An NJ Grinder's Journey as a Pro

Hi TwoPlusTwo

My name is Dan and I have decided to begin a blog about my experiences attempting to be a professional poker player. There are a couple reasons I think this blog will be interesting enough to publish, and even if it isn’t entertaining I know it will be very therapeutic for me to summarize some of my sessions when they are finished. The two reasons I think this blog can be quite entertaining are:

1) I am attempting to be a professional poker player. I’ve always enjoyed following the ups and downs of others who try this as a career path, especially when I was thinking of trying it myself. Hopefully some people will get something out of seeing the highs and the lows of playing poker for your income.

2) The bulk of my play will be coming on regulated online poker sites in the United States. I live in New Jersey and primarily play tournaments under the screennames RedsoxNets5 and mj23style. The player pool is small but I think it is just big enough to grind out a living but I’m not really sure that there is a way to tell if I can do it without just trying it on my own, so here I am.

Some facts about me. I am 24 years old, I live in the Trenton area, I used to be an avid runner and am currently getting back into running shape (I participated in the River to Sea relay yesterday, a 92 mile running relay consisting of teams of 7 and 14 stages. It starts on the Delaware River and ends at the beach in Manasquan.). I am tall and used to play a lot of basketball but it has been limited recently. I have a girlfriend I’ve been with for over 2 years who lives about 80 miles away from me. The distance makes it a bit difficult and also sometimes limits how much I can play poker, but I wouldn’t trade her for the world, and she is unbelievably supportive of my pursuit of playing this game professionally.

I went to Europe for 3 weeks starting at the end of June and got back on July 18. I have not had a winning day of poker since returning and am approaching my biggest downswing ever. However, my mental game has been better than it ever was and I have complained about this downswing to almost no one, other than letting my girlfriend know just how deflating it can be. The good thing is that I am properly rolled for the games I play so the only thing I really have to overcome is the dreadful feeling one can get when starting up a new session. Every day is a new day and it’s important to focus on playing your best and ignore how your luck is going.

I say I am attempting to be a professional poker player because since I still live at home, I don’t yet consider myself an actual professional. I pay a lot of my own bills (car insurance, phone bill, student loans, gas money, spending money, etc) but I do not yet pay rent and my parents occasionally help me with other expenses (my car needed some repairs recently that totaled $500 and they spotted the bill for me). My parents are also unbelievably supportive and have told me I can stay here for as long as I want, but as much as I love them, I do want to move out soon and get started with my own life. Because of their hospitality though, I’ll be able to really build up a “life roll” before moving out so that I will not have to worry much when I downswing when living on my own. The support system I have is unbelievable and is really making me feel like I can thrive at this profession.

I’ll wrap up this first post with some of my past results and a little bit more detail of my poker life. Black Friday hit when I was 19, but I had been having success before then. I got close to 6 figure scores a couple times (12th in the turbo takedown for $8000 with $100K up top, and 17th in the Sunday Warmup for $2500ish with $150Kish up top), and then recently came 20th in the Parx $550 Big Stax event (for $3500ish with $100Kish up top), but still have not even cashed a tournament for 5 figures. I do think I will earn a 5 figure score in the near future though if I continue to put in the volume.
So anyway that’s a long enough post for my first entry. I will try to update this somewhat regularly. If you have any questions for me feel free to ask and I will try to answer them ASAP. Also, if you think there is anything more I should include/things I am talking about that I should exclude, let me know and I will take those ideas into consideration. I look forward to writing this and hope I do not spiral out and go dormant like so many other blogs seem to do. This first post was quite long and I'll try to keep future posts shorter so as to keep them from being TLDR.

Cliffs:
--24 year old attempting to become a professional poker player primarily using regulated online sites in New Jersey
--Will try to keep this blog updated regularly to help demonstrate the highs and lows of a professional poker player