I am making this journal in an effort to improve my poker game. The reasons behind this being that if I have a purpose besides making money, I can enjoy it, take it seriously and have more endurance for sessions. I came to this conclusion between the last Party Poker reload bonus and the current one. While I was working off the bonus, I found great motivation and I would play sessions that lasted up to 6 hours. Since then, I seem to have a problem playing more than 90 minutes at a time. Once this new reload bonus came around, I put in a 5 hour day with no effort. Strange huh? My hopes is that along with this journal and my new Neteller account, I can constantly be playing for a purpose, whether its working off a bonus or detailing my efforts for people that have nothing better to do than read about my boring life……like me.

Let me start off with a quick introduction for people that don’t know already. I’m 24 years old and live in NJ. I had a crappy job working in customer service that I eventually quit because it sucked so much. Since, I have worked part time at a laid back appraisal office (I worked there during college before) where I work actually 4 hours a week but get paid for 20 while I goof off and read BTP. Not bad huh? That’s what I thought until I saw my saving slowly go down because no way this job pays the bills, even ones as low as mine. Back to the job hunt, but all there ever seemed to be is more customer support or jobs I wasn’t qualified for, besides the fact that I never really saw a job I wanted. The only thing I really like was poker and I had been doing real well so lets see what I can do with it. Since the New Year, I’ve been keeping more detailed records and since the beginning of February, I’ve been making a serious attempt to put in enough hours to make poker a part time job. I’ve been learning PLO, PLO8 (thanks to Monk and others), NLHE (thanks to the entire BTP), as well as actually trying to master limit hold’em since that seems to be my best game by far in my opinion so I will be leaning on Piers and the other limit regulars for that.

To the present…..

The first two weeks went extremely well. I was playing $2/$4 limit 3 tabling on Party even though my bankroll could handle $3/$6 or even $5/$10, but I always worked my way up in the limits until I felt I really earned my way to the higher limit, no matter the bankroll. Since I had only toyed with 2/4 online in the past, but now I was putting in serious time and making serious dough. I’ve been playing 2/4 and higher in casinos for a while now but only took the leap online recently. Being able to see the person helps my confidence that much.

All was happy in Brian Land since I had made more in those 2 weeks than 6 weeks of work until this past week where I was down about $300 over 4 days at 2/4 and $20 NLHE SNG’s. I was still up big for the month, but I felt like I had gotten kicked in the nuts. You guys all know that feeling, right Monk? Anyway…..with the new reload bonus at Party, time to play again, but moved back to $1/$2 just to get settled and it seems that the world is normal again as I was up today.

So that’s the story. Did you really read it all or did you just skip paragraph to paragraph looking for something interesting? Too bad, you got this entry instead.

In the end, I really only need to make about $600 a month to really sustain my meager life but obviously want more for incidentals, bankroll growth, and savings. I think I should be able to do that no problem with bonuses, rakeback, and good ole fashion grinding. Having the paycheck from my other job really helps me feel a little more stable so I suggest that if possible for other aspiring pros or semi-pros. Wish me luck and hope that my story inspires or teaches you in some way as other journals and posts on BTP have done for me.

Feel free to comment as I update because I want criticism and observations.

Brian,

Very glad to see you've started a journal; I think these things are a good idea as they'll help provide motivation both for you, and for the readers. My journal has been a great motivational tool for me so far; it pushes me to play my best/book enough hours just so I'll finally have some good news to put in the entries.

Also glad to see you moved down and had a good day! There's really not much skill difference between 1/2 and 2/4, but when you're in a slump, moving down is often good for psychological reasons. I would share with you my particular strategy when I go into an extended slump, but in the past, that strategy has invariably ended with me going completely broke. So I'll keep that one to myself!

Keep 'em coming!

-TW

Well I certainly wish you continued success. I know how it is to actually sit in front of your computer and put in the hours, it's tough sometimes. When I played B&M everyday I could put in 24 hours and never bat an eye as the time just seemed to fly by but online I really find it difficult to put in more than 4 hours a day and many times alot less than that. The bonuses do help me as well and that is some of the reason I have decided to keep working on them despite perhaps giving up a little money but at MUCH less or NO Risk to continue building the bankroll even higher. I would advise you to certainly keep on the lookout for those bonuses because they are very significant in providing you an impetus to play and gain more experience along the way as well as providing you a continuing growing bankroll sometimes even when you are losing for a short time span. I don't know if you play the Cryptos but I would recommend you start as that is another +300 or so every month and you can clear them all in about 8 hours if you 5 table. Good luck.

I'm gonna start journal off with a running start. I'm taking the day off!!!

I got plans to go play basketball with my friends for a few hours, grab a bite to eat and then get good and drunk. Sounds fun right? I think it will be. I'm trying to exercise more because I spend too much time in front of a computer either at work or playing poker. Therefore, after a day of exercise, getting drunk should be a nice way to negate all that work. I'm so smart.

I will be back to playing tomorrow as I got a lot of hands to play to complete the party bonus and plan on getting most of it done then.

My day off felt great as I got some exercise and then completely negated it with a whole bunch of drinking that had me stubbling around the house. The next morning, I was in and out of sleep as I heard my housemate puking on and off for 3 hours in the bathroom next to my room. I got up at the bright and early hour of 1:30pm and started going to work.

Today, I played two sessions of $1/$2 on Party to work off the reload bonus and I'm glad I did. In the first session, I was down $70 just getting sucked out and missing constantly. One of my favorites is someone calling a bet heads up on a 772 board with QJ when I had 99 to hit a Q on the turn. The only set I hit was JJ and I got run down by a straight. No big pocket pairs and nothing but small pots my way. That pretty much sums up how my session was going. If this had been 2/4, I would have been down 140 so that helped calm me.

At night, i went back to the tables and I was up $66 so I was down $4 overall for the day. Not bad considering. It would have been much higher if not for one table that couldn't hold a hand and was down $45. However, I was up almost $100 on one of the others. If it wasn't for one big hand the round before I quit, I would have been up another 30.

Here's the hand. I get AQ diamonds UTG and raise. UTG+1 calls which means nothing since he's very loose. One other caller. Flop comes 9TQ, 2 diamonds. Sweet!. I bet and one call from UTG+1. Turn is low blank, bet and call. River is a K, I still bet, get called, he beats me with K8. Wow, that sucks, but what was even worse was he had K8 of diamonds so if a diamond hit, I was gonna win big. damnit!

Nothing exciting but I'm almost through my Party reload bonus so I hope that with how things are going so far, I expect to be up $300 (including bonus) when i'm finished. Nothing great, but considering how I started, It would feel good.

Not too much poker today. Just some $1/$2 limit on Party to finish the reload bonus which was quite nice. Then some lessons and fun playing with BTPers on Stars $.02/$.04. I was up 42 cents and think I played really well. I made a nice read on Piers as he tried to push me around a couple times. Limit pro? Open book is more like it. Just kidding, but I did go with my reads and won a nice 40 cent pot with AQ, no pair. Don’t try to push me around and don’t F with my blinds. We need to do this again and get some of the NL players there too.

The first month of my “Poker as a Part-time Job” experiment has been completed with some decent results. Sad thing was I was up higher 10 days ago than I am at the end of the month after enduring a nice -$300 stretch.

Final stats:

$1/$2 Limit: +$61.63
Hours: 9
$/Hr: $6.85

$2/$4 Limit: +$626
Hours: 33.75
$/Hr: $18.55

$25 PLO: +$34.20
Hours: 5.75
$/Hr: $5.95

$25 PLO8: -$11
Hours: 1.25
$/Hr: -$8.80 (I’m just trying to learn)

Home Games: +$28
Hours: 9
$/Hr: $3.11

$20+$2 NLHE SNGs: $138
21 SNGs (had a very bad ending run)

BTP Tourneys: -$11

Bonuses: $300

Overall Total: $1165.83
Hours: 75.25
$/Hr: $19.48

So, I’ve said that I need about $600 a month to be comfortable so I guess it worked out in my favor. I expect this to get better as I get more bonuses, play $2/$4 more consistently and move up to $3/$6 at some point in the near future. If it wasn’t for $650 needed to fix my car, it would be a great month. I’m happy and I’m hopeful for the future because if it doesn’t work out, I might have to get a real full time job which I don’t want to do.

I’ll keep writing whether so if anyone is reading this……don’t you have something better to do? Seriously.

Hey there, good work.

This your first $1k month? Good job if so. Anyhow, making $20 per hour in those games is pretty good going, I guess you do multitable of course! Hope the car is sorted soon, they can be troublesome things can't they! What sort is it and what's wrong?

Monk
xxxxx

Yup, this was my first 1k month and January was my first 600+ month and I didn't play too much during that so its been a good 2 months. I do play 3 tables and I was up over 850 at 2/4 and over 250 at SNGs til I went on my losing streak that really cost me. The party reload brought me almost back to even for the streak.

The problem with my car was a coolant leak that was due to a gasket leak by the timing chain or something like that. I'm not too car savy but apparent, this type of problem is typical with my car because they used some plastic parts in there that easily get warped and have to replaced when they leak coolant. Worst part is, is that its inside the engine which takes hours of labor to take it apart and put it back and the actual part is cheap. About 100 of the 650 was parts, the rest was labor but hopefully I won't have to deal with that anymore.

Congrats on the nice month. Your play and reads seem to be coming along well. As long as you don't let yourself suffer from bouts of unneccesary tilt you will be fine and shouldn't have to worry about getting another part time job

Keep up the good work.

Well that didn't last long as I was down $170 in about 90 minutes at 2/4 and down $55 at PLO 50 in 90 min. I need a break yet again.