Life as a poker player-boring intro stuff

As of January 1st 2009 I started playing poker, mostly online, for a living. This has always been a dream of mine, as I have always enjoyed playing as a hobby. I had reached a point in the job world where I was utterly frustrated with my current and past jobs and finally decided to take the leap and pursue my dream.

While I should have started this blog 8 months ago, it is probably best I start it now. January-March were a mindless grind to make enough money to get by while learning very little. The first few months were really life altering as I had to get used to the ups and downs you have every day as a poker player. It's very hard to understand if you don't have a job where you win/lose a significant amount of money every day to understand the emotional roller coaster you go through mentally.

I'm sure I will say this many times over but poker is a game of SKILL, with some "luck" involved. I don't really believe in luck per say, as I believe in math but that's a topic for another day. That being said, there are many days where you will play optimally and still lose. This took me months to swallow and is still hard to deal with sometimes, to this day. Needless to say I have become much more emotionally strong over the past 8 months due to poker which is something that will help me through the rest of my life.

Another major change to my life was the lifestyle. I learned years ago that I am not an early morning person. Poker has given me the ability to make my own hours, which are anything from standard. Sometimes I wake up at 3:30 am (funny/ironic I know) and start playing. Other times I won't play until 4 in the afternoon. The bad thing, socially, is that the best times to play are always Friday and Saturday nights. It gives me the flexibility and freedom but to be successful at anything in this world you need to really dedicate a good portion of your life to your career/job. This is something that has become apparent to me over the past month or so. I was somewhat happy with the feeling that I had successfully supported myself while pursuing my dream job but felt a growing uneasiness. That uneasiness was not being satisfied with just getting by. I have set up numerous goals over the next few months to help push myself and really devote a lot of time to poker, which has to be done.

Anyways to keep the first post somewhat brief, basically I have just been grinding away for 8 months building up my bankroll and playing and studying as much as possible. Yes, that's right you have to STUDY to get better at poker. Many of my real life friends laugh when I say study, but its true.

I am planning a move to San Diego within the next 1-2 months with ChicagoJoey. He is my best poker friend and we both want to get a place together to really step up our poker games as well as live someplace that isn't Indiana.

My goals for the year and next couple months:

Currently at 139,535.47 vpps on the year
I want to reach 200k vpps before I move to San Diego within the next month or so, which is about 3-400k hands depending on the stakes I play at.

I also have a prop bet coming up for most hands played in a two week period, to which I plan on playing at least 150k hands during that time (~11k a day).

I still want to reach 400k vpps before the end of the year.

*Vpps=VIP points for playing on a PokerStars, for those that don't know. It is an incentive to be loyal to a them. Basically I receive a certain % of the rake I pay back. Rake = amount of money you must pay the house/casino/online poker room for every hand you play, its how they make money.