Stephen Groom Music Producer? Poker Pro? Sports Bettor? Tune in next post to find out

A new approach

So as per usual, I get my blog back on track, get 20 or so posts with a decent readership and then take a whole month to write my next post.  I can't think of any reason for this other than bad results so basically the new measure of my success for the masses is how recently I posted my latest blog update.  Well the last few weeks have been very unusual and my outlook, aims, objectives and plans for the next 6-10 months have very quickly changed from road to robusto to avoiding becoming busto.  Let me explain.

So now that everybody knows that you can track results on sky I can discuss what happened and why I eventually moved my money off in mid january and moved to Pokerstars.  Since leaving my staking deal in October, my total profits are ~£5,400 including bonuses.  Since around mid-december though I have been breaking even in the games over a sample of ~ 100,000 hands.  Maybe I was just a breakeven play all along.. I don't know for sure but I won't be sticking around to find out.

So how did MTTs go on Pokerstars?

I can sum this up in one sentence without too much bitching.  I lost ~200 $8 ABIs.  If you wanna see how it went exactly, check out sharkscope.  Not good would be my assesment.

What went wrong then?

I have came to the realisation that when I was on sky, against the opposition at 50nl I shouldn't have been winning, I should have been destroying.  We have 99% of 6max regs playing 13/11/3, and two regs who I have played the most hands with playing 23/15/5 and 21/12/2 respectively there is no reason I shouldn't have been better than 5bb/100 in the games.  And I was breaking even! (well, .75bb/100 :p)  So basically the times I played on Sky, I wasn't putting in the work.  I wasn't winning what I should have been and I don't think I was totally ready for the pro grind.  Somehow in that time I have spent my £5.4k (Well £4.4k now after stars deposit) and have very little of it left.

What next?

I took around a fortnight off from poker completely while I guarded the withered remains of my bankroll.  I used my spare time to work on SkyHUD, and any time not spent on that was used to study poker.  After somewhere between 500 and 1,000 tournaments on stars I concluded that cashgames were where I would be making my future profits.  Cash games are where I have put the most work into my game and they are lower variance.  Low variance steady income is what I need now that I am back where I started, close to being broke.

So I have gotten together some eBooks, some training videos and a tonne of old hands in HEM to review.  I reckon that in the time off from poker I spent about 2 hours per day every day doing one or two of these things.  It is very early to say but I think I have improved my game over the two weeks that I took off more than I did over the whole 3 months that I was playing professionally.  I am sure I speak for the majority of pros here when I say that I didn't spend enough time working on my game.  The problem was that I saw my bank account growing larger at the end of each week and didn't see any need to change.  I was winning, and that was enough.

What happens next?

I have some money on Pokerstars and I am currently playing $25 and $50nl.  I say both because I am using a very aggressive bankroll management strat where I am starting to mix in bigger games when I have 10bi for that limit.  I currently have more than 10 so I am usually mixing in a table or two of 50nl with my 25nl games.  Doing this though I have to be extremely strict about moving down as sadly there will be no more deposits to follow...

As there are no more deposits left I am now looking for work harder than I ever had.  I am not yet at the point of desperation where I will be looking to flip burgers for minwage but I am looking for alot less than the £18k that I wanted to go back to work for this time 90 days ago.  Who knows, this poker thing might just work out in the end and I may stay pro but at the moment the best short term result for me would be to get a short-term or casual job with decent pay and get back some money so that I can decide where to go from there.

So.. Could I succeed as a professional poker player?

At the time of writing that article (14/08/2011) the answer is No.  I somehow managed to spend exactly 6 months working from home, with all of the benefits of being a pro but I don't think I was quite prepared or ready for what was ahead.  If memory serves I wrote the article in a way that suggested that this was an experiment rather than a committed, planned, educated choice and this is exactly what it has been.  I tried it, it worked out for 6 months but was I ready to make this work for the rest of my life?

If I could go back to 14/08/2011 today and do it all again with the knowledge and ability that I have today I would say 100% yes.  I would probably still be in my staking deal.  I would probably be playing 200nl with a 70/30 chop and maybe writing this from a penthouse in mexico or something but I am happy for the knowledge which I gained for free (well for 120 hours per month) and think that I have had a very good (and very different to most people's) quality of life in this period.  I am glad that I did this and don't think that I am any worse off financially than if I had stayed in my job.  Infact I think I am still better off AINEC.

Moving forward I will be yet again trying to succeed as a professional poker player but this time I have around 50% of the starting capital that I had in August and will be starting lower.  Maybe this time over the next few months will be stressful as I try to get my finances back on track but again this is all part of a bigger picture and the education I am giving myself will definitely help me in times of future hardship.  Let's not forget, I am only 21 and I have a tonne of choices ahead.  If I went completely cash-broke I'm sure I could sell my car and my stuff and move back home with my mother and go flip burgers.. There is no such thing as a dead-end.

On to the next chapter

Thanks for reading
Stephen