I haven't posted here since 2011 and I really haven't posted anything productive here since 2010. But seeing as how I keep lurking here I might as well keep posting some stuff here.
So, 2010 I graduated from college. I spent 3 months during that summer playing poker, playing golf and spending a lot of time with my friends back in California. By the fall, I started my new job as a trader in Chicago. The transition period for me was good and I found a lot of cool people at work to hang out with. I currently been rooming with one of my work buddies for the past 2 years. Overall, as time went on and on I played less and less poker. When Black Friday happened I left a bunch of money (bunch is relative i guess) on the poker sites so that I would be able to play with it whenever I felt like it.
Unfortunately leaving money on FTP was a bad idea haha. But in the grand scheme of things, it was basically a drop in the bucket.
So progress through 2011, I met this girl online and we have been dating ever since. She is wonderful and makes me feel more complete as a person. Needless to say my personal life has been pretty good as well.
Going through 2011 and realizing that it's almost the end of 2012 I feel like the poker has been such a long time since I played seriously. I still look through some HHs out of habit and I still check some of the threads that seem interesting but life for me has really moved on. I am fortunate for all the lessons that poker has taught me. How to avoid the degen life style, how to analyse situations and at the end of the day how to self reflect and self improve. I am really happy to have been part of this community where I have met really good people.
Poker has taught me some great lessons and I think that I will always cherish the time I spent grinding away at college and struggling at the 10NL tables. Reflecting on it all, the money and everything really is so much less important than the other positives that it left me with. I don't plan on playing too much poker in the future and in fact the other day on my vacation I was playing 10/25 in Monaco. I definitely felt like I was no longer one of the better players at the table. That was quite a humbling experience as well. The basics were still there of course, but the small mistakes piled on and I definitely didn't feel like a winning player.
In the future I guess I'm going to be one of those fish at the high stakes tables that you guys make money from. But being a fish is a good privilege to be able to have.
TLDR:
Played poker in college
Does trading for living now
Happy to have played poker in college
Thinks poker was helpful to rest of life skills
BTW if anyone has any life/career questions or advice they want to share please don't hesitate to PM. Until then I'm going to burrow and lurk again.
Time for another installment of Income & Expenses. This section, ironically enough, is where I break down my income and list my expenses for each month along with a short analysis of how I think I can improve on them in the future.
Income: $18,543 From me: 15,985
From Spouse: 2,558
It was a good month compared to last month's annoying upswing followed by a horrendous breakeven finish. I managed to get in 150 hours, which I am fairly happy with. I've started to track my arrival and departure time from the casino to keep any non-playing time (waiting for a seat, walking from the car to the poker room) from affecting the amount of time that I am actually playing. And with those numbers factored in, I actually spent 159 hours at the casino. That is right on target with my goal of 40 hours of work per week. A little accounting gymnastics never hurt anyone right? It seems like I spend an average of 25min of "buffer time" each session away from the table before and after I actually sit down in a game. I'll continue to monitor this number going forward to see if that average holds true.
Hours of cash Played: 150 hours over 21 sessions
MTTs played: 0
Hourly Rate: 106.57
Expenses $4,689
[i]Home- 597
This is where most of the savings came from for this month. We refinanced our mortgage, and as a result we automatically skip this month's payment. We paid $337 to the title company for the refinance, and the rest went to HOA fees and getting some oil stains removed from our driveway to comply with some annoying HOA regulations. This number will be back in the normal range next month
Auto & Transport- 1,300
600 to car payments
152 to insurance
265 to gas
283 to registration renewal
Health and Fitness- 502
Insurance- 418 -This will go down to 189 next month as my wife now has benefits
Gym- 34 -Still trying to cancel this. Been a hassle so far.
Co-Pays -50
Food & Dining- 1,091
$33 Farmer's Market
$26 Olive Garden
$26 Firehouse subs
$75 Wal Mart groceries
$19 Marco's Pizza
$45 Home Plate Grill
$4 Starbucks
$370 Wal Mart
$88 Albertson's
$57.50 Asian Online Groceries
$20 McDonald's
$328 Meat Truck
This number would actually be in a more acceptable range of $700 if we didn't purchase $328 in beef/chicken off of a meat truck this month. Hopefully the purchase shows in next month's food bill being lowered as a result. We also could probably try to not eat out as much...
Bills & Utilities- 408
24 Water
114 Cable
8 Netflix
92 Gas
166 Mobile Phone
At first glance it looks like a victory because the number is half of last month's number. However, on further inspection you'll notice that there is no electricity bill this month. I believe I will be paying that at the beginning of October so next month's bill will likely be higher. Still planning to cancel the cable...
We bought $200 worth of winter/spring clothes for the little one, plus a $97 bike trailer off of craigslist, along with some other biking gear. It has gotten a decent workout so far as I've taken her via bike to the park 6 times this month. Pretty happy about getting a 6 mile round-trip bike ride in twice a week or so as I've lost about 10 lbs this month; down to 195 from 205. Bike maintenence is also typically pretty low, so future costs for the bikes shouldn't be too much.
Business Expenses- 4
Only Valet parked once this month and I added all of my other casino tips into the income from playing already.
Entertainment- 40
We went to go see Finding Nemo 3D as a family and, although it was fairly expensive, it was a fun movie and our two year old watched and enjoyed the whole thing. It went a lot better than expected.
Other- 260
It was our 5th wedding anniversary this month so we each gave each other gifts. I got a "Beer of the Month" membership for 6 months and she got a replacement chain for a necklace I gave her on our honeymoon that she thought was lost.
That's everything. If we hadn't gotten a pass on the mortgage payment for this month, our expenses would have been ~$6,500, which is below the $6,800 average that we have been spending this year. After adding this month up on the scoreboard, it has brought the average monthly spending down to $6,628 for the year. Not amazing, but with a little focus and determination, and the help of some nice weather to keep the energy bill down, October should be a very mild month expense-wise.
With an income of $18,543 and expenses of $4,689, we had a savings rate this month of 74%
That brings our savings rate for the year to an average of 36.71%, a far cry from my original goal of 65%. If we can get the number up over 40% for the year then I'll be happy with it at this point.
Here's to another strong month! Looking forward to powering through the end of the year.
Its been a while since I posted my last blog entry and so have to apologise for that. Been busy grinding the NL50 levels on Stars and I seem to have found my optimal earning level. I can only describe my game as "automated" for want of a better description.
Many people would say "ABC" but that is just another way to say the same thing. Over the years I have practiced my ABC to should a level that it is almost as automatic as basic strategy in blackjack. I know that I will never be a mid-stakes player playing this way but I am doing well at my level and multi-tabling isn't harming me because I am not watching the players closely enough.
I use a HUD but only in a basic way and look at VPIP, PFR and 3/bet stats which are crucial around the blinds. But also in full ring then the tendency is for players to be more risk averse. I went through a bad run of results in the summer where my earn rate dropped over a 100k period. Luckily someone who I trust analysed my game and I was opening my ranges too much.
I just don't think that full ring allows you to do that but back on track now. I am also playing at better times of the day as well on www.pokerstars.co.uk while before I was playing in the day so that I had more of a social life......the choice had to be made.....either man up and play in the evenings and around midnight or pack it in.
FSDFDA FUCK HAIRLINESDFASDSGby bigredhoss, September 28
just confirmed my suspicion that i am starting to go bald, hairline in front is receding into a horseshoe kind of thing and there's a small spot on top that's probably not noticeable to others yet but it's there, and now realizing it is generally thinning everywhere IM 25 YEARS OLD NOT 55 I AM SORRY IF I SLOWROLLED SOMEONE IN A PAST LIFE FOR THIS KARMA ITUTGYGUYVGHKL;IY FUCK FUCK FUCK CONFIRMED SUICIDE WATCH
Been working on my game pretty hard the last few months and finally made myself play some higher stakes. It's nice to get some positive reinforcement for the hard work I've been putting in. Onwards and upwards!?
New Car... Need help choosingby Svenman87, September 27
Have a 45~50k budget
Looking for a sporty car that I can drive in the spring, summer, and fall... I'll keep my current car for winter driving and see how it goes. Something I can say 30 years from now, "Back in the day I had a ________. Man what I wouldn't do for those wheels back." or something else silly along those lines
Other cars I'm looking at
-BMW 1 & 3 Series
-Porsche Boxster & Cayman (just a bit out of my original price range but can stretch)
I've been reading a ton of reviews and gone on a few test drives, and $ for $ I am really liking the 370Z but I'd appreciate any input on all the cars listed, as well as others you think I should look at.
pretty solid month, i got rid of the deep games and started playing zoom. Took some 5/10 shots as well, but that didn't go too well. so i just went back to zoom nl500 and enjoyed not having to table select. next month i will have close to zero hands played as i'm going to Nepal and doing some trekking up the mountains.
I'm raising money for Starlight by taking part in 2012 Royal Parks Foundation Half Marathon. Please sponsor me at http://www.virginmoneygiving.com/faz
I am trying to reach at least £500 and hopefully close to £1000. Only 11 days to go!!
Please help... the money will go to granting once in a lifetime wishes to children who are seriously or terminally ill.
You ever really vibin' w/ some cat and havin a good time? You wanna end the interaction w/ a nice "Hey man, I really enjoyed lunch. I'm really diggin your style. We should do this again some time. Until we meet again" and win the day w/ mutually exceptional hand shake?
Then he is sitting down or something and has to reach back kind of uncomfortably and the handshake is a little strange but you get it somewhat right but somewhat wrong but you are like oh shit man we fucked up the storybook ending handshake but I hope it's ok? Hopefully, we take care of business next time?
Good Sex and Transcendence:
Would I be writing this blog post or giving 2 shits about the above if I was breast fuckin some Kate Upton lookalike with moxy to match the mams? Tenacity to match the tits? Pizazz to match the premium pair?
So anywhooooooo I got a job again. At the same company! But Im gettin a raise not too big
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btw for those who dont know i havnt been working sine november 2011, 6 months ive been away in asia travelling, phils etc. Been back 3 months in sydney and finally able to get a job..... back at my old company- its a railway company(hence the title of this blog). But now its a better job, different project- i will be site engineer instead of office which was super boring. Lets hope this site works is fun. And also its signalling, which will pay heaaaaaaps once ive got few years experience.
The main thing is that its close to my house and only takes like 20 min drive to get there against the traffic. Not like 1 hr travels before which fucking drained me.
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