Post #13: The Way the Game Changes

I reflect on the mentality of playing poker when I first started, vs. how I see it slowly shifting nowadays, and playing on my own roll as MSNL for the first time.

When I first started playing poker “professionally,” I left college while being on stake for 20nl. There was nothing that proved I was going to get to mid-stakes, let alone be successful. I couldn’t make enough money to pay $500/mo. for rent at the start, but I had a steadfast internal belief that I was going to make it, regardless of how much time, energy, and effort I needed to put in. I was more than aware that I just needed some time to figure out the game and my own thought process. Poker scaled quickly when I moved up in stakes. I remember one of my first goals (of course) was to be able to get to 50nl, because at that point if I won 10 buy-ins, I could pay rent. Then the next goal, 100nl, which would make that number be halved to pay for my bills. Fast forward to now, and we’re comfortably at 500nl online, shot-taking 1knl, and playing the highest stakes I’m allowed to play in the live environment. My bills are fortunately something I don’t have to be worried about anymore, and I’m truly grateful for that. Especially when I was sort of “on my own,” in college without a job and a previous penchant for sports betting and gambling in that nature, the rough times I had when I was in debt and couldn’t afford to eat meals is always in the back of my mind.

I made a conscious decision to defy my parents, leave college, and I decided that if I was going to “give up” the ability to have a stable lifestyle at a decent job, I was going to make sure I succeeded in poker. I’ve talked about my personality on here a small bit, but to be very clear, I absolutely despise schedules, routines, and being forced to do things. I would be straight up unemployable for a conventional job, if not consistently in a state of depression, but for the poker world when I sit at my computer and just put in the hours playing and learning, I’m easily spending over 200 hours/mo. There isn’t a day that’s gone by where I haven’t thought about the game, or the strategy around it; it’s a part of me now. Even while writing this entry my mind wanders into self-assessed questions of, “How much am I going to play today? Which friends am I going to talk with about strategy or just the soft skills of poker?”

My enthusiasm for the game (as many of my friends know) is extremely high, and I’ve been told that it’s somewhat infectious. Sometimes too infectious, where I’m always extremely hyped up in calls and brimming with a curiosity for the things I don’t know from new friends who I would love to get to know, but would also like to learn and share previous experiences with. Whenever some friends need some motivation to put in a session or some help with going through a rough stretch, I’m the first person there to be able to easily hype them up and let them know how great they are at the game being able to make it professionally in this climate in the first place. Additionally, we both know that they’re not giving up, so it’s just a chink in the armor that I’m able to help fix if I can with my attitude and love for the game.

This isn’t to say that I don’t have my own problems and potential pitfalls in my own right. I’ve had numerous calls on discord/phone/skype with a variety of people I would consider close friends to me in my life who’ve been able to keep me on the straight and narrow. I’ve experienced my first “burn-out” of sorts, where I just did not feel like playing poker for a week. I’d have rather laid in bed and watched YouTube videos, Twitch streams, and things of that nature, vs do anything really productive in it’s own right. There’s a bit more to this part, but I’ll save it for a different post.

I think it stems from the new way that I’m learning to see poker, and it’s that the money actually “matters” now. What I mean is when I was playing micros and grinding, the money didn’t necessarily change my life in the slightest bit, where tossing around a couple buy-ins back and forth wasn’t worth much. Nowadays, winning a few buy-ins at 500nl in an hour or so is enough money for me to comfortably not need to play anymore to pay for my necessities. This isn’t me saying the money changes my play style, as my graphs can attest that I’m a pretty big maniac when it comes to piling money into the middle with bluffs, but that it’s a perspective shift. I don’t need to grind as much as I used to in order to give myself a “successful” month. While I say this, I’m pretty sure it’s a function of being off stake for the first time in my career, to where booking wins started to be on the forefront of my mind. I’m starting to experience that mid-tier level of success, and I think that I just might lose it if I go through a rough patch.

I recently got off stake with one of my best friends, where he told me to take a shot on my own roll for as much money as I thought I was able to handle if I went on a downswing. I instantly felt a pressure shift mentally in that “there is no make-up,” and with a 30k life roll playing 500nl, it’s a pretty aggressive shot to take. I decided if I lost roughly 10k of my net worth, I’d just go back on stake (to where I’m getting an extremely great deal) and then try again. Because of this, I was aware that I’m now fortunately in a place where I could never be truly broke again. I have an amazing network of friends and people who believe in me, as well as a skill set in being able to succeed in poker, in whatever avenue I choose to be successful in, granted I put in the time and effort. While I love streaming, coaching, and playing, I can’t do them all at once, so I’ve mostly stuck to getting to HSNL first, before I start branching off into other areas of poker I know I’ll enjoy. While I’m not playing nosebleeds yet by any stretch, I’m confident that I’ll be able to get there if I stay on the tracks of learning and improvement. However, I haven’t even played 2knl yet and have a negligible sample at 1knl.

After dropping 25bi this week in one of my more torrential downpours in the sample of 7 days, I decided to go back on stake and grind my roll back up. I’ve learned that I don’t think I’m necessarily “mentally ready yet” to play 500nl on my own roll, but rather when I have enough to handle a small slide. I’ll have to do some math and see what makes sense on when I should try to go on my own roll again, to where I can afford to lose x% of a poker roll and my life doesn’t change. Even now after losing 25% of my net worth, my life doesn’t change at all, but if I wanted to travel and things of that nature, it just feels a bit tighter, and I don’t like that feeling. There’s no rush, so I just have to enjoy the ride. The problem for me is I know looking back at this journey I’ll have wanted to “enjoy it even more,” so I’ll be more cognizant into trying to take some steps back to see the forest through the trees.

Onward and Upwards.