Damn Ringer's Poker Blog

Man, Its really been an entire year since I last worked a full time job. That’s pretty ridiculous to think about. My life is wildly different than I thought it would be too. Here’s the graph from when I got laid off from my engineering job, and profit with rakeback included:

Click to Enlarge

I would also post a picture of my hourly rate, but honestly I’m not 100% sure what it is. I played so much on cake before the holdem manager software was fully compatible with it. I would assume based off my time on full tilt that my hourly rate was somewhere in the ballpark of $100/hr. That sounds way better than it is. That hourly rate is probably middle of pack among 200nl regulars.

The year in 3 paragraphs…

Most of the year I ran fine. I maintained a 3.5ptbb WR at 200nl and a 2.5ptbb WR at 400nl. I think I am good enough to have had both of those. However, I would soon realize I wasn’t nearly as good as I thought I was. As the cake games got worse and worse, I realized how incredibly exploitable I was in 3bet and 4bet pots. I was playing very very straight forward and had a fold to 3b close to 80%. I was just getting abused by good regulars while still crushing fish. This caught up with me quickly once the fish left the cake games and I was stuck playing against 6 of the same regs. Queue the BE stretch.

I kinda have come to consider that my run bad time. It was in that time that I didn’t feel like ballin in vegas, had my ex-gf do some skanky things, and was just really frustrated with my game. On top of that stuff, I had 2 moves to deal with (from vegas to charlotte then from charlotte to DC). It was a pretty stressful time, and it just seemed that bad thing after bad thing was happening. In retrospect, however it likely wasn’t all me just running bad. I realized how nitty I really was when I got half-way into Vegas. I finally accepted the fact that I wasn’t as good as I thought, about that time.

I completely started focusing on getting better and with the help of a particularly fantastic cow and visor wearing gentleman, I turned on my boomswitch again. That is figurative however, because I now think I’m in the top 5 best regulars at 200nl which means I could move to 400nl with very little problem. With the revamp and rethinking in my game, I know that I am more than capable of playing well in just about every poker type. I even have been winning at headsup play (which is something I could never do even at the lowest stakes).

Where does it go from here?

One year, I have moved locations twice. I have almost hit the revolve button on my best friends. I have hit the “go die” button on an ex. I have completely revamped my game from a 14/12 to 20/15. While all that sounds like it’d be pretty life changing, it really has been pretty normal. Poker is funny like that, you just learn to roll with the bad beats.

I like where I’m living (only because I don’t commute). I really like the people I see on a daily basis while still keepin in touch with my friends from charlotte. And I think I’m playing the best poker of my life. Everything evolves and this year has been the biggest evolution of my life.

I went from following the middle class American path to glory to something that truly brought me great joy. I love the fact that I got laid off one year ago. I don’t know that I ever would have actually had the balls to quit on my own, and just take the plunge into professional poker. While I haven’t made as much money as I was hoping, I still have enjoyed every day I get to make my own schedule. Every trip I get to take for 5 days, on a Wednesday or for 3 months.

I can’t wait to see what changes this coming year. Its turning into a book I’m reading where I just wait to see what happens next, as it seems that something I’m least expecting always happens. I’ll be gunning for the next year to be far more profitable and to become an even better player while learning from all the experiences of the past year. Also, I’m going to focus on giving back to the world as well.

I’ll be playing professional poker at least until my lease is up in august next year. To be honest though, the way things are going now, I can’t see myself ever truly being happy with a 9 to 5 job… but then again who really is happy with a 9 to 5 job? With money not being an issue, there’s no reason to work.

This entry was posted on Saturday, November 14th, 2009 at 2:42 pm and is filed under Life Related, Poker Related. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.