On parole and on my grind
I was released about a month ago after serving seven years in prison for a violent crime. Prior to my incarceration I was an average slightly winning poker player, with most of my money coming from various businesses. In the near future I'll be residing in Northern California (bay area), and I'm here to keep myself accountable to getting my life on track.
I will be starting some part-time work soon to satisfy terms of my parole, but in the meantime I've deposited 500 on clubwptgold (poutmouth). And have about 2000 more I have access to play in live games or to deposit online. I have no expenses, the money for poker is for poker and money I earn from part-time work can be added to my bankroll.
My Goal: Have 25k by the time I come off parole in February 2026.
Poker has evolved quite a bit since I went away in terms of solvers, however, my fundamentals are there and I'll begin studying asap. During my incarceration I played some online poker on my cell phone, ended up getting banned when they wanted me to take a selfie with my ID and I did using my prison ID (I also got my cell searched a few days later and lost said cell phone). I played a lot of poker in prison, and that's a whole story in itself, but I know I am a bit rusty.
I'll be single tabling on Clubwptgold and playing 2/3/5 in the bay area when the timing is right. I went with Club wpt gold and signed up using Doug Polk's promo code to get a piece of his 100k challenge, and mostly because Doug Polk was my favorite player my entire poker life, and he was super friendly this one time I met him IRL. I understand I have a high risk of ruin by poker standards, but from my point of view as long as I don't violate parole and stay out of prison, I am winning. Feel free to ask me any questions.
Wish me luck!
Mind saying what the story of the crime was? I did a short stint awhile back
Good luck with everything. I used to play at the Oaks in Emoryville, there are good easy games there
Mind saying what the story of the crime was? I did a short stint awhile back
Good luck with everything. I used to play at the Oaks in Emoryville, there are good easy games there
Thank you for your support.
It was a disagreement where guns were drawn and shots were fired.
I've played at Oaks quite a few times before my incarceration... In fact I spent most of my time at poker rooms before. Since I've been back the only room I could make it to is Palace in Hayward where I played a few times. Will be getting my licenses in a few weeks and have a car already so looking forward to play at other cardrooms once I do.
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Final table sweat.. 1373 for first
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Bink
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Good win bro
I was released about a month ago after serving seven years in prison for a violent crime. Prior to my incarceration I was an average slightly winning poker player, with most of my money coming from various businesses. In the near future I'll be residing in Northern California (bay area), and I'm here to keep myself accountable to getting my life on track.
I will be starting some part-time work soon to satisfy terms of my parole, but in the meantime I've deposited 500 on clubwptgold (poutmouth).
Hey bud congrats on finishing your stint, NorCal prisoners arent for the weak is what Ive learned on documentaries lol. Most time Ive spent in jail was 14hrs once and that was enough for me.
Doug is a good dude, would be sick if you won that freeroll thing hes got going. Ive been playing on wptgold here and there and its super soft, just annoying only having 1 table. Id recommend playing on a site that logs your hands to pokertracker4(or a diff database, just the one I use) as its an amazing resource for learning and improving to be able to review sessions and find leaks in your game. Being in the US youre pretty much limited to acr, I play on there and trust it for the most part, but I get why a lot of ppl dont. But I think if youre playing micro/low stakes the risk/reward is worth it for the learning aspect of it. They also have pretty good value tourneys.
Theres a lot of resources out there for getting better. I wouldnt worry so much about solvers at this point beyond understanding the general idea behind them. The most important thing imo is getting a strong foundation for theory and going from there. Learn your preflop ranges, be able to calculate pod odds in real time, and maybe consider getting a coach who you can talk hands and who can teach you thru theory. Theres also a ton of free content out there
I hope you stay smart and finish parole and go on to live a fulfilling life. If theres something youre passionate about maybe look into ways to make it a side hustle and eventual business. Cant be turned down for a job for being a felon if its your company
Hey bud congrats on finishing your stint, NorCal prisoners arent for the weak is what Ive learned on documentaries lol. Most time Ive spent in jail was 14hrs once and that was enough for me.
Doug is a good dude, would be sick if you won that freeroll thing hes got going. Ive been playing on wptgold here and there and its super soft, just annoying only having 1 table. Id recommend playing on a site that logs your hands to pokertracker4(or a diff database, just the one I use) as its an amazing res
I signed up with WPT Gold because I have banking issues now and this was the only website that accepted my prepaid debit card. Once I get a real bank account I'll explore better options.
On a side note, most banks have very high minimums or a monthly fee that is not right for my current situation.
Thank you for your advice as well!
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Thank you [emoji120]
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Maybe you can just grind full time and show your graph to your parole officer in place of a pay stub.
I'm just playing that out in my head. Surprisingly parole agents are pretty flexible with our program. As long as we aren't living a high risk lifestyle that could lead us back to prison. Close one imo.
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Broke about even playing all the guaranteed mtts on WPT.
Hopped into a .20/.50/1(.10) game. With a 100 max buy in it plays like a short 200nl game. Super soft though, it's always a good sign in an online game when people are short buying and don't top off.
With the weekend coming up I'm hoping to play one or two sessions of live poker.
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Update:
Still trying to win every single chip on the table.
I signed up with WPT Gold because I have banking issues now and this was the only website that accepted my prepaid debit card. Once I get a real bank account I'll explore better options.
On a side note, most banks have very high minimums or a monthly fee that is not right for my current situation.
You can try one of the online banks, like Chime or Dave. They accept everyone and have no fees or minimums.
Although honestly all you really need to play additional online poker sites is bitcoin, which is pretty easy to get even without a bank account.
Withdrew 200 on clubwptgold to my Venmo debit card, hopefully it goes through in a timely manner.
Decided to forgo playing live this weekend and stay in and grind more online. Since this started I've been playing all the MTT with guarantees all day, after that's done I'll hop into .20/.50/1(.10) until I go to sleep. Putting in about 12-16 hours a day.
It's only one tabling but that's fine with me. It's easier for me to do other stuff at the same time but more importantly gives me the time to consider spots where I played bad and work on plugging the leak. I've played on desktop and mobile and haven't found any bugs.
Couple thoughts:
The cash game stats they display could be misleading as I spent a good amount of my play shorthanded and heads up (I'd change and start a new table whenever the table would fill up) and when I started playing full ring I found myself getting a lot of action, probably because of my vpip/pfr being so high. I wish tournament stats are tracked across all matches but tournaments are easy due to the inevitable short stack nature so it's a lot less room for error.
So with tournaments I play very tight and nitty when it's deep and make instant decisions. But after late registration ends I'll purposely time down on EVERY single decision regardless if it's a preflop fold or 3 barrels. Is that considered bad etiquette or unethical? I do it for a lot of strategic reasons. Curious to hear people's thoughts.
So with tournaments I play very tight and nitty when it's deep and make instant decisions. But after late registration ends I'll purposely time down on EVERY single decision regardless if it's a preflop fold or 3 barrels. Is that considered bad etiquette or unethical? I do it for a lot of strategic reasons. Curious to hear people's thoughts.
I think its bad etiquette and bad for you. Because if you think you are a winning player, getting less hands to capitalise on opponents mistakes is hurting your results. IMHO.
I think its bad etiquette and bad for you. Because if you think you are a winning player, getting less hands to capitalise on opponents mistakes is hurting your results. IMHO.
Well, on bad etiquette alone I may stop that.
To clarify I only do that if I have 15bb or lower, basically when I'm in all in or fold mode because I'm finding out people are busting at a ridiculously fast rate at this point in time at other tables, damn near cruising my way to a min cash just by stalling.
Well, on bad etiquette alone I may stop that.
To clarify I only do that if I have 15bb or lower, basically when I'm in all in or fold mode because I'm finding out people are busting at a ridiculously fast rate at this point in time at other tables, damn near cruising my way to a min cash just by stalling.
Don’t play tourneys but imagine it’s fine and normal afaik, doubt you’re the first person who’s thought of the idea
GL OP, with poker and getting your life back on track.
I haven't been to prison but did play poker during a short stint in jail. Being a 2p2er I obviously had a huge edge. Won enough food for two weeks, almost got my ass kicked too lol. Donated a lot of food for the spread so that earned me some goodwill.
If you're familiar with bitcoin like someone else mentioned you could expand horizons. I'm not sure how it works converting it to cash with prepaid cards though. I'm in SoCal and play on a couple other sweeps sites that let you multi-table and give you free SCs daily, pretty soft. Gonna check out ClubWPTGold eventually though. Been sweating Polk as well, hope he crushes it.
Rooting for ya!
GL OP, with poker and getting your life back on track.
I haven't been to prison but did play poker during a short stint in jail. Being a 2p2er I obviously had a huge edge. Won enough food for two weeks, almost got my ass kicked too lol. Donated a lot of food for the spread so that earned me some goodwill.
If you're familiar with bitcoin like someone else mentioned you could expand horizons. I'm not sure how it works converting it to cash with prepaid cards though. I'm in SoCal and play on a couple
Yeah prison/jail poker is ridiculously soft, but it's a delicate balance. Reminds me of rounders where worm is explaining to Matt Damon how he had to walk a very fine line.
On a side note in prison I ended up befriending the guy who ran the poker game despite being a different race. He played well before I met him but from our occasional hand talks he improved like a bunch.
Took a couple bad beats and coolers at full ring. Playing HU now.
Well, on bad etiquette alone I may stop that.
To clarify I only do that if I have 15bb or lower, basically when I'm in all in or fold mode because I'm finding out people are busting at a ridiculously fast rate at this point in time at other tables, damn near cruising my way to a min cash just by stalling.
Then I think its okey, still think people overfold vs all-in so still a lot of nice profitable spots even with 15bb.
Was thinking once late reg ends, you start tanking evey hand while having 80bb.
Spoiler
Getting a lot of action at FR.. I think people are relying too heavily on my stats which are heavily skewed due to playing HU .
Fired three bullets to no avail in the 110 Sunday deepstack. Time to grind some 200nl
Up over 5 buy ins currently on one person
