BaristaR by day, Poker Star by night
So for the past 6 months, I've had two part-time jobs. One is grinding coffee beans at Starbucks. The other is grinding it out on the poker table at a local casino in Indiana. Since I'm going back to school, I wanted to get as much poker in as possible because I know I won't have the time to play when school begins. At the same time, I wanted to make some supplemental income besides my meager Starbucks salary to build myself a little savings before I'd become a poor college student once again.
Lemme tell you, earning money playing poker has not been easy to do. Like the saying goes, poker is the hardest way to make an easy living. I've made a decent amount of money playing but have gotten much criticism from family and friends in the process. Despite the negative reputation that poker players get simply because it is gambling, there are a lot of positive qualities a poker player must possess in order to be successful. First and foremost, you need to possess and maintain patience. By nature, poker is a very boring game. You can go several hands, even hours without a quality hand to play so you must be disciplined enough to wait for the right time. Second, you need to play intelligent, more specifically, you need to quickly process a bunch of information--what possible hands could be made with the cards out on the table, what your opponents have, etc.--in order to make sound decisions based off of that information and at the same time, you must know how to manipulate your image at the poker table so as to not give away any information regarding your hand. Also, you must be able to keep your emotions in check and maintain composure at all times regardless of what happens in any one particular hand. If you don't, you are vulnerable to what's called playing on tilt, which is playing upset and making incorrect decisions in the process. This is not good, especially for your bankroll.
In addition, poker can teach you several important lessons, some which can be applied to life. Because poker attracts all walks of life, you learn how to deal with many different types of people and personalities. It forces you to play with the cards you are dealt, to not focus on previous hands/losses but to take each hand one at a time. Most importantly, poker is best played by not taking it too seriously, not investing too much of yourself in it, and simply having fun because at the end of the day, poker is nothing more than just a game.
However, there are a lot of pitfalls that come with poker and gambling in general and if you aren't smart and self-disciplined like moowah, you can get yourself in big time trouble. One is that poker (gambling) can leave you with an insatiable hunger to keep on playing just one more to win the big money. I've encountered this way too many times. The longest I've ever played was 18 hours straight and I planned on leaving after the 8th hour so you gotta set a time limit for yourself, and if you can't do that then you need to know when to walk away. Second, it can mess with your sleep schedule and sometimes, you don't get the necessary sleep that you need to function in normal society. Third and probably the most scary, you can become so...dare I say, ADDICTED, that you end up neglecting your friends, family and even YOUR OWN BLOG FOR 6 MONTHS! So before you go out there to become the next World Series of Poker Champion, remember that poker is not for the weak and faint-hearted.
Now that it's already August and I start school in three weeks, I am going to temporarily retire my part-time poker career to focus on school but continue my work as a Starbucks Barista (BTW- I'm now an officially certified barista, bitches. Wussup?!!!). And so I leave all of you with this letter...
To My Beloved Poker,
It was a great 9 months, quite possibly the best 9 months of my life. We shared some spectacular times together. And even through the roughest of times, you were right there with me to keep me going. And for that, I thank you. I'm moving on and starting a new relationship with Medicine but, I will never forget you. And maybe, just maybe in the near future, we'll be back together again.
Yours Truly,
Jonar
Lemme tell you, earning money playing poker has not been easy to do. Like the saying goes, poker is the hardest way to make an easy living. I've made a decent amount of money playing but have gotten much criticism from family and friends in the process. Despite the negative reputation that poker players get simply because it is gambling, there are a lot of positive qualities a poker player must possess in order to be successful. First and foremost, you need to possess and maintain patience. By nature, poker is a very boring game. You can go several hands, even hours without a quality hand to play so you must be disciplined enough to wait for the right time. Second, you need to play intelligent, more specifically, you need to quickly process a bunch of information--what possible hands could be made with the cards out on the table, what your opponents have, etc.--in order to make sound decisions based off of that information and at the same time, you must know how to manipulate your image at the poker table so as to not give away any information regarding your hand. Also, you must be able to keep your emotions in check and maintain composure at all times regardless of what happens in any one particular hand. If you don't, you are vulnerable to what's called playing on tilt, which is playing upset and making incorrect decisions in the process. This is not good, especially for your bankroll.
In addition, poker can teach you several important lessons, some which can be applied to life. Because poker attracts all walks of life, you learn how to deal with many different types of people and personalities. It forces you to play with the cards you are dealt, to not focus on previous hands/losses but to take each hand one at a time. Most importantly, poker is best played by not taking it too seriously, not investing too much of yourself in it, and simply having fun because at the end of the day, poker is nothing more than just a game.
However, there are a lot of pitfalls that come with poker and gambling in general and if you aren't smart and self-disciplined like moowah, you can get yourself in big time trouble. One is that poker (gambling) can leave you with an insatiable hunger to keep on playing just one more to win the big money. I've encountered this way too many times. The longest I've ever played was 18 hours straight and I planned on leaving after the 8th hour so you gotta set a time limit for yourself, and if you can't do that then you need to know when to walk away. Second, it can mess with your sleep schedule and sometimes, you don't get the necessary sleep that you need to function in normal society. Third and probably the most scary, you can become so...dare I say, ADDICTED, that you end up neglecting your friends, family and even YOUR OWN BLOG FOR 6 MONTHS! So before you go out there to become the next World Series of Poker Champion, remember that poker is not for the weak and faint-hearted.
Now that it's already August and I start school in three weeks, I am going to temporarily retire my part-time poker career to focus on school but continue my work as a Starbucks Barista (BTW- I'm now an officially certified barista, bitches. Wussup?!!!). And so I leave all of you with this letter...
To My Beloved Poker,
It was a great 9 months, quite possibly the best 9 months of my life. We shared some spectacular times together. And even through the roughest of times, you were right there with me to keep me going. And for that, I thank you. I'm moving on and starting a new relationship with Medicine but, I will never forget you. And maybe, just maybe in the near future, we'll be back together again.
Yours Truly,
Jonar
posted by Jonar at
12:27 AM
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