1/3 Grinding and Bankroll

Congrats on getting the job Dumbo!

Ggoodluck,gogogo!,imoG

Thanks!!! Super excited!

I was in such a good mood today while playing. I can already tell this change will be really good for me.

Good morning! Now that I’m off to start a new chapter in my life I wanted to take a moment to extend an olive branch to anyone I’ve gotten into an asinine argument with over the years who is reading this. Competition can bring out some confrontational tendencies in players, especially with money on the line. I liken it to the trash talk on a basketball court between opposing teams. Not unusual at all and sometimes even expected between rivals. It takes a lot or courage to put your money on the line and I respect that in my opponents no matter who they are.

I can be disputatious at times, I will readily acknowledge - especially when running bad over an extended period. Anyway, to anyone reading, no hard feelings. Nonstop poker made me very unhappy there for a time and sometimes it came out the wrong way. I wish you all the best, even my worst “enemies” (who I don’t consider enemies anyway). Take care and be well!

Fortunes can change in the blink of an eye. I was a recent law graduate in a fellowship in a prominent prosecutor’s office. I was working tirelessly, manically even, but was constantly worried my supervisors were out to sabotage me. My boyfriend at the time probably worked undercover for the FBI and was investigating me surreptitiously. “Do you have a working neuron I your brain?” demanded the anti-prosecution judge after a particularly difficult sentencing hearing. Truthfully, my brain wasn’t working normally at the time, it was totally off the reserve.

Not long after I kept spiraling, eventually panic attacks fearing heart attacks sent by evil demons controlling AA meetings. And then completely falling apart, pacing the house with an aluminum bat in my hands hearing the snow-muffled footsteps on the roof of the intruders conspiring to kill me. A hammer placed above the foyer door in case my father needed to use self-defense to protect my mother. “What’s that?!” I asked terrified, “You’re scaring him!” exclaimed my mother. Frightening attempts to sleep and eventually forced to sleep by some well intentioned doctors.

Life had thrown me a lemon. As a nurse said in the hospital, I had had everything up until then. As soon as I got out I finished my legal work, got my client out of federal prison, and started the course of saving my own life from utter depression.

When life is unlucky to you sometimes you just want a little good fortune. Must be why I gravitated towards wining at poker for so long. Something I had some illusion of control over. But the heaters only last so long before reality sets in that we don’t have as much control as we think.

Playing last night I decided to play one last waterfall with the table before heading home to sleep early in preparation for my job. I don’t look at my cards until all the community cards have been dealt. The flop was KQ9 all spades. “I need Jack ten of spades.” I said in my head. That would make me lucky, change my fortunes a little, undo the pain and horror of the cards life dealt me. The turn was an inconsequential 6 of diamonds and the river was the ace of spades. Now jack ten of spades made a royal flush. I turned over my cards: a jack of spades, followed my the ten of spades. I tabled my hand and won the pure gamble of the waterfall. Sometimes a little gamble can pay off in unexpected ways. Life’s fortunes can change in the blink of an eye. They certainly have for me.

One of my students was a jolly Indian guy. He enjoyed the game and had been losing at plo and wanted to improve. He liked it so much he started playing some afternoons before work got out. His employer caught him and fired him. Now he still plays, better than he used to, but he has no job. He has applied but still no new position.

I ran into a hopeless gambler by the elevator the other day. A redneck, did construction jobs. I played with him often and he was lively yet clueless about strategy. I suspected he had an intellectual disability. He had just gone on a bender at a different casino and self-excluded after losing $51,000 in a weekend there. He was going up to play one last time before self-excluding from MGM. His mother always followed him around in an effort to protect him and curb his worst impulses, to no avail. I told him it was probably for the best. He asked me for some money before we parted ways.

My friend who did a decade in prison for robbery called me this morning out of the blue. I also met him though poker. We bonded because he knew I did postconviction work and his friend got out through a pardon around the time I was trying to get my mentally ill client out.

A few months ago he was complaining about trouble with his wife related to his gambling habits. I told him at that time, “gambling will never love you back.” He told me he remembered that statement and that his wife accused him recently of abandoning his family due to his excessive gambling. He lost $1,000,000 last year gambling. He owns a business but that money could have supported his children, education, etc. He seemed determined to change his ways. But then he trailed off…I knew he was considering gambling again eventually. I hope it’s not too late for him.

I lost over a year of my life that could have been spent helping clients. I became very unhappy and depressed by the end. But unlike the poor gamblers I made a lot of money and hopefully I will be able to use it to start a project one day. A poker mixed friend asked me today, “how much longer do you have your freedom?” “Freedom comes in two weeks, this is the prison,” I said.

These sound like the thoughts of a crusher who is definitely beating the games. 😅😅😅

I stumbled upon the first page of your thread and saw a post from 2018 and now I’m confused because you were already in poker “prison” since 2018 clocking in more hours than the average pro:

Wish you the best of luck on the new job and hope it keeps you out of prison this time!

Thank you. The past several days have been a blur of studying the law of mental health, playing (much less) poker, and buying new clothes - blue and green colors, apparently preferred by people suffering from mental illness. I feel an eagerness and excitement I have not for a very long time, and a similar precipitous fall in my interest in poker.

I am releasing a fourth edition of my PLO5 strategy guide. See my books and publications thread for more info. This will be the last edition I plan on releasing.