There is no real purpose of any blog, especially this one. However so long as the words are creative and the subject is entertaining, the blog is worth reading. In today's blog I will be talking solely about myself and the path that I am on right now, future blogs will not do the same.
At this very moment I am a professional poker player for Lockpoker.eu where I have over $200,000 of profit in online poker. I have spent years trying to master a game that might take a lifetime of struggles to even come close. Like any other profession there are good times and bad times, however poker takes these swings to extremes. When you are winning you think you are the bees-nees, when you are losing nobody understands how bad it really feels. Devoting yourself to poker also changes the way your mind process information. A grinder's mentality frees itself from all emotion and tries to process everything as a logical fact. For example, you go to a sub shop and ask for a sandwich with no mayo…you get mayo. This isn't that much of a big deal but some people would freak out about it and might even complain all day, to a poker player its just variance. The fact that you order a sub 300 times a year is almost guaranteed to get the order wrong at least once…and you move on.
Online poker players become very introverted by nature, thus making them very odd people. They spend up to 14 hours a day grinding poker by themselves in a world where they cannot afford to have emotion. Some players have even made up their own language. By spending so much time alone and placing an expected value on every decision, money loses its meaning. On a bad Sunday I play 12 hours and lose around $4,000 playing poker, how do you think that feels?
I am a degenerate gambler. I don't know if poker as made me that way or I was born that way, I guess it doesn't really matter. I started out only playing poker and not making that much money. When I became good at poker I started making enough money where I had a lot of extra cash online, upwards of $20,000. For those of you who don't know much about the online poker world, it is very hard to get money off the internet and into your bank account, thanks America!!! The extra money just sits in my poker account because it takes so long and costs so much to get off. With this extra money I started to gamble on everything non poker related. I don't consider poker "gambling" because no matter how much I lose in a day if I keep grinding I will eventually make it all back and then profit.
It all started with sports betting. March madness is about the time where I really kicked things off. I was in a few $20 pools and that was all fine and dandy but what the hell do $20 bets mean to me when I gamble $3,000 a day? So I started placing about about 4 or 5 bets a day during the tournament each bet ranging from $50-$150 parlays or straight up it doesn't really matter. I lost, but didn't lose much (under $500). Considering the amount of bets I was placing the standard variance had me swinging both ways and I was up a good amount at one point. After the tournament was over I started getting increasingly bored/degen and started placing bets every day. Usually the bets were on soccer where I would just pick a random team and not even watch the game. Eventually I progressed into betting on things that I had no feeling or edge on, almost like playing a scratch ticket.
Long story short it got worse and worse every day. The process didn't go from gambling $50 a day to gambling $1,000 a day over night, it was a slow and steady progression. I started making a ton of small bets on every aspect of life, pretty much anything I could bet on (T.V. reality shows included). I started taking losing bets with my friends because I didn't care about the money I just wanted the action. Often times I thought about getting help but then I would just stay in my house to watch the game I had money on. Last month I gambled about $50,000 on online roulette. I can't tell you the emotional damage it did to me for the period of time in which I was losing. It affected every aspect of my life including my relationship with my girlfriend, of 5 years, which would have ultimately lead to a failed relationship if I had kept on going.
This is only the dark side of being a professional gambler. There are many good sides which I will talk about in future blogs. I just wanted people to understand how bad the lows can get for someone in my position. I know for a fact I am not the only professional poker player who has gone on this cycle, and I sympathize for those who have truly gotten out of control and have lost everything. Fortunately I realized I had a problem before I lost everything. I still bet on sports, my bets are small and I enjoy it, however I am still very aware of how quickly it can get out of control.
You can find the official home of Jeff's blog here. You can also follow him on Twitter here.