So in the year since I quit poker I started with courses in AI, Reinforcement learning and Machine learning. The RL course was the most interesting to me- inspired by the excellent documentary Alpha Go - they use RL to build a program that beat the world's best Go players - a feat nobody thought possible. I'd love to be smart enough to work in that field but I realised I just am not.
From there I lept to video game developing. I learnt for 3 months and developed for 4 months my first game. It's available on steam to play on a PC - a simple kids RPG that takes 15 minutes to complete. I loved that. And the family got involved too. I had my sister in-law do the voiceovers, my brother produce the soundtrack and my wife do the branding.
I don't know whether to pursue that or not. There's no money in it really. If you want to do it solo, you have to get very lucky to hit it big (sounds familiar!). And if you want to work for a studio, you're capped at 40/50k and compeeting with 100+ applicants per job that all have way more experience and talent than me. So I don't really see a path there.
Then for the past couple months I got back into app developing, updated my Poker Flips and Poker Results apps - released 3 new ones - Puzzle AI and Genius Square are puzzle games inspired by games I've played with my son. And made a Darts Checkout Trainer.
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I am totally crap at the marketting side and at the moment they're just sat in the app store with a handful of users generating about £100/month. But once I get my act together and promote them on social media properly, I have hope that that number could increase significantly. So there's potential there.
I really enjoy that and I can do it from home of course which is absolutely what I want. I love home life, being around the kids all the time and have made good friends with the school parents and neighbours. I started playing football with some of the Dads twice a week, which is great. Go to the gym 4 times a week and see friends and family on the weekends. It's just what I've been striving for.
HOWEVER...I may need to actually make some proper money soon. And this recent 10 day trip to Vegas I'm currently about to wrap up has thrown up more questions than it has answered in regards to what role poker will play in my life going forward. This isn't results oriented analysis (because I didn't have any results!) but I loved playing this time round. I played a little smaller than before (mostly just $1k one day comps and the main) and it made the world of difference to my feelings about it all.
I realised that what I love about poker and what I'm good at is playing the exploitative intuition-based game that I came up playing. That's no good vs regs in 3-5k events. And whilst my GTO fundamentals are OK, I made peace with the fact that they won't be as strong as the regs in that pool because I'm not competing with other Dads who play every now and then - I'm competiting against fulltime players who travel all year round to play, and study in their time off. So why would I be competitive with them?
So remove the ego about where I used to be, or where I could be if I was fulltime, or where I think I'm entitled to be because of nonsense reason xyz, or what people might think if they see in me playing x event (!) - and step back - recognise and be at peace with my place and play against mostly other recs! And it's been great! I only wish I was here longer and could be here with family to get more volume in.
So as I said, more questions than answers at this stage!
COME ON ENGLAND.
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Main bust out on day two, all in on the turn
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Copa America Quarter Final
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Waiting for me at home, Mila (9 months) and Mummy
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