lil dave's lil life

[SuuPRlim]

Recently I starting doing some outside of poker work once again, which I always really enjoy - it creates a strange mindset for me because when I work outside of poker I get paid pretty well (relatively speaking for my age/experience) but compared to poker its pretty small, thing I always try to remember is poker is a short-term long term game - just because you win £5k one day, doesn't mean you win £5k every day, and just because you can make £150k one yr doesn't mean you'll make £150k every yr... the real world is a REAL long term game, if you can make £30k one yr, you can probably make £30k every yr, and in 10 years you'll prolly be making more. Whenever you try do the two side by side then it can really mess with your head, I had a fine example of this last week.

Thursday I lost £14k online (iv not been playing anywhere nr the stakes lately to lose that much for a while, 3/4k would be the biggest swing Iv had in a fair while), then friday I worked all day for £240, 58 days more and i'll be out of it!

Weirdly I actually felt quite grounded whilst i was working, I'm doing some consultancy work for a restaurant chain and working in the restaurant with people who have zero idea of my gambling background, working with real hard-working people who earn barely more than I lost the previous day in a yr, made me further appreciate the good fortune I'd had over the past 5 yrs and kinda saw it as a challenge to remain focused despite the obvious fury at the back of my mind from the previous day. It was really hard actually but I managed it, went home feeling pretty good. Woke up next day and went just dreadful.

Since that loss iv played 3 times more and added quite a bit to the deficit, after years of being really really good at handling losses this has really tested my resolve and actually I'm dealing with it fairly badly.

I think the secret to dealing with losing is a mixture of 3 things, I think perspective is the most important, understand that losing was possible and shrugging your shoulders and accepting it is what it is, the second is belief in your ability, you were there, playing +EV and it didn't work out and the third and one of the most crucial is control over your ego, it doesn't make you a bad player losing and it's not personal - the cards don't give a fuck about anyone they just fall where they fall.

Given that I've always had a good splattering of all three Iv always been a really good loser, and hardly ever a tilter - although EVERYONE plays worse when they are losing almost without exception - hopwever recently, despite still feeling like I have plenty of all three I seem to be dealing with losses pretty badly, I have no idea if the outside of poker work is helping me or not, I can't decide if it's a good distraction... I guess it's a day where my net worth positively increases to I should just be grateful for everyone of those that comes along!

Does anyone else have any experience of trying to balance work inside and outside of poker and get where I'm coming from?

[bobAlike]

Totally get what your saying. It's the other way round for me though. I have high payed job and win small throughout the year on the whole. This year though I've had a losing year over. Not a huge amount by any means and probably no more than a couple of weeks wages but where as in the past I've just shrugged off any losing sessions this year I just seem to inward tilt so bad. The way I'm handling it is by not playing

[arbboy]

It gets a lot tougher dealing with the same swings the older you get believe me.  Wait til you get to 40 and see how tough it is coping with swings that when you were 30 (i know you are not even 30 yet before you state the obvious) you would have just bounced out of bed the next day after without a second thought 10 years ago.  I got told this 10 years ago and didn't believe it by Dave Welch (aces poker) of all people.  I can confirm it is true.  It just grinds you down after a while.  Arbing is the way to go.  Win the ev every day gtd!

[arbboy]

As for balancing work with punting i can't really help.  Suppose you just have to get the mindset that when you work you get £240 100% of the time every day.  Playing poker you probably get the same long term ev wise for the same shift.  I have never done both at the same time seriously.  It's weird because when i go racing i probably make £150 ev every time but if someone said to me would you work for me on my pitch as a bookie on track for £100 i probably would say no even though the variance is less and the wages are similar.

Thinking about it like that is a lot easier than the reality of going to work for a bottle after knocking out 15 large in readies the day before!

[DMorgan]

Suppose you just have to get the mindset that when you work you get £240 100% of the time every day

Yeah definitely agree with this

Clearing £1200 a week, if you finished the year with £50k profit from poker you'd probably look back on it as a decent years work!

The only worry with adding in the other work is that perhaps on some level you feel the need to play higher because you have fewer available hours to play? Nothing in your post comes across that way to me though.

Plus if you're enjoying the work then there are positive life EV effects. When I switched from playing poker full time to a split of poker and my trading job it was a positive thing mentally. Its definitely -$EV in the short term but taking on a new challenge is really healthy I think. A few years back when I was playing HUSNGs there were definitely times where poker felt monotonous. PLO cash was less of a grind but I like having something else constructive to do when I don't feel like playing poker.

[cambridgealex]

Is that what you do now dan, part time trader part time HU sng / PLO?  Haven't seen you about for donkeys years!

[DMorgan]

Sort of, I haven't played a HUSNG for what feels like forever and ever but according to Sharkscope its only about 14 months. I was pretty over them by that point and the introduction of spins pretty much killed the traffic so was an easy decision to switch. Played PLO cash for about a year then picked up a job as a proprietory trader with an investment fund thats essentially an MTT stable. A bunch of young guys teaching and giving a 50% freeroll trading forex and indices with company funds and mirroring those trades with my own dime.

It fits in pretty nicely with poker, lots of keeping an eye out for setups in the forex markets with a couple of cash game tables on the side, usually getting 20-30k hands in a month alongside the trading.

I haven't played any live poker in an age, pretty sure the ISPT was the last one! Might come down for the PLO side at the WPT though, live PLO never fails to raise a smile

[SuuPRlim]

excellent advice, thanks a lot.

Still unsure on the best ways to proceed, if splitting time is advisable or if im just better dedicating my focus to one thing.

I am very lucky though that I have lots of opportunities open to me.

[SuuPRlim]

Did the commentary on the live stream tonight, had a real blast with Neil and Skalie and the game was thoroughly entertaining.

Everyone played really good, if you didn't catch it then I would recommend giving it a spin

[NoCardDSC]

Great stream last night, you three worked well together! The game was good also!

[iangascoigne]

   It was great to play in as well. Great mixture of style and skill levels! Also a lot of chat and banter on the table making it a very sociable experience. For some people that's an important part of why they play the game.

[SuuPRlim]

Had a request to fire this up again!

I'll tell you where I've been. About 10 months ago I got the opportunity to invest and join my friend in the running on a poker site, I took him up on it and have been really really enjoying it. Now we have casino, and hopefully soon sports book as well - boot is on the other foot, turns out its fun being the house! Who knew

I also decided to get back into the restaurant game, my old boss and mentor figure (who i mentioned previously in this thread) Graham and myself managed to do a great deal and acquire a restaurant in Leeds the pair of us have wanted to own for years. He is financing it, I am running it, fucking hell how much easier all this stuff is when it's not your £££ under the axe!!!

So life is great, insanely busy and I haven't played a hand of poker bar 30 minutes on a train on my way to london in about 5 months!

So...any questions, any degenerate story requests, any stories anyone wants to share, any gossip we can start? Nothing engages me more than contemplating on my degenerate days, now that I'm all responsible...I wear a tie every day, and get up at 7am.

[vegaslover]

Well, was gonna reply that it's good to hear you are still alive and well. Then get to read you joined the rat race and wear a tie ffs. Old Dave consigned to the memories

Glad to hear life is good. Nothing better than being insanely busy doing something you enjoy.

[Karabiner]

Hi David, good to hear from you again as always loved your diarage.

Could you tell us a bit about the restaurant please when you have time.

My first thought is that it's higher-end traditional English food maybe a gastro-pub type setup, but I could be and usually am completely wrong in my assumptions.

[SuuPRlim]

Happily.

Il be there soon so il take some pictures :-)