Poker Wannabe: 7/2/2005 - June Recap and First Half Report

June Recap

Last month was certainly exciting. By about halfway through, it looked as though I would zoom past May to have my best month by far. The first half of the month was nothing but large wins, culminating with my best day ever on June 17. There I was, barely over halfway through the month and I was already nearly 85% of the way to my May record total.

But then I had my worst day ever June 18, dropping more that one day than I used to earn in a month at the job I had just left.

I had a moderately successful trip to LA and then had a decent final few days playing online to finish out the month just a hair beneath May.

So, to sum, everything's still going great.

First Half Report

When the year started, I set for myself poker goals in terms of total winnings. I had a range I wanted to hit, with a conservative, realistic goal at the bottom end and an aggressive, optimistic goal at the top end--think perhaps a 25 percentile/75 percentile range of my expectation (okay, perhaps more like 40/90).

Well, I zoomed past my low-end goal a month ago and am on pace to far surpass even my optimistic goal by year's end. (Obviously "on pace" doesn't mean squat as far as poker is concerned, but I gotta work with what I got.)

The last three months in particular have been absolutely wonderful, ever since I had hit a rut playing 5/10 and switched to 10/20 and eventually 15/30 and 20/40. I have little doubt that I'll go through another extended break-even stretch like I had in March, but until then I'm going to enjoy the ride.

I guess in six months or a year I might feel quite differently, but so far I'm absolutely loving my decision to quit my job and go back to playing poker for a living. I'm on my own schedule and I don't have to constantly be doing mind-numbing work that's heaped on me day after day. With poker, I'm doing what I love to do and I'm paid better.

I can only hope poker always stays this enjoyable and profitable.