Black Friday And My Future

First let me start with the fact that I can no longer play on PokerStars or FullTilt Poker.  I am literally depressed too.  Even though poker is just a money-making hobby for me at the moment, I was seriously considering making a job out of it.  All my plans and hopes were instantly shattered when the United States DOJ handed out the indictment of 11 individuals tied in with online poker.  Specifically PokerStars, FullTilt Poker, and Ultimate Bet/Absolute Poker.

I am so frustrated at the moment.  The only reason I have stayed at the job I currently have is because it was flexible enough to let me put in a considerable amount of time into my poker game.  Now that poker is basically gone for me, it is time to start looking for a new job.  I really hate my current job.  But the thing is what do I want to do? What skills do I have to offer?

The first question is much harder to answer than the second question.  I feel I have a ton to offer to a prospective employer. The only problem is….I just don’t know if I want to do it.  I just have lost the all “working for the man” lifestyle.  I want to be my own employer.  I don’t want to have to answer to a boss.  That is the problem, and I really just don’t know where to go from here.  As I have said before though, I guess I can be happy that I do still have a job in a time like this though.

So I have been thinking of learning how to program.  Maybe make some programs for Android (phones) or something.  Maybe get a job in programming.  I really don’t know.  But I feel like my personality really meshes well with programming; and if I get good enough, maybe I can start up a company.  Again, I just don’t know.

Was Gearing Up

Back on the poker debacle.  I haven’t hardly played that much at all this year.  I have been really busy working on my game.  I have basically been preparing for making the jump to play poker full-time.  I basically wanted to get all my ducks in a row.  I actually was thinking of making the jump at the turn of the year.  But since I had a pretty rough last couple months of ’10, and the fact that a possible blackout was looming if online poker was legalized and regulated, I decided to hold off for a little while longer.

I was really making great progress with my game.  I did some really in-depth analysis, and was ready to tackle what ever was thrown my way.  After all, I had to have some pretty big leaks to lose over 10k to one player at the end of 2010, right?

Cheated

Well, come to find out maybe I didn’t have as many leaks as I once thought.  Instead, I was playing against a player with an unfair competitive advantage.  If you recall, there was basically one player that was just giving me fits with 5 card draw.  In fact, I have never lost to one player the way I was to this player.  I was (and should have earlier) about to not play him due to the fact he was just better than me.  That alone is quite a lot, as I pretty much will play anyone.  I just have that much confidence in my game.  Yes, there is one or two other players I try to avoid, but if they REALLY wanted to play me, I would have.

But this one player that I was having fits with basically came out of nowhere and was sitting at all limits, and only playing heads-up.  I should have seen the red flags then, but I didn’t.  I mean how often does someone just come out of the blue and plays the better 5 card draw players and just absolutely crushes them?  In fact, this specific player was up on everyone he played except for one.  That “one” wasn’t even really a regular heads-up player either and his small profit was dwarfed by all the other players losses.

This “cheater” was eventually banned from PokerStars.  But the damage was done.  I lost well over 10k to him in a matter of a couple months, and I suspect that he easily made over 50k in that same time with all the opponents he was taking on.  I don’t want to name this “cheater” by name, though I should.  But here is the thing.  PokerStars banned him, but did not refund any of the players affected.  REALLY??? Ugh.  The thing is, once this player showed up and I was pretty skeptical; I emailed PokerStars about this player.  I basically just got a standard response email and it seemed I was just wrong about my assessment.  Remind you though, that just for me to send an email about possible cheating was totally out of character.  In fact, I have never done that before.  Though I have sent a couple “joke” emails asking that the “Doom Switch” be removed.

Anyway…about two months after my email was sent to PokerStars support, more evidence was sent to PokerStars about this player.  Some pretty damning evidence was provided too.  It was pretty obvious, that at the least this player tried to take advantage of the system.  Because of this evidence that was brought on by another player (I will not name names) PokerStars decided to ban this cheater from ever playing on PokerStars again.  But I later found out that PokerStars did not feel they had sufficient evidence to confiscate the cheaters account, thus paying back those that were affected.

What really upsets me is I was down maybe 1-2k at the time I first had suspicions and sent PokerStars an email.  I lost another ~10k over the time period until he was banned.  It was sad that a player had to find the evidence that was out there.  That should be the job of PokerStars security.  I was really let down by PokerStars.  But at least they did take some kind of action.  Full Tilt never did.

That’s right, FullTilt was still letting this player play!  Though, I wasn’t playing him anymore…he was sitting at nearly every limit.  I know they were presented with the same obvious clues to possible cheating that PokerStars was presented with.  The only thing that was ever sent in response from FullTilt, was just a standard response email.  Thanks!  Way to make me feel secure!

This type of stuff is the exact reason online poker needs to be legalized (though it’s not illegal, it just kinda like the Wild West) and regulated.  It will protect the consumer from this exact type of thing from happening.

What was this player doing?  I don’t really want to dive too much into the details.  I do know he had a program that assisted him with his play that no other player had access to.  Even if it just gave him a slight edge, that can be huge and the small edges can accumulate pretty quickly when playing heads-up.

The Aftermath

So after the whole cheating took place.  I was wondering what to do next, should I remove the PokerStars ad on my site?  Should I let everyone know what was going on?  Well I just didn’t know what to do.  But at the advice of the person who submitted the evidence-filled email to PokerStars, he asked that I keep it under wraps for a bit.  But now that time has gone by, and I am not dropping any names; I am letting the cat out of the bag.  What about still being loyal to PokerStars?  Well, I can’t play there anymore.  But really, they were the most secure site to play on.  It was just a shame that this happened and to be honest, I don’t know the whole procedure and righting the wrong over at PokerStars.

When all the smoke cleared from the cheating, lets just say my motivation for playing dropped to an all-time low.  I was having to scramble at the end of each month just to keep my supernova status on Stars.  But away from the virtual felt, I was analyzing what it was this player was doing “well”.  Now there are some things he did extremely poorly, but I think it was more as an image play.  This player, and his cheating ways, basically pointed me to some new directions as far as improving my heads-up game was concerned.  I slaved away at crunching numbers and probabilities.  I improved my game a ton over the first few months of this year.

I was all geared up to take my new-found knowledge to the tables……but then boom, I was not allowed to play anymore simply because I was an American.  Sigh, thank you Department of Justice!

This Blog and Other Websites

I am probably going to stop posting on this blog.  I am just going to let it expire when the time comes.  Sadly, I just don’t have the motivation to keep it updated.  I made a whopping 15 bucks from ads though!  Ha, I know it isn’t the most appealing thing.  Someone trying to make money from their blog, but I was simply just trying to pay for the cost of the website.  After all, I was hoping that I was providing some kind of entertainment/information to those that came to my site.

Instead, my time will now be focused more on some other sites that I have coming through the pipes.  They are strictly business-oriented.  Maybe, if I finish some of them before this blog reaches its deadline, I will provide links.

Again, I also plan to learn how to program.  I would like to make games and apps for computers/cell phones/etc.  This is my future, as I see it right now.

I will hopefully be able to play some poker a little here and there.  Whether it be on the smaller internet poker sites or a brick and mortar casino (closest casino to me is over 3 hours away).  I just don’t know.  But one thing is for sure, I will still keep myself in-tune.  I am looking forward to the day that this so-called “land of the free” allows me to have my hobby/perspective career back.

One thing I need to do is work on my holdem game.  Sadly, 5 card draw is just not that popular.  If it was as popular as holdem, I would already be a millionaire by now (assuming the same quality of opponents).  If I truly want to make the amount of money that I dream of, I don’t see 5 card draw as being a viable avenue.  However, it was a good start!

What could have been and more

One thing I never did was post my full name on this blog.  Mostly because I have bashed my current job situation so many times, I was worried someone at my workplace might come across it.  The day I was to turn pro in poker, I was going to title the post “Hello, My Name is Tommy ____”.  Well, that post is going to have to wait.  In fact, if poker is not legalized by time this blog runs its course.  I might start up another blog in the future, but it will likely just be a blog named after my name.

In fact, I have read how important it is to have a site under your name for possible networking opportunities.  I might create another website, just about me and maybe add a blog there.  It will likely have my work history and a resume for possible future employment opportunities.  Again, this is just a thought running through my head.  Right now I am still just in shock of the recent developments with online poker here in the USA.

Final words

I feel like I am leaving out a few things.  But if they deem to be important to mention, I may post again here in the near future.  But in the meantime, the best thing I can do is direct you to Poker Player’s Alliance’s website.  They are an organization that was created to fight for the right to play online poker.  So if you are from the United States, please email your local and federal representatives to protect this wonderful game of poker here in the States.

I just generally feel exhausted as I have gotten on an awful sleep schedule.  Couple that with working diligently on bettering my poker game to get out of this slump and doing work for a job I loathe at times, its just not a good mix.

More about my work.  Today I submitted something to my boss that I thought was a great idea.  It would require a little implementation of some technology and made the general output look better and would represent the company better if this item ever fell into the specific hands.  Well, as I showed my boss this “thing”.  I just got kind of a “ho hum” cold shoulder and he was telling me stuff that it needed.  All stuff that is currently not required by what I use now nor has ever been required by our customers/contractors.  Then he would make stories how this or that is being done in other departments, which I checked out and are not.  He literally made up some stuff to make his point seem more valid.  It was as though my boss just had to find something negative so he could give it a thumbs down.

This happens every time I submit new ideas to my company.  I get shot down in a slight somewhat “just put it to the side” fashion.  It makes my motivation to try and improve the company nearly non-existent (without the nearly). I am completely done with thinking in terms of trying to make things more efficient for my company.  My company is just going to go straight down the drain since they 1. can’t keep up with technology and 2. is totally reactive in that they don’t fix problems until a bigger problem occurs.  I mean you could look at my company’s website and see just how outdated we are.  I could do a better job, but yet I don’t even know if they know I have this website (since I am even writing this in the first place) or any website experience (which I guess technically I don’t have since I just built this website from trial and error).  Again, every time I try to make a suggestion.  I get shot down by my boss who likes to make his own ideas work.  Though one idea I had I went straight to my boss’ boss when he was in town a couple years ago.  He loved it, we implement it today.  After the meeting, my boss said litterally “don’t ever mention anything to him that you don’t mention to me first.”  Either it is because he wants to take credit for my ideas or he just wants things to stay the same broken way.

I am just frustrated.  I hate my job as I have mentioned before.  But again, I am grateful that I have a job in this trying time for many.  I need to get to 60k on this poker goal of mine.  For those that haven’t figured it out yet, this goal to 60k is my start to hopefully breaking away from my job that a monkey could do and is the most unfullfilling “yes man” job ever.

The best way I see for me to get to 60k at this point in time, is to start by taking a night off and hopefully fire up some poker tomorrow sometime feeling more energized.

Amount to 60k: $22,521.80 (which is more than I make in the same time period in my full-time job)

When I am on the road for my current job, it isn’t rare for me to spend up to 8 hours a day in the car.  It can feel like a huge waste of time.  To make myself feel like I am accomplishing something, I will at times listen to an audio book.

A Thirst For Knowledge

One audio book that graces the speakers of my company car is that of  Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki.  When I first listened to it, it re-opened my eyes as to what I really want to do and what kind of life I really want to lead.  It began a rampage that turned into a thirst for knowledge on the subject.  The subject of entrepreneurship which also made me stumble into self development.

To give an example of one of the results from this quest for entrepreneurial knowledge, I came across 10 Reasons You Should Never Get a Job by Steve Pavlina.  It proved to be more about how I need to get out of my current job situation .

Having Doubts

It is a lot easier said than done though.  I mean we all want to do what we want, right?  But we have to pay the bills somehow, I just don’t know if I can make the leap to self-employment.  What if I fail?  How am I going to take care of the baby?

Ah yes, failure.  I recently wrote an article called Don’t Be Afraid to Fail and how accepting failure might relate to business success.  I give the example of how LeBron James uses this mindset and how I was attempting to apply it to my life.

I am applying it to my life with more of the everyday situations as related to what I felt was causing some of my procrastinations.  I just don’t think I could possibly apply it to something this big.  Taking the chance to leave a job, my main source of income, to hopefully do what I want while paying the bills is quite a huge step.  I just get shaky knees when standing at the ledge.

My Current Situation

I mean I have wanted to leave my job for one reason or another for about the last year.  But on the flip side, there are some great advantages to my job that I would be worried to lose.  I just don’t know what to do.  It could just be the old case of the grass being greener on the other side.

One great thing about my current job is the flexibility it provides.  It is because of this job that I am able to be currently sitting at the office writing this post.  (I hope my boss doesn’t see this)  When I am not at the office, I can pretty much do whatever I like as long as I am producing the kind of results expected of me, which is a breeze.

But the negatives of the position keep on popping up.  Things like the feeling of no accomplishment at the end of the day and knowing that the position is leading me to a dead end as far as career progression is concerned has become almost too much to bare.  Not to even mention that I am getting underpaid as compared to the industry standards.

The Job Market

I feel like with the things the way they are, economically speaking, I just can’t do anything about it right now.  To give you an idea of how the current job market is, my company recently put a new position on Craigslist for an adminsitrative position vacancy.  Within 24 hours, there were nearly 300 applications submitted!  This same position a few years ago would have seemed lucky to get 5 applicants within 24 hours.

Every position out there has plenty of people vying for the opportunity.  There are just too many people out there that are unemployed at the moment.  Maybe I should just be happy to have a job.

What I Want To Do

I feel like the guy from Office Space.  I could take any number of quotes he says in that movie an apply it to my situation.  But what do I really want to do?  Even in the movie, they say that you should do for a living what you would do if you were already financially secure.  The main character in the movie said “I would do nothing.”  I would say I would like to own multiple businesses, play poker, and travel.

I have even taken a self-assessment test and not the basic 10-20 question ones you can get by surfing the internet.  I took a in-depth profile test.  To make a long story short, its top recommendations for me were:  small business owner, stock trader, CEO, and sales representative.  If you are interested in finding similar tests, at a cost, check out www.attributesforsuccess.com.

How Can I Get There?

The aged old question for me I guess.  I could just drop everything today and start playing poker and probably have a decent shot at making the same amount I do from my current job within a year’s time.  Too risky though.  I have a family that relies on me to be able to pay for my half of the bills.

I could apply for a job where I might feel a little bit happier.  But the feeling of happiness would just be temporary until I reach my end goal.  Besides if I do take on a new job at this point in time, I couldn’t be 100 percent sure that I would be guaranteed that income stream for the next year or two.  So many people are getting laid off these days.

My best option right now seems to be what I am doing at the moment, plus some things I would like to do:

1. Stay at my current job, which is flexible enough to allow me to chase my dreams away from work.
2. Attempt to start up some businesses, which is exactly what this blog could be looked at if I can drive enough traffic to my site on a daily basis.
3. Make money playing poker.  Something I would like to do more of as I have only played one session of poker in the past 2 months.
4. Start setting up some assets.  Back on the topic of Rich Dad Poor Dad, it is the way to be financially secure.  Don’t let my main resource of money be from a job’s income.  Let it be from assets.  I need to start letting my money work for me.

In Closing

I am not sure if I am just up in arms about nothing.  I just feel as though I have hit a temporary dead end as far as my young career is concerned.  I know many people out there would be happy to have my job, and maybe the standards I have set for myself are too high.  But then again who knows.  I am not even sure what I want to do anymore (outside of what has already been mentioned).  If you checked out this video I posted the other day, you can see how the future job market is likely to be completely different than it is today.  It is almost scary.

This feeling of hitting a stalemate in my career could be short lived and I hope to look back on this post one day and feel happy with the progress I made at that point.  When that day comes, I will share my experiences and hopefully help out someone that might be going through a similar situation.  Until then, I will be working on bettering this website to hopefully bring in more traffic and I will be keeping my ear close to the ground for any potential dream jobs that may arise.

I used to love staying in hotels in college when playing away games for baseball. It was fun. I still like going to hotels when I am on vacation or at a casino. But staying at hotels for work sucks! Especially since I know what I have to do tomorrow.

When I first signed on to this job about 3 years ago, it was originally an outdoor sales position for outdoor advertising. For at least the last year, I rarely do sales and it has become nearly 80% maintenance of current signs within the state of Virginia, and yes I have to do the whole state of VA.

A monkey could do my job just as easily as I do. I have thought about leaving this account executive position many of times, but one thing or another keeps me here (like being offered promotions to assistant GM, that I still have yet to receive). I have weeks where I see the reasons why I like my job. Then there are weeks and months where I have to ask myself how I am still with my company.

Unfortunately times are tough right now, economically speaking, and I still am happy that I hold a job in these times. But now I feel stuck here knowing that there just isn’t much else for me to fall back on. No, poker is not something I can fall back on at the moment, though I hope that can be the case in the future.

I have taken those assessment tests to see what type of stuff I would like to do. The specific test that was given to me also compared my thinking style, behavioral traits, and interests. The test also compares your scores to people already in the workforce with similar types of traits.

At the top of the list for me was CEO and small business owner. Sales and stock trader weren’t far behind, though I am starting to think that I don’t like sales. The only thing that didn’t make me a perfect match for CEO was that my math results were a little above the average needed to be CEO. So essentially saying that being CEO might not challenge me enough in that category.

I have always known that I wanted to be on my own and run my own business. It is something that I still plan to do one day. Whether it is owning a gas station, online store, or just playing poker for a living, whatever; I definitely feel I would be much happier.

I just hope that one day I can find a way to own or run such a type of thing.

Ok, done ranting….let me go fire up some poker.

Oh and for a link to the test (and other tests) that was given to me by someone close to me it is here: www.attributesforsuccess.com, unfortunately they are not free.