Being tired the last week or so.

I have been playing chess 2-3 hours per day, trying to grind Elo. I don't know why, but I got obsessed with it moreso than any other time.

I don't really enjoy games that don't have a competitive element. And I really don't like games that are simple, but claim to have a steep learning curve.

Chess is the complete opposite of both. So is poker.

Made my first 100$ online by playing Texas Hold em poker

Yup, that's right. Before this handsome gentleman embarked on the journey of making money via the written word, he was a slightly above average poker player.

People say that gambling is a sin and you will lose a fortune (yet they invest in the market lmao). My experience isn't really in agreement with that sentiment.

I've made a decent amount of money betting football games and MMA fights and a sufficient amount of money playing poker to live off of.

I will agree though that MOST people shouldn't even go near gambling. Hell, at this point I should also stay away from it, for reasons discussed later on.

But I was good. As I said, I was above average at best, but that's enough to beat enough people to make a profit.

How I got started

Long before I was the red bearded guy you know today, I was a pimply kid with an everlasting raging boner at my parent's house. Wifi, a rainy day and a bored teenager is a terrible combination for making bad choices. Fortunately, I didn't.

I started playing these poker games with fake cash. Went from 10k to 1mil to 10k again to 100mil to zero. I continued playing like this on and off.

Couple of year had gone by and I was in HS. I was invited to fill in a table for a friend of mine. I arrived at the house and I was somewhat anxious because I hadn't really played poker live before. We sat down and I quickly realized that the majority of people are distinctively bad at it.

Poker, chess etc are games that you don't really realize how incompetent you are until you play with someone who has a solid grasp of the fundamentals. If you have played less than 1000 games of chess, although you may beat your friends and family, you are in the 20th percentile, I kid you not.

You can't possibly know what you don't move the f4 pawn in the opening and why it's important for the Rooks to connect. You won't understand why you don't bet less than 1/3 of the pot or why a JQ is far more superior than a double 2.

You have to lose a couple 100 times before you realize something is up and you go looking for answers. Unless you are Karpov or Negreanu, you can't afford to trust your intuition. You need to build experience.

Anyway, back to poker night.

I did good. I did what the average player in a tournament does. He plays only pairs and >10s and folds everything else without looking the table. This simple strategy won me my first "tournament". Looking back, I'd have been destroyed by someone with decent knowledge. He would raise me to hell and dumb me like a crackhead whore.

But the people there were your average guy, the one who thinks he knows how to play poker, but raises a 910 hand preflop.

That night the beginning of a 4-week period where we would gather at least 3 times per week and play. Naturally, I started losing. Nothing big, 200-300 at most. Enough to set me on tilt and get me to realize that I had stagnated.

High-school ended. Now I was a free-man, living alone and having a lot of time in my hands. After a period of hesitation, I created an account on [insert famous poker room]. I deposited the WHOOOOPING amount of $10. And I turn those to $150 in the span of 11 hours, across 5 days, mostly because someone was being stupid. And I lost it all in one day...

As I said, I was average. But after seeing some decent potential, I decided to study a bit more seriously. Odds, basic strategies and tactics. Again, following a fairly straightforward gameplan, nothing fancy, no super out-there bluffs and other stupid James-Bond gimmicks, I managed to pay rent playing poker part time.

And then, I lost again...

If you aren't in the 80% and you are not willing to work to get there, you're better off doing something else where you ARE in the 80%

In order to have a decent chance to be profitable, you need to play games where you have 200x the big blind. No matter how good you're, you're going to go on a losing streak. You just need to have enough chaff to burn before you get profitable again (that's true for business as well).

Well, I didn't follow that rule. And I also didn't follow the rule of leaving the game when you are tilted. I managed to lose more than 3/4 of my sum in 6-7 hands.

I didn't give up right away. I tried to build my bankroll once again. But I failed to do another important thing: scale back, play smaller tables.

Soon I realized something very important. I was the fish. In competitive play, I was the guy people would try to make money off of.

After two disastrous months, I quit online poker.

Frankly, I will never be in the 1% of poker players. And I would have to spend an unreasonable amount of time to be good enough to worth my time and increase my bank account significantly.

Does that mean I wasted my time? Hell to the no.

I can still go in casino and beat 90% of the stupid drunks. Believe me, that's a skill to have. Knowing you can turn 500 to 1000 in a night is reassuring.

Do I ever plan to go back at it?

Probably not. My recent obsession with chess made me realize that if you don't do it everyday, not only you become rusty, you also give your usual "enemies" enough time to surpass you in skill.

I've lost the mental edge I had when I was playing poker everyday. Fuck me, I don't even remember the odds for a flush.

If you are to take away something from this weird story of mine, don't let sensationalism take over your life. If you're honest with yourself, you know where your strength lies in.

Remember, do something that you are good enough at it, you can do it for long periods of time and people actually give a fuck about it.

-Thatredbeardguy

P.S- For me, it's writing and selling (the latter which I am going to do shortly on this blog). What's your ONE skill, your two Aces?

Best content you can find online, CUMMMMING IN:

• Are You Dead?
• Seduction In One Word: Unfiltered
• BITCOIN'T

I also have a super duper Twitter.

*Disclaimer: I don't condone playing illegal games (depending where you live, online poker may be illegal. Hello USA!) and I am not responsible if you develop a gambling problem. If you think it's a good idea to start playing poker because I somehow got lucky and made it work for a short period of time, you deserve to lose your money.