Zankas poker-journal

[macg]

Zanka what site do you play? I am US-based, and used to play online back in the day, and am trying to find a good site where I can again, especially now...thanks!

[Zanka]

@macg I do not play on US-based sites since Im in europe. And I know there have been a lot of trouble in US with online-poker. I know ACR still allows players (but there are serious allegations about bots on that site), and then I think GGpoker caters to some US players. But other than that I belive that sites are only operating in a few states so it depends on where you are located..?

[Zanka]

I have decided to start investing and at the same time padd my EF a little more. Reasoning being that it is hard to find a better time to invest than in a dip while at the same time I kinda need a little more security at least until I see how bad it will affect society and my job-situation. I am going to extend my EF to 3 months of living expenses and I will do it monthly by taking 40% of my monthly winnings from poker, invest 40% and padd my poker-roll with 20%.

I will dive deep into poker right now to make sure I can comfortably make a living from it if I lose my job. I would like to have a steady 25$/h to be able to support myself and my family no matter what. In any case it sets me up for making great money while keeping the job or maybe just go fulltime pokerpro again anyway, which I would love.

[Forskaren]

Have you checked the tax rules for poker in your country? Here in Sweden it is tax-free on EU sites, but you have to pay tax on most others sites (unless recently changed). It is very bad here if you get busted with cheating on taxes. You may have to pay penalty or even go to prison.

[macg]

@Zanka thanks for the info. Unfortunately I am not in one the US states that has play-for-money sites, I am in FL. There are a couple of non-US sites that supposedly US-based people play on with no issues, but i know legality-wise it is iffy at best.

[Zanka]

@Forskaren Thanks! Yeah a few years back there were a bunch of players that had played on sites that were in a grey area with the tax-laws and I believe they had to pay 30% tax plus a fine. I just do not want any trouble so Im staying on safe sites.

[Zanka]

@macg Yeah afaik it is not illegal to be playing on them but they have made it so that the banks are not allowed to process money from the sites. So it is more that the sites could be in trouble if they do not handle the transactions correctly. And of course you might have your money on the site confiscated (like what happened to Full tilt poker).

[Zanka]

I ended my relationship with GF a little over one week ago and I feel sad but am doing well. It was just so much friction that it affected my entire life, work, kids, friends etc that it just did not work. Since then I have started to feel more energized and have realized how much of my time went to keeping the relationship in one piece.

So it feels good to focus on myself, and I have already had an awesome week with kids, dog and my best friend. Also I have played a great deal of poker and am feeling very confident right now. When I can play a lot of hours consistently the game becomes more like a flow, I have worked pretty hard last weeks and now I can relax a little more and focus on the small % of difficult spots more easily. Honestly I have not felt this good about poker since maybe 2011 or so. I estimate that my hourly right now is a little over 23-25$/h.

What do I do if I earn 30/h from poker and 13/h after taxes from work (and have x years of expences saved)?

30h/poker and:
10y of expenses I would absolutely not work anymore.
5y? I belive I would just go for poker but it is a bit closer.
3y? I guess I would probably try to go to work but if it would get worse, like not getting vacations approved etc, I might go for it.
I think the line goes here at 3y of expenses.

Maybe if I go a little crazy I could get to 3y in not so long a time. Hmm.

[Zanka]

Poker results have been mediocre this month so far, still winning for the month but not by much. This is the way of poker:) I have not played my absolute A-game but I have only had like one session where I did not play good at all due to outside distraction. I will reduce the chance of that happening again by shutting of my phone and placing it in another room. That should obv be standard procedure but I have been slipping.

Games are still good and I am def winning at over 20$/h which feels great.

Life is also moving in the right direction. After the breakup I have improved a lot of things, catching up with a ton of stuff that I did not have the energy to do before and just feeling well about myself. It is so good to make good decisions, who would have known
Anyways, I am going on a short hike tomorrow with a friend and then again on monday. That will be so nice to get out and just breath fresh air and relax in good company. Maybe I can take some pictures for you.

/ Z

[Zanka]

In april I ended up winning 250$ from poker, it feels fine since I went trough a breakup in the middle of a pandemic with kids being at home from school. I caved and bought a car, wich feels like a very good move for my quality of life. I have already been sleeping in the forest 3 nights and my happiness has been very high. The dog has been so happy hiking and sleeping outside and that also feels so good.

May has started very well and I am already up 800 from poker and I feel like I am improving a lot just by playing. Also I have given/thrown away a ton of stuff and my appartment is starting to look a little nicer.

[Forskaren]

Do you think that online poker will be doomed as an income stream in the long run due to cheating? It would be possible to make a system that avoids all detection. Imagine if the system had a camera, a robot finger clicking on an ipad screen and software that makes all decisions. Since no software running on the same system as the poker program, detection cannot be made.

[Zanka]

Well, in the long long run we might have some supercomputers taking over the world and in that case online poker might be doomed.

Before that happens I am quite optimistic about poker being beatable as long as the sites have an interest in keeping it alive. Detection is not only made by finding software on the cheaters computers but also (and mostly) done by pattern recognition and game theory. Cheating will obv not dissapear and it will be a constant battle to keep up with it from the sites side.

Other than that there are a lot of games that are not even close to being solved so I might have to branch out (from no limit holdem) in the future if I want to keep playing.

That said, I personally am starting to think about playing more live poker in case something happens to the online games, but I do not think that cheaters are the biggest problem. Countries are pushing trough regulations and segregating playerpools that make it harder to find games and sites like pokerstars have raised the rake and made games almost unbeatable and that is from my perspective the things that could kill most of the action sooner than bots.

[Zanka]

I keep on working pretty hard on my pokergame. Results have been allright but nothing fantastic last couple of weeks. Had a good weekend in the beginning of may but since then I am pretty much breakeven. I am getting into a lot more studying and am improving slowly but steadily, when games are good I am playing the limit above my usual and there are som very good players there that I have some trouble with. Since they are full time players they are way ahead of me and are probably improving at a higher rate also so I am being pretty careful with selelcting wich games to play.

I keep freeing up time and space in my life overall and my overall quality of life have improved by so much the last months. I am making a ton of plans with the kids to get out into nature and hopefully I can show how amazing it is to be outside more. First plans is to hike and sleep in a small cabin in the woods and when it gets warmer we will just bring a tent and see how it goes

[Zanka]

May where not kind to me with poker. I started very good and was up 800 after 3-4 days but ended the month at 450 and my mental strenght got tested with all the swings. I had some days where it definately affected my IRL happiness but I believe I handled it ok at least. On the plus side I played more hands (20k) than I have done in years so I am building up my ability to grind longer hours and that will def improve my bottom line a lot over time.
My last three months have looked like this:
March: +2k
April: +250
May: +450

And as you can see one can not draw many conclusions in the short term.

IRL everything is very well, slept in a tent with daughter this week and I am also planning for my hike with my dog this summer, so that motivates me a lot. The weather is nice, family is healthy and if the world could just stop selfdestructing I would be in heaven, but you gotta take what is given I guess.

/Z

[theanimal]

Those are still some impressive short term numbers! Enough to support someone on 1 JAFI. Any idea how many hours you play each month?

[Zanka]

Yeah thanks @theanimal, its ok, I think my average have been around 65h/m the last months. Im looking to up it a little bit but we will see how it goes

[Zanka]

Everything except results keep improving over here. An old friend decided to take up poker again, and we have played tons together before (and he is very skilled) so I belive that will be great. I really have missed to have someone on the same level to talk to. On top ot that an interesting thing happened a week ago, I ran into a (very very skilled) pokerplayer that I have hung out with a couple of times trough some of my old pokerfriends. He opened up quite a bit and were in a similar situation as me, all his pokerfirends has moved on to new things and he is alone a lot. So he invited me to come play at his place and basically said he would teach me if I wanted to.

Family life is also great, I decided to have my 5yo daughter home from daycare 4 days a week so we can hang out and bond the last year before school, and to have something to do we decided we would start hiking together every (other) week. So far we have spent two nights in the tent near friends houses and next week we are going for a little longer hike to a cabin in the woods. And I will have 6 weeks vacation from work this summer starting on thursday so that is awesome.

/z

[Zanka]

June was an incredible month. Me and my daughter went on a hike to a cabin, I went with a close friend to the mountain and hiked for 3 days and I came back as a whole new person. Spending 3 days straight with an amazing friend is just the best way to get some relief from the ordinary small talk and the everyday tasks that fills my head usually.
And finally I have had some very good results in poker, had a 3 day streak where I won 800 and thus ended june with an 870 score. My game have improved so much and I keep working hard to keep getting ahead of the curve. My poker-friend has been improving a ton too and we are helping eachother almost everyday now. I am so thankfull.

March: +2k
April: +250
May: +450
June: +870

On the other hand, my 84yo grandmother got a heartattack and on top of it she caught covid and that has been rough for everyone. As it looks right now she will make it and if she does I dont know what to say other than that she is a total badass!

Right now Im planning a camping trip with my daughter and another family where we will go to a big waterfall and do some nature stuff, if someone can enlighten me on how to post pictures you can get some photos from my trips. If you are interested

Moneywise things move in the right direction, I am keepin my spending low without being to aware of it, still looking to have 17-18k by next april but ill invest in my pokerbankroll so I can keep playing without worrying about my bankroll. I am aming for an larger average than my current 900 and I believe that 2k/month is doable.

I hope you all are staying safe and well.

/Z

[Zanka]

Ok I´m back after an incredible summer. I have rested a ton and worked on myself a ton. Have been out hinking and roadtripping, dating and just enjoyed being with myself more and more. I did not play much poker at all in July and August, it started with taking a week of and I ended up taking like.. 7weeks of to just regain some inner calm and happiness. I decided that it was worth more to go into the autumn with a ton of energy and motivation rather than trying to keep playing in mars/april or so, and during the summer I have not hung out with most of my friends either, I am moving in another direction than them so that is definately a good move. I have more time for myself, and have more time to play poker and spend time with my kids and my dog.
Also have basically stopped seeing my parents, even tho they help me with the dog a fair bit I have just needed to step away and look at what kind of a relationship that is. I am not completely sure about what I am going to do with it, and I am not sure if I want to share it here.

Okej poker.
The work I put in this spring is paying of, and I am playing better than ever, winrate is climbing and i bellieve I am making around 25$/h (hard to tell exactly over smallish samplesizes). Since I did enjoy the summer I have not managed to build my roll up more but I am working superhard right now. Trying to get in 30h/week on average on top of work.


March: +2k
April: +250
May: +450
June: +870
July: 0
August: +150
September so far: 1.1k

[ertyu]

Good job! Congrats on all-round good news.