If you had to start from nothing, and wanted to make a million dollars in the most efficient way possible without breaking any laws of course, what would you do in order to do so?
When I say nothing I don't really mean nothing like homeless bum. Let's take a typical person that would be on this site such as myself. Here is the hypothetical starting situation;
- Don't have to worry about current living situation, let's say you moved back in with the folks
- You have a college degree (I myself have a BS in Finance), but resume would only appeal to entry level positions
- You have a mind that is strong in logic, pattern recognition, and systematizing.
- You are a commute away from upper middle/upper class cities
When I think about this I imagine going a low variance route in which one obtains a typical administrative/salaried entry level position (40-60k USD/year), working a second job during evenings/weekends that is hobby-like (ex. piano lessons, in my case fitness training which would supply another 20-40k year), and then dumping excess income into real estate. I guess nothing unusual here.
Long story short, grinding live poker is not worth it dudes unless you got these conditions;
- You at least have a consistent, close by juicy live game that plays like 2/5 or higher
- The success of the games is not significantly relevant to your quality of life, if it is it's just not going to be worth the stress
- You're already spending time in your life that are propelling you towards financial freedom like a lucrative career or investments
- You don't already have a solid foundation of health and fitness
Based on the games I've seen maybe If you played your A game, maybe, just maybe you can have 60-80k years being a full time grinder at low stakes live games 1/2 - 5/10. I'm also pretty aware that even that is thinking optimistically. One should also be aware that trying to achieve this is almost going to be like work a job with a graveyard shift which in most cases is not good for your health so you should it's really not worth it unless you make atleast 120k$ or higher just so you can the ability to take long breaks and try to retire early.
For me personally poker in general is just not a good thing to do if you "have" to do it. It just sucks out all the fun out of it, makes me play worst, I don't know why I don't have as much patience as I used to, maybe because I'm old dude now that could have been in a farther place in life than I am right now, but hey that's a whole different story.
Basically to all you young folks, beware of the poker life. Don't do it to fulfill any monetary goal, just do it if it's a pure hobby. There's so many careers out there that can allow you to actually help people and if you're smart with your money along the way, you can actually retire in like 20 years at age 45-50, or just go down to part-time which is what I'll hopefully be doing.
A little about myself I'm freaking 29 and still only about to start nursing school which will take me another 2 years of schooling before I can land a gig. I want to do it because it's a career path where I can benefit society, make better than average income (average 120k in my region), have a flexible schedule (only work 2 to as many days as I want per week), and have good security and to move to another location and a job if I wanted to. While I'm a nurse I want to establish a fitness studio/small gym or two to generate passive income so that I can live a very comfortable life and basically be able to not be those parents that have to work all the time and not get to spend time with their kids.
I could have been a nurse when I was 23-25 instead of 31 but hey, I try every day to not focus on the past. Can't change the fact that I've done goofed a good portion of my 20's. I hope all of you guys out there try to not worry to much about any regrets and worry about what others think about you. Life's too short to worry about not following a typical life path and not "being on schedule." (ie. having a career at age X and having kids at age Y etc.). If you any of you guys feel down about any sort of stuff like this just have the mindset that I try to have.
Every day is an opportunity to do things that bring you fulfillment and happiness.
Gonna go to Canada this May for a 4-ish day vacation with a few buddies, probably thinking about going to Vancouver. Not trying to spend too much money as I'll probably be going on another vacation in the summer for just me and my girlfriend.
Just need ideas on places to go, things to see/do, foods to eat, etc. please :o
Last night playing at my local card room, 2/5 most people at the table sitting 1500+ deep, floorman gets called in next to take the new open seat at the table. Friendly guy, bald white middle aged father looking like the typical run of the mill middle class dad, wearing a mickey mouse sweater. Played with him several times before but the thing was he was always playing with house money because he would play during his shifts if the game was close to breaking. At first when this guy sat down he bought in for 500$ about 3 times i think and ran into 3 bad beats then something is this guy switched. He started iso'ing big, squeezing pretty often (like 240 preflop when like people call 30-40 preflop), making bottom pair calls (vs fish which ended up being good), big turn raises, etc. and he must have swung back up like 3-4k. While he was playing pretty agrro I started to feel like there was the fish, and then I became more like a baby shark, and then there this killer whale. There was a huge dynamic between the floor man and this one recreational fish and one reg fish who were all ateast 1.5k deep.
Somethings I learned, got reinforeced that night. Floor men aren't what they seem. Don't play so big that you started playing bad.. Shiet I kept spewing at my half ass attempts to bluff when the villains were close to folding but my bet sizes were on the pussy side relative to the pot.
Playing live games around 1k stacks effective is around my comfort zone. Once it starts to reach 1.5-2k stacks effective I start to become like a little girly and wet my panties. I think recently the highest bet I did as a pure bluff was only about 500-600. When someone makes it like 200 or something on the turn I doubt I'll have the balls to make it 700 without it being some sort of strong semi-bluff.
Ended up grinding up about 1700, then donking off like 1300 because I was being an idiot and playing for way too long being all tired and tilty.
Then to cap it all off I went to the 1k minimum buy-in 5/10 PLO game and played 6 handed, cuz I wasn't giving a shit about anything at the moment. Luckly nothing bad happened I just made like 300 bucks at the plo table, it was super late at night and we were all laughing at eachother cuz we were all playing like nit babies limping double suited aces and kings preflop.
Lol another side story a fellow reg at the casino who recently decided to grind plo exclusively was down about 50 bucks before plo broke. I then rail birded him as he went to the black jack table to get unstuck and he was eventually making 2500$ bets lol. Eventually he went to being down 50 to 4k lol. He's a degen but he'll be alright cuz he's an above average grinder that's skilled enough to play in the 5/10 games nl and plo,
U.S.A. bout to get stacked, we got about half of our country supporting this guy for presidential election.
All he does is yell out the word "jobs", blames everything on China, and then when it comes to immigration his plan is to build a wall along the border and deport all current illegal immigrants. He over simplifies every problem the U.S. has which helps create his appeal to the general U.S. population who don't like to apply critical thinking to any parts of their lives.
Bill O'Reilly asks him "Do you support gay marriage?"
Trump replies "No, I'm against it"
Bill: "Why"
Trump: "I don't know, I just don't feel good about it."
The fk?
Note: The show is on a right-wing conservative network, and the host is usually ignorant on many topics. When Trump is on, Bill seems like the voice of reason.
Just trying to warn my fellow human beings, don't give yourself unnecessary body aches/pains like me .
I've been building up lower back inflammation to the point where it's uncomfortable for me now to lean forward for an extended period of time while taking a shit, and now I've just strained my groin pretty bad by just transitioning between hip flexor stretches.
I've been doing doing 5x5/3x5 stronglifts for a while (used to do bro-splits) and I'd usually do a lower body workouts with squats + deadlifts, an upper body workout with bench press + Overhead presses, and another upper body workout with pullups/chin-ups + rows each about 2x per week. I would do the first set of three workouts three days in a row at about 90% ish of my PR's, and then the second set of three workouts at about 60-70% of PR's and just keep alternating with about a rest day or two between each 3 days. I also would add accessory lifts such as curls, lateral raises for shoulders, etc. for aesthetic reasons.
I'd say my strength and muscle mass have progressed pretty well but now REGRET NOT DOING any consistent stretching regimen post workout, any mid-section strengthening exercises (planks, leg raises, etc.), and any consistent cardio post workout or in between lifting sessions. Now my lower back has gotten excessively tight, and I've lost some mobility.
Point is,
don't skip them stretches, do light cardio in between sessions, take your de-loads seriously (back-off workouts), and btw don't down to much for long periods of time like I consistently do : ( .
Heh, banned myself from table games because that shit be my kryptonite. I'm not mega degen but I know I was on the path to the dark side. Banned myself for 90 days and not going dabble in black jack/ pai gow until summer. I would sometimes go to pai gow or black jack after a losing session from my live pokers and be like in fuck it mode, probably resulted in an increase loss of a couple thousand or a tad more. I just want to make sure I don't mix too much play at where I "work" for my monies.
Heh, banned myself from table games because that shit be my kryptonite. I'm not mega degen but I know I was on the path to the dark side. Banned myself for 90 days and not going dabble in black jack/ pai gow until summer. I would sometimes go to pai gow or black jack after a losing session from my live pokers and be like in fuck it mode, probably resulted in an increase loss of a couple thousand or a tad more. I just want to make sure I don't mix too much play at where I "work" for my monies.