And So It Begins

This is it: I am now officially a full time poker player.

I worked my last two shifts this weekend as the bastards made see out the full month's notice and wouldn't let me take these last two days off.

I had leaving drinks on Wednesday evening (Thirsday and Friday were rest-days anyway) as virtually no-one was around this weekend, so by way of celebration today I played an hour's poker on getting home. I won one buyin. It felt very good. Let's hope this is a sign of things to come.

Mrs. Pink and I are now going out for a drink. I'll try not to come back too drunk and fire up the juicy Sunday evening cash games ;-)

Wish me luck...

If You Don't Have Anything Positive To Say...

...then don't say anything at all.

That was a popular quip Mother Pink used to come up with when I had something less than plesent to say (usually to Little Brother Pink).

As if I've ever listened to anything she said...

So it's all going seriously tits up. I was very close to full blown tilt this morning. I manged to turn it around and only lost two buyins by getting my money in when I knew full well I was behind. The rest of the five or so buyins that dissapeared in the morning ranged from me paying off the occasional outdraw to at least three two-outers.

In the afternoon session I got my shit together and played some good poker to make back about half of the losses.

With my final pay-check coming at the end of the month and with my bankroll being half what it was 6 weeks ago, I'm begining to get a little stressed.

I know it'll come right in the end, I just really hope it's sooner rather than later.

And The Beat Goes On

I'm still struggling to climb out of this hole I'm in. A couple of times over the last few days I was up a few buy-ins and was beginning to think that the tide had turned only to get hit by a nasty suck out or cold deck. Highlights include losing with QQ on a QKK flop. Set over set and running 5 overpairs into flopped sets.

I'm somehow managing to stay relatively upbeat and I'm still really excited about the prospect of playing full time (one week of work to go). The bankroll is still in reasonable shape and as long as this run doesn't go on too much longer I won’t have to move down stakes.

I'll try and have something positive to say soon, I promise!

New Links

In Lieu of having anything interesting to write, here are some more blogs that I recently started reading:

Wonky Jim
The Perpetual Traveller
Life On Tilt
Poker Philosopher
Bill Ivey
Bodogari
Johnny Lodden
Sirio
Rizen
Floating On Water

Deep Funk

I'm not one to harp on about bad beats and loosing runs, but I thought I'd just stick this out there.

This last month has been harsh. Big loosing streak. Not exactly what I need before 'going full time'. Bleh.

Anyhoo, I just thought I'd let you know that I cant win a pot to save my life, but I'm sure it'll turn around soon enough. I hope I dont go broke in the meantime!

MBiochem Hons (Oxon)

One of The University of Oxford's many quirks is the absence of any end of year communal graduation ceremony. They have severeal ceremonies dotted throughout the year and it's up to you to arrange your own. Well, two and a half years after finishing, I finally got around to graduating.

I wasn't all that fussed about the prospect, initially, but felt that I owed it to the parents who had - after all - stumped up all the fees and years of support. When the occasion rolled around, however, I was pretty exciting and it turned out to bet a very fun day out! There's nothing like being the centre of attention, eh?!

"Going Pro"

(by the way, I don't like that expresion. Phil Ivey and Doyle Brunson are pros. I'm just planning on making a living from poker)

Anyhoo, here's something by way of an explanation...

I'm not totally quitting my job. I've left myself with the option of going back (and taking the next step up the ladder) in 6-12 months time. So this can be thought of as more of a career break than a career quit.

I was stagnating where I was working and I wasn't really enjoying it. I can't be sure that I'll enjoy it when I go back but the next step career-wise should be closer to what I thought I wanted to do when I started down that path. If that's a bit cryptic or incomprehensible then I apologise.

Of course, I may not go back. If poker goes extremely well and I don't start getting bored of it then I may continue with it indefinitely. I'm also looking at some other ventures that can run along side poker and provide a guaranteed income and a bit of a break from the grind of the online felt.

Here's the plan:

I've decided that playing full time will require more conservative bankroll management. I've always used the 5% rule. That is, never sit down with more than 5% of your bankroll at any one table. If you adhere religiously to that (and you're a winning player) you should never go bust, but you may - after a shitting run of cards - have to move down levels. If I'm playing full time I don’t want to have to move down levels. So, I'm going to change from needing at least 20 buyins to play at any given level to needing 30. That means if I have days of loosing 5+ buyins I shouldn't need to start worrying.

Following those guidelines. I'll be playing the £200 and $500 short handed no-limit tables on Dusk Till Dawn and I'll be trying to play no more than four tables at any one time. In an ideal world I'd like to be playing six, but I need better screen resolution before that as I think that the overlapping tables are the cause of too many mistakes.

I know that many people, when 'going pro', would want to have at least 6 months salary spare but I can probably make about twice my current salary on rakeback alone, which should allow me to pad the roll with any winnings and still be able to pay myself during loosing streaks.

In time I'll want to buy a new computer and a giant monitor as I'm currently playing off a laptop, but that will have to wait until I have more disposable funds.

Well, them's the plans. Now I just need a bit of luck!