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May 9, 2004
The Plan
I am back from my brief poker sabbatical. I had to take a couple of days off since I had played almost every day for a month. To be honest I would like to take a week or two off and maybe travel around Europe or something but I don’t have any friends who don’t have job obligations and do have the money to be able to go. Most of my friends also don’t have the same interests I do and would not be much fun anyway. I may just go when the WPT goes to Paris in July, just to hang out in my favorite city and win some Euros. I would at least know some Americans there.
During my break I have done a lot of thinking about poker career, mainly where I would like to go and how to get there. I hope in the next 5 years or so to be a world class player and be able to play in (and beat) the white chip games that go on at the Bellagio and most major events. I am certainly under no illusion that I am anywhere near good enough to beat them now but I feel I truly have the potential to do so. To get there will require two things, much practice and a very large bankroll. In thinking of ways to get there I have come up with a few solid plans.
1. Stick mainly to internet poker. I suppose this would do somewhat. I could move up to playing $30/$60 short games on PokerStars and from there try to win enough to play the $100/$200 games that are short handed. Short handed is so much better than full games because you learn so much more about the game. Being forced to make so many decisions in marginal situations is very good practice and will help you very much in no-limit games as well. From there I could possibly move up to the bigger NL ring games on UB. The disadvantage to this strategy is the lack of any games other than hold’em, since most of the bigger games in real life are mixed games. You can’t just jump from $25/$50 NL hold’em games online to the white chip rotation games and expect to win right away, but since you could earn a high six figure salary (or even low seven) at those online games you could just do that for a couple years then simply take the hit in the white chip games until you learn. I don’t think I have the constitution for that though.
2. Continue on the road I am on. I currently play many internet tournaments and a decent amount of ring games to provide an income. I also try to play in internet satellites to major events like the Party Poker Million, the WSOP, and a few others. I am going to throw a lot of money at these this year and try to play in all 3 of the online cardroom-sponsored events. Eventually I hope to win a fairly large prize in one of these main events which will allow me to play higher limits while traveling and work my way up to the big games.
3. Spend all of my money chasing that big payday. This is probably the least sensible and definitely the most tempting route to take. I have enough money to play the last few events of the WSOP and maybe another large event or two. The only reason I likely will not take this route is that I have played 1 WPT event and 1 WSOP event and made a whopping zero dollars and zero cents total. This really doesn’t mean anything other than it is definitely possible that I could play in events until my bankroll is gone without ever making a penny.
So I think I will continue down path number 2 as I have for a year. Even if I don’t win in any of the big events I play next year and make the same amount I did this year I will be more than comfortable. And as soon as I hit that big win Chip, Doyle, and Barry better be prepared because I'm coming for them.
Posted by themaroon at May 9, 2004 9:06 AM
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