New spot!

Playing Zoom Poker with a small bankroll seems like a bad plan, but I'm sure you know that now.

I was just talking to someone how I don't particularly like Houston. I don't like DC. I am pretty sure I drove past that MGM going up North last month. Very enticing and
smooth and right off the main road. I've never been to Tampa. Why not spend a week or 2 out in Houston and see what you think? It seems clear from your blog that those games are what you are most attracted to. Houston isn't a bad city. I am just used to the small gems in the South like Asheville, Charleston, and Savannah at this point and Houston also takes the mugginess to a new level. There is no doubt in my mind that the Houston games will be the most profitable. A suggestion would be to leave your ego at the door and be the shortest stack at the table (or cover well known fish) to start. A short stack is not too difficult to play and it will be super profitable in a game like that plus it gives you the ability to figure out the players and how the game is playing when your edge is at its worst. If you are most comfortable on 100bbs or 200bbs then play that but make sure you are properly bankrolled. If you are cool with Uber'ing and you can cover food + rent your risk of ruin is not as important but the winrate and standard deviation considerations should be on the conservative side as you don't really know anything about the games. To be honest you are probably making more Uber'ing but if you would rather play poker I can understand. 5/10 games that play similarly could be pretty profitable. I actually haven't kept track too much of your story. I don't know if you are capable of beating 5/10 live. I want to say you are a guy that gets a bankroll together and then blows it up. I've blown up bankrolls. Do you ever get the feeling that there is something more? Because there is. It sounds like from your post that you are determined to make a move. Even if you run away you still have to bring yourself. What is wrong with Uber'ing in Jacksonville and going from there? I don't know how to word this exactly. Something like I firmly believe that if we focus on internal happiness and open up good things will happen. Poker is not in line with right livelihood. The suffering and craving combo is strong. Why put yourself through that again? and again? and again? Craving the $20k win in the time rake 5/10 game and going broke in the 1/3. It's a vicious cycle. I don't know man. I just felt inspired to share my thoughts. They kind of started in poker mode and then started morphing into actual overall life mode. Why not look up cities that have sick Uber hourlies in a city that suits you? The baller poker life mixed with some idealized social life and smooth, attractive women is kind of played out. Don't grasp for that. Please, don't grasp for that. What do you really want to do? How can you be of service? Have tea with a friend, consider rescuing a kitten, find a local charity that is worth giving your time.

Houston has the lowest cost of living. The few times I've tried to play lots of live poker the thing that got me was the drive. If your priorities are women and weather wouldn't LA be the best? You don't even get looked down on for not having a day job.

I'm looking for a new tech job and I'm willing to move anywhere

Northern west coast (San Fran, Seattle, Portland):
Negatives: High Cost of living, too dominated by tech bros.
Positives: Best for tech career. Asian stuff
Socal
Negatives: HCOL, tech not as good, everyone dresses nice and I like to dress like shit, very car dominated
Positives: weather, attractive people
Boston
Negatives: Cold, HCOL
Positive: I'm from the east coast, I'm irish, bikeable
NYC
Negatives: I'm from the suburbs and live in a small city idk if i could handle it
Positive: its the big apple, bikeable
Austin:
Negatives: kind of a wildcard not sure what it would be like
positives: nice weather, LCOL

Oh god, please don't go to LA.

Rinny, your last post probably deserves its own blog.

Why no vegas?

On August 01 2018 14:28 hiems wrote: Why no vegas?

I dunno really, something about vegas scares me. Too many regs perhaps? High stakes only playground? No potential for social life since it's 100% tourist town? It just seems like vegas is the final step, not the first. A small stakes semi-pro has no business there.

Well chances are you will fail anyway. In fact I think you are a huge dog to succeed at this given your bankroll and it's not like you were ever especially talented. There isn't really a final step for you because logically you shouldn't even be doing this at all.

I think vegas makes sense for many reasons but I don't really think i will elaborate because your life is so on the edge and it's just too serious of a thing for anyone but you.

I'm still interested in what you like about vegas above all cities. Honestly I think part of the reason I keep picking "normal" cities is to serve as a backup plan because I know deep down inside I will fail. Getting "stuck" in houston/tampa wouldnt be that bad. Large cities, lots of tech jobs, overall desirable places to live. Vegas on the other hand only has poker to offer. If I lost my roll and had to take some boring job it might push me over the edge. Then again I didnt hate vegas as a city when I was out there before. Little hot for my liking but I am kinda used to it. The burbs all seemed clean enough, cost of living was good, etc.

Well before I respond I feel like a really important question you have to ask yourself is do you think your IT career is salvageable?

You said when you quit your job the first time you had got to around 60k+ a year right? And it took you a while to get there. Then after poker your offers were pretty much half that at a shady company that refused to promote you.

If it's going to take 5+ years again for you to maybe get a second chance for a measly 60k I feel like it's time to look for a second career.

I feel like a lot of companies might view you as damaged goods. I have never had that much experience for a desk job so maybe I'm wrong tho. What do you think?

well my resume certainly raises an eyebrow at this point. I'm pretty sure I can continue to get jobs paying 35-38k despite the employment gaps, just because those kind of jobs arent particularly discerning and I interview really well. I can also probably get away with misrepresenting my history since believe it or not most companies still dont really perform much in the way of background checks. The easiest trick is to simply claim you are still employed and not to contact that employer and presto, 3+ years of history is assumed to be true. I've actually been on good terms with my last 3 bosses and would ask them if they ever got any calls from prospective employers and they'd say no, so these companies keep hiring me one after the other based purely upon the interview + resume.

The biggest hurdle believe it or not is just having my skillset perish. You have to stay on top of things in IT or you get left behind. When I re-entered the workforce back at practically entry level I was lol'ing hard at my desk sometimes with trivial tasks that I couldnt remember how to solve. I had to google some things that would probably get me fired had my boss seen it since they'd wonder how I couldnt perform that task on my own. I got caught up to speed in about 2 weeks but it was a stark reminder of how rusty I had become.

well IMO 35-38k is just not going to cut it imo, esp when it's likely you won't be getting raises and promotions like earlier in your career.

at your age you need 50k minimum imo and even that won't be very comfortable.

I think vegas is the best place for poker despite it being considered "tough" it really doesn't matter all that much. Best run games probably, and your surrounded by positive energy and people really into what you want to do, sometimes at a very high level. That's something nowhere else has. I think that's very underrated...I just really like the energy there. I don't think it's a coincidence the NHL team did so well there their first year. I also think the quality of people you can meet in Vegas >> other cities, at least at the casino. Probably my biggest Vegas mistake was not making many friends.

Despite all of this I don't think you should go to Vegas strictly because you want to make it in poker. I think wherever you go you should just go because you are trying to rebuild your life. I think vegas is a town that gives people second chances. People go there and reinvent themselves all the time. Practically half the town is from somewhere else as far as locals go. It's also a town where you can just pick up random jobs with a work ethic and a heartbeat. ex. Pretty sure blackjack/poker/craps dealers make way more than 38k at least after 1 year experience.

tldr I think vegas is a great place.

38k/year will afford you a standard "luxury" apartment (i.e. safe neighborhood, clean appearance), reasonable car payment, and pay all the bills with not much left over. I'm ok with that. As far as career advancement goes, without a degree I've had to use the "out vs up" strategy, whereby I can only advance by moving to the next company rather than moving to the next department. I think thats still an option for anybody really. Will I ever get back to 60k? Not likely, not without a degree and several certifications which I have no interest any more in pursuing. But I think I could get into the 40k range with a few years of rebuilding at a single firm.

It's funny, when I took my trip out to vegas I still remember sitting in my hotel room on the 20th floor at the Aria looking out over the Veer towers and saying "do it man, just quit your job right now, dont even go back, just stay here literally as of right now, this is you, this is what you want". Sometimes I wonder if I should have.

I'll definitely consider it, especially if the vegas culture is more accepting of people on career pivot.

I don't know man. The option of $40k at a non-harming livelihood seems like the best option. Don't listen to guys like hiems who are seduced by money and the glitz, glamour, and prostitutes of Las Vegas.

I was going to give my opinion of small stakes in Las Vegas but I don't want to encourage you. I always found Vegas to be a soulless and manipulative town.

My wife and I moved to Vegas about 9 months ago and my only regret is that we didn't do it sooner. Once you get used to that summer heat (somehow a plus for my wife) it's not a bad place to live.

Access to games/rakeback is amazing, cost of living is a good bit lower, and there is a lot of great hiking if your into that sort of thing.

I agree with hiems, move to Vegas.

Hey just coming in to say I told you so lol

On August 06 2018 19:11 LemOn[5thF] wrote: Hey just coming in to say I told you so lol

Which part!

BTW I am seriously considering the trek to vegas now. I did some more digging on the houston poker games and continue to run into what appears to be games running much larger than advertised. If you're good and have the BR then i'm sure it's heaven, but if I walk up and sit down with $300 and the stack on my left is 10k pretty sure I wont last too long.

^pretty sure he's talking about how he said your not going to make it in online poker. Thing is tho lemon you were the one saying how greatttt an idea it was when newb wanted to quit his job to play live poker when it was super obvious to pretty much everyone that it was a terrible idea, lol.

honestly dude, at the end of the day the REAL best thing to do is to give up this thing altogether and try to salvage your IT job. If that doesn't make sense anymore, work on your second career.

On August 08 2018 23:59 hiems wrote: honestly dude, at the end of the day the REAL best thing to do is to give up this thing altogether and try to salvage your IT job. If that doesn't make sense anymore, work on your second career.

Yeah I just cant do that anymore. Go to bed at 1am, wake up at 6am, eyes burning, skip breakfast, drive 30 minutes in rush hour traffic, walk in front door, sit in cubicle, login to PC, check for tickets, see 5 complaints waiting that morning, go get coffee, walk over to person #1, fix issue, go back to desk, see next issue, go to next employee, it's 12pm, go get lunch, try to take power nap in car, 1pm, take shit, try to get in 10 minute nap while shitting, suck up to boss, try to argue with stupid new rule implemented by idiotic senior management in unrelated department who doesnt understand technology, get lots of compliments throughout the year, complete most tickets in shortest period of time, streamline a dozen practices, ask for raise, get told it's not in the budget, get series of objectives to complete clearly designed to just be an unending series of obstacles to reset the goal line for another raise, etc etc etc.