Tuesday, November 22, 2011

More Random Things

It's amazing how quickly time flies by and it's been a week since my last post, even when I have lots of stuff I want to talk about. I just never seem to find the time, and I'm not exactly sure why. I guess I do spend an awful lot of my days trying to play poker, and what little time is left my brain is very tired and I just want to watch Breaking Bad and/or The West Wing with Danielle. Anyway, a few random topics...first I want to address this comment:

No, you don't sound like an arrogant asshole at all. Maybe arrogant, but def not an asshole :) Just kidding... Seriously though, I was more implying in my question about the whole idea of giving up a carreer in software industry to professional (live) poker. I am sure you blogged on this subject somewhere in the past, is there a pointer? Do you find it more rewarding / stable / gives you more freedom / independence etc'? What are the goals withing 5-6 years? I heard some notes of disappointment in this last post (maybe mistakenly), so was wondering how frequently you question the carreer direction that you voluntarily picked.

Just sort of because I think I should. At this point I'd say that I have seen the man behind the curtain and just like in the movie he is simply not as bad ass I thought he'd be. When I started this venture I just assumed that I could play 2000 hours a year and make north of $80/hour playing (either at the 40 or by playing higher) and boom I'd be making $150K a year in no time and maybe I'd move up further and I'd have all the freedom in the world and it'd just be the best thing ever. I now know differently. First of all assuming you'll do something 2000 hours a year and have lots of freedom is just absurd. Second of all, truly making a big bet per hour while logging big hours is very, very difficult. Third of all, it's certainly neither more rewarding nor more stable than any number of other jobs I could find. So why do I do it? Well at this point I feel like I'm entitled to a year or two or some other length of time of "being successful", since it's basically taken me three years to get here. By any metric things are going great; the parade somehow didn't happen last week, but I did crack the $100K profits line for the year (with some fishy accounting, since I have paid some, but not nearly all, of the taxes I owe, but am including all my online profits for the year which were more than wiped out by Black Friday). I'm going to make it to 1800 hours of LHE, and I'm up over 1000 bets so far. And most days I actually enjoy going into work (although the last week or so since I fell off my $1000/day scooter ride I've been saying more and more than I need a vacation...I don't know why it's just been tough to, you know, give a shit) and in general things are just...good. So I guess the answer is that I don't have a 5 or 6 year plan, but for right now I'm going to just enjoy being successful.

I feel like I had other things to say...ah yes, that's it. First of all, my place of employment is going all in this month, paying players $10/hour to sit in the 20/40 game and $20/hour for the 40/80 (with a minimum qualification of 40 hours for the month). If you count me as a friend I would really appreciate it if you could give us a shot, because if this doesn't work I have a feeling we are all going to find ourselves in the pink slip room very shortly. And even if you don't, for shit's sake that's basically rake free poker in the 40 and a nice shot in the arm to anyone's 20/40 hourly so please just come play some poker it'll be good times trust me.

The only other thing I've got is that I figured I'd tell everyone I'm officially in the business of staking people now. I have three ad-hoc agreements with three players I trust very much (both ethically and poker skills wise) that are allowing them to get what they want out of poker (money) while dumping some risk on someone else (me) in exchange for some of their expected winnings. I don't really want to get into the details of the stakes or anything, and they are varying levels of private (from completely private to completely public I guess), and I suppose that really is that. So hopefully they won't blow me up and I'll make some money on them, but if past events are any predictor of future success I could be in for a rough go of it.

7 comments:

Wig said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Wig said...

Comment was accidentally deleted. Anyway,I'm huge fan of your blog and your threads/posts on 2+2. Reading your blog has inspired me to take a shot at being a prop. I applied to the Bike a few days ago, hopefully I get a call back from them. Anyway, keep up the awesome work and good luck with your goals!

hello said...

more details on the bike's promotions please. this month = november? their website is little help.

jesse8888 said...

The promotion is for the month of December.

Patrick said...

Wow, good luck on the staking. But all signs point to it never ending well. (this is said with no knowledge of whom you are staking and for how much/long, but usually staking is never the smooth ride it is painted out to be)

jesse8888 said...

I have no illusions that it'll be a smooth ride, so at least I have that going for me.

Online Poker Strony said...

Happy new 2013 for all people including me :)))
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