Post: #51

Kimleebj,

I'm not going to tell the guy NOT to follow his dream, I'm just giving my opinion on the matter. I'm not a gambler so I'm outside of my area of expertise. I did read the book Bringing Down The House. It's about a group of MIT math students that went to unbelievable lengths to get an advantage in blackjack, including "team play", card counting, and other strategies and they calculated they were only able to increase their chances by a about 1 percentage point. That book pretty much made up my mind on where to focus my energy (elsewhere) I know you're a good gambler and have written books on the subject, so you can counsel him further.

Post: #52

(04-14-2011 01:29 AM)Jack Frost Wrote:  This thread is pretty ridiculous but fuck it, Im bored and game.

Mac I played poker for a living for 2 and a half years and Im telling you now its nowhere NEAR as easy or as glamorous as it sounds, its a fucking grind. You say well Ill just get up X and then Ill leave but its not always that easy. There were days Id be stuck a grand or so quick and then sitting there for LITERALLY 36 hours straight grinding out my profits. The hours you end up keeping and the lifestyle will be an absolute trainwreck on your body, I gained about 50 lbs in the 2 plus years playing and I was definitely not the exception as I watched alot of the guys I knew deteriorate in the same manner. Someone also mentioned going broke, you will, every poker player does. Then your borrowing money from other players you know and scrambling to pay them off. My man Fisto mentioned a dude he knows that won a bracelet one of the guys I came up playing with won the WPT championship for 2.5 million and all of that shit is gone. When I go and recreationally play now and see some of the guys from my days in there grinding they look like fucking hell and out of the 40 or so guys I know that play for a living only 2 of them are well off financially and only 1 of those 2 doesnt look 10 years older than he is. Do some people become successful gamblers yes they do but the people who dont outweigh the people that do by an absolutely astounding amount.

I went off there for a bit but if youve got any specific questions as far as what you need to start and what you need to do Id be more than happy to help. At the end of my 2.5 years I was a MODERATE winner which means I had my bills paid and had some spending money but I was nowhere living a lavish lifestyle and youre worried about spending money because you never know when youre going to need to add it to your bankroll.

I think I see a movie script in there somewhere amigo.

This guy claims he won 700k and he still uses those figures to justify whether he's up or down.....he's always stressed out and stays home to gamble online rather than going out and doing something else.

Post: #53

(04-12-2011 08:36 PM)MacNcheez Wrote:  If you sit down at a $10/hand blackjack table with $200 and play for a little while, how hard would it to be to be up $40? That's 20% profit.

Consistently? It is not possible.

Quote:I've had it happen plenty of times.

And you didn't have it plenty of times as well. Who, do you think, pays the HUGE casino bills? You do.

Post: #54

(04-13-2011 06:58 PM)glassjawed Wrote:  you can learn to roll dice a certain way to control the outcome

Everything is exploitable with enough procedure flaws, but there is no end to apochryphal stories. Stanford Wong published silly books about dice control. But he admits to being a lifetime loser at cash craps. He claims to be out of practice, cannot find a skilled shooter, and will not bet me. Other "craps coaches" are more dishonest.

(04-14-2011 01:37 AM)Fisto Wrote:  Bringing Down The House. It's about a group of MIT math students

I know those guys. Andy Bloch is a successful poker player. But other guys like Josh Axelrad are not:
Blackjack Player Loses at Poker.

MacNcheez needs to hit rock bottom quickly so he can recover from his stupidity. He can easily combine MMA and poker. He can fly to Vegas, fight Fisto and all his roommates simultaneously, and then play them all at poker. If you're gonna be dumb, you gotta be tough.

Post: #55

(04-14-2011 09:42 AM)kimleebj Wrote:  

(04-13-2011 06:58 PM)glassjawed Wrote:  you can learn to roll dice a certain way to control the outcome

Everything is exploitable with enough procedure flaws, but there is no end to apochryphal stories. Stanford Wong published silly books about dice control. But he admits to being a lifetime loser at cash craps. He claims to be out of practice, cannot find a skilled shooter, and will not bet me. Other "craps coaches" are more dishonest.

(04-14-2011 01:37 AM)Fisto Wrote:  Bringing Down The House. It's about a group of MIT math students

I know those guys. Andy Bloch is a successful poker player. But other guys like Josh Axelrad are not:
Blackjack Player Loses at Poker.

MacNcheez needs to hit rock bottom quickly so he can recover from his stupidity. He can easily combine MMA and poker. He can fly to Vegas, fight Fisto and all his roommates simultaneously, and then play them all at poker. If you're gonna be dumb, you gotta be tough.

You know when a conversation or debate has broken down when the insults and name calling start.

This is a just a topic of conversation I wanted to put out there and see if anyone is actually able to successfully live this lifestyle and get some advice on how to do it. That's all.

Post: #56

Well did you get the advice you wanted? Dry your tears up Sally. This isn't group therapy. I expected more out of a varsity letterman, not to mention a guy who quotes Full Metal Jacket.

Seriously though, a grand a day?? WTF?? I'm calling troll.

Post: #57

(04-14-2011 11:44 AM)Fisto Wrote:  I'm calling troll.

You might think, but there are entire forums populated by these sincere guys. The founder of the following forum completed medical school, and then committed suicide after running up gambling debts. The other forum members don't fare much better:

Gambler Fails G.E.D.

I WAS IN 11TH GRADE 3 YEARS....THEN OFFICALLY QUIT!!!
...
i got really fucked up last night and couldnt get my low-life ass outta bed at 10 am to go and take the [G.E.D.] test

had a huge fight with my old-lady! although i didnt hit her, i broke down the bed-room and bath room doors!

she left.....her and the kids are at her mothers.

ive spent most of the day calling them but she wont speak to me.....cant say i blame her

i havent had a drink today....i feel like a piece of shit

hungover and cause i feel im a bad parent, husband and a drug addict and alcoholic

Post: #58

Study finds compulsive gambling more prevalent than alcoholism

http://www.vegasinc.com/news/2011/apr/14...alcoholis/

Post: #59

(04-14-2011 09:50 AM)MacNcheez Wrote:  This is a just a topic of conversation I wanted to put out there and see if anyone is actually able to successfully live this lifestyle and get some advice on how to do it. That's all.

Fair enough.

But you are aware of the other HUGE forums dedicated to this? Its fine to ask here, but I want to make sure that you are aware of the other resources out there that will be immensely more helpful to you. I don't want to plug the primary forum that I'm thinking of here, but PM me and I'll tell you. Hint: Its primarily a poker forum.

Post: #60

Was watching the Aussie Millions last night, interesting fact Phil Ivey who is widely considered the number one poker player in the world has amassed around $14million in tournament winnings and god knows how many more millions in poker cash games, he's the best of the best yet a few years back he made a loss of $5million or so by the end of the year. So you can be the best in the world but if you have a bad run or no luck even then you can't guarantee you'll make any money from this fickle game called poker. Hopefully this proves to you there is no set in stone way to make $1000 per day.

I lost $300 last nigh in 3 hands even though I got my money in ahead each time.

Post: #61

(04-15-2011 06:25 AM)Gringo Wrote:  Was watching the Aussie Millions last night ... .

I lost ... 3 hands even though I got my money in ahead each time.

My coauthor won the Aussie Millions main event after we wrote our first book. Dang, I should have invested in a percentage of his play!

Of course the most disappointed guys are always the ones who come in second. For example, my friend Andy Bloch came in second to the late Chip Reese in the WSOP $50K HORSE event. Instead of being happy about winning a million, he complained about getting Chip all-in as a favorite three times.

Post: #62

You've written a poker book?

And yes the big time poker players are never happy unless they get the glory!

Post: #63

News just in:

Sites charged with gambling offenses: http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/poker/new...id=6362238

I am not exactly sure of the implications (I don't gamble in that way) but I heard from a friend that does that this is bad.

Maybe an expert like kimlee can shed some light.

Update:

http://www.pokerstars.com/ Domain named seized by FBI!

Update II:

FBI shuts down poker sites in major online gambling crackdown http://thehill.com/blogs/hillicon-valley...oker-sites

Nevermind. I get it. kimlees expertise no longer needed.

Post: #64

Update III:

From what I understand, if you had a bankroll on any of those sites, your bankroll is cooked.

Brutal.

This is really going to piss a lot of people off.

America - really cracking down on sh*t.

Get your exit strategies ready boys.

Post: #65

It only affects American players as far as I know, us Europeans can still log in and play no problem. Pretty sure Americans were banned a long time ago so 'legally' none of them should have been playing on there anywya. If your millions have just gone AWOL you are not going to be pleased.

Can't beleive that in a country like America playing poker is a crime. That is backwards.

Post: #66

Americans were never banned from Full Tilt, PokerStars, Absolute, UB and some other sites. However, some sites such as Party Poker, 888.com etc did pull out of the US market which is why they are not being attacked by the DoJ right now. It has never been illegal to play online poker for Americans however it is illegal for a gambling website to serve US players. I.E. the sites (full tilt, stars, etc) pretty blatantly were breaking the law by allowing US players. However the US players themselves were not breaking any laws.

If you are European and have money on FTP, PS or AP/UB I would highly recommend taking your money off there ASAP and playing on a different site... one that never allowed US players and that is safe from ever being pwn'd by the US DoJ.

Post: #67

(04-17-2011 11:19 AM)BaronStanley Wrote:  It has never been illegal to play online poker for Americans however it is illegal for a gambling website to serve US players. I.E. the sites (full tilt, stars, etc) pretty blatantly were breaking the law

I don't think so. Washington State briefly made playing online poker a felony. There are various state and local laws against gambling. But there is no federal law against internet poker, the 1961 Wire Act clearly applies to sports, and the DoJ has been afraid to bring a poker case because they might lose. In contrast, they have regularly imprisoned bookies.

Instead, they used money laundering charges.

Post: #68

What do you think this means for these poker sites?

Post: #69

(04-15-2011 07:06 PM)thegmanifesto Wrote:  America - really cracking down on sh*t.

Get your exit strategies ready boys.

My broker is Russian...

Post: #70

(04-15-2011 07:06 PM)thegmanifesto Wrote:  From what I understand, if you had a bankroll on any of those sites, your bankroll is cooked.

Not only that, you also have a good chance to receive a subpoena to appear for deposition as a witness. And if you were US citizen or resident, won a significant amount of money, and did not declare them on your tax return, I'd talk to a lawyer ASAP.

Post: #71

"From what I understand, if you had a bankroll on any of those sites, your bankroll is cooked."

Jeebus that's really heavy. Maybe now people will start playing home games face to face against real people, old school with card shuffling and everything, instead of jacking off to porn while playing online.

Post: #72

Huge ramifications:

Darren: How bad was the hit?

Balsbaugh: When Pokerstars, Full Tilt and Absolute Poker left the US market, 95 percent of the market share for US poker players absolutely disappeared and with that so did $200 million worth of marketing money and advertising money that these companies spent in order to acquire new customers. What that means is basically poker television shows like “The Big Game” on Fox and “Poker After Dark” on NBC are completely gone. So the poker landscape has changed dramatically in a very short period of time.

Darren: How will this affect the World Series of Poker?

Balsbaugh: I think that the World Series of Poker main event the attendance numbers will go down from approximately 8,000 to right around 2,500. Sixty percent of the field has historically been put in through these online poker sites, which are no longer operating in the United States, so clearly right off the top we’ll have a big deduction there. And the poker economy is very dependent on money transferring hands and as this money has left the US market so are a lot of these opportunities. So I think the field is going to decrease dramatically.

Darren: What's the future of online poker in the United States?

Balsbaugh: Online poker in the United States at this time is completely wiped out. There are few small operators in the black market who are still operating, but these were very big and very reputable major international companies -– billion dollar corporations which are regulated in the UK, in France, in Italy, they can no longer operating here. There will be, for a short period of time, another black market. There will be online poker in the United States. There is a huge demand for it and hopefully Congress will legalize and regulate online poker in the United States. So I see it as one step back for potentially two steps forward in a more burgeoning online market.

Continue http://www.cnbc.com/id/42649117

Post: #73

But America is the land of freedom ! I don't understand !

Post: #74

Lot of interesting stuff in this thread, and being a poker player I've got add my 2 cents.

I started playing in 2005, winning about $2K in a night, and then spending the next week losing it all back, and then losing an additional $2K over the next month. A brutal lesson for a poker rookie, who thought it was a great way to make easy money. I'm not saying that will happen to the OP, but it tends to be the normal trend.

I kept playing, losing money, then graduated college in 2006, with an additional couple Gs in poker debt. I got a real job, was making over a grand a week doing that, but then giving some back on the side playing poker. All in all, I'd estimate I had lost over $10,000 (all online) by the time I quit donating money. Sickening to even think about.

I was working in the auto-industry and the job I was doing was cut. So, I went back to poker, this time playing small games, having learned from all my mistakes, and I stopping playing cash games, strictly tournaments. Got an 8-5 job that paid crap, but I had to do something, right? In December of 2007, I finished 2nd in a poker tourney and won a few hundred dollars. Shortly after I won another tourney and was up to $2K... the next month I won over $10,000 playing poker (AK beating QQ after a rag flop cost me a great shot at another $20K). Life was good, I had recovered every red cent I ever lost, but... it wasn't enough. Kept playing, and the swings came back in to play, up $5K, down $5K, up $2K, down $1K, just constant throughout the year, ending with me up about $20K.

Was it worth it? Sure it was fun, but if you think you're gonna make a grand a day, you're nuts. Plus the swings, and the coulda/shouldas screwed up by runner-runners and 1-outters on the river, will drive you to the verge of insanity. Not to mention the fact I only ended up +$20K! You can make that at a burger joint!

I would only advise attempting a career path like that if you have a stable source of income, are very disciplined, and only wager what you can afford to lose. Otherwise you're setting yourself up for disaster. Good luck though.

Post: #75

CJ -

Great post. That seems pretty realistic.

I guess it all goes back to what I said at the beginning of the thread:

"Gambling is a hard way to make an easy living".

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