ROLLING THE DICE

I’ve been playing poker for around 4 years now. During that time I’ve lived and breathed the game, almost to an obsessive extent. I’ve had highs and lows, some very high and some very low. Whilst riding the poker rollercoaster, I’ve been privileged enough to meet some of the nicest folk you could ever hope to encounter. All shapes and sizes from a wide range of backgrounds. Whatever I’ve experienced from playing this incredible game, I’ve enjoyed it.

So… why am I spending my time sat in an office staring at a monitor?

That’s the question I’ve been asking myself over the last 2 or 3 months, and, so far, I’ve yet to come up with an acceptable answer.

We have an hour at work, aptly named ‘Death Hour’. This hour of torture occurs between 3 and 4pm. It’s during this time that I am at my lowest. Bored out of my mind and wishing I was at the table. I keep glancing at the clock, praying that it suddenly jolts forward an hour, but alas, it just seems to go slower. At one point, I’m sure it went backwards. Is this how someone my age should lead their days, willing away their time in the world? When I’m older and my time is up, I’m sure I will look back on those days in dismay, wondering how I could have allowed myself to reach such a predicament.

So, as I have no responsibilities, I guess it’s time to quit the job and do something else.

What could I do?

Well… I could always give poker a crack.

I’ve been thinking about going down the poker route for a while now, but never had the guts to give it a proper go. At the moment, I work all day and poker all night. At the weekend I might play live, but I won’t get back to the early hours, which in effect turns my sleeping pattern upside down. As a result, I end up spending Monday at work totally exhausted. Death hour then takes 3 hours rather than the standard 2. I’m bloomin knackered, which makes focusing on my game that more difficult.

In a nutshell, I don’t want to spend all my time working, and when I do get home, resting so I am fresh for the next day of tedium. Sometimes you just have to face the truth. It’s just not me.

So it’s decided. In a few weeks time I’m gonna jack the job in and play poker full time. I’m still young, no wife, no kids and no debts. If there was ever a perfect time to give it a shot, now is it. I could do my whole bankroll, end up back at square one, dreading the approach of the day’s death hour. If it goes belly up, then so be it. At least I would have tried, rather than sitting in the office wondering, ‘what if?’

Recently I’ve learnt that putting your thoughts onto paper can be an extremely constructive process. Whether it’s logging your progress, discussing hands, or just airing a few ideas, I feel you stop yourself from becoming detached. Your grip on reality needs to remain firm, and my discussing of this keeps me in touch.

Every so often I will write an update on this thread, just a few paragraphs outlining my progress. I’m approaching it as an experiment. A ‘will snoopy succeed or fail?’ type of experiment. Hopefully it will be the former, but it’ll be fun finding out.

I sincerely hope that some Blondites out there find my updates interesting. I was going to just write my own private diary on a blogspot, but I thought this would be more fun. And considering the great community we have here, my belief is that I could bounce ideas off others. A few may even be thinking of heading down the same road. If that’s the case, then they’ll probably be able to learn from some of my mistakes. Either way, I really want this thread to serve a purpose.

Finally, I shall be spending the next few weeks calculating my bankroll, studying the different sites, just generally getting myself organized. Failing to prepare is preparing to fail, and if this is going to be my rent money for the upcoming months, then I want to give myself the best opportunity possible to succeed.

So, back to the aforementioned question, ‘Will snoopy succeed or fail?’

Only time will tell, but hopefully the poker gods will be smiling down upon me. . .