I keep telling myself I’m going to write something today. Then tomorrow comes, and I didn’t write anything yesterday.
I’m going to try to keep up with posting something every day or two, regarding what I’m currently doing and how it’s going. The Daily Grind.
To start, I’ll just talk about a few things that I think any new player will need to be ready for, and need to overcome if they’re going to try to grind it out every day and make some real money from playing poker.
First, they call it grinding for a reason. It’s hard. Even if you love the game, it’s hard. Even a winning player is going to lose most of the games he plays. If you play cash games, this might not be so evident since one game really just runs into another and you have winning or losing “sessions”. But if you’re like me and you play tournament type games like Sit N Go tournaments or full fledged MTT’s, the games have clearly defined winners and losers, and you will lose many more games than you win. I’ve seen numbers in several places that seem to say even the best SNG players can only hope to sustain between a 40% and 45% “in the money” rate. That means that in 55% to 60% of the games played, you will lose, and get paid nothing for your time. You WILL lose more often than you win.
Losing so much can really make you feel like a loser. Even if you’re really winning (in the long run). If you have a bad day at your regular job, you just had a bad day,but you still get paid, then you go home, and things can get better. When you have a bad day at your poker job, not only is it a bad day, but you don’t get paid either. Not only do you not get paid, you actually have LESS money than you had when you started the day. It’s like your boss reached into your pocket and took back part of your last paycheck because you screwed up this morning. It gets to you on an emotional level. It’s hard to be prepared for it. it’s hard to explain to someone who hasn’t gone through it. But rest assured, if you try to do it every day, for any real amount of time, you will eventually find yourself sitting somewhere, so angry/sad/disappointed that you’re almost in tears, wondering how you could have ever thought THIS would be a good idea.
It’s been a few months, and I’ve had a few really bad moments, and lots of angry sort-of-bad moments. I still haven’t really found anything that helps other than getting used to it with time, the calming words of my wife when I need them, and the shared anger of others on forums and/or blogs.
I think that’s the best advice I can give. When you eventually hit one of those really bad spots, you’re going to feel so utterly alone and so much like a loser, it’s crushing you. Now go find someone else to share it with. Allow yourself to realize that you’re not alone with that feeling. It’s hard, and it sucks, but other people visit that place too, and just not being alone makes it not so bad.
January 9th, 2009 at 11:23 am
I found your site on Google and read a few of your other entires. Nice Stuff. I’m looking forward to reading more from you.