beat the rake (although some have said alot higher). Long term, working after college is better because of promotions, etc. I am making more money playing NL online than I could ever have imagined while I was a live limit grinder. However, I'm getting my MBA right now. Unless I'm making 6 figures a month like some people, it is just smart to get a real job bc I'm not making enough where I can retire in a couple of years.

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Go to WPEX...You won't miss your sng's I promise.
I heard about WPEX being rakefree, but is the traffic there substantial? I multitable the SNGs and the thing I like about Party (aside from the bad players) is that within 5 mins of starting my session, I can already be playing at 6 tables.
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I heard about WPEX being rakefree, but is the traffic there substantial? I multitable the SNGs and the thing I like about Party (aside from the bad players) is that within 5 mins of starting my session, I can already be playing at 6 tables.
Traffic is decent as far as 1-2, 2-4, 3-6, 5-10 lhe goes, I am not too sure about sng's, but of course you don't get a rakeback from SNG's because there is no rake. So if you were into playing some 1-2 or 2-4 lhe then the traffic is pretty decent. Usually have alteast 2 full 10 man games going, a few short handed, and at peak hours you can expect 4-6 full 10 man ring games going. Trust me man, 100% rakeback will change your poker life, I kid you not. Use their rakeback calculator if you don't believe me.
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After 18 months of playing full time, I've decided it's time to go back to a real job. blek!!I've made 60K (40K/year) while playing poker but ultimately it proved not to be enough money to justify playing for a living. I'll be making 62K with benefits in the new job. So, I figure I need to make at least 75K per year with no benifits to continue playing poker. I just wasn't able to get that done.It's especially been tough this last 6 months as I've only made about $4500. I've been through most of that period getting killed by the cards. I had no idea the cards could be so cruel for so long. I'm sure there has been some less than optimal play on my part and I'm sure the competition has gotten much tougher the last 6 months but it's mostly been sick cards.It's been a tough day for sure... but I'm still going to play part-time. And who knows, after 2 weeks, maybe I'll be sick of it and quit (the job, not poker). I'm not giving up the dream entirely, I guess I'm just putting it on hold for now.If you have any questions for someone whos been through the grind, fire away. I'll do my best to give honest answers about what's important and what's not.***check the bottom of page 2 for an update on working for 'The Man'***
Suck S.hit You WANNA BE
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I heard about WPEX being rakefree, but is the traffic there substantial? I multitable the SNGs and the thing I like about Party (aside from the bad players) is that within 5 mins of starting my session, I can already be playing at 6 tables.
the traffice there blows. I don't find the rakeback worth it. it's hard to find enough games to play. I moved all my money back to fulltilt.
Barry Greenstein made his fortune playing poker. He didn't make his fortune at Symantech as is commonly believed. At least that's what he says in Ace on the River.
I heard he lost a ton of money in the big game at the World Series this year? Any truth to that?
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Great thread. One of the things that you need to be careful about when having a job, and playing poker, is fatigue. Some people play better when they don't have to worry about poker as an income. But others feel like they don't have enough time to play, and feel constricted by the hours of a normal job. If and when you play part time, try not to push it, playing too many hours etc. Although, that doesn't seem like a problem, which brings me to my next point.If you ever do go back to playing again for a living, you might need to put in more hours in order to show a steadier profit. 30 hours a week is just not enough IMO. A great thing to do when playing online is to break your sessions up. Play for 3-4 hours. Take an extended break. And then play another 3-4 hours. That is a system that I reccomend for a lot of online players. It seems to work well. Especially if you can do it 6 days a week. It's less of a grind that way.Good Luck with the new job.
As always, sage words from Stevo.@OPI just can't believe you play 30-40 hours of diablo II. I've played AO,EQ,DaoC, WoW and SWG and put in a lot of hours there, but jesus man... running through the same linear crap over and over and then farming the "cow-level" over and over was too much.
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bump DDudley are you still out there.
First I have to say, Damn the new forums are hard to use. Yes, it's been a long time since I've posted.I probably wouldn't have checked-in except someone sent me a PM... well here I am...I've gotten totally away from poker the last 3 months or so. After having a really bad week on top of having a really bad '06, I made the worst call in the history of NLHE. I'm still disgusted by it months later.That was pretty much the last straw. I decided that I wasn't playing well enough to enjoy the priveledge of playing poker. I decided to put myself on suspension for an indefinate period of time. I just wasn't having any fun and I certainly wasn't winning any money in '06.Later I decided the suspension would last until I felt like I could enjoy playing again (part of the joy of poker for me is showing a good win rate). I also added getting my long and complex "to-do" list down to two items or less. I'm down to 7 items from 13, only 5 more to go... looks like I'll finish around Christmas time this year.Life is complicated. I'm happier now but I still miss playing poker. My fiance is happier now that I'm not grumpy all the time and yelling at the computer every night. I still wonder how good I was when I started and how good I was when I quit. I wonder how unlucky I got... or was it just bad play on my part.I feel better after watching Daniel on High Stakes Poker. It seemed like I went through several stretches like that over the last year or so. I'd win back the money back when the cards were better then just as I'm getting profiable again, another horrible stretch of cards would hit.
Suck S.hit You WANNA BE
This is why I don't post here anymore...
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First I have to say, Damn the new forums are hard to use. Yes, it's been a long time since I've posted.I probably wouldn't have checked-in except someone sent me a PM... well here I am...I've gotten totally away from poker the last 3 months or so. After having a really bad week on top of having a really bad '06, I made the worst call in the history of NLHE. I'm still disgusted by it months later.That was pretty much the last straw. I decided that I wasn't playing well enough to enjoy the priveledge of playing poker. I decided to put myself on suspension for an indefinate period of time. I just wasn't having any fun and I certainly wasn't winning any money in '06.Later I decided the suspension would last until I felt like I could enjoy playing again (part of the joy of poker for me is showing a good win rate). I also added getting my long and complex "to-do" list down to two items or less. I'm down to 7 items from 13, only 5 more to go... looks like I'll finish around Christmas time this year.Life is complicated. I'm happier now but I still miss playing poker. My fiance is happier now that I'm not grumpy all the time and yelling at the computer every night. I still wonder how good I was when I started and how good I was when I quit. I wonder how unlucky I got... or was it just bad play on my part.I feel better after watching Daniel on High Stakes Poker. It seemed like I went through several stretches like that over the last year or so. I'd win back the money back when the cards were better then just as I'm getting profiable again, another horrible stretch of cards would hit.This is why I don't post here anymore...
Well, it's soothing to know that I'm not the only one going through a rough patch. I'm trying to rebuild but haven't given up on the game yet. I hope you reach all of your goals whatever they may be.
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This is not meant as a slight in the least, but if you have a college degree and you can't make 100/hr playing poker online then you need to get a job. I can't believe you made 16/hr at poker and stuck with it. Poker is not for everyone and in the long term probably 60% of online players can't beat the rake (although some have said alot higher). Long term, working after college is better because of promotions, etc. I am making more money playing NL online than I could ever have imagined while I was a live limit grinder. However, I'm getting my MBA right now. Unless I'm making 6 figures a month like some people, it is just smart to get a real job bc I'm not making enough where I can retire in a couple of years.
As I've said previously in this thread... $16 was my LHE rate only, my overall rate was $30 and change.So, let see if I understand this, unless your able to earn $200K a year playing poker you should quit and get a real job?You say it's not a slight but you seem to imply that you are a great poker player who doeasn't put much effort into it and I'm an idiot who can barely beat the rake... maybe I mis-read the post?
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As I've said previously in this thread... $16 was my LHE rate only, my overall rate was $30 and change.So, let see if I understand this, unless your able to earn $200K a year playing poker you should quit and get a real job?You say it's not a slight but you seem to imply that you are a great poker player who doeasn't put much effort into it and I'm an idiot who can barely beat the rake... maybe I mis-reading the post?
+1
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As I've said previously in this thread... $16 was my LHE rate only, my overall rate was $30 and change.So, let see if I understand this, unless your able to earn $200K a year playing poker you should quit and get a real job?You say it's not a slight but you seem to imply that you are a great poker player who doeasn't put much effort into it and I'm an idiot who can barely beat the rake... maybe I mis-reading the post?
I think the point is that playing is a boring and unfulfilling job and that with all else equal (including wages), you would probably be much happier in a conventional job. Basically that you'd need to be making quite a bit more in poker than what you would in a normal job to make it worth your while.I dont necessarily agree. I think that it depends on what kind of options you have in the real world (not you specifically).
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I think the point is that playing is a boring and unfulfilling job and that with all else equal (including wages), you would probably be much happier in a conventional job. Basically that you'd need to be making quite a bit more in poker than what you would in a normal job to make it worth your while.I dont necessarily agree. I think that it depends on what kind of options you have in the real world (not you specifically).
I agree, I would have to be able to make more than I make at my job now to justify playing for a living and that would be hard.
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