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Similar story here. I’ve always played, mostly online, before Black Friday (pretty sure I was a minor when it happened) but played all the offshore sites throug
by ramoz 5y ago
Similar story here. I’ve always played, mostly online, before Black Friday (pretty sure I was a minor when it happened) but played all the offshore sites through college. Professional software career took off and bounced out, finally ~3y ago I decided to get back into it and I would only play challenging games (only thing challenging about a 1/3 or tourneys is the grind). So, started with 2/5, within a week was playing the 10/25, 25/50.
1. Emotional control and pushing through the variance are key, I would play all nighters and it was mostly a subtle rise up vs big pots (except the one that did me in)
2. You absolutely do read players, I didn’t need to be a pro to learn how to observe the degenerates. Even decent players signaled things here or there (obv not how they eat an oreo , but I had a knack for knowing when someone was off their style). And it’s not even close wit a normal group of friends.
3. the sharks and their meta game… I had run up to about 50K within 3 weeks from my starting 2-3K. Had the pipe dream. I thought I had a growing bond with the pros. When I say pros I’m not talking grinders, I’m talking consistent big winners. About a handful of them. None of them tv personalities. - There were few times we’d run into each other, but I picked off a few donk bets here or there. However their persistence is what did me in. Went the entire month observing their advanced play style, which the meta was harsh, there were few rivers that mattered more than pre flop and continuation/donk betting. This style of play was like nothing I was seeing on tv. But I was winning with them. The last time I played, about a month into my run, I was on a 12h 25/50 game winding down, turned 30k into 70k (had 20k sitting back) pulled QQ and went up against a pre-flop donker. I face a 3 bet and get that gut feeling but put on lower pair or AK. Flop rainbows, large betting action. Turn, junk, I face an insane Re raise after testing a raise of my own, I know it’s off but it’s either AA/KK or AK at this point. My guts off but I’m too far in to quit. On the river I’m defeated, check, face bet, ultimately end up throwing 50K into the pot, lose to aces.
I never had a gut feeling so intense though. Like I was screaming at myself to get out. But I was caught.
Such a draining hand I never went back. I don’t have the discipline to grind games, and the tech industry pays more.
- Stasis5001 5y agoWhen you say tech industry pays more, I'm assuming the effective long-run hourly earnings of poker players is way less glamorous than it looks from an outsider seeing highlights? Doing a basic google search led me to https://pokerdb.thehendonmob.com/ranking/6737/ https://pokerdb.thehendonmob.com/ranking/6737/, which seems to suggest that 81 players earned over 1mm USD in 2021. But presumably those players don't earn that YoY, and even if they did, plenty more software engineers earn > 1mm USD per annum, so this seems to support your conclusion. OTOH, I have no insight to the home games or whatever sources are not included in these rankings, so I'd love to hear a little more.
- FanaHOVA 5y agoThose aren’t net of buy ins. Negreanu for example won $3.1M, but spent $2.56M in buy ins, so net profit was around $600k (doesn’t account for all his content ofc, but that’s not every player)
- splonk 5y agoFanaHOVA mentioned the main thing you missed. One other thing I'd mention is that a lot of pros have staking arrangements (the article briefly mentions some versions of them). For example, I know one pro (who's won one of the more prestigious WSOP bracelets) who gets 30% of his tournament winnings in exchange for having all his entry fees paid by his backer. I suspect he's traded off more upside in favor of stability than most, but there's a lot of deals out there where the players aren't taking home anywhere close to 100% of their public winnings.
- ramoz 5y agoThe other commenters said it for tourneys. I can’t stand tournaments. For cash games, I was only playing on the casino. For the 1/3 (1$/3$ blinds) the earnings rate seems absolutely abysmal and you have to account for rake. There are grinders who play these games, along with 2/5. My assumption is any grinder playing here is down under or not making enough to compete with a professional career in the tech industry. Next is 2/5. Here I could’ve sustained a decent salary. A pro at these stakes showed me his past year earnings which was 180k. It’s hard to tell with the 10/25, 25/50 pros. There were definitely dudes sitting on 500k+, maybe way more, chips that they kept in the casino and I assume similar amounts of cash at home. There were guys leaving with big nights but still losing 90k in a night. I’d hear about some being down under 200K at any point. There were probably some money launders. There was the occasional private investment fund guy that came in, was short with slick back hair, very loud mouth, would brag and show off one of his 17M personal banking account. Then there were the very quiet, calculated guys. It seemed that they were operating on some formula I never cared to figure out. They’d avoid big hands for the most part. Some form of grind I didn’t have the discipline for. I also didn’t have the discipline to handle large swings at those stakes, nor the bankroll, or desire to play lower stakes to build a bankroll.
- burntoutfire 5y agoYou lost $50k in a 25/50 online game? Was the pot 2000 BBs??? I've never even heard of anything close to it.
- ramoz 5y agoCasino, there was no max. A lot of players sitting on 100k+. There were far bigger hands than this one.