Kick, Push

It's been 2 and a half years since my last blog post. I come to LP every now and then and check out some non-poker related threads, and it's awesome to see familiar names keeping the community going. I dropped a hint/some wishful thinking in one of my last blogs that I was quitting poker to pursue a career in software development (as in, mostly building web applications), hoping to end up as a junior in some startup in San Francisco somewhere.

Unlike some of the great players here, I never truly loved poker. I was too emotional and unstable to accept the swings, and that's not okay as a mid stakes 6max/hu player. I liked being good at poker, but I always knew I had to do something else, before I ended up like those old Armenian chain-smoking Commerce regulars who berate young internet pros, try to hit on cocktail waitresses, and live simply for the thrill of the bad beat jackpot.

A couple years later, I'm happy to say that I work as a software engineer for an amazing, fun, fast-growing (I joined around ~15 employees, we have 42 now) startup. My days start at 11 am, I get paid very well (zero variance!), I'm mentally engaged most of the time, I lift weights 3x a week, I have a fantastic girlfriend, and am only getting better at what I do each day. Two years ago I was just a college dropout who only knew how to play poker and not much of anything else.

I can't think of a time during my poker career where I could just post a brag like that and not have to post any beats. Back then, I never could say that life was great, but it is now. I hope everyone here finds something similar, whether it be in poker or not.

I still miss some of the poker thrill though - my buddy Aaron just placed 36th in this year's WSOP ME and it was really exciting sweating him all week. Right now, I live out my thrills through a 50nl home game with coworkers, a far cry from the thousand dollar pots I played for not too long ago. But I found that the boringness of a salary makes me much better with money - with poker money I just spent it partying and on dumb shit. With a salary I actually save and spend mindfully (feel free to ask me about this sort of stuff) - my hopeful goal is to be able to retire by 35 (I'm nearing 26).

I'd love to try and help anyone who is or was in a similar situation - trying to figure out what to do post-poker, etc. For starters, I wrote a Quora answer on part of how I went from being a loser dropout to getting a job in a field I had no prior experience in: http://qr.ae/FjeM5 - the gist is, good poker players have a work ethic unlike most people, even if you're lazy as hell and only put in 20k hands a month.

Cheers

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Some releases to look forward to if you're anything like me:

January:
- [TV] Top Gear, Series 19
- [TV] Young Justice (returns)
- [TV] UFC 156: Aldo vs Edgar
- [Game] Day Z Standalone (possible release)

February:
- [Game] Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance
- [TV] The Walking Dead (returns)

March:
- [TV] Game of Thrones, Season 3
- [Game] Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII

Some time in 2013 (hopefully):
- GSP or Jones vs Silva
- DOJ pay me my moneys

Am I missing anything else?

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While I don't do monthly updates for my live career I thought this would be a good point to stop and discuss some things.

Hours: 89
Profit: $13195

The Break-up and Run Good Anti-Curse - A couple years ago when I broke up with my gf at the time, I was devastated but had a pretty amazing month. This month started out with me and the girl I'd been seeing for about 8 months splitting up. It was a little emotionally strange for me, and I instantly hit a 9k downswing, but I kept at it and ended up crushing the DS in like a week flat and kept going. So history has shown me that getting rid of girls = run good mania!

Semi-related, another thing I'd been practicing a lot of is meditation, essentially just learning how to be a happier human being and getting rid of my stresses, worries, jealousies, etc. It for sure was a really good way for me to get over my breakup very quickly and focus on playing awesome poker as soon as possible. I met someone while playing Live who owns two meditation schools and I kindled one of his books and thought it was fascinating and helped me tremendously. It's Noah Levine - Heart of the Revolution if anyone cares. It's taught me a lot about why we feel things like anger/sadness/regret etc. and has put into very relatable terms how one can easily dissolve these feelings when they arise.

Lastly, I will be moving on from Poker around February of 2013. I'm moving to San Francisco where I will be learning to code and hopefully be getting a junior developer position at some tech startup somewhere. I'll of course be still on LP and all that, but when I move it will essentially mark one complete year as a live pro. I guess at that time if people are interested I can do a Ask Me Anything about live play, which is something I think I've gotten really good at (not just strategy but table persona and stuff like that too) since I started in February this year.

So I have about 3 months left of grinding 5/10 live poker - hoping to just have it be as smooth as possible. GL everyone!

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