Stephen Groom Taking a shot at becoming a Poker Pro

Blog when you’re winning…

So as always seems to happen with peoples blogs (especially mine for some reason) I have managed to let between 3 and 4 weeks pass since my last post.  The reason?  I can only assume that it's because I've been losing a tonne.  From my high point at the end of November I am currently still stuck over £1k on Sky and overall it has been pretty tough.  Somebody commented to me that I seemed to be pretty stressed out and introvert at the peak of my losses (I was losing close to £2k about a week ago) and looking back I guess they were right.  These are the biggest losses I've ever incurred on my own money lifetime and to say that it didn't have a bad effect on my emotional state and personality would be a pretty big lie.

So yeah.. Where did it all go wrong?  November was my biggest winning month since leaving work and second biggest winner lifetime.  As I remember I had gotten pretty complacent and lazy towards the end of the month and when December rolled around I don't think that my head was in the right place.  By the 7th day in December I had lost all of the money in my sky account, loaded up another £1k and taken out my anger over at betfair casino losing a pretty hefty sum of money playing casino games (predominantly blackjack) which I don't mention in the quoted losses above /\.  That money I guess is expenditure, but it is very wasteful and changed my mind about table games very quickly.  I will definitely have something about that in my new year's resolutions/goals post in about a fortnight.

For all the bad it has done, my massive downswing at the beginning of this month has had it's benefits too however.  It has once again shown me how cruel poker can be and I have learned that emotionally I am not as close to being ready to deal with this as I once thought I was.  It has also taught me the importance of volume, planning, discipline and motivation.  At the beginning of the month I decided that I would aim to make around 16,000 sky poker points (£625).  This would have been equivalent to around 106 hours of 6tabling 50nl.  By day 13 of this month my target has now become a far greater 24,000 points (£1,250) and already by the end of the 13th I had made 11,652 (78 hours of play 6tabling 50nl).  Coupled with the fact that at my low-point this month I spent a few days playing 20nl and moved all the way back up through the limits playing 20, 30, 40 and now back to 50nl it is a pretty impressive feat.

At this point in time on an average day I am playing 8 tables of 50nl and playing between 6 and 8 hours per day.  Assuming a 20 day working month this should net me between 24,000 (£1,250) and 32,000 (£1,875) points per month.  If you then add to this the money made in-game this should lead to me having a very comfortable lifestyle next year at 50nl.  This is before we even discuss plans for moving up.

So in 2012 I will be making at the very least £15k from rakeback alone.  This solid foundation allows me to speculate that I should easily cash out over £20k from Sky Poker next year and allow me some kind of perspective for planning my year out in terms of profit and savings goals, moving up and potentially recruiting and mentoring micro-stakes horses as my roll allows.

I am going to take a leaf out of my friend Jon Lundy's book next year who showed me a very interesting structured plan for how he was going to spend his time in 2012.  No more staying up till 9am drinking and then sleeping in until 8pm the following day and missing grind.  I mentioned at the start of this process that this is a job first and foremost.  A person who treats his job with as much respect as most grinders treat theirs will have a very unrewarding and mediocre career and I need to do my best to keep some perspective.

My next planned blog will be around the 29th-31st detailing my plans for next year, new years resolutions and targets as well as my findings from 4 full months as a pro.  Please as ever leave a comment below if you enjoyed this read and have anything for me to discuss next time.

Cheers
Stephen