Adventures of a London Luckbox

Hello all,

I am a 23 year-old poker player living in London, UK. I 'went pro' around a year ago, and, despite being incredibly lazy, have at least managed to cover my monthly nut every month since then, mainly playing £1-£2 up to £2-£5 NL, which I guess is good. However, I have saved very little beyond this, which is bad. My hope is that posting updates in this thread will make me a little more 'professional' in my endeavours (see goals below). I also aim to include some life stuff, like trip reports from nights out, and other non-poker goals.

Background (cliffs: young guy goes to uni, plays poker, can't get a job, plays poker).

I first started playing poker regularly in my first year of uni, with a weekly ten pound tournament/micro stakes cash game with my hall mates. Around the same time I deposited online. While I was unquestionably a donk, I managed to win some money from my fellow students and luckbox a couple of small tourneys on Full Tilt. With some of my winnings I bought Theory of Poker and a couple of Harrington on Hold Ems, and then discovered Two Plus Two, where I lurked strategy threads.

Over the next two years I discovered that several of the casinos in my uni city held nightly hold em cash games and tournaments. The players mostly consisted of drunken Scandanavians over to watch live football and Chinese restaurant owners who love to gambol. These proved to be very lucrative for me, and I never had to go to an ATM for the rest of my uni life. I played only sporadically, and spent pretty much all of the money I made going out with friends, which I don't regret at all. The rest I blew on a couple of trips to the Middle East and South America.

I graduated a year ago, full of optimism. I hadn't got round to applying for any jobs, but finding one shouldn't be too hard with my 2.1 in a respected subject from a good university. How wrong I was! Luckily though, my family home is near London and I could still play live and online. Pretty soon I had a bit of cash, and I moved into a flat in central(ish) London with two friends with legit jobs. Since then I have played live cash games and, to a lesser extent, online MTTs for a living.

The following are my short-mid term goals in poker and in life

Make £2-£5 NL my main game. For the last few months I've played £1-£2 and £1-£3 as my main game with occasional £2-£5 bumhunting sessions. Time to move up I think.

Up my volume. I haven't made anything near what I should have in the last few months because of laziness, basically. Not very professional...

Get invited to or start a home game. I hear home games are pretty soft. I want in on this action! Any tips?

Play some big field live donkaments. The sad fact is, not many people come up through the ranks through grinding it out in cash games. Plus, live donkamenteurs are the worst poker players on the planet. I played UKIPT Nottingham in the spring and while there were plenty of decent players some of the play was just atrocious. I obviously busted on day 1 all the same.

Get better at poker. I've neglected study of late, which is very bad. I will probably join a training site soon, though I have no idea which one is best.

Never tilt. I tilt rarely, but it does happen. It's totally unacceptable. I find playing shorter sessions/taking more breaks than I used to helps a lot, but even so it rears its ugly head every now and then. Not good.

Volunteer at something. I don't want to play poker forever, so this would be good in terms of my CV. Also, as a UK poker player I don't pay any tax on winnings, so it's only right to give something back.

Keep seeing plenty of my friends/going on nights out. Poker can be absorbing, and some of the best games are on Friday/Saturday nights. I'm determined to miss plenty of these games though, as I have lots of friends outside of poker and am in a long-term relationship. It's tough to balance everything but I will certainly try!

I may well fail to reach some of these goals, at least in the near future, but making good progress would be fine.

I'll try to update this thread fairly regularly, as I think it could be great motivation!